It’s good to live in a country where policemen get hauled over the coals for firing a pistol at an inappropriate moment – even when nobody is harmed. Make sure everybody conforms to the law, but start with those that do the enforcing.
NZHerald follows suit…
NZHerald announced their redesign today – it’s looking good, and they left the logo alone…
It’s been a transition year for Stuff and the NZHerald, as they have shufled staff and changed systems. Next year should see them both move into a welcome cycle of continuous improvement.
no coke, but what about the rest?
Coke is on the way out from schools, and well done to get the sugary syrup kings to the table. But hang on – fruit juices are also pretty high in sugar – if not higher than Coke and Pepsi. And diet drinks are pretty nasty…
What is going on here? This seems like a “feels good” rather than an “is good” solution.
not cricket
I happened to see live the cowardly NZ dismissal of Muttaih Muralitharan, who was run out after he turned to celebrate his fellow batter’s century. The game may have pivoted on this run-out. Our cricketers should be ashamed – this is under-arm bowling stuff and is, of course, just not cricket.
I put this up there with the divisive “Loyal” America’s cup promotion, the designers taking control of the America’s Cup campaign itself, and the sell-out of the All Blacks at the beginning of the professional era. The All Blacks have got back to rugby, the sailors to sailing – perhaps the cricketers could remember what it is they are doing.
French bloggers
apparently one out of three people in France blogs. incroyable!
I wonder how the Google staffer backed this assertion up..
IHT (clipped from NYTimes) has a bit more, saying 60% of French internet users visited a blog in May 2006, and 12% of those online in France had then created a blog. That’s a sea change in the interim 6 months – and I am not sure I beleive it…
Surely they are not counting blogs in French and dividing by the population of France?
Stuffing it up?
Preview of the new Stuff. Not bad and a welcome improvement based on smh, but fix the logo. Please.
old logo (kids, crayons, fun and simple)
new logo (MBA, excel, corporate and serious)
smh logo (serious. corporate)
The Sydney Morning Herald has a serious name and requires a serious logo. However when you call something “Stuff”, you are being irreverent, and so your logo should reflect that.
Well that’s the way I feel….
latest demands from Christmas tree kidnappers
the tree saga continues… with an amateurish news video taunting the Trust and Safety team. Sadly it does not tug at the heart string as the previous video did – perhaps the tree is complicit in the kidnapping…
Watch radiation detector – not a toy?
A watch-radiation dectector attracts mirth on gizmodo, and perhaps justifiably so.
However considering the difficulty that various authorities are having installing industrial scale radiation detectors in airports and ports, perhaps issuing a portable detector to all staff could a cheaper alternative.
It also changes the security paradigm from relying on technology run by barely trained people back to relying on people empowered with basic technology.
From personal experience the borders that find out the most about me are the ones staffed by curious, well educated and well paid people and who are armed with basics such as a computer system that logs all of my entries and exits from the country. The USA is not one of these countries.
Adwords and the long tail
It seems, and I’ve been hearing this from Google themselves as well as from blogs and other companies, that buying up the long tail of google search terms is an efficient way to get customers. This means mining your site for the search terms people use to get there, and even using a tool to do so for you. However everyone seems discount the internal cost of administering the campaigns, and I’ve yet to see a tool that automates the selection, placement and management inside google of the adwords. Perhaps one exists.
How to fight poverty
Absolutely stunning article by Tina Rosenberg in the NYTimes on how to fight poverty. Sadly it is behind their paywall, which is reprehensible considering its import.
The people care, Governments do not
Not only is US foreign aid pathetically small versus it’s GDP, but 39% of it goes to military aid to Israel, Egypt etc, and it seems most of the rest goes to pay expensive consultants, central banks and bureaucrats. Meanwhile individual Americans want to spend money helping foreign countries, but do not trust their government to do so – and you can see why.
Tina suggests investment in eight programs. Global immunization, microcredit and property rights for the poor head the list. Next is paying mothers to get their kids to school, and compensating for loss of the kid’s earnings along with building small roads to link villages. Rounding out the list are greening Africa though higher yielding crops and a cool program to make sure people take their 6-9 month course of TB drugs by pairing them up with a paid buddy. It’s called DOTS.
All of these projects are local. None need involve expensive consultants. None involve expensive capital projects – the local roads is the closest, but it’s recommended they are built by the locals with local materials. None involve giving money to nationals of the government that is doing the donating. None need iunvolve foreign governments, as they can be low scale. Some, such as microcredit, are already scaling up well, and backed by the likes of the IBRD and EBRD.
Smart governments will invest in these projects, justifying it as both the right thing to do, the things that the population wants, and the best way to make sure we have a stable world in the future. They should also seek to publicise the investment and results – as a vote-earner. And stop with the military ‘aid’.
Still no word…
…on the fate of the Trust and Safety Christmas tree. The kidnappers have promised to slowly de-branch the tree if their demands for home cooked produce are not met…
Disturbing. Very disturbing.
Apple pre-paid revenue
Rod Drury asks what if Apple had major pre-paid revenue. They do have some – from the iTunes music cards. The cards are great for gifts, and also if you want to get content not available here – such as TV shows and movies. Whenever I’m in the US I pick up a card and use it in the ensuing months. Now that movies and TV shows are available I seem to be spending a lot more, so I need to get over there to get more cards…. (Movies and TV Shows are only on the US iTiunes store.)
Apple’s latest (aging) 10Q shows some pre-pay deferred revenue on their balance sheet – $634m in current and $300m in non-current. Overall deferred revenue increased by $152m over the September quarter, or $75m per quarter. Meanwhile iTunes store sales were part of the $485m “other music related services”.
My guess is that about $30-50m of deferred income increase per quarter is from pre-pay cards – which implies they are responsible for a good chunk of iTunes revenue. Apple’s quarterly sales end April 2006 was $3bn, so it may not seem like much. But their net income in April quarter was $410m, so perhaps it is…
shoe sizer
so simple. A wonderful use of technology – 6 cameras and some smarts combine to give an accurate 3d map of feet – which lets shoe stores sell more…
Christmas tree kidnapping
The Trade Me Trust and Safety team Christmas tree was kidnapped – they received this rather disturbing video a day later…
Companies that don’t get the internet that should
Internet Bureau was an early entrant into the NZ online advertising game, and they successfully acted as an intermediary between advertisers, advertising agencies and websites.
They should have a great website. It should allow advertisers to book ads, to understand what makes a good ad, how success is measured, and what the overall online spending stats look like. They don’t. Their website is appalling. Aside from the blandness and lack of call to action, there’s a pop-up advertisement that covers the homepage, no meaningful information about the industry and although they offer a subscription to their newsletters, there are no historical newsletters to see.
Lance Wiggs 