The USA now spends more on “defense” than the rest of the world combined. US$670 billion – over 6 times NZ’s GDP, and about the same as Australia’s GDP. Crazy.
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Office Mac Scramble
I installed Office Mac, and ignored the warning to shut down other applications – after all it’s a Mac right, so what could go wrong? Well – No right Turn took a turn for the worse: and the astute observer will notice similar but less dramatic issues on the TVNZ article below. I restarted Safari …
TVNZ begins to get it right, but still plenty wrong
By abandoning paid content on TVNZ OnDemand, TVNZ’s Jason Paris demonstrates that he gets it. Jason’s a smart guy, and it seems that the people have spoken – by watching ad-supported content and staying away from the paid content. Well done – a good step. Of course Jason et al are seriously constrained by obsolete …
Continue reading “TVNZ begins to get it right, but still plenty wrong”
How to launch a start-up: HowCast sets the standard
First – Be ex Google and youTube employees, and arrange a deal with YouTube to split revenue attracted by your range of instructional wikis and videos. Next, attract $8m in first round VC funding, and cut deals with MySpace, Joost and ROO* Be sure to include a community aspect, particularly if there is a way …
Continue reading “How to launch a start-up: HowCast sets the standard”
It’s all about sex
From The Economist:
MacBook Air is floating towards me
Excited? You bet I was, when I receved this yesterday: I leapt straight to the provided tracking link – but nothing was there yet. So I waited impatiently through the day, and then followed the link again just now: China. The new Mac lightness is still in China.
Motorcycling to Broken Hill
Sue’s back, and so check out her first installment of her motorcycle trip – to Broken Hill. This is the part that I joined her for before heading back to Sydney. Sue has tons of great photos and describes the journey eloquently to boot. I’m trying not to be jealous of the fact that her …
Big Deals: Summary
The Yahoo and Rio Tinto deals have one thing in common, besides being abnormally large. They are both being initiated by new CEO’s where the predecessor has just departed. This makes it seem that they are trying to stamp their own mark on their companies, and that is perhaps true. It is probably likely that …
Big Deals: Microsoft and Yahoo
OK – so I’m almost always picking the bearish side for investments, but this one seems pretty clear. It’s a case of a lousy company buying a lousy company. First let me explain what the implicatons of that are, and secondly lets breifly look at why Microsoft and Yahoo will be a hard combination to …
Rio Branding
Amusingly Rio Tinto’s “internal” branding website is open for all and sundry. I wonder whether this is a symptom of a poor intranet at Rio?
Big Deals: BHPB and Rio Tinto
BHP Billiton is a great company, and yes, I am consulting to one of their plants at the moment. Despite their size, they are able to run over 100 businesses in 25 countries (be they mines, smelters, refineries or new projects). And they run them well. Check out their latest production report, and note how …
Linux and Windoze – the fight goes on
Entertaining post by a chap on lying games in Windows Vista and Linux. He’s pretty biased, but the fun and bias between the sides is to be had in the comments.
pretty and smart
Indexed strikes again:
AOL Australia launches. Whatever
Apparently it is the third try for AOL to launch in Australia. Here’s the Beta website: It looks a lot like Yahoo7’s website: Can’t really see the point myself – AOL have no lock in downunder so unless the website is associated with a source of traffic then it just seems irrelevant. That’s a shame …
eBay makes fundamental changes – enough?
Massive changes today announced for eBay’s economic model, in response, I take, to the increasing power of Amazon and Google. Listing fees down 25 to 50%, especially for bigger sellers Gallery is free final value fees (commissions) are up – 8.25% under $25, which is up from 5.25% and huge. Most sales are in this …
Lance Wiggs 