Putting the word oblivion in the name of your business is a bit of a hostage to fortune. So it has proved for Beyond Oblivion, the music start up that was meant to take on the likes of Spotify and iTunes. Over two years, the company raised $87 million from backers including News Corp as […]
This not a story about a nervous and excessively prudish maiden. It is about the mildly amusing consequences of trying to make your software just a little bit too clever for its own good, and aiming to be the blandest on the block. Virgin Media has, along with most media outlets, decided to try and […]
To make the point that if you are in the STB business you are in the ‘box business’, I was going to headline this piece ‘BS and basics in the brown goods business’, but I figured there were probably too few people out there who now remember that’s what we used to call all the […]
Power without responsibility is an accusation traditionally levelled at the British Press: it makes and breaks governments and destroys innocent people’s lives without fear of the consequences. Some argue this is the price you pay for a free press. Certainly the press in the UK is relatively economically robust compared to other European countries and […]
The Eurozone crisis continues in full swing and its seemingly inexorable unfolding proves you should never say “at least it can’t get any worse.” Blame for the mess points in two opposite directions – depending on where you stand. Either the Eurozone was never going to work, and to try it at all was to […]
It was darned nice of the BSkyB board to back its chairman James Murdoch as he, once again, testified to Parliament over the lamentable and illegal events at News International. The praise they heaped on him was particularly fulsome given that – no matter how good and personable he is day-to-day – he must have […]
Carphone Warehouse is giving up on its Best Buy chain of electrical goods megastores in the UK. The chain was a joint venture with the US parent – America’s biggest seller of consumer electronics – and came about as part of the deal where Best Buy US paid £1.1 billion to take a 50 per […]
It is easy (I find it particularly easy) to criticise businesses that seem to spend endless energy, time and money on consumer research and focus groups. As with bringing in consultants, it often seems mostly a way for management to avoid making the decisions it’s paid to make or, at the very least, to establish […]
The European Court of Justice decision on the Portsmouth pub’s right to tune into a Greek version of Premier League football meant a day of headline reactions (mainly over-reactions really), before, by nightfall, all had agreed the judgement needed very careful consideration. The ECJ judgment said: “The Court of Justice holds that national legislation […]
There are tipping points in all things. Not very long ago, it seems to me, technology companies, including CA vendors, were going to their pay-TV operator customers and trying to persuade them that the fantastic new functionality they had invented should be deployed. The response was often lukewarm; when your current business model produces profits […]