Lets get back to basics. Valentines Day, or Saint Valentines Day of even shorted here in Australia to V Day is a day to remember your loved ones and generally send them flowers, chocolates or a card and in certain cases anonymously. You can find out more about Valentines Day history on the Wiki.

The traditional shapes or figures associated with Valentines day include a Heart, Cupid or Doves.

In reality anybody who is selling anything suddenly has a reason why it is the perfect gift for Valentines Day and that you are not expressing your love unless you buy that specific thing.

So we like Roses Only, they do Roses and if you are going send Valentines Day Flowers, they have a good mix and are reliabgle. Finally you get what you see, after having some bad experiences with other online flower shops.

Happy Valentines Day.

You can try the test here, it takes about 20 minutes and covers a wide variety of questions. Your result can then be compared to your state, gender, family, age. income etc. Some interesting facts from the scores:

• Tasmania seem to be the most unhappy state
• Men are more stressed
• Those married or in a de facto relationship are the unhealthy/ happy bunch
• People earning less money scored lover than those earning a lot
• Those with full time work are the most stressed and unhappy

Be interesting to watch where this goes and what they do with the data, as this would allow all sorts of opportunities. Being able to login and check your scores over time would be awesome. Oh, and where is the Facebook page? We scored 55 after doing the test. Not bad, and better than most of you. Sitting in a cafe and blogging, seems to be working for us.

Take the test here: HHQ Test

No doubt that in time the likes of Fairfax who have Essential Baby and News, who recently bought Kidspot will want more exposure in this space, not to mention some of the larger FMCG companies also marketing to this demographic of mums with kids of 4 years plus. Not only that, but with all the talk of child obesity and the need to get kids out from behind the computer games console or the computer, the focus on this space is sure to grow. Whether the kids will get out from behind the gaming console or not we don’t know.

The site looks professional and good luck to the folk at Active Activities, always good to see new quality sites coming into the Australian Market. More information at www.activeactivities.com.au.

Great clothes, great quality and lovely people. If you want your kids looking cute in clothese that will actually last longer than a couple of weeks or washes, Fred Bare is the place to be.

The Change

Looks like going forward all things MBF, HBA and Mututal Community will now be provided by Bupa health insurance from claims and quotes through to life insurance, car insurance etc. Hope the Movie Tickets and discounts continue. Given that Bupa reinvests profits this does indeed look attractive. Bupa is claiming no change to cover levels and more benefits as well as online tools and apps around things like health assessments.

Good luck on what seems like a seamless transition. We guess there will be a lot of rebranding, changed signage and other work going on behind the scenes, lots of busy feet pedaling under what seems like a calm transition.

Adam will also design you a training program as he has for us which will get you on your way. Adam has a number of years in the training industry, is a nice guy and will help you achieve your fitness goals. Adam operates out of the Fitness First here in Sydney.

Next was creditcardcompare, the domain ensuring there is at least 1 comparison card in the mix, again an OK site with some interesting search options. Often wonder who is behind these and providing the data.

The as Google promisses the brands are there, so we find BankWest, Virginmoney, Citibank, Westpac and HSBC. Westpac being the only 1 of the “big 4″ banks in the top 10 from what I can see anyway. Woulnt a good experience be to have more of these players in the result. Where are RateCity and InfoChoice, 2 of the bigger affiliate players. I suspect off chasing longer tail terms ratehr than just the head terms, nevertheless.

What about at a product level. Here we start to get a little more lucky. Westpac, American Express, Commonwealth Bank and the NAB all have a showing. On the Platinum card a more reasonable shoing again or Commonwealth Bank, MasterCard, American Express, even InfoChoice making their presence felt. I can see from search suggest that the Wesptac Low rate credit card seems to be a favourite along with the Commonwealth Bank Low Rate Credit card. NAb also got a look in but no ANZ. On the balance transfer front all we see is affiliates. No banks, assuming they do actually provide this service.

OK, how about rewards cards? Smae only affiliates and then MasterCard and Visa.

Lookiong at the back link profiles in this space there is a lot of cleaning up to do. Also a lot of direct match domains. Times they are a chinging.

Sure these are some missed opportunities? Must say however, I am thinking of changing cards now.

Roses Only

Roses Only have a splash page to help with orders we assume and then a landing page of flowers, roses and hampers so you can decide on the right mothers day gift for mum. They also have a gift guide so you can check out the mum types, godmothers, working mums etc and see the suggested flowers obviously appropriate for you mum. Not sure of the science behind this but it looks like fun and shows some innovation on behalf of the Roses Only Team. From experience Roses Only delivers quality products just wish they would update their website. Flowers and lunch are clear winners for mothers day. Try to avoid Lingerie and vacuum cleaners, definitely dont have the same effect.

Auctioneers and Bid sites

Ebay, clearly is not in the Mothers Day spirit. Grays Online gets it, with a nice Mothers Day page helping you buy everything from a coffee machine, a dryer stand to steam cleaner or ofcourse you guessed it wine. Did a guy put this list together? Good on ya Greys for recognising Australian mums.

Shopping

Missed the boat, or the boat has not left the harbour yet for Shopping.com. Everythingbutflowers.com.au has an awesome range of mothers day gifts, carefully thought out. BCL is on board but going for that Gumtree look, ugly but functional. Lots of suggestions for Mothers Day from bad back treatments through to hampers and so on. Gifts.com.au is by far the best for those of you without a clue. They can help with gifts by personality type, star mom or category. So if you have no idea what to buy mum, start here. You can also cut to the chase at Mothersdaygiftideas.com.au which has one sole focus, mothers day gift ideas, but do have a link called Lingerie and although the link is broken this could be kind of weird.

Experience Sites

Red Balloon one of the leading experience websites is there for you on Mothers Day with a range of gifts selected for mum. Just not sure the Beer & BBQ course was what your mum may have had in mind. Adrenalin, that other experience website is obviously for real men with one little banner for mums day, unless you want to sent her off in a V8 Supercar or skydiving. But if hot air ballooning, surfing or jet boats are for your mum, Adrenalin is the place for you. Maybe mother-in-law is what you are thinking of these gifts…

Offline retailers

Huh? Westfield! This new hub of fashion and all things shopping has nothing on Mothers day. Takes a second glance and wipes eyes. Yes, nothing we could find. David Jones is on the ball though, from handbags to Cupcakes and aromatherapy, you can even shop online for mum here. Myer have a top 10 offline mums gift ideas sort of page with everything from Flip cameras to e book readers to scents. Not a bad effort but I think you have to visit the store.

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