Spotted on the ferry on the way South – fake Ribena, but including real Vitamin C….
Category Archives: NZ Business
Xero’s IPO is successful
Well done to Xero – who managed to raise the $15m targeted in their IPO. That will see them out for a year or two. It seems that investors got the first 5,000 shares asked for, and half of the rest. That’s for the ‘public pool’, which was, as far as I can make out …
A future for newspapers?
Andy Kessler’s A Future for Newspapers in the (subscription required) WSJ makes a few good points: “Media, after all, is about owning a pipe …. The tighter the pipe, the less the competition.” For broadcasters, the pipe is spectrum For cable operators, it is often the sole cable franchise For phone companies, it’s those regulated …
Xero – to invest or not – again
There has been some good discussion around the traps about Xero’s IPO. As I whizz to my plane I’d like to pop some more things into the mix: 1: The emphasis on SAAS to me is missing the point. The USP of Xero is its promise to reinvent the usability and the approach to processing …
Air New Zealand is shrinking leg room
This drives me nuts. Air NZ is plonking an extra row of seats into domestic planes. Seating was already cramped for passengers of medium height and those taller than 1.9 metres (6ft 3in) “find it uncomfortable as it is”, Mr Thomas said. It’s uncomfortable for me at 6ft. It’s not just about the literal leg …
qantas media awards – some pictures
Some Stuffies Newspaper of the year – again And my favorite – The environment portfolio award, sponsored by….. Shell, and won by Sandra Mu with (stunning) photos of… duck hunting.
Qantas media awards – protest by APN Sub editors
At the Qantas media Awards last night there was a very polite protest from 3 APN sub editors (I assume). They are protesting against APN’s decision to outsource sub-editing. When someone turned the mike off the calmly walked off the stage, making a brief appearance on the dance floor later on. Very well done. Watch …
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Xero – projecting numbers
Jim Donovan’s En Avant suggests that picking Xero’s customer number is the same as picking Trade Me’s. Not so. Picking Trade Me’s potential customer base was not that difficult. Trade Me is in a winner take all geographically constrained C2C game. Once they were ahead it was pretty easy to make assumptions about how many …
Xero – to invest or not
Everyone seems to be talking about Xero – and I’ve been fielding a lot of ‘should I invest?’ queries. So here is what will now be my standard reply: Do your research. This is a low dollar early stage investment that would normally be offered to an Angel or Venture Capital investor. That means the …
Infratil stock split
Why does Infratil need to split their stock at $6.52, when everything I buy on the US markets is above $30? Meanwhile it is good to see Morrison and Co. staff being rewarded with a $14m payout. That is difficult to do in the society, but essential if you want to attract and retain the …
Drop off stores – will they work here?
Thinking of opening some Trade Me drop-off stores? After all – there is a gap in the market right? Drop off stores are big in the USA – they are places where you bring items for sale on eBay, and they list and sell them on eBay for you. The stores necessarily take a huge …
White pages being stolen?
A strange press release from newly independent Yellow Pages, who are: “approaching a number of large New Zealand businesses and government organisations believed to be misusing information from White Pages online.” They are saying it is part of an “industry move”, with quotes from IAB’s Josh Borthwick and Keith Norris from the Marketing Association. So …
Comparing Trade Me and eBay by the numbers
I’m not sure how many people realise just how good Trade Me is. Let’s look at some comparative public numbers against eBay. There are plenty of reasons behind the differences, and I’ll write about the publicly known ones sooner or later. Auctions Here’s an excerpt from a reply I made to this great post on …
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The NetRatings demographics survey instrument
We all see these, and for some reason recently I’ve been seeing the NetRatings survey a lot when I go to the NZHerald site. Perhaps my cookies keep getting deleted, perhaps I’m using too many different browsers (3 on my mac, 1 at work). The data we in the industry get from these surveys is really valuable, so I’m going to attempt to constructively criticise the survey questions:
Gareth Morgan & Kiwisaver
Good to see Gareth Morgan putting actions behind words. His newest venture is a KiwiSaver product, and information is available at aptly named Kiwisaver.com. Great scoop on getting that url. Gareth is on a campaign to remove a lot of the shoddy practices in New Zealand’s investment community. The new Kiwisaver product is aiming for …
Lance Wiggs 