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POPSSkype turning profitable Skype showing an interesting performance in terms of acquisition of new customers or at least of opening of new accounts ( not necessarily the same thing). Their seemingly sustainable quarterly profitability is also good news although it does not justify the price eBay paid to acquire Skype in the first place.
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POPSMadoff's preferred investments The name Madoff is now indelebly associated to the largest financial scam of history. Nevertheless, it's interesting to see what types of investments had Madoff's favors and that's what a columnist of the FT did. Fairly interesting piece.
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POPSSweden's business focus on greentech My first job was with a Swedish company and I've been a fan of the country's way of innovating and showing the world how doing the right thing can also be a profitable way. Again at the forefront in the field of greenetch with a couple of exciting companies mentioned in this article from BusinessWeek.
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POPSWPP's digital push A BusinessWeek article with some fairly interesting info about the goals and obstacles faced by WPP as it tries to transform itself into a next generation marketing agency. Interestingly its CEO is pushing employees and Board Directors alike to adopt new practices from video, to Facebook, to Twitter and other social tools. And that's the right way to go.
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POPSBlog Ad Network by Six Apart helps monetization of smaller blogs Six Apart is one of the few companies of the so called web 2.0 wave whose focus on sustainable business models is a major strength. Using their position as a blogging platform to structure and manage an ad network is really a no-brainer from a business standpoint, while it is also in keeping with Six Apart's consistent policy of offering easy-to-use solutions to its customers. They are uniquely positioned to generate substantial business value from this initiative. I am very curious about their pricing mechanism and about the degree of visibility they will allow into their profit margins from this activity. And perhaps even more than those aspects of the scheme, I will be interested to understand their targeting philosophy (serving the relevant ads to each micro-audience) because that's one of the big battles of tomorrow's advertising.
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POPSFret no more about Google
The decrease in paid clicks on Google's online advertising network has been one of the worrying news of the first quarter for modern day advertisers. The Economist has done a good little piece of analysis showing why the decrease may only be the result of Google's own aspiration for more relevance and better performance of ads. And I think it shows pretty well why Google is here to stay and very far from being already "over the hill" as some put it. It is perhaps the most telling testimony of the company's ambition to build a sustainable position in the elusive field of online advertising and beyond that narrow perspective an indication of the stringent demands the company has on itself. So emails may be flying around showing how great a working environment Google is, but nobody should infer it's a corporate version of Club Med. And judging from their ambitious cooperation with SalesForce, these guys are going for a cut of every significant business transaction they facilitate.
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POPSWorrying jurisprudence in France A French court issues decision making online publications and web sites responsible for content produced by a third party (i.e. not the owner of the site or online resource). This is likely to lead to the emergence of considerable legal risks for collaborative endeavors in France as well as for innovative marketing campaigns.
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POPSWhere's the agency? Quite an interesting trend in the space of advertising as online media, especially those that have a participative audience, are now reinventing the value chain of marketing communications. This does look like a validation for those of us who feel the role and mission of agency is to undergo dramatic changes in the months and years to come. Watch this space!
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POPSOnline less and less beyond reach of governments Quite a few analysts have described the situation of online as being essentially out of reach of governments and laws written before the information age. That time is over and this has enormous implications for many businesses that are currently thriving in the online space.
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POPSLuxembourg-based company registering 3-letter domain names Why does a Luxembourg-based company called Quinv invest so much money registering systematically all 3-letter domain names? Apparently there seems to be a business case behind that, which is rumored to be a form of asset backed bond. The revenues that can be generated through these domains will be used to issue one or more asset backed securities, thus allowing the company to make money by generating more profit than required to service the obligations stemming from the existence of the asset backed securities. Perhaps there is more... Don't forget that Skype was initiated in Luxembourg :-)
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