Although my article in today’s issue of the Technology Sunday was emphasizing the business opportunity on facebook, the moral of the story was to empower your user network.
By providing you with a great online and collaborative platform for sharing restaurant recommendations, maltalunch has empowered its community.
It’s by no means an understatement that Emirates is a 5 star air line. Our short flight from Malta to Larnaca took only just about 2 hours but we’re served the best inflight food I’ve ever had.
I’m in Nicosia Cyprus over the weekend and got the advice to try Habibi Lebanese restaurant by a friend of mine here in Malta.
It appeared that the restaurant had moved from it’s previous location in Larnaca, near the airport, to Nicosia. So it was easy to find. Outside the restaurant there was two old Rolls Royce car’s parked.
As we entered the restaurant we didn’t know what to expect, it was completely empty, due to the Easter holidays we later found out. We walked cross the restaurant and found, what we also learned later, Mr Habibi’s son himself, sitting comfortably in his sofa smoking water pipe… do we dare to eat here??
Well, we had to try it and the man seemed glad that he got some guests. “Harri harri, we have customers” he yelled to the kitchen.
There was no menus but Habibi insisted we tried the traditional Lebanese course which I’ve no clue what the name was again.
During or two hours in the restaurant we got served with the most amazing Lebanese food, hot and cold, sauces, salads, meats, you name it.
If you’re visiting Cyprus and have your way by Nicosia, give it a try!
Walking back from lunch at the German sausage van I passed by Just Jeans on Manwel Dimech Street. How about these for €14? Pure bargain!
You may have noticed that the local supermarkets have started to charge for plastic shopping bags. A green government initiative to reduce the amount of plastic bags being disposed.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this action a little too shortsighted? Every morning when I walk to work (The only true green transport) Arkadia and Scotts supermarket are getting so much free ad space… as they are used for garbage.
When the government issued the fee for plastic bags you would assume that the goal was to reduce the total amount of plastic being circulated? Most of the people I know use the shopping bags as garbage bags, what are 450,000 Maltese citizens going to do now, buy plastic garbage bags??
Or as the clerk at the supermarket said “Mela, I don’t agree to this new thing, ta. I have to ask every customer if they want a shopping bag!!”
On an average we get 5-10 returning visitors each day where as the main part of the traffic are new visitors. 86% are local traffic from Malta which proves its being used and popular by the Maltese audience.
It was interesting to follow the case with my previous blog post about Jones Cane Suger Soda which was picked up in a Yahoo Finance thread and delivered todate 57 unique visitors.
I was doing the, now almost daily, grocery shopping at Scotts supermarket in Sliema (the better alternative to Tower supermarket) and found something I really liked: Jones sugar cane soda.
I just came back from a business trip in Paris where I was at the digital marketing conference Ad:tech, full of new ideas and inspiration I was so impressed of seeing this bottle’s back saying: ”Ya gotta make a living somehow; we chose the beverage world. Good old soda made with pure cane sugar. No hidden meanings, no billion dollar ad campaigns, and no hidden fructose corn syrup. At Jones, we want you to buy a lot of soda an recycle the bottles. The label is kind like our minds – always changing. Run with the little guys… create some change.”
Does that strategy really work? Well, Ijust bought 4 bottles and shared it with the world on my blog. Unless I don’t fit the normal consumer segment, I think it does work, and very well.
