A short limerick for estate agents who eat at their computer...

There once was an estate agent called Dean, Who never went to the canteen,
Worked like a machine and ate in between, And now he can never be seen!

We've all done it at least once, some have repeatedly offended, and some do it every day! Office workers around the country have been too busy to eat lunch - or eaten their lunch at their desk whilst juggling the phone, the diary and a sandwich.

Luckily the kind people at Heinz Beanz have conducted their own research and found that 1/5th of the population are too stressed to have lunch away from their desk. Following that, they have come up with their own half baked way to keep you from feeling stressed and drained. ..



Say hello to the BEANZAWAVE! This portable microwave plugs straight into your USB port in the computer so estate agents never ever have to miss a lunch. Just connect to the computer, pop the Heinz snap pot into the microwave and agents have instant hot beans while they upload properties!

The Beanzawave can also be powered by battery so agents can take it away from the computer. Agents can also consider using the Beanzawave as part of their viewing service... maybe not...

Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques comments, 'This is an interesting invention, but I would advise that estate agents design their work timetable so that they can take a lunch break away from the computer.'

Do you love gadgets? Read 'Best wide angle cameras around', 'the lightest laptop ever made' and 'Top 5 sat navs for estate agents'

3 Internet milestones; online estate agents must take note.

The internet has hit three big milestones. The first was in the newspapers today; internet market expenditure has outgrown television spend for the first ever time. Whereas television has been leading the marketing spend for over half a century now, the internet took just over 10 years.

Stats were collated by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) shows that internet spend was a record £1.75 billion budget was spent on online advertising whereas only £1.6 billion was spent on TV advertising. This means that the internet now accounts for 23.5% of all advertising spend in the UK, while TV ad accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets.

Could this be a sign of things to come? Will families gather round a LAN connection to communicate online after Sunday dinner? The suggestion bit extreme but the stats do suggest that the internet is increasingly becoming part of our daily lives. Take this next milestone for example:

In the U.S. alone, over the month of August, there were 25 Billion online videos viewed, which means that the average internet user watched 157 videos each over the month. The data supplied by ComScore, also mentioned that Google had a share of 39.6% of these views (remember estate agents, this will mainly be YouTube).

A staggering statistic, but what does this mean for estate agents? It means that estate agents can take advantage of this phenomenon by having video content on their estate agent website. Virtual tours of individual properties and marketing videos of the local area can be uploaded onto the estate agent website to promote either the area or the property particulars.

The last internet milestone is a social one involving a three-fold of social networks in London; the London network of Facebook has the largest number of members, Twitter's chief executive said that London is the "top Twitter-using-city" and lastly a Digg Spokesman said that 10% of Digg's (A social network where users share content) traffic comes from London alone.

Don't believe the old adage that 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks', estate agents that haven't need to start embracing the online world and taking advantage of the opportunities on there. When considering a new web site, always demand a specialist. Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques 'we provide IT services just for estate agents. Services include web design for estate agents, SEO for estate agents, SEO services, web sites for estate agents and software for estate agents, but we also provide domain name registration for estate agents. To see what we can do for your estate agency, visit our portfolio page or contact us.'