Welcome to Market Revolution's blog



Thank you for visiting Market Revolution's blog.

We live and work in exciting times - revolutionary times. Technology continues to recast the media industry.

The extraordinary advance of affordable personal digital technology and the stellar rise of social networks are both distrupting and transforming the media market making this a unique moment to be involved in the convergence sectors we focus on.

This is also our place to ruminate and comment on the world as we see it, we hope you enjoy and please join in.





Wednesday 29 December 2010

Groupon file for massive fundraise

Having turned down a huge bid from Google it seems that Groupon are now firing up with a massive fund raise.

"Groupon filed a request with Delaware authorities to raise as much as $950 million by offering preferred shares, The Wall Street Journal reported."

We all thought Groupon were nuts to turn down Google and that they should have taken the money.

Having so publicly declared and demonstrated their independence they now need big funds to defend their territories and to grow. It's not going to be easy. Competition is growing from a raft of players that include newspapers who scent an opportunity for themselves in the Groupong model. And then they is Google who having been rebuffed are unlikely to sit idly by and let Groupon succeed. And lastly there is the growing negative buzz that surrounds Groupon. Merchants and customers who have had a poor and unprofitable experience are increasing vocal.

Sure all makes for an interesting story in 2011.

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Online ad spend greater than newspaper in 2010

Digital advertising in the U.S. will exceed ads in newspapers for the first time in 2010, as marketers follow consumers online and digital messages are viewed as more reliable than print.

Online advertising spending will finish the year with a 13.9 percent increase to $25.8 billion, compared with an 8.2 percent decline to $22.8 billion for print newspaper ads, New York-based researcher eMarketer said today on its website.

"It’s something we’ve seen coming for a long time, but this is a tipping point," Geoff Ramsey, chief executive officer at eMarketer, said in the statement. "The bad economy has actually accelerated the shift to digital advertising."

Online ads are typically seen as more reliable, he said, because their effectiveness can be measured, whereas print ads “are often difficult to tie to a measurable financial result.”

Newspapers will end 2010 with a 7.8 percent gain in online ad spending, to $3 billion, leaving them with an overall drop of 6.6 percent, to $25.7 billion, eMarketer said.

Total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to increase 3 percent to $168.5 billion in 2010, the research company said. Expenditure on newspaper print ads will continue to decline next year by 6 percent to $21.4 billion, and total online spending will rise 10.5 percent in to $28.5 billion, eMarketer estimated.

Sunday 19 December 2010

Bomber Command - oldie but goodie

I'm sure you've all read this many times before.....I hadn't ever read it which is why I post it here

Bomber Command's Operational Research Section (BC-ORS), analysed a report of a survey carried out by RAF Bomber Command. For the survey, Bomber Command inspected all bombers returning from bombing raids over Germany over a particular period. All damage inflicted by German air defences was noted and the recommendation was given that armour be added in the most heavily damaged areas. Their suggestion to remove some of the crew so that an aircraft loss would result in fewer personnel loss was rejected by RAF command. [Patrick] Blackett's team instead made the surprising and counter-intuitive recommendation that the armour be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers which returned. They reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The untouched areas of returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft.