Shoppers looking for bargains on eBay could find themselves to be the proud owners of “dirty money” goods, thanks to a new initiative being trialled by Leicestershire Police.

In the past year, goods worth over £3 million have been confiscated from criminals, and now the police are using eBay to try and make some of this money back, which will then be split between their force and the government.

Unfortunately, there’s not much in the way of fashion up there yet – no fur coats or diamond-studded heels.  They are however doing a roaring trade in plasma TVs, computers and stereo equipment.

There’s also quite a lot of bling up for grabs, although it’s not had a lot of interest as yet – maybe bidders are scared of the consequences of coming face-to-face with the owner?  Or maybe there’s just not much of a market for knuckle-duster “Mum” rings.

I’m still going to be keeping an eye on the auctions though – there’s bound to have been a gangster’s wife out there somewhere who had a penchant for designer handbags…

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Myself with Kristine earlier this year

Kristine Kirby has exited her role as E-commerce Director at Lipsy, which is owned by Next Plc.

Kristine is expected to stay in online retail, with a new role to be announced very soon.

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Daniella Westbrook returns to EastEnders on Friday as Sam Mitchell.

Her comeback outfit is an orange and pink Lipsy dress, which can be seen in promotional adverts and press shots.

On Friday night and all weekend I imagine there will be a surge of Google searches for ‘where can i get the dress sam mitchell wore on eastenders’.

Well the answer is here.

So come on affiliates, grab that search traffic.

And Lipsy, get the dress on the homepage and blog about it too!

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You can’t have escaped photos of Kara Tointon over the past few days in the new Michelle for George lingerie collection.

If you’ve read about it online (here, here and here) you’d expect to be able to buy it online.

At the time of writing this, the Michelle for George section on the George.com website shows Suzanne Shaw and the range she promoted.

No sign of the new collection modelled by Kara.

The majority of visits these articles will get is within the first few days – in this case, during that period the range hasn’t been available to buy online.

I think Asda George have been pioneering as a value online retailer (see my first Drapers blog about Asda George here), but they could have missed out on a lot of potential sales by not having the collection modelled by Kara available to buy.

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Miriam Lahage from Koodos.com was named the Online Fashion Star 2009 at the Online Fashion 100 event at 24 London.

Myself with Miriam Lahage and Nicky Hambleton-Jones

Sponsored by Fashshot.com, the great and the good, from e-commerce and fashion, celebrated the work done by those named in Online Fashion 100.

Lee Friend, Managing Director of Fashshot.com, Caprice and Myself

Fashion expert Nicky Hambleton-Jones announced Miriam Lahage as winner, and supermodel-turned-businesswoman Caprice made a surprise appearance.

Lee Friend, Miriam Lahage and Myself

Myself with Abigail Blackburn, editor of NOW magazine

Being filmed with Eammon and Marilyn Clarke from Schway

Antony Hawman and Lauretta Roberts, editor of Drapers

Myself with Nicky Hambleton-Jones

More photos to come.

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Last week I met up with Alison Lowe from PR firm Felicities to discuss a charity event which is happening later this year.

Some of you may know that I support b-eat, which is a charity that helps people with eating disorders.

I brought them on as the official charity of OSOYOU.com, and we collaborated on an event at the Met Bar last February.

The charity has some keen backers and the aim is to raise the profile during London Fashion Week.

Alison is the hub of all activity surrounding the campaign.

Go to b-eat’s website to read more about the charity, as I couldn’t do such a complex issue justice in a single blog post.

You can make a donation on the website www.b-eat.co.uk

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A few years ago I worked with the guys at Search Engine Marketing agency Weboptimiser on campaigns for clients such as Jobserve, Nestle and Bourne Leisure.

It wasn’t unusual to do a bit of a tidy up when we were expecting clients to visit, but last week the team must have had their work cut out in preperation for a visit from Gordon Brown.

OK, so he’s not royalty and neither is he the most charismatic leader, but still, the most powerful man in the country.

A great coup for a great company.

And it’s a good thing when the most powerful man in the country takes time to visit a search engine marketing company, something to be celebrated by the whole industry - especially when few people outside of media actually know what it is (see recent research on said matter on blogstorm).

Don’t worry, Gordon hasn’t given up the day job - much as I’m sure he is interested in title tags, URL rewrites and link reworking, he made the visit to the company to discuss the new loan guarantee scheme of which Weboptimiser, as a small business, benefits.

With Jonathan Ross using Twitter and Gordon Brown swotting up on search, it looks as if social media marketing has just gone mainstream.

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This week I interviewed Turi Munthe of Demotix, a citizen-journalism website and photo agency.

Firstly, well done with the launch and the coverage you have achieved so far. How do you intend to keep the momentum going?

We’ve only just really started on getting the word out that we exist, and are happy that the process is slow and gentle.

In this first phase, the kind of contributors we’re bringing on is more important than the number. It means we pretty much only have interesting content.

But to answer more broadly, I - as CEO - will be spending the next year running round the globe meeting with journalists, photographers, newspapers and citizen activists to tell them that we exist and can really help them.

I’m off to Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan in the first couple of weeks of Feb, then Russia, and then Zimbabwe.

For quality purposes you check all submissions before they appear on the website. How many moderators do you have, and what measures are in place to ensure Demotix is politically neutral?

We have a rotating group of about 7 moderators, but on neutrality we’re a citizen space. We have no politics. No editorial.

If the community sways more one way on a political issue, then we’ll make a concerted effort to bring on the other demographic but can’t guarantee anything.

On Gaza, for example, we’ve had infinitely more pro-Gaza material than we have pro-Israel, and that’s despite contacting the media organisations of Sderot and the IDF. But that’s a pretty good gauge, it turns out, of global opinion on the Gaza offensive.

You make your revenue (50% of the selling fee) when a publisher buys a photo or video. Are you going to look into generating revenue from people who simply browse the photos?

Possibly, but later down the line.

When will you allow people to send photos via Text/MMS?

As soon as humanly possible!

There are tech challenges here, and costs associated to this, but obviously this is exactly where we want to go, as quickly as possible.

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“The bigger the star the more money you’ll make” – that’s what celebrity photo agency Big Pictures, founded by Darren Lyons, says of its brokering service.

Register with the website, upload the photo and within 48 hours you’ll be told if your snap can be sold to a tabloid or magazine.

Every single person with a camera phone is a potential paparazzo. A nightmare for many celebrities, but a blessing to publicity hungry.

A new service called Demotix, which works on the same principle of citizen journalism, wants to be to The Telegraph what Big Pictures is to Heat.

The only difference is the photos on Demotix are publicly available to view. It’s much more of a social network.

I first heard of the website after reading a review of it by Mike Butcher on the popular Tech Crunch UK – a review which provoked a pretty contentious discussion.

So when I was given the opportunity to interview Turi Munthe, the founder of this controversial, exciting and innovative start-up, I had to say yes.

Click here to read the interview.

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You’re not a full member of celebdom until you’ve had a dedicated thread that spans at least three pages on the Digital Spy forums.

The boards are awash with scathing, mindless and often hate fuelled comments that would leave celebrities, with the thickest of skins, incandescent with rage.

I did have a bit of a chuckle (albeit little) at a comment made by Rob22 in response to a post by Imogen M…

Imogen M said…

“I detest Cheryl Cole. You can’t polish a turd. This “nation’s sweetheart” nonsense is an absolute joke and she’s becoming hideously over-exposed. She has no personality and only got as famous as she is now because her footballer bloke cheated on her.”

To which Rob22 replied…

“If being a turd means you get to be a millionaire, sell countless albums, be on TV, sign autographs, e.t..c - then I think I’d like to be a turd too.”

See the full discussion here.

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Chipmunk came to my attention after winning Best Newcomer at the MOBO Awards.

I found this video of him on YouTube doing freestyle on a BBC 1Xtra show.

In the background of the radio studio you’ll see Sky News is on. Nice to see the BBC [not] supporting each other was my first thought, but then I began to wonder whether the BBC News crew would be listening to BBC 1Xtra? Doubt it.

Chipmunk does however make up for the lack of Auntie self loving - listen to his lyrics and you’ll notice EastEnders gets a plug.

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Read my article ‘Simon Cowell to choose new X Factor judge via social media?’ on E-Consultancy.

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Shortly after Saturday’s The X Factor the Daily Mail website published a story about the feud between Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh. Quick huh?

The Daily Mail seem to understand the importance of breaking news online (extra Google love), but they seem to place story updates within the same article.

If they want to maximise visits they should write fresh articles whenever there is an update - this is because Google News will only spider content once, and Google News I’m sure is one of the Daily Mail’s biggest traffic drivers.

Reality TV blog Unreality TV didn’t do too badly either. They reported it as quickly as the Daily Mail, which provided an area for people to discuss the programme quickly - there’s a reason why it’s one of the most commented posts on the website in a short space of time.

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”A pound invested online is far more effective than one spent offline” say Martha Lane Fox - Read my take on Martha’s comment on the Market Sentinel blog.

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According to consultancy firm Intangible Business the value of Bernard Matthews has dropped £20m in the past year.

Unsurprising news after the Jamie Oliver led Turkey Twizzler bashings and the uncontrollable Avian Flu disaster.

But when a brand is down, the only way is down even further or up, up and up.

Bernard Matthews has chosen the up path, with a new name in tow, adding Farms to the brand name to become Bernard Matthews Farms.

£3m spent on TV, press and outdoor advertising should get the new name out there.

But what happens when such a campaign is successful? What if the ads are so intriguing people want more info? What happens when you reach out to people willing to learn more about the brand?

They Google you.

A couple of headlines a googler (is that a new word?) would see…

“Bernard Matthews worker caught playing football with turkeys “

“The H5N1 bird flu outbreak at Bernard Matthews Holton Suffolk 2007”

Methinks Bernard Matthews, sorry Bernard Matthews Farms, could do with spending some of the £3m budget on online PR to encourage some good news articles to spread the web, and subsequently rank in Google.

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