Here at ME Towers, we're working across a number of converged sectors and technologies. Those who know us will be aware of our efforts on plastic card based loyalty schemes, enabling brands to have proper links with customers at an individual level, in our view crucial to a successful and profitable future.
With this in mind, we liked the Evening Standard's Eros scheme as a concept when it launched. Rewarding loyal buyers in a ferociously competitive market made sense. We were running tracking research when the free papers launched, so we could see the effect it was having on the paid for ES. This seemed like a good plan.
However, its key message of pre-pay and save 20p didn't fit with its target audience of discerning and intelligent suits, who frankly didn't care about saving 20p for the hassle involved in loading a card. Coupled with its single use closed loop acceptance network, it seemed like the concept would struggle.
Looking at the ABC circulation figures for the ES, you can see the small number of copies being bought on lesser rate pre-pay, so it's obvious that phase 2 development was needed.
And now we have the Green card - jumping on the bandwagon, or in response to consumer insight and demand? We don't know, but have a sneeking suspicion it may be the first of the two. We hope not, we applaud the ES for their vision, and having the confidence to go for this sort of venture - there's few things out there in the sector that have the potential to change the market dynamics, but this is one of them.
The future is plastic, and we are working hard to enable this with our clients, but always listening to the consumer as we do so
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Friday, 18 April 2008
Expensive business
Free London afternoon paper thelondondon (News International) lost nearly £17m (€22m) in the first ten months (September 2006 - June 2007). Turnover in that period was £8m.
Launching costs and slow start for ad sales are held responsible for the loss.
Thelondonpaper has a staff of 52 people, 33 working in editorial positions. Circulation is around 500,000. (Guardian)
Launching costs and slow start for ad sales are held responsible for the loss.
Thelondonpaper has a staff of 52 people, 33 working in editorial positions. Circulation is around 500,000. (Guardian)
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Credit crunch continues
Lead story in The Times today is the JP Morgan forecast that 40,000 City jobs will go as a result of the ongoing global credit crunch. This follows last weeks news that 1 in 4 estate agents will be jobless, as the housing market starts to plunge.
Turbulent times out there, and all the signs remain bleak. As households start to suffer more, belts are tightened and spending reined in, how's that going to hit the media sector?
Free content should in theory come to the fore, as the "floating buyers" in the market, and the occasional buyers, count the pennies and switch from paid-for-print, to free print, or to free digital. I fear for the weekend market most, with higher cover prices already looking to have driven down the number of people dual-buying at the weekend - and the budget conscious will be looking hard before spending £2 on a Sunday newspaper.
The rest of 2008 should see paid-for circulations under increasing pressure. Which of the newspaper brands is going to be first to establish something tangible to recognise their readers real financial issues, and start acting like a real life trusted and helpful brand?
Turbulent times out there, and all the signs remain bleak. As households start to suffer more, belts are tightened and spending reined in, how's that going to hit the media sector?
Free content should in theory come to the fore, as the "floating buyers" in the market, and the occasional buyers, count the pennies and switch from paid-for-print, to free print, or to free digital. I fear for the weekend market most, with higher cover prices already looking to have driven down the number of people dual-buying at the weekend - and the budget conscious will be looking hard before spending £2 on a Sunday newspaper.
The rest of 2008 should see paid-for circulations under increasing pressure. Which of the newspaper brands is going to be first to establish something tangible to recognise their readers real financial issues, and start acting like a real life trusted and helpful brand?
Monday, 7 April 2008
Deal or no deal?
Just a short post today on two interesting developments in the media world.
Firstly, Dennis O'Brien, Irish billionaire who now owns 21% of Independent News & Media looks like he may have to put up or shut up in his potential quest for ownership of the Irish Media business. He has publicly criticised Tony O'Reilly's ongoing ownership of the loss making UK Independents, and pushed for their sale. Much talk around the industry about what would happen if the titles closed, but personally our view is that there will always be a buyer for a national newspaper, regardless of how loss-making it is. As the Barclay Brothers and Richard Desmond have demonstrated in the last few years, national newspapers do get bought when they get put on the market. Maybe Axel Springer could return with a bid for a UK title, or maybe David Montgomery may feel like a UK presence for his European wide business could be too good an opportunity to pass up.
Our view, O'Reilly doesn't want to sell, and provided he can repel the unwanted dissident shareholder, we can't see the Independent changing hands
Second story of the day - the collapse of the bid by Lachlan Murdoch to takeover Consolidated Media Holdings, part of the Packer dynasty. Reports indicate that this came down to Lachlan being unable to get the right price for the right shareholding in the JV - and the backers pulled out through fear over the investment required in todays volatile global economy. Things must be serious when a Murdoch and a Packer can't get a deal done. Which target is next for Murdoch Jnr?
Firstly, Dennis O'Brien, Irish billionaire who now owns 21% of Independent News & Media looks like he may have to put up or shut up in his potential quest for ownership of the Irish Media business. He has publicly criticised Tony O'Reilly's ongoing ownership of the loss making UK Independents, and pushed for their sale. Much talk around the industry about what would happen if the titles closed, but personally our view is that there will always be a buyer for a national newspaper, regardless of how loss-making it is. As the Barclay Brothers and Richard Desmond have demonstrated in the last few years, national newspapers do get bought when they get put on the market. Maybe Axel Springer could return with a bid for a UK title, or maybe David Montgomery may feel like a UK presence for his European wide business could be too good an opportunity to pass up.
Our view, O'Reilly doesn't want to sell, and provided he can repel the unwanted dissident shareholder, we can't see the Independent changing hands
Second story of the day - the collapse of the bid by Lachlan Murdoch to takeover Consolidated Media Holdings, part of the Packer dynasty. Reports indicate that this came down to Lachlan being unable to get the right price for the right shareholding in the JV - and the backers pulled out through fear over the investment required in todays volatile global economy. Things must be serious when a Murdoch and a Packer can't get a deal done. Which target is next for Murdoch Jnr?
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Confused marketing messages
Today I read that email marketing is dead, killed by the avalanche of spam that continues to swamp inboxes around the globe. Not sure if that's true or not, personally I still read emails from brands I like and trust.
Waterstones is one of those brands. I read books, I like their shops, and I buy their books each and every month. I actually prefer to spend time in the bricks and mortar world of Waterstones than their online store.
Their email marketing campaigns have been fairly woeful, mainly I think because they don't tailor their messages to me based on what I like, and what they know about me. Presumably because they can't connect all the insight and behaviour they have on me as an individual. I'm anonymous in-store where I spend money, and inactive online, where I don't spend cash.
Either way, oddest subject matter on a marketing email this morning came from Waterstones, and I quote:
"Change your life with Salman Rushdie, Charlie and Lola"
Salman Rushdie - Fatwa suffering Satanic Verses author with international notoriety
Charlie and Lola - found on the shelves of discerning 5 year olds across the country
Maybe I'm missing something, but this is just random isn't it?
Waterstones is one of those brands. I read books, I like their shops, and I buy their books each and every month. I actually prefer to spend time in the bricks and mortar world of Waterstones than their online store.
Their email marketing campaigns have been fairly woeful, mainly I think because they don't tailor their messages to me based on what I like, and what they know about me. Presumably because they can't connect all the insight and behaviour they have on me as an individual. I'm anonymous in-store where I spend money, and inactive online, where I don't spend cash.
Either way, oddest subject matter on a marketing email this morning came from Waterstones, and I quote:
"Change your life with Salman Rushdie, Charlie and Lola"
Salman Rushdie - Fatwa suffering Satanic Verses author with international notoriety
Charlie and Lola - found on the shelves of discerning 5 year olds across the country
Maybe I'm missing something, but this is just random isn't it?
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
Toxic mortgages coming home to roost
There are dark clouds on the horizon, and the storm seems to be gathering pace.
First Direct have withdrawn all mortgages from the market, which is the equivalent of one of our newspaper clients deciding that they can't afford to cover sport any further. My understanding of the dynamics driving this are:
Mortgages sold badly in US to people who can't afford them, who default, making the investment fall over. All these have already been packaged up and sold onto financial institutions, who re-package again and then re-sell. Which then starts falling over to an extent, but is a timebomb ticking away, with no-one having much idea as to future effect at an individual bank/institution level as more of the wheels (on the house) start coming off.
So, the banks stop lending each other money as they don't know who is solvent, and who is playing pass the parcel with the timebomb with the music still playing. This means cash liquidity gets badly squeezed, and the cost of borrowing the diminishing amount of money available then goes up.
Then the institutions don't have money to lend for mortgages at competitive rates, so they have to stop offering the products.
So, then it gets harder to get a mortgage, and also to re-mortgage when you come off a fixed mortgage. Which means it costs people more in monthly payments. Which hits consumer spending, which slows economic growth, and threatens recession, which costs jobs, incomes and home ownership.
And all because some grubby American salesperson, with the ethics and morals of the gutter, was sent to sell mortgages to people who could never hope to afford them, and signed up vast numbers of the economically challenged into really bad deals.
Anyone got any good news?
First Direct have withdrawn all mortgages from the market, which is the equivalent of one of our newspaper clients deciding that they can't afford to cover sport any further. My understanding of the dynamics driving this are:
Mortgages sold badly in US to people who can't afford them, who default, making the investment fall over. All these have already been packaged up and sold onto financial institutions, who re-package again and then re-sell. Which then starts falling over to an extent, but is a timebomb ticking away, with no-one having much idea as to future effect at an individual bank/institution level as more of the wheels (on the house) start coming off.
So, the banks stop lending each other money as they don't know who is solvent, and who is playing pass the parcel with the timebomb with the music still playing. This means cash liquidity gets badly squeezed, and the cost of borrowing the diminishing amount of money available then goes up.
Then the institutions don't have money to lend for mortgages at competitive rates, so they have to stop offering the products.
So, then it gets harder to get a mortgage, and also to re-mortgage when you come off a fixed mortgage. Which means it costs people more in monthly payments. Which hits consumer spending, which slows economic growth, and threatens recession, which costs jobs, incomes and home ownership.
And all because some grubby American salesperson, with the ethics and morals of the gutter, was sent to sell mortgages to people who could never hope to afford them, and signed up vast numbers of the economically challenged into really bad deals.
Anyone got any good news?
Monday, 31 March 2008
The importance of a good story order
Thanks to Roy Greenslade's blog for this. Worth 20 seconds of time in anyone's working day......
Here's a gem from the Daily Record's Pat Roller column about a story that appeared in the Cumbernauld News, though it doesn't appear on that paper's website, perhaps unsurprisingly.
"If you have recently lost a brown/black longhair cat with a red collar, Cumbernauld woman Elizabeth Nikplavlovic contacted the News to say she had found one and wanted to put the owner's mind at rest. Unfortunately, the cat had been hit by a car before Elizabeth found it lying beside the Seafar ring road and it had to be put down. Elizabeth is happy to speak to the cat's owner."
Here's a gem from the Daily Record's Pat Roller column about a story that appeared in the Cumbernauld News, though it doesn't appear on that paper's website, perhaps unsurprisingly.
"If you have recently lost a brown/black longhair cat with a red collar, Cumbernauld woman Elizabeth Nikplavlovic contacted the News to say she had found one and wanted to put the owner's mind at rest. Unfortunately, the cat had been hit by a car before Elizabeth found it lying beside the Seafar ring road and it had to be put down. Elizabeth is happy to speak to the cat's owner."
Thursday, 13 March 2008
AOL buys Bebo
AOL's been an interesting business to watch over the last 10 years. From darling of the dotcom boom, buying Time Warner as a dashing young digital upstart, then finding the position somewhat reversed since the dark days of 2002, to business without portfolio in the UK since selling its domestic broadband business to Carphone Warehouse last year.
Now it's buying Bebo. On the face of it, an odd move. Strategically, yes, buy into social networking and use it to push your content, but Bebo? Facebook's younger rival? Home to schoolkids throughout the world. Yes, it has good audience numbers, but are they a good fit for the AOL brand? Are there 427 million good reasons to buy.....
Time will tell.
Report below taken from Marketing Week:
Internet company AOL has announced it is to acquire social networking site Bebo for $850m (£427m). AOL says the deal will give it a "premier position" in social media.
Bebo has around 40 million users worldwide and is the third most popular US social media site and the sixth in the UK, according to Nielsen Online figures. The company has around 100 employees operating in offices in the UK and the US.
AOL chairman and chief executive Randy Falco says: "Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL's personal communication network and puts us in a leading position in social media." He adds: "This positions us to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers."
Bebo president Joanna Shields will continue to run the social media company after the deal is closed and will report to Ron Grant, the president and chief operating officer of AOL
Now it's buying Bebo. On the face of it, an odd move. Strategically, yes, buy into social networking and use it to push your content, but Bebo? Facebook's younger rival? Home to schoolkids throughout the world. Yes, it has good audience numbers, but are they a good fit for the AOL brand? Are there 427 million good reasons to buy.....
Time will tell.
Report below taken from Marketing Week:
Internet company AOL has announced it is to acquire social networking site Bebo for $850m (£427m). AOL says the deal will give it a "premier position" in social media.
Bebo has around 40 million users worldwide and is the third most popular US social media site and the sixth in the UK, according to Nielsen Online figures. The company has around 100 employees operating in offices in the UK and the US.
AOL chairman and chief executive Randy Falco says: "Bebo is the perfect complement to AOL's personal communication network and puts us in a leading position in social media." He adds: "This positions us to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers."
Bebo president Joanna Shields will continue to run the social media company after the deal is closed and will report to Ron Grant, the president and chief operating officer of AOL
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Murdoch all but bows out of Yahoo race
"No, we're not going to get into a fight with Microsoft, which has a lot more money than us," Mr Murdoch said today in response to a question at the annual Bear Stearns Media Conference
Artist unveils 'newspaper house'
 Local residents brought newspapers to complete the house |
The 4 meters high house by artist Summer Erek is meant to demonstrate that newspapers should be recycled instead of being thrown away. About 10,000 papers were collected by Project Freesheet while train companies donated two tonnes of newspapers left by commuters.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Desperate Housewives or just desperate?
From well-regarded television industry journalist and future blogger Bill Carter:
Looking to strike a blow against the proliferation of digital video recorders, the ABC network, its affiliated broadcast stations, and Cox Communications’ cable systems are establishing an on-demand video service that would allow viewers to watch ABC shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” any time they choose.
The catch: It uses a new technology that disables the viewers’ ability to fast-forward through commercials...
Several executives involved in the project, which ABC plans to offer to other cable systems around the country, said the move was an overt attempt to staunch the use of DVRs like TiVo, which viewers often use to avoid commercials. That activity is increasingly seen as threat to broadcast television, which depends on ad revenue to pay for programs.
“This does counter the DVR,” said Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC television group. “You don’t need TiVo if you have fast-forward-disabled video on demand..."
Ray Cole, president of Citadel Communications, which owns three local ABC stations, who is also the chairman of the board of affiliated ABC stations, was even more direct about the goal of the new service.
“As network and affiliates, we both have an interest in slowing down the explosive growth of DVRs,” Mr. Cole said. “This is about combating DVRs. As we developed this at every stage, there was an agreement that however we put this together, disabling the fast-forward function was key.”
A pictorial representation of ABC's view of you, the viewer:
Monday, 25 February 2008
AMERICAN TV ADS ARE LESS EFFECTIVE THAN TWO YEARS AGO
NEW YORK: A majority of US marketers believe that television advertising has become less effective over the past two years, spurring interest in exploring new ad and video commercial formats.
That's the conclusion of the fourth biennial TV & Technology survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research.
Among the study's main findings ...
- Sixty-two percent of marketers believe TV advertising has become less effective in the past two years, but close to half of the advertisers surveyed have already started to experiment with new ad types to work with DVRs and VOD programs.
- Eighty-seven percent of advertisers believe branded entertainment will play a stronger role in TV advertising in the coming year.
- Advertisers are eager to try new ad formats, including ads in online TV shows (65 percent), ads embedded in VOD (55 percent), interactive television ads (43 percent), and ads within the set top box menu (32 percent).
- Over 50 percent of marketers reported that when half of all TV households use DVRs, they will cut spending on TV advertising by 12 percent.
- Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they intend to spend more on Web advertising this year.
- Seventy-two percent of marketers are very interested in having individual commercial ratings rather than average commercial ratings.
"Marketers, in collaboration with the TV industry, will continue to find the most effective and innovative ways to reach their customers through the TV medium, utilizing the emerging technologies available to them."
MURDOCH CONTINUES TO RULE UK NEWSPAPER READERSHIP ROOST
LONDON: In its first-ever release of combined ABC print and online monthly circulation figures, the UK Audit Bureau of Circulations flags Associated Newspapers' middle-class clarion Daily Mail as the nation's leading newspaper brand.But - and its a big 'but' - the new Multi-Platform Monthly Report, based on the ABC's January audit, covers only five national newspaper publishers. It is hoped more will follow suit in the near future.
Among those included in the new survey, the Daily and Sunday Mail lead the field with print circulation and web unique users totalling 22.55 million, comfortably outpacing The Guardian/The Observer's 20.5m and The Sun's 16.6m.
However, it's a different story when it comes to overall reach by individual newspaper groups. In this sector, NewsCorp unit News International has put a massive stretch of clear blue water between itself and its nearest competitor Telegraph Media Group.
News International, which comprises daily title The Sun and its Sunday equivalent, News of the World, is also preeminent at the opposite end of the socio-economic scale with The Times and The Sunday Times.
Clan Murdoch's combined newspaper portfolio, both offline and on, accounts for no fewer than 36.7m. Leaving runner-up TMG (13.9m) trailing by 22.8m
Among the major names yet to commit to the multi-platform audit are Mirror Group, Independent Newspapers, Financial Times and Express Newspapers.
It is not known when (or if) they will follow suit.
Data sourced from mad.co.uk; additional content by WARC staff , 25 February 2008
Monday, 18 February 2008
Deja Vu? or 2nd time lucky?
What I had'nt realised when I blogged last Friday 'Best form of defence is offence' is that the four newspaper companies were also all part of the New Century Network in the late 1990s...
Source: New York Times.
March 1998:
[W]hen New Century Network was kicked off last April by nine giants teaming up to conquer electronic competition, even the launch party bombed...
In a ballroom at the Newspaper Association of America convention in Chicago, a thousand bottles of champagne emblazoned with ''New Century Network: The Collective Intelligence of America's Newspapers'' awaited the hordes expected to come to toast the watershed new-media joint venture. When fewer than 100 people showed up, Chief Executive Lee de Boer made an abbreviated speech before retreating...
The reception was the first public humiliation for New Century Network, but only one in a series of blunders that culminated in the company's abrupt shutdown on Mar. 10. Created in 1995 to unite newspapers against Microsoft Corp. and other competitors girding to woo electronically advertisers and readers, New Century Network came to embody everything that could go wrong when old-line newspapers converge with new media...
Started with $1 million each from Knight-Ridder, Tribune, Times Mirror, Advance Publications, Cox Enterprises, Gannett, Hearst, Washington Post, and New York Times, New Century seemed an entrepreneurial dream. The Internet had just opened to the world, creating vast new competition for readers--and for the advertisers that pump $40 billion into newspapers. But it also gave newspapers a chance to capture national accounts that favored the one-stop-shopping convenience of TV and national magazines...
[T]he [newspaper] companies had wildly diverging philosophies about how newspapers should make the electronic leap and what role the new venture should play. ''You had private companies and public companies and companies that were risk-averse and those that were risk-tolerant,'' says Harry Chandler, head of new media for Los Angeles Times. ''You had big-city papers and small chains. We shared a need. But it was frustrating trying to come together.''
While the wired world moved at warp speed, New Century spent 18 months hiring a permanent ceo and two years creating an electronic doorway to 140 newspapers... ''This [Internet] thing is really racing,'' says Al Sikes, the former Federal Communications Commissioner who is president of Hearst New Media. ''Organizations of a number of co-equals can't turn on a dime.''...
The partners ultimately invested more than $25 million in the virtual venture... The board decided... to pull the plug, coming to a remarkably quick agreement--for the first and final time...
Source: New York Times.
March 1998:
[W]hen New Century Network was kicked off last April by nine giants teaming up to conquer electronic competition, even the launch party bombed...
In a ballroom at the Newspaper Association of America convention in Chicago, a thousand bottles of champagne emblazoned with ''New Century Network: The Collective Intelligence of America's Newspapers'' awaited the hordes expected to come to toast the watershed new-media joint venture. When fewer than 100 people showed up, Chief Executive Lee de Boer made an abbreviated speech before retreating...
The reception was the first public humiliation for New Century Network, but only one in a series of blunders that culminated in the company's abrupt shutdown on Mar. 10. Created in 1995 to unite newspapers against Microsoft Corp. and other competitors girding to woo electronically advertisers and readers, New Century Network came to embody everything that could go wrong when old-line newspapers converge with new media...
Started with $1 million each from Knight-Ridder, Tribune, Times Mirror, Advance Publications, Cox Enterprises, Gannett, Hearst, Washington Post, and New York Times, New Century seemed an entrepreneurial dream. The Internet had just opened to the world, creating vast new competition for readers--and for the advertisers that pump $40 billion into newspapers. But it also gave newspapers a chance to capture national accounts that favored the one-stop-shopping convenience of TV and national magazines...
[T]he [newspaper] companies had wildly diverging philosophies about how newspapers should make the electronic leap and what role the new venture should play. ''You had private companies and public companies and companies that were risk-averse and those that were risk-tolerant,'' says Harry Chandler, head of new media for Los Angeles Times. ''You had big-city papers and small chains. We shared a need. But it was frustrating trying to come together.''
While the wired world moved at warp speed, New Century spent 18 months hiring a permanent ceo and two years creating an electronic doorway to 140 newspapers... ''This [Internet] thing is really racing,'' says Al Sikes, the former Federal Communications Commissioner who is president of Hearst New Media. ''Organizations of a number of co-equals can't turn on a dime.''...
The partners ultimately invested more than $25 million in the virtual venture... The board decided... to pull the plug, coming to a remarkably quick agreement--for the first and final time...
Friday, 15 February 2008
Best form of defence is offence.....
Four leading US newspaper companies are to announce a new joint company today to sell targeted local online advertising on their respective sites.
The Tribune Company, the Gannett Company, the Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company will jointly own quadrantONE, with a base in Chicago that will employ 17 people.
According to the NY Times, advertising space will be sold in papers including The Los Angeles Times, The Des Moines Register, The Houston Chronicle and The Boston Globe. However titles considered to be not local will not be included in the deal, including USA Today, The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune.
The new company is said to be focused on offering advertisers scale in ad buys, with the newspaper companies themselves maintaining control. The move comes as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all target online mainstream media news sites, and it would appear that in part the move is also a reaction to that, with Lincoln Millstein from Hearst Newspapers saying simply “We want to control our own destiny.”
The combined reach of quadrantONE’s partner sites will be 50 million unique visitors a month.
The Tribune Company, the Gannett Company, the Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company will jointly own quadrantONE, with a base in Chicago that will employ 17 people.
According to the NY Times, advertising space will be sold in papers including The Los Angeles Times, The Des Moines Register, The Houston Chronicle and The Boston Globe. However titles considered to be not local will not be included in the deal, including USA Today, The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune.
The new company is said to be focused on offering advertisers scale in ad buys, with the newspaper companies themselves maintaining control. The move comes as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all target online mainstream media news sites, and it would appear that in part the move is also a reaction to that, with Lincoln Millstein from Hearst Newspapers saying simply “We want to control our own destiny.”
The combined reach of quadrantONE’s partner sites will be 50 million unique visitors a month.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Truth is stranger than fiction (funny)
FROM BRITISH NEWSPAPERS
1) Commenting on a complaint from a Mr. Arthur Purdey about a large gas bill, a spokesman for North West Gas said, "We agree it was rather high for the time of year. It's possible Mr. Purdey has been charged for the gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his house."
(The Daily Telegraph)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Police reveal that a woman arrested for shoplifting had a whole salami in her underwear. When asked why, she said it was because she was missing her Italian boyfriend. (The Manchester Evening News)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Irish police are being handicapped in a search for a stolen van, because they cannot issue a description. It's a Special Branch vehicle and they don't want the public to know what it looks like. (The Guardian)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) A young girl who was blown out to sea on a set of inflatable teeth was rescued by a man on an inflatable lobster. A coast guard spokesman commented, "This sort of thing is all too common". (The Times)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5) At the height of the gale, the harbourmaster radioed a coastguard and asked him to estimate the wind speed. He replied he was sorry, but he didn't have a gauge. However, if it was any help, the wind had just blown his Land Rover off the cliff. (Aberdeen Evening Express)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Mrs. Irene Graham of Thorpe Avenue, Boscombe, delighted the audience with her reminiscence of the German prisoner of war who was sent each week to do her garden. He was repatriated at the end of 1945, she recalled.
"He'd always seemed a nice friendly chap, but when the crocuses came up in the middle of our lawn in February 1946, they spelt out 'Heil Hitler.' "(Bournemouth Evening Echo)
1) Commenting on a complaint from a Mr. Arthur Purdey about a large gas bill, a spokesman for North West Gas said, "We agree it was rather high for the time of year. It's possible Mr. Purdey has been charged for the gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his house."
(The Daily Telegraph)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Police reveal that a woman arrested for shoplifting had a whole salami in her underwear. When asked why, she said it was because she was missing her Italian boyfriend. (The Manchester Evening News)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) Irish police are being handicapped in a search for a stolen van, because they cannot issue a description. It's a Special Branch vehicle and they don't want the public to know what it looks like. (The Guardian)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) A young girl who was blown out to sea on a set of inflatable teeth was rescued by a man on an inflatable lobster. A coast guard spokesman commented, "This sort of thing is all too common". (The Times)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5) At the height of the gale, the harbourmaster radioed a coastguard and asked him to estimate the wind speed. He replied he was sorry, but he didn't have a gauge. However, if it was any help, the wind had just blown his Land Rover off the cliff. (Aberdeen Evening Express)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
6) Mrs. Irene Graham of Thorpe Avenue, Boscombe, delighted the audience with her reminiscence of the German prisoner of war who was sent each week to do her garden. He was repatriated at the end of 1945, she recalled.
"He'd always seemed a nice friendly chap, but when the crocuses came up in the middle of our lawn in February 1946, they spelt out 'Heil Hitler.' "(Bournemouth Evening Echo)
Sly old fox enters the henhouse
Seems like yesterday rumours (reported here) were in fact true! Rupert Murdoch has opened talks with Yahoo in an attempt to thwart Microsoft and grab more of the web for himself.
The proposal is a little complicated to say the least and is all about combining Yahoo and News Corp digital assets that include MySpace and Fox Interactive and lots of other consumer facing digital stuff. Murdoch would end up being a significant shareholder in the combined Co and would - surprise, surprise - have control.
We wondered last week about the practical difficulties inherent in the Microsoft/Yahoo tie-up but they are tiny in comparison to this proposal.
Media and technology - we love it
The proposal is a little complicated to say the least and is all about combining Yahoo and News Corp digital assets that include MySpace and Fox Interactive and lots of other consumer facing digital stuff. Murdoch would end up being a significant shareholder in the combined Co and would - surprise, surprise - have control.
We wondered last week about the practical difficulties inherent in the Microsoft/Yahoo tie-up but they are tiny in comparison to this proposal.
Media and technology - we love it
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
News Corp in the Yahoo race
Despite lots of denials it seems that News Corp remains a possible partner for Yahoo.
Have a read of this Techcrunch piece.
Is Murdoch serious? or is he pushing up the price
Have a read of this Techcrunch piece.
Is Murdoch serious? or is he pushing up the price
Monday, 4 February 2008
Google looks to block Yahoo bid
No great surprise that Google is going all out to ruin the Microsoft/Yahoo party. They dont seem to be the kind of guys that would sit idly by and watch the number 2 and 3 in the search market join forces.
Its rumoured that Google have even offered Yahoo its help in defending themselves from Microsoft - wow whats Jerry Yang to do?
We think its little rich however for Google to bleat on about the deal harming consumer choice and services. Yeah yeah.
Have a read of NY Times piece to see what they moves they are rumoured to be making to rain on Microsoft parade!
What ever happens it sure is exciting........................
Its rumoured that Google have even offered Yahoo its help in defending themselves from Microsoft - wow whats Jerry Yang to do?
We think its little rich however for Google to bleat on about the deal harming consumer choice and services. Yeah yeah.
Have a read of NY Times piece to see what they moves they are rumoured to be making to rain on Microsoft parade!
What ever happens it sure is exciting........................
Friday, 1 February 2008
its all getting really really interesting
Microsoft offers $44.6bn for Yahoo
Feb 01, 2008 12:13:00 GMT
Microsoft offered to buy search engine group Yahoo for $44.6bn, or $31 a share, as the software giant seeks to catch up with arch-rival Google.
We can see the strategic sense in this deal for Microsoft as they need to expand their armory to battle Google.
But Yahoo are a basket case.
we cant help thinking that by the time Microsoft have gotten them fit for purpose Google will be even further ahead and Microsoft will be $40bn+ down!
Tempting but we say dont do it!
We can see the strategic sense in this deal for Microsoft as they need to expand their armory to battle Google.
But Yahoo are a basket case.
we cant help thinking that by the time Microsoft have gotten them fit for purpose Google will be even further ahead and Microsoft will be $40bn+ down!
Tempting but we say dont do it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)