Santa Virus

It seems like there is a new computer virus in town called 'the santa virus'. It mainly effects music players like itunes and desktop background images. The virus hunts out anything and everything Christmas related and bombards you with everything Christmas.

Be warned if you get this virus, you may get more Christmas cheer than you bargained for!

Do The 'Dragons' Understand The Internet?

The recent episode of Dragons Den featured an affiliate site called 'Gaming Alerts' pitching for £200k investment. For anyone who knows anything about the internet they will know the product is not unique and easily replicated with a couple of good coders and a designer thrown in for good measure.

To my astonishment Theo agreed to invest £200k for only a 30% share in a new site that is growing slowly, has few listings and more importantlty not turning over any real revenue? For that amount of money Theo himself could have used his own resources and owned 100% of the company for probably all for just an £80k investment.

This is not the first time I have seen an affiliate based business getting investment on the dragons den. Perhaps Theo should chat to his affiliate manager at La Senza to explain the concept.

The dragons all bang on about over valuing a company and have kicked people to the floor with their over valuations. This pair just valued a website and widget at £666,666 - kind of appropriate number, don't you think? However well over valued based on no traffic, no real presence and an idea which we could create in no time at all. Yes it's a glossy website but that means nothing...designers are 10 a penny!

Theo, if you are reading this, I am sure I have a few websites which would happily give you 30% for £200k.

I would like to note that if you pay your BBC TV license fee - you are actually funding these 'entrepreneurs' advertising campaigns. When will the BBC learn that they can blur out website names. Too many people end up on this program simply foir a PR boost.

Sign Of The Times... AOL Editorial Cuts

I was reading an article recently about AOL UK, and how it is preparing to lose more than half the editorial jobs at its newsroom operation. It's rumored that a number of positions including design will be outsourced to India.

I have to say what a disappointment and can only hope that companies don't follow suit. IR35 back in 2000 made it so difficult for English IT consultants to make money, meaning that a huge % of IT was then handed on a plate to India.

With a decrease in manufacturing, the UK has become a service industry and it looks like more aspects of this are under threat from India and other emerging countries.

Internet Advertising Half Year Results

The UK's internet advertising spend for the first half of 2007 rose 41.3 per cent year-on-year, showing a rapid increase in the rate of growth from 40.3 per cent the previous year.

During this period an impressive £1.3 billion was spent on advertising on the web. Internet advertising is expected to become the largest ad segment in 2011, surpassing newspapers