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 …
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
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 …
Choose your adventure – DVD
If you have kids you may want to give this a go. The DVD is based on the Choose Your Adventure books, and asks viewers to make decisions – the results of which give 11 different endings. It’s all run by a friend from Washington DC days, who now has a startup in LA called …
The macbook air austerity program
Lovely title to a blog entry on what I’m about to have to embark on – fitting my life onto 80Gb rather than the 190Gb currently (excluding most photos, which are elsewhere). Zen-like simplicity is good right?
Qtrax launches. Yawn again
It appears that QTrax is not available for OSX until March. So irrelevant, so why am I writing about it? Good PR
Good bye Renaissance dependance
What can you say about a company that just didn’t make hay from what now are the most sought after products in the world? Finally it appears that Renaissance has lost exclusive Apple distributorship in NZ, and I have to say that I’m glad. Their service was really not up to scratch, and they lost …
US Prisons are out of control
So bullets from an article in The Atlantic, (link is to a free site as The Atlantic is behind a paywall) and via No Right Turn. 70% of US prison inmates are illiterate. two thirds didn’t commit a violent crime 60 to 80% have a history of substance abuse black men are 5 times more …
eur 50 billion? Off with their heads
If you are the boss of a financial institution that holds a position of 50 billion euros from a ‘rogue trader’, then you do not deserve to be there. Neither do the senior and relevant junior people responsible for risk management and auditing and the line staff above said trader. Neither does the board of …
WSJ will not be free, and could even be more expensive
Bad news. Rupert Murdoch has said that wsj.com will ‘greatly expand and improve’, but that fees will still apply for full site access, and may even go up. There will be some free access for non-paying subscibers, along with a “strong offering” for paying subscribers. Let’s hope that are not copying AFR.com.au, and let’s hope …
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Infratil, Bogoievski and real estate
Interesting. Lloyd Morrison gets a COO for Infratil, and Bogoievski gets to stay in Wellington, stay in a job where political influence is important and work for a growing company that shares the spoils. Meanwhile Infratil have landed the ex-NZ boss of Lang LaSalle to boss Infratil Property. It looks like Infratil will try their …
Why safety is important to managers
People can die, and you can go to jail. These guys from Black Reef Mine face sentencing tomorrow for failing to ensure the safety of workers. But meanwhile Police are pondering whether to reopen the case and lay more serous charges. It is good to see legal pursuit of the mine manager and consultant geologist, …
Bond and NZ Cricket
Shane Bond is absolutely right to fight the cartel that is NZ Cricket and the ICC. The ‘loss’ of his talent should be a rude reminder to the NZ Cricket authorities that they have drifted from their mission. NZ Cricket are there to ensure we have the best cricket team, along with a great state …
Qtrax launches. Yawn.
Qtrax wants to give away songs via Peer to Peer networks and pay RIAA member companies royalties from revenue earned from ads. Their layer will be avaliable to download shortly – which means that someone is running a decent PR campaign behind the scenes. They are making a big deal about the being Mozilla based, …
Blocking Sky is bad for everyone
Sky may be forced to not bid for exclusive access to big events of “national significance”. Well, it’s one of several proposals apparently, so let’s not jump up and down yet. The result would be less incentve for sky to bid for those events, and therefore a lower final price. That means less money to …
How to deplane 13 passengers
There’s a right way and a wrong way to get 13 people off your flight and on to another one. The right way is to have an auction, where you gradually increase the incentives to deplane, starting with an additional free flight (which was the end offer by Clueless Pacific Blue), and adding flights, cash …
