I continue to be astonished how few people seem aware that Google have been running a promotion in the UK which provides online credit/debit card merchant services for free. Google Checkout was running this free promotion until the end of the year but announced today that they are extending the free period until end of Feb 08.
Compare FREE with typical online merchant charges of 4.25%. Moreover, when the service does begin charging it intends to only levy charges at 1.5% AND these charges may also be offset against Google AdWord spending ie if you sell £100 of goods/services via Google Checkout which would attract charges of £1.50, they will give you free AdWord spending equivalent to this.
I mentioned this to a number of established online businesses who were completely unaware of it and the savings they could make. Several were dissuaded by the fact that a customer paying via the service had to open a Google Account if they didn't already have one, unlike the PayPal equivalent service. However, I rather think that a) there are a huge number of folks with Google accounts already b) the Google brand is virtually perceived by the non-tech community as being the internet. The number of times when speaking to non-tech friends they explain how they use the google web search box to type in web addresses, having never understood that you can use the address bar to enter the address!
Adding between 3-5% to your bottom line is a notable improvement and whilst it may be another example of a land grab by Google, in this case to dominate the online payment space, its' not a bad trade in my opinion. Thanks Google.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Don't mess with the over 85s
They made be slow and in their dotage but there's a heck of a lot of them - the Office of National Statistics has reported that there are 1.2 million people over the age of 85 in the UK
Microsoft FolderShare ate my homework
According to BetaNews
Microsoft's FolderShare application which is intended to allow customers to synchronize files across multiple machines, has a bug which has ended up deleting them.
Microsoft's FolderShare application which is intended to allow customers to synchronize files across multiple machines, has a bug which has ended up deleting them.
According to a statement from Microsoft sent to users of the service, an issue with FolderShare deleted files that contained special characters, such as trademark signs, accents and tildas, and the like.
Great - my second Microsoft grrrrrr of the day. I've used FolderShare as part of a backup strategy for my Laptop and enabling me to ensure I am always carrying current files. Now I have to worry about my files being deleted!
TV for the rich
According to Pali Research, CNBC (business channel) makes a profit of over $400m pa. Revenues comes from subscriptions and ads. Whilst only 246,000 people watch the station on average during the business day, they have an average net worth of $2.7m
A friend in need is usually a friend with Vista pre-installed
This is a situation you will no doubt be familiar with, after all you are tech savvy by virtue of reading a blog!
A friend had bought a new Sony Vaio laptop which came pre-installed with Vista. That would have been ok were it not for the fact that the software he wanted to use didn't run on Vista and various devices he owned such a"s a Sony Video camera wouldn't connect to the Vaio because drivers weren't available.
So he turned to me and in my innocence (over-confidence?) I offered to help him by putting XP on the machine as a dual boot. I found all the relevant articles online and got a sense of the horror to come. Nonetheless, I set off and partitioned his hard drive using the Vista facilities and then presented the laptop with a genuine copy of Windows XP.
Now the story got complicated. XP claimed it couldn't find the Hitachi SATA hard drive and hence couldnt proceed with the install. Look around the internet, find references to the issue and how to solve.
Step 1 get the drivers - go to Sony website only to find they don't supply XP drivers for this machine. Ok, ring support line and enquire if they have XP drivers - nope or at least none they are admitting to. Best line from them though was "Why would you want to use XP when Vista is the latest version". HELLO? Have you used Vista or read online about the general experience? "Errr, not personally Sir".
Ok, so its a matter of finding the relevant drivers online and then making them available during the install via "f6" which allows extra drivers to be installed. Yes, but then you need to have a floppy drive available under that method - a what! Do I look like the Science museum? Obviously the laptop doesn't have one and I can't remember how many years ago I last used a floppy drive.
Found the hard disk drivers + relevant intel drivers after more online investigation......But still can't apply them without floppy disk drive.
Plan B - create a slipstream disk. Not having ever been in tech support, my journey took a detour to learn about creating consolidation files that aggregated an XP install with relevant service packs & drivers etc and how a freeware application called nlite would help. Duly installed and drivers located I created a consolidated installation file. Unfortunately, I only had DVDs rather than CDs and XP doesn't natively copy to DVDs.
Every frustrating turn was accompanied by yet another assault course. Finally I decided I'd spent far too long on this and accompanied my friend down to the local PC repair shop - small shop, lots of kit lying around, weird people wandering in and out. Explained what I wanted to do and whilst they were very conversant with what was required they counselled strongly against it.
They could install XP but in their experience the laptop probably would have too many components for which drivers were unavailable. Not to mention they would have to spend a long time looking for them at my friend's expense.
In the end, we just gave up. Result, couple of unhappy people having wasted time trying to get rid of some software they didn't want for a product they did, both of which come from the same software supplier. Moreover my friend, a lifelong Mac user for whom this was his first pc purchase, had his prejudices about the inferiority of PCs confirmed.
Whilst I can understand that Microsoft would prefer we used Vista, why make life so hard for the consumer? Moreover, it has only create a poor impression with us and we shall be telling everyone considering by a PC to only buy one if you can have it come with XP.
A friend had bought a new Sony Vaio laptop which came pre-installed with Vista. That would have been ok were it not for the fact that the software he wanted to use didn't run on Vista and various devices he owned such a"s a Sony Video camera wouldn't connect to the Vaio because drivers weren't available.
So he turned to me and in my innocence (over-confidence?) I offered to help him by putting XP on the machine as a dual boot. I found all the relevant articles online and got a sense of the horror to come. Nonetheless, I set off and partitioned his hard drive using the Vista facilities and then presented the laptop with a genuine copy of Windows XP.
Now the story got complicated. XP claimed it couldn't find the Hitachi SATA hard drive and hence couldnt proceed with the install. Look around the internet, find references to the issue and how to solve.
Step 1 get the drivers - go to Sony website only to find they don't supply XP drivers for this machine. Ok, ring support line and enquire if they have XP drivers - nope or at least none they are admitting to. Best line from them though was "Why would you want to use XP when Vista is the latest version". HELLO? Have you used Vista or read online about the general experience? "Errr, not personally Sir".
Ok, so its a matter of finding the relevant drivers online and then making them available during the install via "f6" which allows extra drivers to be installed. Yes, but then you need to have a floppy drive available under that method - a what! Do I look like the Science museum? Obviously the laptop doesn't have one and I can't remember how many years ago I last used a floppy drive.
Found the hard disk drivers + relevant intel drivers after more online investigation......But still can't apply them without floppy disk drive.
Plan B - create a slipstream disk. Not having ever been in tech support, my journey took a detour to learn about creating consolidation files that aggregated an XP install with relevant service packs & drivers etc and how a freeware application called nlite would help. Duly installed and drivers located I created a consolidated installation file. Unfortunately, I only had DVDs rather than CDs and XP doesn't natively copy to DVDs.
Every frustrating turn was accompanied by yet another assault course. Finally I decided I'd spent far too long on this and accompanied my friend down to the local PC repair shop - small shop, lots of kit lying around, weird people wandering in and out. Explained what I wanted to do and whilst they were very conversant with what was required they counselled strongly against it.
They could install XP but in their experience the laptop probably would have too many components for which drivers were unavailable. Not to mention they would have to spend a long time looking for them at my friend's expense.
In the end, we just gave up. Result, couple of unhappy people having wasted time trying to get rid of some software they didn't want for a product they did, both of which come from the same software supplier. Moreover my friend, a lifelong Mac user for whom this was his first pc purchase, had his prejudices about the inferiority of PCs confirmed.
Whilst I can understand that Microsoft would prefer we used Vista, why make life so hard for the consumer? Moreover, it has only create a poor impression with us and we shall be telling everyone considering by a PC to only buy one if you can have it come with XP.
Monday, December 10, 2007
UBS owns up to another $10bn
UBS caught most of the headlines this morning with their announcement that they are taking another $10bn write down on the credit book, on top of the $3bn last quarter.
This has got lots of people worried about what the other banks may still have hidden away. As is often the case, it is better to get all the bad news out of the way as fast as possible, otherwise you can destroy the trust that people have in your statements. Unfortunately, human nature conditions people to be cautious in giving bad news partly out of hope things may turn around and also because they are worried about the consequences of giving a large unexpected shock to the listener.
This has got lots of people worried about what the other banks may still have hidden away. As is often the case, it is better to get all the bad news out of the way as fast as possible, otherwise you can destroy the trust that people have in your statements. Unfortunately, human nature conditions people to be cautious in giving bad news partly out of hope things may turn around and also because they are worried about the consequences of giving a large unexpected shock to the listener.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Where did it go wrong for the record labels
Music 2.0, a blog focussed on digital music has a long analysis here that pulls no punches it where it thinks the labels have gone wrong. Worth a read.
One extract from the piece
One extract from the piece
The Independent & The Telegraph also reported more skeletons in the closet being revealed on the excessive lifestyles that the top executives had been indulging in at EMI,
The last bit prompted the new phrase - "Would the last person to leave please blow out the candle"“A Mayfair hideaway reserved for record label EMI’s top brass has been deemed surplus to requirements by the company’s new owner, city financier Guy Hands and his Terra Firma private equity vehicle. The house has been sold for £5.6m, marking the end of an era of excess at Britain’s biggest music company. Gone too are the £200,000 a year spent on fruit and flowers for EMI’s west London offices, and the £20,000 bill for candles”
Photo collages
Having been strongly encouraged by my wife to write the Wilson family 2007 Xmas letter (annual recap on the past year sent to people when never see and with whom the only contact is Xmas cards and the annual letter), I was instructed to also produce a photo collage of some pictures of our kids from the past year.
Trouble was that my software inventory came up lame on the collage generation
- GIMP, which is an open source product, almost certainly can produce collages but you need a PhD to use it
- Picassa from Google has a collage feature but with no controls and doesn't allow you to size it to a normal photo size - you either get a square 2x2 or 3x3 grid. This was important as I didn't want to use my colour printer, preferring to use the local photo shop which churns out high quality shots for 20p each.
- Any of the Adobe or Microsoft products I have didn't make it easy to mesh the photos together with out lots of unnecessary and time-consuming fuss
- Online application FlauntR did lots of great stuff but also came up lame with photo size collages.
Thought I'd struck gold with Collagr, a free online app, until I found that there were no controls you could use to adjust the collage and it only took photos from folders on either Flickr or Photobucket.
But then a further search on Google located Picture2Lite. It was free to use and provided a wealth of facilities to edit your photos which could either be uploaded or taken from online sites. It also had large suite of collage templates to produce your desired look at feel, each of which could be customised to suit your particularly requirements. It was incredibly easy to use and the results were great. Definitely one to add to your armoury of photo editing tools and facilities.
Trouble was that my software inventory came up lame on the collage generation
- GIMP, which is an open source product, almost certainly can produce collages but you need a PhD to use it
- Picassa from Google has a collage feature but with no controls and doesn't allow you to size it to a normal photo size - you either get a square 2x2 or 3x3 grid. This was important as I didn't want to use my colour printer, preferring to use the local photo shop which churns out high quality shots for 20p each.
- Any of the Adobe or Microsoft products I have didn't make it easy to mesh the photos together with out lots of unnecessary and time-consuming fuss
- Online application FlauntR did lots of great stuff but also came up lame with photo size collages.
Thought I'd struck gold with Collagr, a free online app, until I found that there were no controls you could use to adjust the collage and it only took photos from folders on either Flickr or Photobucket.
But then a further search on Google located Picture2Lite. It was free to use and provided a wealth of facilities to edit your photos which could either be uploaded or taken from online sites. It also had large suite of collage templates to produce your desired look at feel, each of which could be customised to suit your particularly requirements. It was incredibly easy to use and the results were great. Definitely one to add to your armoury of photo editing tools and facilities.
Friday, December 7, 2007
"We were robbed" claims Google founders & original investors
Sean Park has written a brilliant parody piece, prompted by the announcement of the Resale Rights Society ("RRS"), on how Google's owners are demanding compensation based on the fact they evidently floated the business too cheaply given that the current share price is at about $700.
Having spoken with one of the leading lights behind the RRS today, one can see how the idea behind the levy arose and actually made it into public view. My offer of free assistance to enhance their bargaining position via some "refinements" was not even considered worthy of airtime - apparently there is nothing the person I spoke to doesn't know or that you could help them with, especially if you've never worked in the music industry.
Unfortunately, subsequent to that conversation, I definitely have fallen fowl of Sean's guidance that "we in the securities industry should resist the urge to feel too smug about how much more enlightened we have always been". However, I realise it will not do much good for me or anyone else. I also personally recognise the scenario depicted in the following quote in Sean piece as it relates to the live entertainment space:
(Machiavelli):
Having spoken with one of the leading lights behind the RRS today, one can see how the idea behind the levy arose and actually made it into public view. My offer of free assistance to enhance their bargaining position via some "refinements" was not even considered worthy of airtime - apparently there is nothing the person I spoke to doesn't know or that you could help them with, especially if you've never worked in the music industry.
Unfortunately, subsequent to that conversation, I definitely have fallen fowl of Sean's guidance that "we in the securities industry should resist the urge to feel too smug about how much more enlightened we have always been". However, I realise it will not do much good for me or anyone else. I also personally recognise the scenario depicted in the following quote in Sean piece as it relates to the live entertainment space:
(Machiavelli):
“… nothing is more difficult than to introduce a new order. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new…”
LinkedIn - Watching you, watching me
Just spotted a new LinkedIn feature that reports on who has been viewing your LinkedIn profile and how many recent views it has had. If you are a non-paying member it gives you a "taster" by telling you about a few of the recent viewers and inviting you to upgrade to see them all.
It alerted me to a few people that viewed my profile, which has prompted me to get in touch with them out of curiosity.
Great way of starting a conversation - "who you looking at!"
It alerted me to a few people that viewed my profile, which has prompted me to get in touch with them out of curiosity.
Great way of starting a conversation - "who you looking at!"
Minglenow and then disperse
Minglenow which was a slick community site revolving around "going out" is to close. Members were able to post info and photos about events they were attending or attended.
Personally I think social network sites with a general theme, rather than a vertical focus, will struggle unless they are one of the dominant few. It is too much effort to maintain a presence in many communities and so most people will settle on using the biggest general communities eg MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and create sub-groups within it. For specific interests/hobbies they may also join a community site eg Doctors, gardening, speedway.
Hence, Minglenow probably didn't have a differentiating factor that bound its' members together.
Personally I think social network sites with a general theme, rather than a vertical focus, will struggle unless they are one of the dominant few. It is too much effort to maintain a presence in many communities and so most people will settle on using the biggest general communities eg MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and create sub-groups within it. For specific interests/hobbies they may also join a community site eg Doctors, gardening, speedway.
Hence, Minglenow probably didn't have a differentiating factor that bound its' members together.
Not even Arrington could save them
It was announced last night that Edgeio, a classified ads online site that was co-founded by Mike Arrington of Techcrunch and who remained on its' Board, is to close.
Apparently it wasn't generating the revenues necessary to remain a going concern and none of the investors was prepared to more funding in to support the company.
So, this is a useful reminder that sometimes businesses just don't make it, and not even the support of the mighty Arrington with his "online clout" can always remedy that.
Apparently it wasn't generating the revenues necessary to remain a going concern and none of the investors was prepared to more funding in to support the company.
So, this is a useful reminder that sometimes businesses just don't make it, and not even the support of the mighty Arrington with his "online clout" can always remedy that.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
NMK Xmas Lecture
Introduced by Prof Liz Goodman of Smartlab, the event drew about 60 people, many from the academic world. They were better informed than I on the subject matter to be covered.
Sadly in her introduction the Prof attempted to speak over a video with a music soundtrack - visual & audio overload.
However, I'd not realised how Smartlab devote part of their time to enabling people with disabilities to communicate via tech that otherwise wouldn't be able to. As someone with a profoundly disabled daughter, this struck a chord with me and it was astonishing to see glimpses of their initiatives.
The second speaker was presenting her doctorate work on audio & visual imagery as it affects womens clothing (or something). At this point I was drowning amongst art academics, having no idea what was going on - art eats itself whilst making a racket! And these people get taxpayer funding to do this. Perhaps if I was smarter I'd get it or maybe I need a chip on the other shoulder to become more balanced.
Amusing moment when the video playback for one of her "narratives" using an apple mac struggled to play the file - no one other than the artist realised it wasn't meant to be that way until she apologised for the corruption of the composition. That's modern art for you - look at a mop in the corner and applaud the artists creativity and subliminal message, only for the embarrassed cleaner to walk in and remove it
One Smartlab installation is "world scent" for world peace. An artist collected the democratically chosen scent of every country of the world. These were then mixed in relative proportions to populations of those countries to produce a world scent. The installation was awarded a Unesco prize for peace, at least I assume that's the spelling. Of course, I may have misheard and they were perhaps describing the smell.
Finally, Martyn Ware gave a talk. According to the event notes "Martyn is best-known as a seminal 80s pop icon and co-founder of The Human League and Heaven 17. As record producer and artist, he has has contributed to recordings totaling over 50 million sales worldwide. More recently through the Illustrious Company - his recent creative venture with Vince Clarke of Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure - and his current Arts Council supported art project, the Future Of Sound, Martyn has developed a reputation as a convergent media 'Svengali' - working with and and showcasing some of the latest developments in immersive media and emergent technologies."
He demonstrated a 3D (2 level) surround sound (4 speakers in a square config, at ground & floor level, 8 speakers in all). He was then able to swing the sound through 3D using a joystick. The software can move 16 objects in the 3D space simultaneously to create a sensory environment. He terms it sonic sculpting and sonicimaging in a soundfield.
The biggest soundfield he's done was a 200m square operated over 48hrs through which a million people passed in Mexico City. Each sound composition was 2hrs long & many used the sounds of Mexico City. So real was the effect people were ducking as imaginery objects passed through the square or turning towards conversations.
He does a huge amounts of work with disabled people to help use sound & tech to enable them enjoy new experiences. They have created a sensory room from scratch in Bath, replacing the traditional sad installations I am only to used to at various institutions I've taken my daughter to.
The University of Virginia has recreated Rome from 400AD in 3D that you can wander through at street level inc every building and Martyn is doing the sound track as you wander through, hearing Rome around you.
He's worked with Sissel Tolaas who is a smell artist who has digitised 17,500 smells at the molecular level and can reproduce them accurately. In one case she digitised the sweat smell of 6 men from different parts of the World & recreated them in a single place - there were notable differences apparently.
Martyn's also working on transmitting 3D sound across the internet so that you could immerse yourself remotely in sounds from around the world within your own home.
In July 2008 he is hoping to do a soundlife of london in Leicester Sq.
One astonishing story he dropped in was about ancient Celtic tombs in Ireland where it was discovered they all resonated at 111htz - with the help of Cambridge Uni it was discovered this is the actual frequency which can put you into trance! How on earth ancient civilisations knew this let alone engineered it so precisely into tombs with what we assume are primitative facilities I have no idea.
The talk wasn't at all what I expected but was fascinating. Indeed the whole evening was enjoyable as I found myself unexpectedly immersed in a new environment.
CDS markets - where's everyone hiding
Credit default swaps ("CDS") have been a huge growth market in recent years.
Conceived as a way of providing "insurance" against the default of a bond whereby the insured paid a premium to the insurer, these developed to provide payouts to fit particular circumstances eg downgrade of a bond; missed interest payments. The protection was usually linked to a reference asset (specific bond) and you had to exercise care that you chose the right one as often companies had many bonds in issue with different levels of seniority in the event of a default ie some would be paid out before others.
CDS also allowed greatly liquidity in the bond markets because a bank could agree to fund the issue of a corporate bond, whilst selling/hedging the credit risk.
But eventually these became the main way of trading credit risk naked ie no need to hold the bond as a CDS gave you the same exposures with less funds. If you thought the credit risk of a company would worsen you bought a CDS (short position), whereas if you thought the outlook was stable or set to improve you sold CDS (long position). This also avoided the messiness of having to physically trade and settle bonds.
Unfortunately, the markets have virtually dried up in these instruments, particularly in single name CDS (cover for particular company/bond). Its become very difficult to even get a bank to offer a price for a CDS, and where they do the spreads are large. The credit uncertainty is leaving people too scared to price the assets. More significantly, for holders of CDS positions is the challenge of marking the assets to market (valuing them to reflect what you could get for them if traded), as prices aren't readily available - mark to made-up/model price are used instead which will reflect normal market conditions. As such some portfolio values are likely to be "adrift" and hiding losses.
Its hard to tell when confidence will return and hence CDS markets will re-emerge but their absence marks a regression in investment techniques that can be used to generate returns.
Conceived as a way of providing "insurance" against the default of a bond whereby the insured paid a premium to the insurer, these developed to provide payouts to fit particular circumstances eg downgrade of a bond; missed interest payments. The protection was usually linked to a reference asset (specific bond) and you had to exercise care that you chose the right one as often companies had many bonds in issue with different levels of seniority in the event of a default ie some would be paid out before others.
CDS also allowed greatly liquidity in the bond markets because a bank could agree to fund the issue of a corporate bond, whilst selling/hedging the credit risk.
But eventually these became the main way of trading credit risk naked ie no need to hold the bond as a CDS gave you the same exposures with less funds. If you thought the credit risk of a company would worsen you bought a CDS (short position), whereas if you thought the outlook was stable or set to improve you sold CDS (long position). This also avoided the messiness of having to physically trade and settle bonds.
Unfortunately, the markets have virtually dried up in these instruments, particularly in single name CDS (cover for particular company/bond). Its become very difficult to even get a bank to offer a price for a CDS, and where they do the spreads are large. The credit uncertainty is leaving people too scared to price the assets. More significantly, for holders of CDS positions is the challenge of marking the assets to market (valuing them to reflect what you could get for them if traded), as prices aren't readily available - mark to made-up/model price are used instead which will reflect normal market conditions. As such some portfolio values are likely to be "adrift" and hiding losses.
Its hard to tell when confidence will return and hence CDS markets will re-emerge but their absence marks a regression in investment techniques that can be used to generate returns.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Blognation - a sad story
I hope todays flamer on Blognation will not bring its excellent output to a shuddering halt.
I've exchanged emails with several of the Blognation team expressing my sadness at the current situation. Their responses fall into one of two camps - "Oliver is right, so we're out of here" or "we'll carry on regardless because we enjoy it".
Their international coverage is unrivalled, and whilst some firms prefer to give scoops to other longer established mastheads, I hope their financial trials can be overcome.
That some of those other titles chose to delight in the scandal reflected badly on them - when the media become the story something has gone wrong with editorial priorities and highlights their own self-importance.
UpdateI've exchanged emails with several of the Blognation team expressing my sadness at the current situation. Their responses fall into one of two camps - "Oliver is right, so we're out of here" or "we'll carry on regardless because we enjoy it".
Name that tune
In an effort to remove talk, many radio station play 2-3 songs back to back.
I find this irrating sometimes as I'd like to know who the name of the singer and song. Personally I'm baffled why stations don't use RDS back channels to display this data. Most have xml streams also available online but rarely publicise it.
Well, UBC Media are launching a service that will use this data and allow you to buy the track you just heard from your phone. You have to install an app on your phone and register your credit card with the service. Downloaded tracks can be sent to your phone or PC by the service.
I was interested in the concept when I was shown this by UBC last May, but wonder if the pricing will be a deterrent at £1.25 per track, which is much higher than Amazon and iTunes.
UBC will also have to share the net revenues with the radio stations on whom they piggy back.
The timing for UBC isn't great, with Nokia announcing their "comes with music" service on their handsets. Free in the first year, you can download as much music as you want which is yours to keep. Subs will apply thereafter. Presently only Universal Music's catalogue is available on the service, for which Universal will be getting a min of £60pa per user. When Rob Wells at Universal explained the formula to me a couple of months back, I rather wished I had my old HP financial markets calculator handy! This is a bold move by both firms and is definitely agenda grabbing.
I believe data charges will be levied on top, but as an offering it has certainly caught a number of the mobile operators on the hop and cast some of their music offerings in a poor light.
I find this irrating sometimes as I'd like to know who the name of the singer and song. Personally I'm baffled why stations don't use RDS back channels to display this data. Most have xml streams also available online but rarely publicise it.
Well, UBC Media are launching a service that will use this data and allow you to buy the track you just heard from your phone. You have to install an app on your phone and register your credit card with the service. Downloaded tracks can be sent to your phone or PC by the service.
I was interested in the concept when I was shown this by UBC last May, but wonder if the pricing will be a deterrent at £1.25 per track, which is much higher than Amazon and iTunes.
UBC will also have to share the net revenues with the radio stations on whom they piggy back.
The timing for UBC isn't great, with Nokia announcing their "comes with music" service on their handsets. Free in the first year, you can download as much music as you want which is yours to keep. Subs will apply thereafter. Presently only Universal Music's catalogue is available on the service, for which Universal will be getting a min of £60pa per user. When Rob Wells at Universal explained the formula to me a couple of months back, I rather wished I had my old HP financial markets calculator handy! This is a bold move by both firms and is definitely agenda grabbing.
I believe data charges will be levied on top, but as an offering it has certainly caught a number of the mobile operators on the hop and cast some of their music offerings in a poor light.
Benioff educates investors on which numbers they should look at
In an interview with Business Week, Marc Benioff, the larger than life CEO of Salesforce said
we're not going back to disclosing our number of subscribers each quarter. It's not a meaningful, revenue-based metric. We don't think investors should look to non-GAAP numbers. High-fidelity numbers like revenue, profit, and cash flow are things investors should measure us on. It didn't make any sense to me why people should anticipate a subscriber number. We're not just a one-product company. When we were a single-product company with salesforce automation, then it was apples to apples. Now it's apples to oranges.
Interesting. Usually investors get to make their own mind up on what's interesting. Moreover, some investors might find subscriber growth numbers or revenue per subscriber a useful indicator of the company's activities. Financial numbers don't tell the whole story and normally lack any context. It's also a little unnerving when a CEO asks you to stop looking at a set of numbers and tries to get you to look elsewhere for your own best interest, regardless of motive.
Hypothetically, if you happen to winning big deals by slashing your prices, then you might not want to announce small revenue increments and big jumps in subscriber numbers, in case this became obvious.
That said, Salesforce is clearly doing a great job persuading the security departments of big banks to trust them - Merrill, Citibank and Deutsche have now signed up as customers - Citi has 30,000 seats.
we're not going back to disclosing our number of subscribers each quarter. It's not a meaningful, revenue-based metric. We don't think investors should look to non-GAAP numbers. High-fidelity numbers like revenue, profit, and cash flow are things investors should measure us on. It didn't make any sense to me why people should anticipate a subscriber number. We're not just a one-product company. When we were a single-product company with salesforce automation, then it was apples to apples. Now it's apples to oranges.
Interesting. Usually investors get to make their own mind up on what's interesting. Moreover, some investors might find subscriber growth numbers or revenue per subscriber a useful indicator of the company's activities. Financial numbers don't tell the whole story and normally lack any context. It's also a little unnerving when a CEO asks you to stop looking at a set of numbers and tries to get you to look elsewhere for your own best interest, regardless of motive.
Hypothetically, if you happen to winning big deals by slashing your prices, then you might not want to announce small revenue increments and big jumps in subscriber numbers, in case this became obvious.
That said, Salesforce is clearly doing a great job persuading the security departments of big banks to trust them - Merrill, Citibank and Deutsche have now signed up as customers - Citi has 30,000 seats.
Salesforce creates a data protection nightmare
Techcrunch is reporting that tomorrow Salesforce will launch a new service called Salesforce to Salesforce (S2S) that facilitates the sharing of data between companies that use Salesforce’s software as a service (SaaS).
I'm less familiar with USA data protection provisions, but here in the UK you'd be best to start off with the assumption that companies using this would be committing a breach of the Data Protection Act unless clients have specifically permitted the sharing of their data with a third party.
This won't be a Salesforce problem, only an issue for the companies sharing their data. Moreover, whilst they may be permitted to share some info, you can bet it will be easy to inadvertantly share too much.
Best to follow the line in the original Star Wars movie when the heroes found themselves being crushed in a garbage device. Uncertain of which device to shutdown, Luke Skywalker told the robots to shut them all down.
I'm less familiar with USA data protection provisions, but here in the UK you'd be best to start off with the assumption that companies using this would be committing a breach of the Data Protection Act unless clients have specifically permitted the sharing of their data with a third party.
This won't be a Salesforce problem, only an issue for the companies sharing their data. Moreover, whilst they may be permitted to share some info, you can bet it will be easy to inadvertantly share too much.
Best to follow the line in the original Star Wars movie when the heroes found themselves being crushed in a garbage device. Uncertain of which device to shutdown, Luke Skywalker told the robots to shut them all down.
Sub-prime off balance sheet hidey hole found
Techdirt reports that a Georgia man was notified that he had a negative balance of $211 trillion at his Wachovia bank account.
So that's where all the off-balance messes have been hidden away until now. I reckon he should agree to buy the back at 27cents on the dollar and pocket the profit.
Confess you have to wonder how it was that nobody in accounts/financial control had spotted that the trial balance and balance sheet numbers had gotten quite large at Wachovia.
So that's where all the off-balance messes have been hidden away until now. I reckon he should agree to buy the back at 27cents on the dollar and pocket the profit.
Confess you have to wonder how it was that nobody in accounts/financial control had spotted that the trial balance and balance sheet numbers had gotten quite large at Wachovia.
Proposed levy on secondary market in tickets
Yesterday the Music Managers Forum ("MMF") unveiled the Resale Rights Society ("RRS"), which has been established to "license" the secondary market for live music tickets in the United Kingdom. Artist management firms representing more than 400 performers have confirmed their support for RRS, including the teams behind Robbie Williams, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead.
RRS chairman-elect Marot explained that the body's aims are two-fold. The first is to introduce uniformity in the sector through a kite-mark system for ticket sales Web sites. Secondly, the society pledges to fight on behalf of artists and the live sector by negotiating a share in the proceeds of those resold tickets.
It is believed that a levy of 15% on the resale value is being proposed by the Society although details are sketchy. The target is the £250m turnover on the secondary market exchanges.
Unsurprisingly the online exchanges are unimpressed. Joe Cohen, CEO and founder of Seatwave, commented, "This is a direct attempt by a few music managers and promoters to line their pockets at the expense of consumers." He added, "Everyone in this value chain has already been fully paid for their work - this proposed tax is like BMW asking car owners for a cut every time someone resells a car. It's laughable that rock managers and promoters are holding themselves out as consumer champions."
Personally, I think the online exchanges hold the upper hand in the upcoming "discussions". Other than for PR reasons of being seen to co-operate with artists, they have no reason to voluntarily pay away a percentage of the turnover, since the market exists anyway. If reports are accurate, the suggested percentage would take a big chunk out of the 25% tariff the online exchanges typically enjoy.
Other than the kite mark, what else do secondary market operators get out of it?
Well, perhaps one arrangement to motive the exchanges could conceivably involve managers guaranteeing a supply of tickets to major events to provide liquidity to the online markets, with primary market tickets being diverted directly into the secondary market, allowing the price to be set based on demand and "windfall" profits retained by the event promoter/artist? This practice is not uncommon in capital markets, with allocation of new equity granted to favoured parties who then enjoy windfall profits, and which was at its height in the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. However, this may be unpalatable in some quarters.
The key problem is that the tickets issued for most events are "bearer" tickets (admittance give to whomever presents the ticket at the door) over which great care has been made to evidence their authenticity via embedded security and anti-counterfeit measures. As such private transactions can be easily conducted away from the managers and promoters. Unless this is addressed by the Managers, and "bearer" tickets discontinued, the secondary market will be able to easily avoid the levy.
Furthermore, I'm not even sure that the "Prisoners dilema" applies in this case, were one of the online operators to break ranks and agree to participate, since the others could operate without penalty. Ultimately, consumers just want access to the tickets and I suspect are less likely to care about a kite mark if the online exchange provides money back guarantees.
The timing of this initiative is very interesting though, as the UK Govt Select Committee is due to report in early 2008. In launching the RSS, the MMF has effectively endorsed the principle of secondary markets, which is a reversal of the position presented to the Select Committee which proposed that they legislate against the secondary market and effectively outlaw the reselling of tickets for a profit in a similar manner to sports events such as soccer.
RRS chairman-elect Marot explained that the body's aims are two-fold. The first is to introduce uniformity in the sector through a kite-mark system for ticket sales Web sites. Secondly, the society pledges to fight on behalf of artists and the live sector by negotiating a share in the proceeds of those resold tickets.
It is believed that a levy of 15% on the resale value is being proposed by the Society although details are sketchy. The target is the £250m turnover on the secondary market exchanges.
Unsurprisingly the online exchanges are unimpressed. Joe Cohen, CEO and founder of Seatwave, commented, "This is a direct attempt by a few music managers and promoters to line their pockets at the expense of consumers." He added, "Everyone in this value chain has already been fully paid for their work - this proposed tax is like BMW asking car owners for a cut every time someone resells a car. It's laughable that rock managers and promoters are holding themselves out as consumer champions."
Personally, I think the online exchanges hold the upper hand in the upcoming "discussions". Other than for PR reasons of being seen to co-operate with artists, they have no reason to voluntarily pay away a percentage of the turnover, since the market exists anyway. If reports are accurate, the suggested percentage would take a big chunk out of the 25% tariff the online exchanges typically enjoy.
Other than the kite mark, what else do secondary market operators get out of it?
Well, perhaps one arrangement to motive the exchanges could conceivably involve managers guaranteeing a supply of tickets to major events to provide liquidity to the online markets, with primary market tickets being diverted directly into the secondary market, allowing the price to be set based on demand and "windfall" profits retained by the event promoter/artist? This practice is not uncommon in capital markets, with allocation of new equity granted to favoured parties who then enjoy windfall profits, and which was at its height in the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. However, this may be unpalatable in some quarters.
The key problem is that the tickets issued for most events are "bearer" tickets (admittance give to whomever presents the ticket at the door) over which great care has been made to evidence their authenticity via embedded security and anti-counterfeit measures. As such private transactions can be easily conducted away from the managers and promoters. Unless this is addressed by the Managers, and "bearer" tickets discontinued, the secondary market will be able to easily avoid the levy.
Furthermore, I'm not even sure that the "Prisoners dilema" applies in this case, were one of the online operators to break ranks and agree to participate, since the others could operate without penalty. Ultimately, consumers just want access to the tickets and I suspect are less likely to care about a kite mark if the online exchange provides money back guarantees.
The timing of this initiative is very interesting though, as the UK Govt Select Committee is due to report in early 2008. In launching the RSS, the MMF has effectively endorsed the principle of secondary markets, which is a reversal of the position presented to the Select Committee which proposed that they legislate against the secondary market and effectively outlaw the reselling of tickets for a profit in a similar manner to sports events such as soccer.
Property funds - getting locked inside
Since I last wrote about the moves by property funds to restrict sales on 24 Nov, the situation has deteriorated even further.
Deutsche Bank, UBS and Morley have imposed a 12 months moratorium on redemptions on their £1.3bn, £2.3bn and £1bn funds respectively. The Managers are imposing this because of their inability to fund potential redemptions from fund assets given the time it takes to sell property in a fund. These lock-ins provide the investor with no ability to trade out of the position regardless of price.
I simply fail to understand why Managers resist there being a secondary market when they themselves refuse to operate a liquid market in their own funds. Ultimately, investors looking to sell should be able to negotiate with buyers prepared to acquire their interests and agree a price that reflects the anticipated falls in value and liquidity constraints.
Deutsche Bank, UBS and Morley have imposed a 12 months moratorium on redemptions on their £1.3bn, £2.3bn and £1bn funds respectively. The Managers are imposing this because of their inability to fund potential redemptions from fund assets given the time it takes to sell property in a fund. These lock-ins provide the investor with no ability to trade out of the position regardless of price.
I simply fail to understand why Managers resist there being a secondary market when they themselves refuse to operate a liquid market in their own funds. Ultimately, investors looking to sell should be able to negotiate with buyers prepared to acquire their interests and agree a price that reflects the anticipated falls in value and liquidity constraints.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
M&S give shoe supplier the boot
One of my neighbours just mentioned to that a business he'd been advising and which has been supplying footwear to M&S for 85 years has gone into administration with expected job losses of 200 people.
M&S accounted for 65% of their sales and so had a huge influence on the viability of the company. A few months back, M&S had refused to offer any indication of that the firm could expect a continuity of orders, during a funding round exercise for the supplier. As a result the funding disappeared at the final hurdle.
Now M&S has apparently disintermediated the firm, who'd outsourced some of its manufacture to reduce costs under pressure from M&S, and gone direct to the outsource supplier. They even asked the incumbent to introduce them! Could this have been part of an evil plan all along?
The M&S turnaround has been spectacular under Stuart Rose both financially and in-store. However, its reputation for dealing fairly with suppliers may slip with episodes like this. As a signatory to the code of dealing fairly with suppliers, one has to wonder whether the good PR at the time might return to haunt them.
Whilst suppliers have to remain competitive, fairness in dealing remains paramount throughout the value chain.
M&S accounted for 65% of their sales and so had a huge influence on the viability of the company. A few months back, M&S had refused to offer any indication of that the firm could expect a continuity of orders, during a funding round exercise for the supplier. As a result the funding disappeared at the final hurdle.
Now M&S has apparently disintermediated the firm, who'd outsourced some of its manufacture to reduce costs under pressure from M&S, and gone direct to the outsource supplier. They even asked the incumbent to introduce them! Could this have been part of an evil plan all along?
The M&S turnaround has been spectacular under Stuart Rose both financially and in-store. However, its reputation for dealing fairly with suppliers may slip with episodes like this. As a signatory to the code of dealing fairly with suppliers, one has to wonder whether the good PR at the time might return to haunt them.
Whilst suppliers have to remain competitive, fairness in dealing remains paramount throughout the value chain.
Old radio (stations) going cheap
How do you get to run small radio company - start with a large one.
That's how it must feel at both SMG and Gcap. The former has seen a massive slump in its share price this month since announcing what was originally a deeply discounted right issue. The shares are now trading below the new issue price of 15p, with it looking likely Hoare Govett, who are underwriting the issue, will have to buy them.
Gcap's CEO stepped down recently but the shares are still sliding with sell notes issues by brokers. Great news if you get appointed as the new CEO since either the company will be acquired cheaply and you'll quickly get a payoff OR you'll be the hero that stabilise/improves fortunes from this low ebb.
The price Emap's gets for the sale of its stations is also likely to be hit by the sector malaise.
Part of the reasons for the share price slump is a growing belief that a consumer downturn will hit ad budgets and reduce radio revenues. Additionally the increasing availability of services that allow you to consume music on phones will start eating into audiences that might otherwise tune into radio.
Another station rumoured to be closing is Oneword, the commercial competitor to Radio 4, which was co-owned by ubc media and channel 4. Only available on DAB, it apprently hasn't secured traction despite quality content.
That's how it must feel at both SMG and Gcap. The former has seen a massive slump in its share price this month since announcing what was originally a deeply discounted right issue. The shares are now trading below the new issue price of 15p, with it looking likely Hoare Govett, who are underwriting the issue, will have to buy them.
Gcap's CEO stepped down recently but the shares are still sliding with sell notes issues by brokers. Great news if you get appointed as the new CEO since either the company will be acquired cheaply and you'll quickly get a payoff OR you'll be the hero that stabilise/improves fortunes from this low ebb.
The price Emap's gets for the sale of its stations is also likely to be hit by the sector malaise.
Part of the reasons for the share price slump is a growing belief that a consumer downturn will hit ad budgets and reduce radio revenues. Additionally the increasing availability of services that allow you to consume music on phones will start eating into audiences that might otherwise tune into radio.
Another station rumoured to be closing is Oneword, the commercial competitor to Radio 4, which was co-owned by ubc media and channel 4. Only available on DAB, it apprently hasn't secured traction despite quality content.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Zopa goes State Side with Federal backing (allegedly)
According to report at Techcrunch, Zopa, the peer-to-peer lending platform is to launch in the USA. However, the major element of the annoucement that caught my eye was that Zopa claims that the loans would be Federally insured and hence, if true, the credit risk element would be effectively be stripped out but the rates could continue to attract personal lending rates (less the Fed insurance premium that I'd anticipate would be deducted from the rate by the platform).
This would be likely to attract serious funds, since the deemed rating on these would be AAA as USA Govt backed loans. As such this could become a popular asset class, especially if the value of each lenders insured amount on the platform weren't be capped. Why is that notable? Well for a start, if you ordinarily deposit with a bank, you are only covered up to $100k. But if you instead deposited with Zopa, all your deposits would be covered by Fed guarantee whilst still attracting decent interest. Secondly, high net worth or institutional investors might place deposits on the platform as part of their bond allocation. Whilst these loans couldnt be traded or collateralised, they would be secured and attract a reasonable return on the asset and at a premium to T-Bills even though the risk is the same.
The same Techcrunch article highlights that
According to the research firm Online Banking Report, around $100 million in new P2P loans will be issued this year, mostly by Prosper, with new loans growing to as much as $1 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2017. Prosper already registered an S-1 with the SEC and reported $96.4 million in loans.
I think the supply of funds could go way beyond that and directly compete for business with money funds. In the USA, assets in US money market mutual funds hit $3,031bn this week according to iMoney.net, with $13.38bn of new monies in the week ended 27 Nov.
This would be likely to attract serious funds, since the deemed rating on these would be AAA as USA Govt backed loans. As such this could become a popular asset class, especially if the value of each lenders insured amount on the platform weren't be capped. Why is that notable? Well for a start, if you ordinarily deposit with a bank, you are only covered up to $100k. But if you instead deposited with Zopa, all your deposits would be covered by Fed guarantee whilst still attracting decent interest. Secondly, high net worth or institutional investors might place deposits on the platform as part of their bond allocation. Whilst these loans couldnt be traded or collateralised, they would be secured and attract a reasonable return on the asset and at a premium to T-Bills even though the risk is the same.
The same Techcrunch article highlights that
According to the research firm Online Banking Report, around $100 million in new P2P loans will be issued this year, mostly by Prosper, with new loans growing to as much as $1 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2017. Prosper already registered an S-1 with the SEC and reported $96.4 million in loans.
I think the supply of funds could go way beyond that and directly compete for business with money funds. In the USA, assets in US money market mutual funds hit $3,031bn this week according to iMoney.net, with $13.38bn of new monies in the week ended 27 Nov.
Weak dollar keeps Warner Music afloat
If it weren't for a weak dollar, Warner Music result for the quarter to Sept 30 would have been even more uncomfortable. As it was the translation of overseas earnings into dollar equivalents was flattered by the decline in the value of the dollar, allowing them to report that £1 of sales was worth more in dollars than in the previous period.
PaidContent has the following report
PaidContent has the following report
As expected, the Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) quarter ending Sept. 30 proved to be a challenge: The company booked revenue of $869 million, up 2 percent from last year’s $854 million, although on a constant-currency basis, revenue would have declined by 2 percent. Net income slid to $5 million ($.03 per share) during the company’s fiscal Q4, from $12 million ($.08) in the year-ago period. Digital helped make up for weakness in physical sales, as revenue hit $130 million, up 25 percent from last year’s $104 million, and 9 percent higher than the previous quarter. Digital accounts for 15 percent of the company’s total revenue, which is roughly where it stood last quarter.
-- Recorded music sales grew by .7 percent to $736, though again, there would have been a slight decline if not for currency effects. Domestic recorded music revenue grew by 7.6 percent, while international slipped 6.3 percent. This was the same story as last quarter, but the company says this isn’t a trend, but rather a matter relating to the timing of albums of certain popular artists in each region. In other words, last year’s lineup of releases was particularly weak in the US.
-- Music publishing revenue grew by 7 percent to $137 million, although most of this was due to currency. Digital publishing revenue came to $7 million.
-- Results included $9 million in restructuring charges and a $12 million gain from the Bertelsmann/Napster (NSDQ: NAPS) settlement.
The full company release is here.
Bottom line is $5m on revenues of $869m i.e 0.6% margin after tax (big jump in tax charge relative to previous period). And people look at me with surprise when I suggest shorting the stock, perhaps because they can't believe it can get worse. I can.
Statistics are meaningless, unless you are a sports fan
As a passionate cricket fan, I've long been exposed to the plethora of statistics about cricketers which attempt to provide a means of comparing players across the ages or offer a guide to form.
There is a constant search for better ways of measuring success in the game and address the flaws which can detract such as giving greater credit to someone who ended the innings not out, with the result that No.11 used to often be shown with better statistics than someone at No.9 simply by virtue of coming in last and not having to face many balls before the innings ended.
The revised league tables are fascinating, giving greater weight to aspects such as consistency and the relative importance of contribution to the team score. Unsurprisingly, Don Bradman comes out first on every measure used.
If you love cricket, this will provide an even more fuel to the fire of the endless debate on the relative merits of the game's greats. Definitely one for the Test Match Special team and Wisden to pick up.
There is a constant search for better ways of measuring success in the game and address the flaws which can detract such as giving greater credit to someone who ended the innings not out, with the result that No.11 used to often be shown with better statistics than someone at No.9 simply by virtue of coming in last and not having to face many balls before the innings ended.
The Undercover Economist column on FT.com this week reported on Vani Borooah, an economist at the University of Ulster, and his analysis of batting averages:
Batsmen in cricket are invariably ranked according to their batting average. Such a ranking suffers from two defects. First, it does not take into account the consistency of scores across innings: a batsman might have a high career average but with low scores interspersed with high scores; another might have a lower average but with much less variation in his scores. Second, it pays no attention to the “value” of the player’s runs to the team: arguably, a century, when the total score is 600, has less value compared to a half-century in an innings total of, say, 200. The purpose of this paper is to suggest new ways of computing batting averages which, by addressing these deficiencies, complement the existing method and present a more complete picture of batsmen’s performance. Based on these “new” averages, the paper offers a “new” ranking of the top 50 batsmen in the history of Test Cricket.
If you love cricket, this will provide an even more fuel to the fire of the endless debate on the relative merits of the game's greats. Definitely one for the Test Match Special team and Wisden to pick up.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
An interest rate is a supposed to be risk-related
Yesterday overnight Libor was trading at 5.75% whilst 3 month Libor was 6.49%. This difference is largely accounted for by the unwillingness of banks to lend to each over longer periods in the current climate of uncertainty and fear - everyone is scared about what lies below the waterline in terms of potential losses yet to be uncovered/revealed and the possibility of losses on a scale that could massively erode or even eradicate a bank's capital.
So the talk of the Bank of England reducing interest rates to encourage liquidity strikes me as odd. Interest rates are there to compensate for risk and with such fears around, what is the motivation of the banks to charge a lower rate? Default risk in the sector isn't reducing but growing and indeed it seems to now be seeping into the mainstream economy.
Hence, whilst banks may be able to source funds from the Bank of England more cheaply with a rate reduction, unless the Bank is willing to fund the entire inter-bank market by acting as a central counterparty or the like, it doesn't feel like the banks are going to be willing to lend long at cheaper rates.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders Chief Executive also pointed out yesterday that it is a fallacy to believe that the mortgage market can entirely rely on retail funding to support current levels of mortgage lending. Firms like Bradford & Bingley and Alliance and Leicester take 5% and 11% of their funding respectively from the wholesale markets, a pattern repeated elsewhere. Hence the seizing up of the credit market will mean a tightening of lending criteria, higher rates and less funds available for mortgages.
So the talk of the Bank of England reducing interest rates to encourage liquidity strikes me as odd. Interest rates are there to compensate for risk and with such fears around, what is the motivation of the banks to charge a lower rate? Default risk in the sector isn't reducing but growing and indeed it seems to now be seeping into the mainstream economy.
Hence, whilst banks may be able to source funds from the Bank of England more cheaply with a rate reduction, unless the Bank is willing to fund the entire inter-bank market by acting as a central counterparty or the like, it doesn't feel like the banks are going to be willing to lend long at cheaper rates.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders Chief Executive also pointed out yesterday that it is a fallacy to believe that the mortgage market can entirely rely on retail funding to support current levels of mortgage lending. Firms like Bradford & Bingley and Alliance and Leicester take 5% and 11% of their funding respectively from the wholesale markets, a pattern repeated elsewhere. Hence the seizing up of the credit market will mean a tightening of lending criteria, higher rates and less funds available for mortgages.
Google maps on the blackberry is superb
As someone that travels around London to various meetings, I have use Google maps extensively to navigate my way from the nearest tube station to destination. When I upgraded my Blackberry to a Blackberry 8800 which comes with GPS, it was a delight to find that Google had integrated the GPS capability inside google maps. Thus, it plots my exact location on the map as I travel.
If you've got one of the new Blackberry's with GPS, I thoroughly recommend installing Google Maps. Even if you only use it a couple of times, I think you'll see what an invaluable aid it can be when you aren't quite sure where you are and how to get to where you are going.
If you don't have GPS though, apparently Google have released a new version of google maps that tries to identify your location by triangulating the phone mast signal.
You can download google maps onto your mobile device from www.google.com/gmm
If you've got one of the new Blackberry's with GPS, I thoroughly recommend installing Google Maps. Even if you only use it a couple of times, I think you'll see what an invaluable aid it can be when you aren't quite sure where you are and how to get to where you are going.
If you don't have GPS though, apparently Google have released a new version of google maps that tries to identify your location by triangulating the phone mast signal.
You can download google maps onto your mobile device from www.google.com/gmm
London house prices slip 0.8% last month
The drop in London prices in October is the biggest single month fall for 10 years. Unsurprising given that the trend has been up due to a widespread belief that houses only go up in value.
The daily barrage of news about looming recession, tighter lending conditions on new borrowing and reduced availability of funds to borrow, high street retailer reporting lower sales is clearly scaring the "real economy" and belt tightening is the order of the day.
The daily barrage of news about looming recession, tighter lending conditions on new borrowing and reduced availability of funds to borrow, high street retailer reporting lower sales is clearly scaring the "real economy" and belt tightening is the order of the day.
Money can't buy me love, but it helps the share price
Both Warner and EMI have shelved plans to securitise their publishing catalogue, due to the problems in the credit markets, according to the Financial Times.
In each case, they would have hoped to raise cash from selling a bond that a) paid a return secured on the cash flows from the back catalogue sales and b) was secured on the ownership on the library. These funds would have allowed the groups to pay down debt and return some funds to their private equity shareholders in either dividends or share buy backs.
For Terra Firma, owners of EMI, they would have been keen to reduce the significant proportion of their funds presently invested in EMI. For Warner, they would have wanted to support their ailing share price which is languishing at $7.
In each case, they would have hoped to raise cash from selling a bond that a) paid a return secured on the cash flows from the back catalogue sales and b) was secured on the ownership on the library. These funds would have allowed the groups to pay down debt and return some funds to their private equity shareholders in either dividends or share buy backs.
For Terra Firma, owners of EMI, they would have been keen to reduce the significant proportion of their funds presently invested in EMI. For Warner, they would have wanted to support their ailing share price which is languishing at $7.
Was I plagarised by the Financial Times?
The FT's Lombard column yesterday commented that Virgin was in effect a private equity group and that Richard Branson should adopt the voluntary code of disclosure if he was the good corporate citizen he always claimed to be.
Funny, I'm sure I said the same thing the day before here
A separate article on the same day in the FT also referred to the reputational risk on Northern Rock being way in excess of previous situations for Virgin.
Funny, I'm sure I said the same thing the day before here
A separate article on the same day in the FT also referred to the reputational risk on Northern Rock being way in excess of previous situations for Virgin.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
"Hi Biz Devt - Please sign this death warrant"
I'm grateful to Paul Lomax, who referred me to a Seth Godin quote, in a comment he left on the post on the Universal CEO's recent interview.
Seth Godin's idea about how to try and get past the lower-level biz-dev guys... He suggests giving them a piece of paper saying "I, the undersigned, have been briefed on idea X but I wish to pass up on the opportunity. I authorised company X to take this idea to our competitors."
Of course, the chances are they'll kick you out of the meeting, but at least you can say "I told you so" years later ;-)
I must try this, but also suspect a number of entrepreneurs might do it with VCs as well when their fantastic investment opportunity gets passed up.
Seth Godin's idea about how to try and get past the lower-level biz-dev guys... He suggests giving them a piece of paper saying "I, the undersigned, have been briefed on idea X but I wish to pass up on the opportunity. I authorised company X to take this idea to our competitors."
Of course, the chances are they'll kick you out of the meeting, but at least you can say "I told you so" years later ;-)
I must try this, but also suspect a number of entrepreneurs might do it with VCs as well when their fantastic investment opportunity gets passed up.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
How to get a free legal copy of SnagIT
I've used the SnagIt application for years to do screen grabs and the like. Whilst freeware tools are popping up doing something similar, I've stuck with it and recommended it to others. Whilst there was a small licence fee to pay, I bought it years ago and so it's a sunk cost.
However, the company behind it, are pursuing a new strategy to lure in customers which involves making available old version of the software for free, in the hope you may decide to upgrade subsequently. The details of how you can get version 7.2.5 can be found here, with version 8 being the latest release.
In addition Techsmith are distributing free Camtasia Studio licenses, an application which is great for creating online screen tutorials/demos.
However, the company behind it, are pursuing a new strategy to lure in customers which involves making available old version of the software for free, in the hope you may decide to upgrade subsequently. The details of how you can get version 7.2.5 can be found here, with version 8 being the latest release.
In addition Techsmith are distributing free Camtasia Studio licenses, an application which is great for creating online screen tutorials/demos.
Universal CEO didn't know what they didn't know
There's a report here about an interview in the Dec edition of Wired with the CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris.
He makes clear that their failure to capitalise on music downloading in the early days of the internet and file sharing was simply through ignorance of the possible.
I would stake a chunk of cash on there having been numerous people who tried to talk to Universal (and other labels) about the possibility of collaborating on such a venture but who were all rebuffed at lower levels by "business development people" who would have claimed that they were too busy on more important things and that this wasn't a priority for the business.
Do I have inside knowledge? Nope, but make this assertion since I see the same thing happen on a regular basis with big companies, who turn away ideas that are offered to them without really giving them much thought or because the points of entry to the organisation are not staffed with the right calibre of people. Whilst some ideas are daft and organisations have restricted bandwidth, it's rare that companies have a unique insight into "the next big thing". I always believed that the job of the door keeper (biz devt) is to search for and welcome/"catch" lots of such innovations for an initial evaluation and not shoo them away.
He makes clear that their failure to capitalise on music downloading in the early days of the internet and file sharing was simply through ignorance of the possible.
When Morris is asked why the music business didn't work harder, in the early days of file-sharing, to build its own (legal) online presence, there's this exchange:
"There's no one in the record industry that's a technologist," Morris explains. "That's a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn't. They just didn't know what to do. It's like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?"
Personally, I would hire a vet. But to Morris, even that wasn't an option. "We didn't know who to hire," he says, becoming more agitated. "I wouldn't be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me."Even though we shouldn't be, we're actually a little shocked. We'd always assumed the labels had met with a team of technology experts in the late nineties and ignored their advice, but it turns out they never even got that far — they didn't even try!
I would stake a chunk of cash on there having been numerous people who tried to talk to Universal (and other labels) about the possibility of collaborating on such a venture but who were all rebuffed at lower levels by "business development people" who would have claimed that they were too busy on more important things and that this wasn't a priority for the business.
Do I have inside knowledge? Nope, but make this assertion since I see the same thing happen on a regular basis with big companies, who turn away ideas that are offered to them without really giving them much thought or because the points of entry to the organisation are not staffed with the right calibre of people. Whilst some ideas are daft and organisations have restricted bandwidth, it's rare that companies have a unique insight into "the next big thing". I always believed that the job of the door keeper (biz devt) is to search for and welcome/"catch" lots of such innovations for an initial evaluation and not shoo them away.
Samsung plasma TV sucks - the workaround
Some time back I had a rant about the fact that my Sony Vaio wouldn't connect to my new Samsung Plasma TV. This was a problem known by Samsung but not revealed publicly.
Well, evidently this is a problem encountered by lots of folks, as evidenced by the large number of hits this post has received.
Stupidly I forgot to ever publish the workaround solution I came up with. It's not pretty but if you happen to have fallen into the same situation then here's how I have gotten the Vaio to display on the Samsung plasma.
A chance comment that a friend made to me about "tricking" the plasma prompted me to take a chance and buy a Belkin device which is designed to connect several computers to single screen which can then be alternated between. To make the whole thing work, this is what I do:
1. Connect the Samsung Plasma and the Vaio to this "intermediate" dumb device in "a daisy chain", the former with a monitor cable and the latter with the Belkin device cable.
2. On your Vaio, activate the external monitor output (on my keyboard this is achieved with Fn+f7 buttons). At this point the Samsung plasma recognises that a PC is attempting to connect to it and activates the PC source, which was previously inaccessible. However, it reports on screen that you need to check the signal.
3. Disconnect both the plasma and the vaio from the Belkin device and connect the plasma directly to the vaio. Voila, your vaio screen is now visible on the Samsung plasma screen.
It seems crazy, but it works for reasons I don't care about. It needn't be a Belkin device you use in all likelihood, provided it performs that same sort of function to initially camouflage the Vaio.
Well, evidently this is a problem encountered by lots of folks, as evidenced by the large number of hits this post has received.
Stupidly I forgot to ever publish the workaround solution I came up with. It's not pretty but if you happen to have fallen into the same situation then here's how I have gotten the Vaio to display on the Samsung plasma.
A chance comment that a friend made to me about "tricking" the plasma prompted me to take a chance and buy a Belkin device which is designed to connect several computers to single screen which can then be alternated between. To make the whole thing work, this is what I do:
1. Connect the Samsung Plasma and the Vaio to this "intermediate" dumb device in "a daisy chain", the former with a monitor cable and the latter with the Belkin device cable.
2. On your Vaio, activate the external monitor output (on my keyboard this is achieved with Fn+f7 buttons). At this point the Samsung plasma recognises that a PC is attempting to connect to it and activates the PC source, which was previously inaccessible. However, it reports on screen that you need to check the signal.
3. Disconnect both the plasma and the vaio from the Belkin device and connect the plasma directly to the vaio. Voila, your vaio screen is now visible on the Samsung plasma screen.
It seems crazy, but it works for reasons I don't care about. It needn't be a Belkin device you use in all likelihood, provided it performs that same sort of function to initially camouflage the Vaio.
Monday, November 26, 2007
He's no Virgin, he's private equity in disguise
I confess to some shock that Virgin are the front runner to acquire Northern Rock for many reasons. Whilst Virgin Money has been around for some years, it's never really made much of an impact on the sector.
Taking over Northern Rock is a completely different proposition for Virgin though. Although the bid is backed by a consortium including AIG, the brand at stake is Virgin's and keeping the venture afloat will be no easy task without a fundamental restructuring of the balance sheet.
It's by no means certain this deal will happen though, given that the shareholders, led by two funds that have built up a combined 13% stake, are seeking to instruct/remind the Board to act in the interest of the shareholders, who are almost being overlooked in the whole process.
However, the thing that most astounds me is the easy ride that Virgin is getting, given that it is effectively a private equity business, but which happens to be headed by a populist figure in the form of Richard Branson. The reality is that he is a tax exile living in Switzerland, heading a secretive group that operating behind a series of complex cross holding in offshore vehicles. An attempt by the Economist a couple of years ago to lift the veil of secrecy failed and it is fairly unlikely Virgin will adopt the private equity code of voluntary disclosure - why should they when people aren't bracketing them as a private equity firm thanks to the excellent PR they operate.
One has to hope that the Bank of England and FSA conduct adequate due diligence on the bidders and their financial stability, rather than simply skip this step in gratitude for someone stepping into rescue them. But perhaps they are also attracted by the possibility that if the bank was to be turned around and Branson made a fortune down the line, the public would think more kindly of that ("what a hero, he deserves the money") than they would of JC Flowers doing the same.
Still to have a Bank fail once is bad, but to have it fall again would be calamitous.
Taking over Northern Rock is a completely different proposition for Virgin though. Although the bid is backed by a consortium including AIG, the brand at stake is Virgin's and keeping the venture afloat will be no easy task without a fundamental restructuring of the balance sheet.
It's by no means certain this deal will happen though, given that the shareholders, led by two funds that have built up a combined 13% stake, are seeking to instruct/remind the Board to act in the interest of the shareholders, who are almost being overlooked in the whole process.
However, the thing that most astounds me is the easy ride that Virgin is getting, given that it is effectively a private equity business, but which happens to be headed by a populist figure in the form of Richard Branson. The reality is that he is a tax exile living in Switzerland, heading a secretive group that operating behind a series of complex cross holding in offshore vehicles. An attempt by the Economist a couple of years ago to lift the veil of secrecy failed and it is fairly unlikely Virgin will adopt the private equity code of voluntary disclosure - why should they when people aren't bracketing them as a private equity firm thanks to the excellent PR they operate.
One has to hope that the Bank of England and FSA conduct adequate due diligence on the bidders and their financial stability, rather than simply skip this step in gratitude for someone stepping into rescue them. But perhaps they are also attracted by the possibility that if the bank was to be turned around and Branson made a fortune down the line, the public would think more kindly of that ("what a hero, he deserves the money") than they would of JC Flowers doing the same.
Still to have a Bank fail once is bad, but to have it fall again would be calamitous.
Deacon Blue - Real Gone Kid
I had such a fantastic evening last night. It was the last night of Deacon Blue's 2007 tour and a group of four of us went as guest of Jim, the keyboard player. They have been one of my favourite bands ever since University days, and I have many great memories of them.
One summer I went backpacking around America and had the great fortune to see them perform in a small bar in Washington DC on their first US tour. A group of five brits from the youth hostel joined me at the gig, which was awesome show, after which we had some beer with the band. We were given a US tour t-shirt, which I still have and wear every time I go to see them.
Since then, I've seen them many times but last night was really special. Playing at Hammersmith, which is my local venue, they did a fabulous set to a three-quarter full house, who received them with rapturous applause and sang throughout - I was without a voice this morning (much to the delight of many).
After the show, the four of us went backstage to have drinks with the band, which was great fun. The band spotted the t-shirt and I chatted with Jim about that night in Washington (he politely pretended to remember). To cap it off, I got to take home a live recording of the gig, courtesy of Concert Live which I have been listening to in the office all day today.
One summer I went backpacking around America and had the great fortune to see them perform in a small bar in Washington DC on their first US tour. A group of five brits from the youth hostel joined me at the gig, which was awesome show, after which we had some beer with the band. We were given a US tour t-shirt, which I still have and wear every time I go to see them.
Since then, I've seen them many times but last night was really special. Playing at Hammersmith, which is my local venue, they did a fabulous set to a three-quarter full house, who received them with rapturous applause and sang throughout - I was without a voice this morning (much to the delight of many).
After the show, the four of us went backstage to have drinks with the band, which was great fun. The band spotted the t-shirt and I chatted with Jim about that night in Washington (he politely pretended to remember). To cap it off, I got to take home a live recording of the gig, courtesy of Concert Live which I have been listening to in the office all day today.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Hands up, I got it wrong
When I said bankers had got thick skins, so probably wouldn't care about being called whimpering dogs by Guy Hands, evidently they decided to yank his chain.
Perhaps lenders have decided to extract their pound of flesh given the shortage of funds available. But howsoever it transpired, Guy has issued a public apology emphasising he meant no offence.
One banker had apparently sent him a box of dog biscuits, suggesting he use them sparingly.
Evidently even masters of the universe need to keep their pets/slaves/serfs/allies on good terms and not humiliate them just in case they might be needed at a later date..
Ouch. Remember the idea that property funds were a great route to get exposure to the sector without the aggro of buying directly and with better liquidity.
Well, turns out that it was not so great for several reasons
- you can only sell units back to the manager at the price they set, rather than offering your property to anyone
- the manager can change the settlement period or willingness to trade
Hence, Schroders has just applied a sellers discount of 12.5% on the net asset value as it assumes the market will worsen (you'd have thought they should mark down the NAV if the valuation are so wrong, but then fees get calculated off the NAV & buyers don't get the discount I'm told).
Likewise M&G is imposing a lockup on institutional investors until the fund can sell assets.
A market in property derivatives that wasn't reliant on physical assets would be a safer exposure route (credit issues aside). Hence, open a spreadbet on property indices. There are many natural users of such a market from funds to property owners to outright speculators. Such markets are in their formative stages but not for long I'd bet.
Well, turns out that it was not so great for several reasons
- you can only sell units back to the manager at the price they set, rather than offering your property to anyone
- the manager can change the settlement period or willingness to trade
Hence, Schroders has just applied a sellers discount of 12.5% on the net asset value as it assumes the market will worsen (you'd have thought they should mark down the NAV if the valuation are so wrong, but then fees get calculated off the NAV & buyers don't get the discount I'm told).
Likewise M&G is imposing a lockup on institutional investors until the fund can sell assets.
A market in property derivatives that wasn't reliant on physical assets would be a safer exposure route (credit issues aside). Hence, open a spreadbet on property indices. There are many natural users of such a market from funds to property owners to outright speculators. Such markets are in their formative stages but not for long I'd bet.
An unhealthy sector needing to shape up
The recession we are entering is bad news for fitness clubs. They rely on the hefty monthly fees that make up 80% of revenues, which are a chunky piece of discretionary expenditure for many.
The clubs typically have attrition rates of about 40% ie proportion not renewing for whatever reason. Whilst in the UK only 7% of people have memberships, the large number of clubs mean supply constraints aren't the thing holding the market back - probably apathy.
For a country with a growing obesity problems, you'd think gyms would do well in attracting custom, but evidently fewer fat people care to make the effort than you might suppose. Its certainly self serving of the industry to ask government to somehow get more people to exercise (obviously health of the nation rather than the P&L is the motive)
Amusingly, chains in London are increasingly turning to family friendly settings - allowing the whole family to spend the weekend at "the club" playing sport and socialising, sometimes with each other. "Its like being on holiday every weekend". We have lots of friends that do exactly this now.
Clubs owners now just have to worry about the health of the economy.
The clubs typically have attrition rates of about 40% ie proportion not renewing for whatever reason. Whilst in the UK only 7% of people have memberships, the large number of clubs mean supply constraints aren't the thing holding the market back - probably apathy.
For a country with a growing obesity problems, you'd think gyms would do well in attracting custom, but evidently fewer fat people care to make the effort than you might suppose. Its certainly self serving of the industry to ask government to somehow get more people to exercise (obviously health of the nation rather than the P&L is the motive)
Amusingly, chains in London are increasingly turning to family friendly settings - allowing the whole family to spend the weekend at "the club" playing sport and socialising, sometimes with each other. "Its like being on holiday every weekend". We have lots of friends that do exactly this now.
Clubs owners now just have to worry about the health of the economy.
A co-ordinated London transport
Based on my experiences this weekend, this notion evidently means closing all lines (tube & rail) simultaneously!
Or was it while Mayor Ken was in India, the staff thought they'd all slope off together and allow the maintenance guys in?
Barcamplondon3 - the international meetup
Wow. We've just gone round the roomfor everyone to introduce themself (20 secs inc 3 "tags", mine being money, family and music) and about 35% of the attendees at barcamplondon3 have travelled from outside the UK to attend, with the biggest group from Germany.
Once again, I'm the only VC in the room. Everyone else is a techie of some sort albeit with different degrees of intensity!
Barcamplondon3 kicks off
Today I'm at my third barcamp - a member of a small band who've been to all of the London ones.
Google are the hosts in their palatial offices. Lavish free restaurant!
The room is packed with folks armed with laptops and cameras(?).
Organised by Ian Forrestor & co-sponsored by BBC Backstage, the event runs for 36hrs.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
A team on top of their game
Obviously I'm not talking about the England Football shower, but about Newsbiscuit whose headline today was
Full story here
England manager loses details of 25 million alternative goalkeepers
Sources within the Football Association have revealed that national coach Steve McLaren lost two crucial CDs containing vital data about England's European Championship campaign. Apparently the two disks contained details of 25 million alternative possible goalkeepers and one about individuals who might possibly support Peter Crouch up front.Full story here
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
BBC - Points of view in a new media age
Is user generated content actually a means of giving a voice to individuals in a democracy who might otherwise go unheard? Has it become a means of allowing popular expression to be aired directly rather than by alleged "community representatives"?
The comments board on the BBC News story about the lost CDs containing 25 millions personal records has doubled since last night
Prior to such facilities and wider access to the internet, outlets for discontent were probably restricted to letters to newspapers and politicians, with perhaps a few opting for the rant lines of radio station phone-ins.
New and old methods may still be ignored by those in power until popular dissent is picked up and reflected by the mainstream media, but the opportunity for groundswells to form and attract attention is much greater.
The comments board on the BBC News story about the lost CDs containing 25 millions personal records has doubled since last night
DEBATE STATUS
Total comments:10222
Published comments:7325
Rejected comments:203
Moderation queue:2693
Prior to such facilities and wider access to the internet, outlets for discontent were probably restricted to letters to newspapers and politicians, with perhaps a few opting for the rant lines of radio station phone-ins.
New and old methods may still be ignored by those in power until popular dissent is picked up and reflected by the mainstream media, but the opportunity for groundswells to form and attract attention is much greater.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Pair of Selfridges pyjamas, was £90 but yours for £1,200
Alan Yentob has been presenting an interesting series on BBC One recently and tonight's episode covered the modern art world.
It was amusing and interesting throughout
- how Galleries were "selecting" who was allowed to buy pictures and the price they would pay. A prestigious buyer added to the value of the artist
- how agents and existing owners would intercede at auctions if they saw works by an artist they had an interest in, were failing to meet a reserve, in attempt to prop up prices
- one leading New York art critic described 98% of the works on show as "Sh*t" and how prices had become detached from any form of reality (which is was supposed to be the job of the work by artists)
- prices had rocketed recently with pieces that would have been lucky to fetch $50k two years ago, now reaching $6m
- modern art prices matching and exceeding those of old masters
Part of the show featured Alan trying to buy a piece of modern art for himself within a budget of £5,000. Lots of the items he saw (easy to see where the 98% figure came from) were out of his price range. But even he laughed when presented with
- an bicycle tyre, which the artist would ride to Paris and then re-inflate with Paris air all for a bargain price of £3,000
- the accumulated mastheads from the Sun newspaper for a year which had been stuck onto a card, but with the "S" cut out to leave "un", available for £4,000
- a pair of pyjamas from Selfriges which had been folded by the artist in a special way and could be bought for £1,200
He ended up buying a painted ladder for £3,500, which apparently was a bargain.
And people claim we City boys are pulling a fast one - seriously Dahrling, its art! Still, at least the people being laid-off from the fixed income teams because of the credit crunch might find work in such a market.
It was amusing and interesting throughout
- how Galleries were "selecting" who was allowed to buy pictures and the price they would pay. A prestigious buyer added to the value of the artist
- how agents and existing owners would intercede at auctions if they saw works by an artist they had an interest in, were failing to meet a reserve, in attempt to prop up prices
- one leading New York art critic described 98% of the works on show as "Sh*t" and how prices had become detached from any form of reality (which is was supposed to be the job of the work by artists)
- prices had rocketed recently with pieces that would have been lucky to fetch $50k two years ago, now reaching $6m
- modern art prices matching and exceeding those of old masters
Part of the show featured Alan trying to buy a piece of modern art for himself within a budget of £5,000. Lots of the items he saw (easy to see where the 98% figure came from) were out of his price range. But even he laughed when presented with
- an bicycle tyre, which the artist would ride to Paris and then re-inflate with Paris air all for a bargain price of £3,000
- the accumulated mastheads from the Sun newspaper for a year which had been stuck onto a card, but with the "S" cut out to leave "un", available for £4,000
- a pair of pyjamas from Selfriges which had been folded by the artist in a special way and could be bought for £1,200
He ended up buying a painted ladder for £3,500, which apparently was a bargain.
And people claim we City boys are pulling a fast one - seriously Dahrling, its art! Still, at least the people being laid-off from the fixed income teams because of the credit crunch might find work in such a market.
We won't share your data with anyone unless our junior staffers leave it lying around
In view of the UK Government's latest blunder, which involves the loss of 2 discs containing the personal details for 25 million peoples, I wonder whether there is the potential for a) a class action suit for negligence and b) this to transform privacy policies to allow for junior staffers mislaying your details that are then acquired by others to be an exclusion from liability?
Sadly, in the case of the class action I suppose one might have to prove actual loss but also the Government could simply put up taxes to pay for it.
Clearly the concern is that such information, were it to end up in the wrong hands, could be used for identify fraud purposes.
Makes you wonder how a "junior staffer" has the necessary system permissions/authority to download the entire set of child benefit records onto a disk? And had access to a CD/DVD burner, which most IT departments tend to disable to specific prevent such activities. Was the sloppy use of the postal service the only cock-up or is the bigger story that there open access to such records by staff.
At time of writing, evidently the ability of people to express their view on the BBC web site is a popular feature - being a site moderator tonight probably isn't the slackest job on the BBC night shift.
Can't wait for the No.10 petition to start that demands blood! Might rival the fuel tax petition.
On one hand, Gordon Brown must be furious as his Chancellor is forced to apologise twice in two days, the other being the (lost) money pit of Northern Rock. On the other, he must a little smug that he avoided as many calamities on his watch as Chancellor.
MISSING DATA INCLUDES...
- National insurance number
- Name, address and birth date
- Partner's details
- Names, sex and age of children
- Bank/savings account details
Clearly the concern is that such information, were it to end up in the wrong hands, could be used for identify fraud purposes.
Makes you wonder how a "junior staffer" has the necessary system permissions/authority to download the entire set of child benefit records onto a disk? And had access to a CD/DVD burner, which most IT departments tend to disable to specific prevent such activities. Was the sloppy use of the postal service the only cock-up or is the bigger story that there open access to such records by staff.
At time of writing, evidently the ability of people to express their view on the BBC web site is a popular feature - being a site moderator tonight probably isn't the slackest job on the BBC night shift.
DEBATE STATUS
Total comments: 5020
Published comments:2738
Rejected comments:54
Moderation queue:2227
Can't wait for the No.10 petition to start that demands blood! Might rival the fuel tax petition.
On one hand, Gordon Brown must be furious as his Chancellor is forced to apologise twice in two days, the other being the (lost) money pit of Northern Rock. On the other, he must a little smug that he avoided as many calamities on his watch as Chancellor.
Spice Girls do Yugoslavia
Most of the population will think of the FT as a dull read. Like any paper you just have to skim to the interesting bits.
Whilst every tabloid has inspired journalists who each day create punchy and witty headlines and simplify the hardest story, so the FT has journalists who provide insightful commentaries.
They also have cutting wit though.
Last week end the Music Section of the FT (yes, it has one) had a review by Peter Aspden of the Spice Girls and contained this absolute gem
"To judge by the video (of Headlines), it is the kind of reunion I imagine when the former states of Yugoslavia get together to discuss mutual sewage needs.......they adopt a series of poses and pouts that would shame a $10 drag act"
Whilst every tabloid has inspired journalists who each day create punchy and witty headlines and simplify the hardest story, so the FT has journalists who provide insightful commentaries.
They also have cutting wit though.
Last week end the Music Section of the FT (yes, it has one) had a review by Peter Aspden of the Spice Girls and contained this absolute gem
"To judge by the video (of Headlines), it is the kind of reunion I imagine when the former states of Yugoslavia get together to discuss mutual sewage needs.......they adopt a series of poses and pouts that would shame a $10 drag act"
That's one bite of apple for you, five for them and four for me
Mashable's quick guide to how the record pie slices up.
Out of every track sold for $.99, Apple receives $.35, the artist takes $.11, and the record label walks away with the lions share at $.53.
Out of every track sold for $.99, Apple receives $.35, the artist takes $.11, and the record label walks away with the lions share at $.53.
Not bad for a day's work
I was with the boss of a music artist management company today chatting about the live sector. He commented that the live sector success is actually slanted towards the high end acts and the summer festivals market. Many acts aren't seeing the same results trickle down to them.
The festivals are providing bumper pay-days for some acts. Oasis reported got £1m for headlining at the V festival whilst the 3rd on the bill got £300k. Headliners are typically getting between £500k-£1m payout for an appearance. Bearing in mind these aren't usually full shows, but short sets that an act plays, it's very attractive work.
It's noteworthy that many festival goers often sign-up/buy tickets well ahead of the line-ups being announced simply on the basis of the event e.g. O2 wireless festival, V Festival, Glastonbury.
The festivals are providing bumper pay-days for some acts. Oasis reported got £1m for headlining at the V festival whilst the 3rd on the bill got £300k. Headliners are typically getting between £500k-£1m payout for an appearance. Bearing in mind these aren't usually full shows, but short sets that an act plays, it's very attractive work.
It's noteworthy that many festival goers often sign-up/buy tickets well ahead of the line-ups being announced simply on the basis of the event e.g. O2 wireless festival, V Festival, Glastonbury.
What in Cod's name is going on
Radio 4's tomorrow programme carried a report today that between 40%-60% of all cod caught in the North Sea is thrown back dead in order to comply with quotas. This is an EU Commission sourced statistic.
By the time the fish have been sorted on board the boats, most of the fish are dead. However, because the quotas restrict the volume of cod that can be landed, they have to be discarded in the sea.
Some conservationists on the programme suggested using technologies to only catch certain fish - unfortunately the fish aren't playing along and enter the nets anyway.
When regulators interfere with markets with good intentions, unforeseen and harmful consequences can often arise. This is a perfect example. The quotas are designed to protect and preserve cod stock in the North Sea, but they only work to stop the fish being landed. The idea of not rewarding fishermen for "accidentally" catching the wrong fish makes sense - getting them to dump it instead, plainly doesn't.
The response from the Government Minister invited to appear on the programme was ........ to propose increasing the quotas such that more could be landed. Whilst it may reduce the "waste", that doesn't appear to deal with the shortage issue.
By the time the fish have been sorted on board the boats, most of the fish are dead. However, because the quotas restrict the volume of cod that can be landed, they have to be discarded in the sea.
Some conservationists on the programme suggested using technologies to only catch certain fish - unfortunately the fish aren't playing along and enter the nets anyway.
When regulators interfere with markets with good intentions, unforeseen and harmful consequences can often arise. This is a perfect example. The quotas are designed to protect and preserve cod stock in the North Sea, but they only work to stop the fish being landed. The idea of not rewarding fishermen for "accidentally" catching the wrong fish makes sense - getting them to dump it instead, plainly doesn't.
The response from the Government Minister invited to appear on the programme was ........ to propose increasing the quotas such that more could be landed. Whilst it may reduce the "waste", that doesn't appear to deal with the shortage issue.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Omer Golan wins at the bookmakers
Unbelievable.
Israel beat Russia 2-1 thanks to a last minute goal from Omer Golan, which means England could reach the Euro finals if they get a draw v Croatia on Wednesday.
As for Omer, he gets to collect a new £50k Mercedes from Betfred, who promised to award the car to the scorer of a winning goal against Russia. There was one they never expected to payout on. Then again, I bet a few folks lost a few quid on Israel winning.
Israel beat Russia 2-1 thanks to a last minute goal from Omer Golan, which means England could reach the Euro finals if they get a draw v Croatia on Wednesday.
As for Omer, he gets to collect a new £50k Mercedes from Betfred, who promised to award the car to the scorer of a winning goal against Russia. There was one they never expected to payout on. Then again, I bet a few folks lost a few quid on Israel winning.
Hi, remember us. You promised we could return these if there was a problem.
Marc Andreessen has this on his blog
Wow. Writing that kind of option always seems innocent at the time - never gonna happen but makes the buyer feel better, so what's the harm. Hardly worth mentioning that kind of embedded option in the books as it carries no value. In fact, so insignificant everyone but the buyers seem to have forgotten about it.
Failure to disclose contingent liabilities of this magnitude is going to cause a stink.
Carol Loomis buries the lede:
At bottom, the countdown to both [Citigroup CEO] Prince's exit and Citi's November shocks began in [the] summer crisis period for the credit markets. Citi started then to have ominous dealings with CDOs [financial instruments that consist of bundled debt] that carried a "liquidity put." Never heard of a liquidity put? Google will give you a few uninformative references. But it is testimony to the obscurity of this term that [Citigroup Chairman and former Treasury Secretary] Rubin says he had never heard of liquidity puts until they started harassing Citi last summer.
What Citi did a couple of years ago was insert a put type of option into otherwise conventional CDOs that were backed by subprime mortgages and sold to such entities as funds set up by Wall Street firms. The put allowed any buyer of these CDOs who ran into financing problems to sell them back - at original value - to Citi. The likelihood of the put being exercised, however, was regarded as extremely remote because the CDOs were structured to be high-grade entities called "super-senior."
Meanwhile, you might think the existence of the put would make it impossible for Citi to get those CDOs entirely off its balance sheet. [Yes, you might.] But in fact Citi found a complex accounting rationale for doing exactly that, and the CDOs jumped entirely to somebody else's balance sheet. All that remained in Citi's realm was this sticky little matter of the puts - which, as we shall immediately see, ultimately worked to get these CDOs right back to their creator, Citi.
Last summer, with the whole world suddenly unwilling to finance CDOs, the holders of the liquidity-put CDOs began to return them to Citi. And that's where they now reside - $25 billion of them, a very large lump in Citi's $55 billion of subprime-related securities. That entire package of trouble was the subject of Citi's Nov. 5 analyst call. This was the third presentation that Citi had made to analysts in five weeks - each of these confessionals more anguished than the last - and in that time Citi's stock and Prince's credibility had been punished.
Wow. Writing that kind of option always seems innocent at the time - never gonna happen but makes the buyer feel better, so what's the harm. Hardly worth mentioning that kind of embedded option in the books as it carries no value. In fact, so insignificant everyone but the buyers seem to have forgotten about it.
Failure to disclose contingent liabilities of this magnitude is going to cause a stink.
Housing crash is the fault of a bloke down the pub
Harry Hill who is the Chairman of the Countrywide, which is the UK's biggest chain of estate agents, was quoted in today's Financial Times as saying
"Mr Average is just seeing this maelstrom of new going around in his head, most of which isn't very good. Even if he foes to buy a house, he goes to the pub and half his mates say he must be mental. So he rings (us) up and changes his mind (about the purchase of a house he agreed to)"
So you see, the bloke in the pub is the real cause of the downturn in the housing market - if he kept his mouth shut things would be fine. Instead, his negativity is hitting Countrywide and prompting branch closures in the group which was only taken private last May for £1bn but which has since reported falling sales and turnover.
"Mr Average is just seeing this maelstrom of new going around in his head, most of which isn't very good. Even if he foes to buy a house, he goes to the pub and half his mates say he must be mental. So he rings (us) up and changes his mind (about the purchase of a house he agreed to)"
So you see, the bloke in the pub is the real cause of the downturn in the housing market - if he kept his mouth shut things would be fine. Instead, his negativity is hitting Countrywide and prompting branch closures in the group which was only taken private last May for £1bn but which has since reported falling sales and turnover.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Brands and artist in need
Need some TV exposure to pep up a brand ordinarily viewed with cynicism or ignored.
Or got an act falling into obscurity that needs to relaunch and get new album/tour off the ground.
Film or single launch perhaps that would benefit from primetime.
Then offer your services to the BBC to help their charity appeal night.
After watching a few hours of the BBC Children in Need fund raising show tonight, I lost count of the number of brands vying for airtime, amongst the acts giving careers a nudge (or a resurrection in a few cases).
It's in a great cause (a childrens charity I'm involved with has been a beneficiary in years past) and so its forgivable - indeed perhaps I'm mistakenly seeing commercial motives where there are an "unitended" byproduct.
Highlight of the night - Anna Lennox performing (and you thought I was going to say first outing of the Spice Girls)
Or got an act falling into obscurity that needs to relaunch and get new album/tour off the ground.
Film or single launch perhaps that would benefit from primetime.
Then offer your services to the BBC to help their charity appeal night.
After watching a few hours of the BBC Children in Need fund raising show tonight, I lost count of the number of brands vying for airtime, amongst the acts giving careers a nudge (or a resurrection in a few cases).
It's in a great cause (a childrens charity I'm involved with has been a beneficiary in years past) and so its forgivable - indeed perhaps I'm mistakenly seeing commercial motives where there are an "unitended" byproduct.
Highlight of the night - Anna Lennox performing (and you thought I was going to say first outing of the Spice Girls)
Knowing me, knowing you
Aha.
You may recall that a service was launched sometime ago by Shazam, which could listen to music and help you identify what it was (artist, track). However, it relied on listening to the actual recording rather than the drunken rendition version.
Well, Midomi have gone one better and let you sing your version to it! Obviously it works better if you have a fantastic voice like myself ;-) and it worked for the few sample tests I ran, correctly putting each track at the top of the list of closest matches. And it was fast too.
Brilliant. So now you've an answer to the situation when that track you keep humming but don't know who it is by is bothering you. And yes, its a free service.
Lime in the Coconut - so that's what it was.
You may recall that a service was launched sometime ago by Shazam, which could listen to music and help you identify what it was (artist, track). However, it relied on listening to the actual recording rather than the drunken rendition version.
Well, Midomi have gone one better and let you sing your version to it! Obviously it works better if you have a fantastic voice like myself ;-) and it worked for the few sample tests I ran, correctly putting each track at the top of the list of closest matches. And it was fast too.
Brilliant. So now you've an answer to the situation when that track you keep humming but don't know who it is by is bothering you. And yes, its a free service.
Lime in the Coconut - so that's what it was.
Oh to have invested in this.
Paul Kedrosky has a post about two "contrarian" investors.
Paulson & Co. and Scion bet that the lowest quality subprime mortgages would see higher defaults than anyone expected; both have done so well that you can be sure they're chanting "Don't go! Don't go" in front of their Bloombergs.
Oh, to have been in their syndicate. Also to have seen the reaction from their counterparties a) when they placed the bets and b) when they closed them.
Paulson & Co. and Scion bet that the lowest quality subprime mortgages would see higher defaults than anyone expected; both have done so well that you can be sure they're chanting "Don't go! Don't go" in front of their Bloombergs.
How well have they done? Well, Paulson & Co. is up a staggering 435% in the first nine months of 2007, an astounding figure for any fund, but double-astounding for a firm running $24-billion in assets.
Both Paulson and Scion now say they are winding down some of their negative bets in residential mortgage-backed securities, and they're moving on to bets against corporate debt.Oh, to have been in their syndicate. Also to have seen the reaction from their counterparties a) when they placed the bets and b) when they closed them.
Jay-Z - are you sure about this?
Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter recently announced that his new album, American Gangster, will not be for sale through iTunes—not because of DRM issue or flat-rate pricing. Nope, it's because he doesn't want the album to be broken down into individually-purchasable tracks.
"As movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles," Carter said in a statement. Apparently it's the kind of album that you have to listen to from start to finish in order to really understand it.
Ok. So we can also conclude presumably that a) there will be no CD singles from the album b) radio stations will be barred from playing solitary tracks from it, lest the true art not come through. Moreover, the music video will include all the tracks from the album in one (long) piece. As for the downloadable ringtones.......
"As movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles," Carter said in a statement. Apparently it's the kind of album that you have to listen to from start to finish in order to really understand it.
Ok. So we can also conclude presumably that a) there will be no CD singles from the album b) radio stations will be barred from playing solitary tracks from it, lest the true art not come through. Moreover, the music video will include all the tracks from the album in one (long) piece. As for the downloadable ringtones.......
Leaving the bride at the altar
Since the credit crunch, Dealogic have identified more than $200bn of failed corporate transactions, which is double the rate of 2006. Most deals were agreed in rosier times in the credit market.
Examples are Cerebus (a Northern Rock bidder) walked away from United Rentals ($7bn); JC Flowers walked away from Sallie Mae ($26bn); Cerebus left Affiliated Computer Sciences behind ($8bn)...........
That's a lot of cash remaining stashed under a mattress.
Examples are Cerebus (a Northern Rock bidder) walked away from United Rentals ($7bn); JC Flowers walked away from Sallie Mae ($26bn); Cerebus left Affiliated Computer Sciences behind ($8bn)...........
That's a lot of cash remaining stashed under a mattress.
The joy of youthful innocence
I happened to be speaking to an ex-EMI employee this week, who'd only recently left the company. When I suggested that Terra Firma would probably break the company up, to leave themselves with the publishing and back catalogue bits, she got most annoyed.
"Guy Hands verbally promised the staff that he wouldn't do that and he'd lose a lot of face if he did".
Hmmm. I can see that weighing heavily on Guy's mind were he to face the dilema that a breakup of EMI represented the best value option. "Shall I lose face with EMI staff or with the City and my investors who look to me to make them (and myself) stellar returns?"
I also learnt this week from a senior EMI executive that Guy's new management team are doing a root & branch review of the business asking penetrating questions of the EMI staffer such as
- "What do you actually do?"
- "Why, on earth, do you do that?"
- "How does the company make money from that?"
Don't forget these are generally people (like myself) who've not worked in the music industry and so aren't acclimatised to the culture and practices of the music sector. People, who instead, are driven by the profit motive and who may not understand the importance of pandering to big music stars, albeit I confess their are tons of similarities between the music industry and the City (egos, remuneration....).
"Guy Hands verbally promised the staff that he wouldn't do that and he'd lose a lot of face if he did".
Hmmm. I can see that weighing heavily on Guy's mind were he to face the dilema that a breakup of EMI represented the best value option. "Shall I lose face with EMI staff or with the City and my investors who look to me to make them (and myself) stellar returns?"
I also learnt this week from a senior EMI executive that Guy's new management team are doing a root & branch review of the business asking penetrating questions of the EMI staffer such as
- "What do you actually do?"
- "Why, on earth, do you do that?"
- "How does the company make money from that?"
Don't forget these are generally people (like myself) who've not worked in the music industry and so aren't acclimatised to the culture and practices of the music sector. People, who instead, are driven by the profit motive and who may not understand the importance of pandering to big music stars, albeit I confess their are tons of similarities between the music industry and the City (egos, remuneration....).
Guy Hands to be ejected from the Magic Circle
Guy Hands, the boss of Terra Firma, the high profile private equity firm that counts EMI amongst its' stable of portfolio companies has just done the daftest thing.
No, I'm not referring to his outburst of describing bankers as "whimpering dogs", on the basis bankers were refusing to bankroll mega buy-outs for years, given that most bankers have heard themselves described in worse terms (of course, they may extract revenge from future deal pricing).
What I'm referring to is breaking the code of magical mystery that surrounds how private equity works, in the same way as a magician might reveal how a magic trick is done.
In his speech at the Super Investor Conference in Paris (is that "super", as in "I think they are super"?), he laid out in plain english what private equity does, namely
- buy stuff with cheap debt and arbitrage the difference with the equity markets
- buy stuff at one multiple and wait for the multiples to go up
- buy stuff and see earnings go up
Doesn't he realise that for the layman to understand such matters, or more importantly investors financing private equity funds, that they might challenge the high remuneration paid to prviate equity firms.
Evidently, Guy's fury at not being able to raise tons of cheap debt from the banks, to allow the gravy train to keep flowing, sent him over the edge. Moreover, as he went onto lament, the first two options are now gone and the third is in peril from the real economy going into recession.
There must have been a stary glint in his eye as he described the conditions before the credit crunch as a "bygone era" and private equity firms having entered a "challenging phase".
He did offer some good news though - new opportunities would come from distressed investors with over-leveraged buy-out facing debt repayments in a year or so!
No, I'm not referring to his outburst of describing bankers as "whimpering dogs", on the basis bankers were refusing to bankroll mega buy-outs for years, given that most bankers have heard themselves described in worse terms (of course, they may extract revenge from future deal pricing).
What I'm referring to is breaking the code of magical mystery that surrounds how private equity works, in the same way as a magician might reveal how a magic trick is done.
In his speech at the Super Investor Conference in Paris (is that "super", as in "I think they are super"?), he laid out in plain english what private equity does, namely
- buy stuff with cheap debt and arbitrage the difference with the equity markets
- buy stuff at one multiple and wait for the multiples to go up
- buy stuff and see earnings go up
Doesn't he realise that for the layman to understand such matters, or more importantly investors financing private equity funds, that they might challenge the high remuneration paid to prviate equity firms.
Evidently, Guy's fury at not being able to raise tons of cheap debt from the banks, to allow the gravy train to keep flowing, sent him over the edge. Moreover, as he went onto lament, the first two options are now gone and the third is in peril from the real economy going into recession.
There must have been a stary glint in his eye as he described the conditions before the credit crunch as a "bygone era" and private equity firms having entered a "challenging phase".
He did offer some good news though - new opportunities would come from distressed investors with over-leveraged buy-out facing debt repayments in a year or so!
Don't you hate it when markets go quiet
I remember a comedy skit from a while back in which the "news desk" reported that there had been no share trading on the markets today as everyone had what they wanted.
Well, Exchanges love volatile markets because by and large it increases share trading volumes. Moreover, the increasing trend to break share trades up into ever smaller sizes as a means of avoiding detecting and causing a market impact, also benefits exchanges as they normally charge a transaction fee.
Yesterday the London Stock Exchange reported trade volumes on SETS, its electronic order book, up 77% in the 6 months to end Sept. That's a average of 555,000 trades per day.
This increased volume has meant that more customers have qualified for volume discounts, which pushed their profit per trade down from £1.38 to 99p per trade. Still pretty decent for a system with a margal cost of zero and which benefits from hosting other people's activity.
Well, Exchanges love volatile markets because by and large it increases share trading volumes. Moreover, the increasing trend to break share trades up into ever smaller sizes as a means of avoiding detecting and causing a market impact, also benefits exchanges as they normally charge a transaction fee.
Yesterday the London Stock Exchange reported trade volumes on SETS, its electronic order book, up 77% in the 6 months to end Sept. That's a average of 555,000 trades per day.
This increased volume has meant that more customers have qualified for volume discounts, which pushed their profit per trade down from £1.38 to 99p per trade. Still pretty decent for a system with a margal cost of zero and which benefits from hosting other people's activity.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Yep, MediaMax stinks
Turns out my whining about the online storage service, Mediamax, is part of a much larger chorus.
A comment left on my post here, directed me to the user community venting their anger as well as a blog about the MediaMax service.
A comment left on my post here, directed me to the user community venting their anger as well as a blog about the MediaMax service.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Mobile phones companies need to jump to the beat
Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music (and 70% controller of Warner shares with his Private Equity firm), is berating the mobile phone manufacturers to make their phones easier to use as music devices!
After all, these devices sit in the sweaty palms of 3 billion people, which are customers that Edgar want to get his hands on, if he and his colleagues are to have any hope of reversing their lingering demise. Trading at $8, down from their float price of $17 of two years ago, Pali Research now has them down at $5 target price.
Edgar conceded that the pace of demise of the CD market took them by surprise. To offset this they are now looking to use mobile phone downloads to drive growth. Plus they are now looking to monetise a wider set of related products including concert tickets, videos, merchandise and other goods.
Hmmm. Me thinks that the mobile operators aren't going to give up their customers or related value so easily. Content is great, but exclusivity is important and which label is going to want to do exclusive deals in a territory.
After all, these devices sit in the sweaty palms of 3 billion people, which are customers that Edgar want to get his hands on, if he and his colleagues are to have any hope of reversing their lingering demise. Trading at $8, down from their float price of $17 of two years ago, Pali Research now has them down at $5 target price.
Edgar conceded that the pace of demise of the CD market took them by surprise. To offset this they are now looking to use mobile phone downloads to drive growth. Plus they are now looking to monetise a wider set of related products including concert tickets, videos, merchandise and other goods.
Hmmm. Me thinks that the mobile operators aren't going to give up their customers or related value so easily. Content is great, but exclusivity is important and which label is going to want to do exclusive deals in a territory.
Dont say "bank run", you'll just cause a panic
Wow - E-trade is taking a pounding following a combination of announcements about "continued declines" in the value of its $3bn asset backed securities portfolio and analyst downgrades.
It has lost $9.2bn in market value since July now standing at $1.5bn. This won't be helped by Citigroup, which has issued an analyst report declaring a 15% probability of E-trade winding up in bankruptcy, further noting that
- 50% of e-trade deposits exceed $100k Federal deposit protection, equating to $15bn of deposits and accounting for 25% of e-trade funding.
- were investors to withdraw uninsured funds, e-trade would be forced to unload assets, incurring further losses with an enforced wind-down of their book, losses which they put at $5bn
- $12.5bn mortgage book expected to experience significant reduction in value
Hmmm. So if you were an e-trade customer, would you sit on your hands or get out quick just in case. After all, they aren't handing out medals for bravery in this situation!
It has lost $9.2bn in market value since July now standing at $1.5bn. This won't be helped by Citigroup, which has issued an analyst report declaring a 15% probability of E-trade winding up in bankruptcy, further noting that
- 50% of e-trade deposits exceed $100k Federal deposit protection, equating to $15bn of deposits and accounting for 25% of e-trade funding.
- were investors to withdraw uninsured funds, e-trade would be forced to unload assets, incurring further losses with an enforced wind-down of their book, losses which they put at $5bn
- $12.5bn mortgage book expected to experience significant reduction in value
Hmmm. So if you were an e-trade customer, would you sit on your hands or get out quick just in case. After all, they aren't handing out medals for bravery in this situation!
Social networks revealed
Interesting piece on Read/Write web today on demographics of social networks
Some highlights, followed by full details below from Rapleaf:
Some highlights, followed by full details below from Rapleaf:
- The greatest overlap between OpenSocial container sites exists between Myspace and Hi5, in which 43% of Hi5 users also use Myspace.
- Facebook users are 63% female and 36% male whereas the sites integrated with the OpenSocial platform are 61% female and 38% male.
- 52% of Facebook users are 18-25, whereas 40% of the users are 18-25 for the five container sites on the OpenSocial platform.
- Facebook users tend to use 2.9 major social networking sites on average whereas users of OpenSocial container sites tend to use 2.7 major social networking sites.
Facebook Users
- 2.6 million users identifed in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 17% <18>45 yrs
- 2.9 major social networking sites used on average
- 62% are on Myspace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 10% are on Plaxo, 22% are on Hi5
Myspace Users
- 11.3 million users identifed in Rapleaf
- 63% female, 36% male
- 20% <18>45 yrs
- 2.4 major social networking sites used on average
- 15% are on Facebook, 2% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 6% are on Plaxo, 17% are on Hi5
LinkedIn Users
- 0.8 million users identifed in Rapleaf
- 38% female, 61% male
- 2% <18>45 yrs
- 3.2 major social networking sites used on average
- 16% are on Facebook, 25% are on Myspace, 12% are on Friendster, 16% are on Plaxo, 8% are on Hi5
Friendster Users
- 2.3 million users identifed in Rapleaf
- 58% female, 41% male
- 12% <18>45 yrs
- 3.0 major social networking sites used on average
- 10% are on Facebook, 44% are on Myspace, 5% are on LinkedIn, 5% are on Plaxo, 26% are on Hi5
Plaxo Users
- 1.3 million users identifed in Rapleaf
- 62% female, 37% male
- 16% <18>45 yrs
- 3.6 major social networking sites used on average
- 20% are on Facebook, 53% are on Myspace, 11% are on LinkedIn, 9% are on Friendster, 15% are on Hi5
Hi5 Users
- 4.5 million users identifed in Rapleaf
- 60% female, 39% male
- 21% <18>45 yrs
- 2.8 major social networking sites used on average
- 13% are on Facebook, 43% are on Myspace, 2% are on LinkedIn, 13% are on Friendster, 2% are on Plaxo
Whilst this based on a sample using people they managed to identify, they are pretty sizeable sample sizes. I do wonder to what extent those people are active on multiple social networks rather than having simply left a footprint behind on sites they no longer use. The male/female ratios are also intriguing between the various communities - is it a surprise that LinkedIn is male dominated?
Songza - music search that rocks
Seeqpod is one of my favourite sites, providing an excellent music search service with an embedded audio and video player of tracks found. Moreover, if you are a registered user, you can create and store playlists.
Along similar lines is a site I stumbled on today called Songza, which describes itself as a music search engine and internet jukebox. The simplicity of the site is its essence, but it is both slick and stylish with a very neat user interface. The site has a built-in audio player which sits unobtrusively sits at the foot of the page.
Clicking on a search result, pops up a control allowing you to play, share, rate (quality of audio), add to playlist.
One surprise was that the link to "discography" took me into a google music search service (not a well advertised service) which brought back a raft of info on the artist. I'm surprised more people aren't using this service but perhaps I'm not alone in having been ignorant of its' existence.
Along similar lines is a site I stumbled on today called Songza, which describes itself as a music search engine and internet jukebox. The simplicity of the site is its essence, but it is both slick and stylish with a very neat user interface. The site has a built-in audio player which sits unobtrusively sits at the foot of the page.
Clicking on a search result, pops up a control allowing you to play, share, rate (quality of audio), add to playlist.
One surprise was that the link to "discography" took me into a google music search service (not a well advertised service) which brought back a raft of info on the artist. I'm surprised more people aren't using this service but perhaps I'm not alone in having been ignorant of its' existence.
Friday, November 9, 2007
The two faces of TV
Pleading poverty when negotiating with staff looking to take a slice of the action is a traditional negotiating technique. Simultaneously claiming to be worth a lot to a different group is not smart.
On being told their online work is “promotional” just doesn’t cut it anymore, one US TV script writer argued:
Heck said the TV execs in response, who knew that script writers read the financial press!
On being told their online work is “promotional” just doesn’t cut it anymore, one US TV script writer argued:
We understand that it’s a fairly new technology, but that doesn’t seem to prevent them (TV studios) from promising investors specific dollar amounts that they’re going to make off of it. It didn’t prevent them from valuing their Internet content at $1 billion when they sued YouTube.
Heck said the TV execs in response, who knew that script writers read the financial press!
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Spinvox - what's going on
I knew Spinvox were having problems getting staff to transcribe the calls, but is the message below their way out
"This person called and left you a new message. To hear it call +441412380250 on *44. - SpinVox"
Not exactly voice to text is it! So with just a notification, perhaps its now stopvox.
Mervyn King, Governor of Bank of England speaks re Northern Rock
Below is an edited BBC interview with the Governor of the Bank of England talking about Northern Rock.
Some fascinating comments
- he would have wished to have had a mechanism to be able to transfer out retail accounts
- because of the inadequacies of the deposit protection scheme i.e not 100%, he refused to tell people that their money was safe when the rational thing was to withdraw their money
- the Bank had to intervene because of the number of retail depositors involved and the systemic risk that would have been created
- the photos of queues at a British Bank was the most damaging one to the reputation of the Bank
Link here
Some fascinating comments
- he would have wished to have had a mechanism to be able to transfer out retail accounts
- because of the inadequacies of the deposit protection scheme i.e not 100%, he refused to tell people that their money was safe when the rational thing was to withdraw their money
- the Bank had to intervene because of the number of retail depositors involved and the systemic risk that would have been created
- the photos of queues at a British Bank was the most damaging one to the reputation of the Bank
Link here
Record Labels - Prices marked down
The City analysts are starting to spot the issue - record companies revenues may be under threat, with a resultant impact on share prices for such companies.
Webware picked up on a couple of those analysts recent notes on Warner Music, which were moved to a sell recommendation.
Richard Greenfield of Pali Research, penned a gloomy report about why he thinks the sector is headed for even greater losses.
The recorded music sector generated revenues of $14.3 billion in 2000, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. This year, it's expected to report revenue of $10.3 billion. Had sales growth only kept pace with the U.S. economy, it now would be worth $17 billion
Webware picked up on a couple of those analysts recent notes on Warner Music, which were moved to a sell recommendation.
Richard Greenfield of Pali Research, penned a gloomy report about why he thinks the sector is headed for even greater losses.
"No matter how many people the RIAA sues, no matter how many times music executives point to the growth of digital music, we believe an increasing majority of worldwide consumers simply view recorded music as free," Greenfield wrote.
Following the reports, Warner Music's stock hit a 52-week low ($8.78) on Friday. The company's shares, which were trading above $27 a year ago, closed Tuesday at $9.50.The recorded music sector generated revenues of $14.3 billion in 2000, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. This year, it's expected to report revenue of $10.3 billion. Had sales growth only kept pace with the U.S. economy, it now would be worth $17 billion
Facebook has its eyes on you
Om Malik has an interesting post regarding Facebook's new ad-mechanism, which involves over 40 partners at present.
These partner sites put a little a piece of Facebook javascript on their web site and certain information, cleverly (and innocuously) labeled as a user alert, is sent to Facebook. For instance, Fandago users can publish information about the movies they saw. It all seems like a clever idea because it lets Facebook triangulate your likes and dislikes even more, and deliver more focused ads.
The javascript on the Fandango site pops up a little screen which asks if you want to publish the information on Facebook. If you say no, your friends won’t see the information, but apparently Facebook still receives it. This means that if you are a Facebook member, Facebook will know what you are doing on each of their partner sites. And there is no way for you to opt out of that. Or is there? I asked Facebook to clarify and I am still waiting for them to write back.
It's one thing to know about what your customers do on your own site, but way different to be snooping on them wherever they go without their knowledge. That said, I wonder how many will care. For some it will never be acceptable; others may initially find it creepy; lots may give it a "whatever" shrug.
These partner sites put a little a piece of Facebook javascript on their web site and certain information, cleverly (and innocuously) labeled as a user alert, is sent to Facebook. For instance, Fandago users can publish information about the movies they saw. It all seems like a clever idea because it lets Facebook triangulate your likes and dislikes even more, and deliver more focused ads.
The javascript on the Fandango site pops up a little screen which asks if you want to publish the information on Facebook. If you say no, your friends won’t see the information, but apparently Facebook still receives it. This means that if you are a Facebook member, Facebook will know what you are doing on each of their partner sites. And there is no way for you to opt out of that. Or is there? I asked Facebook to clarify and I am still waiting for them to write back.
It's one thing to know about what your customers do on your own site, but way different to be snooping on them wherever they go without their knowledge. That said, I wonder how many will care. For some it will never be acceptable; others may initially find it creepy; lots may give it a "whatever" shrug.
Prince prompts a revolution
According to Betanews:
Pop musician Prince continued his online content bulldozing with a series of legal notices sent to sites devoted to the artist, demanding that all images of, lyrics by, and "anything linked to the likeness of " the artist be removed.
Fan sites housequake.com, prince.org, and princefams.com have joined together to form Prince Fans United, stating that the actions amount to censorship and violate free speech laws.
Why do artists persist in persecuting fans who can be bothered to create "web-shrines" to their favourite artists? This volunteer labour is promoting the artist's work and creating a good feeling around "belonging" to the group that likes the artist. Most consumer brands would be delighted that anyone cared enough about their product.
Instead, these groups are being hounded with the probability that some of them may become incensed enough to abandon their love for the artist.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Developer Jobs
To the folks who've been in touch re my "jobs available" blog post from a few days ago, thanks. To those that have left me meebome messages via this blog, please leave me your name, email address or IM address and I will get in touch.
Alternatively use john dot wilson at foliopartners dot com. BTW there are no fees available to recruiters, but you are welcome to send over candidates on that basis ;-)
Alternatively use john dot wilson at foliopartners dot com. BTW there are no fees available to recruiters, but you are welcome to send over candidates on that basis ;-)
Selling bras - Making mountains out of molehills
Unusual experience today - met my wife for lunch in the West End, after which she decided she would pop into Bravissimo (Lingerie, Swimwear & Clothing for big boobed women - their strapline, not mine as you can see from their home page) which is just off Oxford Circus.
Well, if there was a wifi connection, I could have spent all day in there, but that's a different issue.
Anyway, the stores is peppered with little slogans like - "take the plunge with our swimwear" with a picture of an ample lady in a swimsuit etc. Their brand is definitely a humorous and sassy one.
So, whilst I am waiting for my wife, adjacent to me they are running a feedback session on an upcoming advertising campaign. Ladies that have just had the "Bravissimo experience" are being shown a series of ads and asked for their impressions on the message and visuals etc.
Well, as those that know me, I have a tendency to do wisecracks and fancy myself as an hobbyist advertiser (you should hear my mobile phone company campaign song, which I am still amazed Orange didn't jump at, involving a rewording of the track Shout from Tears for Fears).
So to my wife's embarrassment, I volunteered a few slogans they might use
- "Bravissimo, your second biggest asset"
- "For girls who can be a handful"
- "You've tried the rest, now fit the breast"
- "Bringing out your breast side"
- "This is one cup that shouldn't overfloweth"
- "Only for girls that can measure up"
- "Bravissimo, Definitely not a cover-up"
- "Bravissimo, You can count on our support"
To her astonishment - they actually liked them! So I now await my royalty cheques and my expulsion notice from Girl Geek Dinners. Meantime, I wonder if Hugh might take an interest in this social object.
Well, if there was a wifi connection, I could have spent all day in there, but that's a different issue.
Anyway, the stores is peppered with little slogans like - "take the plunge with our swimwear" with a picture of an ample lady in a swimsuit etc. Their brand is definitely a humorous and sassy one.
So, whilst I am waiting for my wife, adjacent to me they are running a feedback session on an upcoming advertising campaign. Ladies that have just had the "Bravissimo experience" are being shown a series of ads and asked for their impressions on the message and visuals etc.
Well, as those that know me, I have a tendency to do wisecracks and fancy myself as an hobbyist advertiser (you should hear my mobile phone company campaign song, which I am still amazed Orange didn't jump at, involving a rewording of the track Shout from Tears for Fears).
So to my wife's embarrassment, I volunteered a few slogans they might use
- "Bravissimo, your second biggest asset"
- "For girls who can be a handful"
- "You've tried the rest, now fit the breast"
- "Bringing out your breast side"
- "This is one cup that shouldn't overfloweth"
- "Only for girls that can measure up"
- "Bravissimo, Definitely not a cover-up"
- "Bravissimo, You can count on our support"
To her astonishment - they actually liked them! So I now await my royalty cheques and my expulsion notice from Girl Geek Dinners. Meantime, I wonder if Hugh might take an interest in this social object.
Tough Call - Work or Watch the Rugby World Cup Final
More news on Spinvox's trouble with their South African call centre.
Their sub-contractor, Valldata, make local staff work local holidays with no extra pay - this has upset most staff and reflected in poor staff attendances on the recent 2-day public holiday.
Similarly, the South African service queue had over 1600 messages and 2 staff the day SA won the Rugby World Cup - lots of celebratory calls but most staff absent to watch the game! Apparently, they are struggling with this accent and the continued mix of other languages (Zulu etc).
Their sub-contractor, Valldata, make local staff work local holidays with no extra pay - this has upset most staff and reflected in poor staff attendances on the recent 2-day public holiday.
Similarly, the South African service queue had over 1600 messages and 2 staff the day SA won the Rugby World Cup - lots of celebratory calls but most staff absent to watch the game! Apparently, they are struggling with this accent and the continued mix of other languages (Zulu etc).
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