Martin Bailey - Author of Technology and Marketing Books

Since a little company from Cupertino launched their own smart watch everyone is comparing any other offering to it, but the Pebble watch was initially one of the first on the market, launching on Kickstarter back in June 2014 and smashing the record for the most funded campaign. Roll forward to February 2015 and Pebble courted controversy by launching the next iteration - the Pebble Time and Time Steel - via the crowd funding site, despite being an established business. It too smashed the funding record, gaining $20m. Now that Time Steels are being delivered (albeit three months late) are they any good and can they compete with the Apple Watch?

We rely increasingly on our smartphones,so it's more of a problem when the battery finally gives out. So what can you do to eek that little bit more life out of your phone? You might be surprised by some of the tricks you can pull off!

The Nomad Chargekey was one of my first crowd-funded purchase on Indiegogo back in 2013. The campaign was a roaring success, generating $172,000, beating its campaign target of $50,000 by 345%. So what happened after the campaign finished and the company delivered the goods? And is it any good?

Two submissions by Martin Bailey have been shortlisted for the IT Europa Awards, with the winners to be announced in London on 25th March 2015. JETCAM was nominated for CrossTrack in the Vertical Market Solution of the Year, and 123insight was nominated for ERP/CRP/Rlationship Solution of the Year.

I was asked recently to give a presentation at a computer club, and thought long and hard about the subject matter. During my thinking process (over several days) I was approached to give advice on various technical subjects. So, I decided to put together my top 20 of everything IT-related.

The Gecko tag is one of several crowd-funded campaigns that I've personally funded, receiving 270% over-funding on top of its target of $50,000, but is it more of a gimic and does it even work?