We are blessed in New Zealand with the Companies.govt.nz website. It means that we rate consistently as one of the easiest places to form a company, and it gives us the power to look up the ownership and directors of any New Zealand company. The information is a goldmine for untangling just who owns what. …
Monthly Archives: November 2009
What were you thinking NZHerald?
In last night’s post on NBR I made the flip comment that Stuff and NZHerald will continue to fight it out neck sand neck unless one of them does something stupid. Well today NZHerald decided that they didn’t real want people reading their news – but instead showed a large interstitial of an incomprehensible Coca …
NBR’s performance since the subscription wall was built
Back in mid July the NBR decided to put a chunk of their content behind a subscription wall. I was one of many amateur untrained unqualified bloggers that not only objected to being characterised as such, but was pretty scathing about the decision to lock away the content. NBR in turn referred I guessed to …
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What I’m looking for from the Tax Working Group
The Tax Working Group is due to issue their report this week. Here are the things I’ll be looking for as I judge their proposals: Simple. Paying tax is an administrative burden, and compliance takes time and money. A great tax system will be very simple to understand, have no room for lawyers and accountants …
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Contempt watch: Whaleoil and name suppression
<Picture changed after seeing this> Whaleoil seems to think that he is above the law. One day he’ll find out that he is not. <Update That day has come> But then It’s good to have people on the edge pushing the boundaries of New Zealand’s inoperable libel and suppression laws. Those laws need to change. …
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Lingopal Blues
Sometimes you just have to take a short break from work, as my cousin Richard did so for us while we were Skyping about Lingopal last night. So to ease your mind, relax and enjoy a brief interlude:
NZHerald’s shopping tab – it’s complicated
NZ Herald launched their new shopping tab yesterday, and as I dug into it the cast of players got larger and larger. It got so complicated that I decided that making a video would be the most efficient way to explain it all. After the experience all I can say is that Bernard Hickey is …
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Does your logo mean what you think it means?
A great warning to those that buy logos – from last Sunday’s Postsecret. I always recommend not listening to any of the spiel from the brand and logo designers when a new logo is introduced. Forget about the rhetoric – what does this look like? What does it look like upside down? What will engineers …
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Has Infratil become a dodgy investment?
No – I’m sure Infratil have not changed their excellent approach to infrastructure investing, but their advertising strategy sure makes you think. I’ve been seeing their advertisements in Facebook. They may be cheap ads, but we cannot help judging them by the company they keep. No – not the friends whose pages that I see …
Chanui Pure Ceylon 120 Value Pack
We’ve just launched a new range of tea at Chanui – and it is pretty interesting. (Well it is for me anyway.) Chanui sells a range of premium teas across supermarkets in New Zealand. We have seen plenty of response from competitors when we came in above them in quality, but this time we decided …
Brand dilution: not Grandma’s biscuit
Eaten on Air NZ just now. It wasn’t very good.
A reskinning is not a panacea: Dick Smith
Dick Smith just reskinned their site. Well they have at least since the last time I went there. My summary is that this is nice but will add little to their site statistics. The look has changed slightly but the real work has yet to be done. Here is the Australian one: and the NZ …
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Woo Hoo I’m Gold – Thanks Virgin Blue
Excellent news from Virgin Blue in my email inbox just now. It was a bit of a surprise, as I have not flown with them for a while, and I thought that my status would be expiring if anything. and yes – turns out that was a bit of a mistake. A big mistake. I …
Your application is ready for sale
Your application is ready for sale, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs. Dealing with the app store for Apple iPhone applications can be a little painful at times and for some, but when the process works it is great. My hats off to them for managing over 100,000 apps – and of course for releasing the latest …
Governance of tax issues for directors
I’ve just run across this nice cheat sheet by the ATO – a tax governance guide for directors of large companies. It’s got some handy hints for directors of smaller companies as well. I maintain that at least one person on each board needs to understand this stuff well, and that everyone on the board …
Lance Wiggs 