WISE OLD OWL
INFORMATION PORTAL

ALL ABOUT WOO

WHAT IS WOO ?



WOO is the Swiss Army Knife
of desktop shortcuts 


WOO is a hub of collated Information,
advice, and links to many other useful sources,

ALL AVAILABLE IN ONE PLACE!


Originally WOO was designed for just one local Welsh town, but over the years it has grown in size and is now viewed by a much more International audience, so instead of just providing 'local' information, WOO now provides information to everybody. 

The local information for Mid-Wales has still been retained, but it is now one of the many 'Special Sections' available from the start page on the top menu.

USEFULL TOOLS

Calculators; Converters;
Calendars; Live Travel; Map; Timetables; Weather;
Job Searching; Parcel Tracking;
Recycling & Money Saving ideas;
TV & Radio links; How to fix it videos.

EMERGENCY INFORMATION

Hospitals; Doctors; Dentists; Vets; Crime; Flood information;   Disaster & Emergencies; Missing People; Police Information Requests; First-Aid advice; Medical information & videos, Family Safety; Home Support.

LOCAL SERVICES

For the Mid-Wales portal it has contact numbers and websites for local Schools; Colleges; Council Departments; News; Local Businesses and services.

SPECIAL SECTIONS

WOO is all about keeping you & your family safe.
Medical advice, First-aid,
Household advice, Fitness for those who cannot attend a gym, Tips for  motorists and many more. 
WOO-KIDS even helps keep the little ones amused and helps them to learn.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Electric charging points; Places to eat and stay, Things to see and do; Camping information; Online TV & Radio, Maps.

WOO's Ethos & Values.

WOO wishes to be as environmentally friendly as possible, by reducing the use and need of paper leaflets and printed directories. And promoting recycling ideas and practices.

WOO wishes to give back to the community, by providing the helpful information that they may need all in one place, by creating awareness of local events, and by involving the local community with its specialist sections of interest.

WOO wishes to be non-political, unbiased and non-discriminatory.

WOO also wants to promote worthy businesses, groups, individuals and events, and to support where possible the many worthy charities and non-profit making groups, that give so much to our local communities, by providing free advertising space to help promote their awareness.

And although we are viewed and accessed worldwide, as we are based in Wales we wish to promote Wales as a whole, showing off our beautiful scenery, it's many interesting places, extraordinary talent, heritage, history and it's unique culture.


Watch the WOO Videos

Describing WOO in a few words is not easy, the best way to find out how useful WOO can be is to explore it and see.

The Woo pages are always being updated and where possible improved, and new sections of interest added.

HOW WOO CAME ABOUT.

Before the Mobile and Internet age, most households had both local telephone directories and advertising directories to find out local contact information, there were also 'Pink Cards', A4 size printed advertising sheets that were put through the door which displayed local numbers to local businesses, but all these older forms have now ceased to exist.

I wanted to not only replace these and once again have the information you need close to hand, but to greatly improve on them and have something that is easy to access whether at home, work or outside in the street, with much more than just telephone numbers. Woo has quick and simple access to Emergency information and contact numbers of Hospitals Doctors and Dentists, Schools, along with adverts for numbers you may need quickly such as plumbers or electricians.

HOW WE ONCE SEARCHED FOR INFORMATION

PINK CARD

Basic information of local services through paid for adverts. Put through door once a year.
NOW CEASED

YELOW PAGES

Bulky and often out of date. once issued to all owners of landlines.
Now not issued in our area

THOMPSONS LOCAL DIRECTORY

Often out of date. Selectively issued to households.
NOW CEASED

SHOP NOTICE BOARDS

Jumbled information outside town shops & outlets.
Not available in the home.

192 DIRECTORY ENQUIRIES

Available to households with a landline. charged for set amount of telephone number information.

PRINTED BOOKLETS

Small printed directories are sometimes available, but often discarded or lost.

WERE THEY EFFECTIVE ?

At the time there was no alternative, at home we had a large pile of extremely heavy paper directories that were always out of date, and the Pink card that only had a few entries and gave a few basic numbers, or we had the ability to use directory enquiries, which was limited to a maximum of three phone numbers at any one time, and cost you money on your phone bill. The cards on your local shop notice board were of no use when you were sitting at home or elsewhere.

As the internet arrived, we now have search engines such as Google, it's a great search engine but it can swamp the user with many pages of information that are not relevant , including being prioritised by many paid for advertisements.  The required information still has to be searched for from large lists and is not always automatically defined to your town or area.

BUT NOW WE HAVE WOO !

To me, the number of views, the number of Likes I get, the number of sales, or how much profit I make is not important.
What is important, is that the information, and the direction towards receiving help through that information,

ALWAYS BEING THERE!

WHY WAS IT MADE A WEBSITE ?

Many have asked me why I made WOO a website, and not followed the trend of others in making it a Facebook page, or a phone based Application.

The answer to this is simple. On Social Media such as facebook style pages, the information and data scrolls down as each new entry is made, gradually it is scrolled so far down it is impossible to find again or it is even deleted.

I wanted to provide the information in a static form, where users can rely on it always being in exactly the same place, and always at hand when it is needed, without having to search endlessly for where it has now gone.

The modern trend is to use Social Media to advertise or present items of interest, but  Social media has a very limited lifespan when it comes to holding and displaying information, from a few months down to just a few minutes. Then it is gone!

A web site will continuously display the same information indefinitely, making the information far easier to find and more reliable!

HOW WOO CAME ABOUT.

I knew from my own experience how difficult it was to find information, or to find a suitable tool that could help me convert measurements, currencies. I wanted to create a website that had this information all in one place, accessible by just one click to open.

I started by creating this to cater for just one small Welsh town, a project for myself, and for my family and friends to use. Over time the site grew, and requests were coming in to cover other local towns and villages, and pretty soon it covered eight local areas.

But as time went on, WOO started to change, new topics of information were added, and with them came a much wider viewing, not only in Wales, but Internationally.
So WOO developed to meet the need, changing from being a 'Local' directory of Information, to being a repository of information suitable for everyone regardless of location.

The 'Local' information for Mid-Wales is still there, accessible from the Home Page for locals to use.

The WOO Portal is not just a simple list of information, it is a place to trust,
it is an experience, it is a place to go to, and a place to be involved.

WOO will continue to grow and develop, and hopefully provide useful information worldwide, already many Universities, Businesses and Groups have requested to use the information it holds as part of their training curriculum and are recommending it to their students as learning material.

Some of the video content used in the creation of the site was made and is owned by others, Woo takes no credit for this, and all credit is given to the original creators.

MAKE A TINY 2KB DESKTOP ICON

To keep Woo always to hand and save having to search for your town, create a tiny (2kb) shortcut on your desktop. First go to the menu page for your nearest town, highlight and copy the full address shown in the address bar at the top of the page, then using the right mouse button click on a blank area of your desktop and choose 'New' and then 'shortcut'. Use the right button to click in the box, and Paste in the copied address, press OK. Another box will open for you to name your shortcut eg 'Woo', then press OK again. Tuck this new icon away in the corner of your screen and you will have instant access to your own local information at a click of the icon. Alternatively, goto the menu page of your town and click to add it to your list of Favourite's / Bookmarks.

GDPR COMPLIANCE

General Data Protection Regulation.

WOO ensures that only the minimum information is recorded and stored safely, this will include the necessary Customer Data for those advertising which includes :-

Business name, business address, contact name, business phone number, business email address, 

No tracking of visitors or insertion of cookies is used by WOO

WOO HAS CHANGED AND GROWN

WOO NOW, AND THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF WOO

I started WOO as a personal project and with just one town in mind, Welshpool the town where I live. The original site over its years of development had many rewrites and style changes. Many new ideas were added and tried out and gradually it took its current form.

I was soon approached by other viewers asking if their town could also be included, soon Newtown was added and then later followed by others. The interest grew and I had to decide on where I would take it to in the future.

With the ever increasing development of its 'Special Sections', which covered and provided information on a wide number of subjects, Woo began attracting a wider base of viewers.

Over the last five years I noticed that I was being viewed and receiving messages from many viewers that were not based in Wales, many from the United States, Australia, and all across Europe. Some from Universities and groups that were requesting to use the site and its wide and varied content as part of their curriculum and as recommended viewing. This brought me to the conclusion that the site needed to be broadened, changed from being a 'Local' site to one that included everyone.

I still wanted to retain the 'Local' element, so the information pertaining to Wales was restructured into a Special Section of its own, while opening up the site to a much wider audience. Doing it this way will enable me to continue to build Woo as a trusted source for information and to develop new sections of interest as the need arises, for a much wider viewing base.

Woo has been since its inception, and is still currently financed out of my own pocket, and it does not produce any income. Spiraling living costs are making this very difficult for me as I am not working due to long-term illness, and to pay the associated costs means I have to scrimp, save and go without.  To ensure that  WOO continues I want to find a sponsor/sponsors that will at least cover the annual costs of domain registration and site hosting, and some of the day to day charges that I incur for electricity / computer purchase & maintenance / phone calls etc.  

DO YOU LIKE WOO ?

Do you want to give us a big thumbs up?.  

Write and email us a review and tell everyone what you think about Woo?.

And click buttons below to share us on facebook or twitter. 

You can also find us on Instagram, just search for 'wooinfo'

RATE US ON GOOGLE

If you like WOO  then why not review and rate us us on Google, tell your friends and let others know how useful our site is.