Archive for June, 2006
« Previous EntriesRichard Branson's Minimalist Web Strategy
Friday, June 30th, 2006While billionaires such as Rupert Murdoch storm into the Internet with major acquisitions, Virgin chairman Sir Richard Branson is taking a different tactic that seems Luddite in comparison. While Virgin just launched an online music site called Virgin Digital, Sir Richard concedes there is much more the company could do on the Web. "One of [...]
Skype's Strategic and Monetization Potential
Friday, June 30th, 2006As Vonage's brand and stock comes under siege, it is interesting that Skype continue to enjoy growing goodwill as it becomes more of a mainstream tool (the free SkypeOut offer for calls in North America doesn't hurt). Nicholas Carr had a post last week critical of eBay CEO Meg Whitman's assertion during an interview with [...]
Canadian E-Commerce Alive and Well?
Friday, June 30th, 2006Now, this is interesting: eMarketer has a story that e-commerce in Canada is thriving. According to Statistics Canada, e-commerce sales (public and private sectors) were $39.1-billion in 2005 compared with $28.3-billion in 2004. As well, the number of Canadian retailers with a Web site climbed to 42% from 38%. I'm not sure how StatsCan formulated [...]
Google Check-Out
Thursday, June 29th, 2006There's already lots of chatter about the launch of Google Checkout, highlighted by how it will be an eBay-PayPal killer. Not to dismiss Google Checkout's features, which seem interesting, but when was the last time Google launched a new service that kicked some serious butt? It may be Google doesn't look for home runs when [...]
Show Me the Strategy
Thursday, June 29th, 2006My column in today's National Post looks at Nortel's need to spill the beans on where it's headed strategically. CEO Mike Zafirovski has been working away for more than seven months on his corporate makeover, and now analysts and investors want in on his master plan. By the way, Nortel's annual meeting is today.Update: Here's [...]
Even Six-Year-Olds Get Wi-Fi
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006A funny story from a friend that's far too good not to share. After picking up his son from an appointment, my friend gets into a conversation and lets his six-year-old son play with his laptop in the backseat of the car. When my friend starts to drive away several minutes later, his son yells [...]
Does Marketing Matter Within Web 2.0?
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006I was reading a story last night about MySpace in the latest issue of Wired, and it twigged me about a discussion I had with my brother, Sean, about whether marketing really matters within Web 2.0. If you think about it, many of the biggest brands and most popular services - MySpace, Google, YouTube, PhotoBucket [...]
Nortel Slashing 1,100 Jobs
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006Surprise, surprise (well, not really), Nortel is cutting 1,100 jobs and reviewing its pension plan. The jobs cuts will reduce annual operating expenses by $100-million in 2007 and $175-million in 2008. The company also unveiled changes to its pension plan from defined benefits to defined contributions contributions to defined benefits, which will save Nortel about [...]
Citron's Losing His Marketing Mojo
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006Vonage's post-IPO troubles must be weighing heavily on the shoulders of chairman and co-founder Jeff Citron. For the second time in two weeks, he gave a keynote at a conference that lacked any kind of sizzle. Brian Ward said Citron's speech at Convergence 2.0 failed to address any of the issues facing Vonage these days [...]
Seeding the Blogosphere; Newspapers' Future
Sunday, June 25th, 2006Anyone with an interest in in the future of newspapers should give Shane Richmond's blog a read. A recent post on how newspapers should use their brands and resources (reporters, etc.) to seed conversation within the blogosphere is a rare example of someone within Old Journalism totally getting how to position traditional media for the [...]
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