Chris Lake
I am Director of Product Development at Econsultancy, an entrepreneur and a long-term internet fiend.
Contact me via chris@econsultancy.com.
Read more
Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP has made a series of investments in the online space this year, most recently the purchase of a 10% stake in Spot Runner, the US-based online ad agency which had also attracted the attention of Google.
He told us why...
Read more...
by Chris Lake
10 October 2006 12:21pm
1 comment
This weekend Google discovered the hard way that Blogger had an undiscovered bug, after a hoaxer managed to publish an announcement on the official Google Blog.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
09 October 2006 13:50pm
0 comments
Michael Arrington has reported a rumour that Google “may be in the final stages” of a US$1.6 billion deal for video sharing behemoth YouTube.
If the rumour is true and the deal goes through it could be another coup for Google, though it might yet turn out to be a big headache for the search giant, as YouTube has some significant issues with regards to copyright and content control.
Nonetheless, YouTube is now a real A-list website among the world's internet users and surely it is just a matter of time before the founders accept an offer. The mooted valuation reflects the company's meteoric growth.
Google, for obvious reasons, told us that it couldn't comment on the rumour either way, as is company policy. YouTube is being reported as keeping schtum too.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
07 October 2006 02:23am
1 comment
On Wednesday night we attended the AOP Awards dinner, having been nominated in two categories, neither of which we remotely expected to win. But thanks to the fantastic skills of the judging panel, and to our complete astonishment, we won both of them.
E-consultancy won the awards for Online Publisher 2006 and also Editorial Team 2006, both in the business category.
We are still feeling all warm and fuzzy as a result, although that might have something to do with our fiendish celebrations...
Read more...
by Chris Lake
06 October 2006 14:04pm
2 comments
Web 2.0 startups shouldn’t bother seeking VC money, according to Neil Sequeira of General Catalyst Partners, because “there have not yet been these type of exits that generated venture capital type returns”.
Neil is a VC who made these comments at the AjaxWorld Expo in California, but I’m not sure he’s entirely correct in his observations.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
04 October 2006 17:20pm
0 comments
I’ve just figured out, via a Paypal email notification, that Valleyschwag has pulled the plug on its subscription model.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
04 October 2006 13:13pm
0 comments
I often browse the web by grabbing text and dragging it into my Google Toolbar, which will open a new search page. It will open up a website for me, in the event that I drag a domain name into the search window.
I don’t expect I’m alone in exhibiting this kind of search behaviour, but there is a problem. Many firms, including some big brands, do not cater for a www-less version of their domain name.
Read more...
by Chris Lake
29 September 2006 16:43pm
3 comments
Mike Rundle has written a post called The Catch-22 of Web 2.0 in which he says he feels like “the only person seeing certain things happen – like watching a train wreck in slow motion”.
Mike is a top web designer who makes some cynical points that don’t make too much sense from where I’m sitting.
So let’s go through them one by one…
Read more...
by Chris Lake
29 September 2006 14:55pm
0 comments
The mysterious buyer of online calendar Kiko has stepped out of the shadows, revealing himself to be Elliot Noss, the CEO of Tucows.
Tucows, a software and applications aggregator, paid about a quarter of a million dollars to pick up Kiko, which was offloaded via eBay after the founders became distracted and started working on new projects (ok, Google Calendar had something to do with this too).
So why did they buy it?
Read more...
by Chris Lake
06 September 2006 11:48am
0 comments
Later this month we'll be hosting an event aimed at helping digital agencies to figure out how to win those projects that are worthwhile from a strategic perspective.
Why is this necessary? Well in these busy times there needs to be a little more thought involved in the business development cycle - it isn't 2002, when agencies were foraging for any sort of work.
On the face of it, digital / interactive agencies have never had it so good, but there are underlying reasons for pitching for Project X but declining to get involved with Project Y...
Read more...
by Chris Lake
05 September 2006 12:21pm
0 comments
