Bid for London office space and ghosts on eBay
There have been some very odd things sold via eBay - it really is a website that seems to create demand for everything. Even 'a ghost in a jar' managed to find an owner, who spent more than $15,000 to acquire the bona fide gift of somebody else's lifetime, and a jar.
Seriously, you can use eBay to sell anything. A ball of aluminium foil sold for $3.10. A videotape with 'Death Tape: Do Not Watch' written on it sold for $18. Take a blowtorch to some cheese on toast and you can make a million...
Nick Denton's Gawker Media sheds staff, awaits reversal
Nick Denton is hunkering down, it seems. The Daddy of Gawker Media is reducing headcount and offloading two blogs, having determined that “it is time for a perversely countercyclical move”.
What does he mean by that? He means it is getting harder to make money from blogging, which was never especially easy in the first place.
Manchester Internet Night - July 25th
At this year’s Internet World we met a bunch of passionate internet professionals based around the M62 corridor, who pretty much demanded that we host more events based outside of London. And hey, we’ve taken notice…
Having seen the (Northern) light, Team E-consultancy is rather looking forward to our inaugural ‘Digital Shorts’ internet networking event that we’re jointly hosting with Manchester Digital later this month.
Yup, it’s in Manchester, so internet folk based in the Good North should come along and say hello if we’ve not met you before.
Troubled mobile operator 3 loses walled garden
3, the mobile operator with the dubious brand name, has teamed up with Yahoo to finally allow its users to access the web via mobile handsets.
The telecoms group today announced a global agreement with Yahoo to demolish its ill-advised 'walled garden'.
Despite being the first mobile operator to roll-out a 3G network in the UK, 3 users haven't been able to visit websites of their own choosing, instead being force-fed a diet of 3-approved websites and services.
AIM preferred to Nasdaq on SOX concerns
Is London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) the new Nasdaq? This is the question being asked in the US by VC’s such as Charley Lax, of GrandBanks Capital.
The figures speak for themselves. Last year some 519 companies sought a listing on AIM, while there were just 45 IPOs on the Nasdaq.
Why is this happening? The Nasdaq is a larger market, so wouldn’t that be a better place for many VC-backed US companies?
Google launches Google Checkout, not GBuy
GBuy is here, only it is called Google Checkout and despite the chief doers of no evil claiming that it “isn’t like PayPal at all”, it is, erm, rather like PayPal, in that merchants use it to process consumer payments.
Google Checkout allows consumers to purchase products by simply logging in to Google – no need for credit card numbers or filling out forms. Obviously you need to tell Google to begin with, but thereafter Google will store your credit card and address data...
YouTube and NBC jump into bed together
YouTube has settled a six-month dispute with NBC, after the TV network decided to relax and climb into bed with the video-sharing behemoth.
The turnaround is unbelievable, and a huge positive for YouTube. Some months ago NBC’s legal department forced YouTube to remove the 'Lazy Sunday' sketch, taken from NBC-owned Saturday Night Live. Like much of the content on YouTube, the clip was used without the permission of the copyright owner, in this case NBC.
BBC to roll-out ads on websites
The BBC looks all set to introduce “low-key” advertising on its BBC Worldwide websites within a year, with a final decision on the matter due in the autumn after a further round of consumer research.
The announcement was made yesterday, when BBC Worldwide announced annual profits of almost £90m, up by around two-thirds on the previous year.
IAB's new research initiative misses the point
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has launched its latest initiative to understand more about the online behaviour, in a bid to provide advertisers with “a holistic understanding of what, where and how people are accessing the internet”.
The Holy Grail for the IAB is to provide “a single online planning currency” for marketers, to help them “plan their online brand campaigns against traditional media”.
The IAB has teamed up with National Readership Surveys (NRS), which will add an online element to the 3,000 face-to-face interviews it does each month with random consumers: “Areas covered in the study will include; demographic information, frequency of internet usage, where people are going online and how they are accessing the internet - for example by PC or through mobile devices.”
The trouble is, I don’t think this is what online media planners need...
Is Fjax the best use of Flash ever?
When the big tech brands like Amazon start using Ajax to improve their user interface you know the tipping point has been reached. So how long will it be before the great and good embrace Fjax, aka ‘Ajax 2.0’?
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
