FUTURISTIC GROOVES

Social Networking King… Facebook?

ron — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:46:06 +0000

Facebook is quickly expanding into many world regions and this internationalisation strategy seems to pay off. According to figures released by comScore (SCOR) on Aug. 12. Facebook has overtaken Myspace and now counts 132 million users, nearly 63% are outside North America. The site, which had been translated into 20 languages including French, Spanish, and [...]

Golden Olympic Opening Ceremony Photos

ron — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:49:15 +0000

Source: IHT

Let the Games Begin!

ron — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:31:33 +0000

Furthermore, today, BusinessWeek devoted a string of articles to the Olympics as well. * As Olympics Open, China’s Economy Slows * Olympics Security Is No Game * Slide Show: China’s Olympic Stars * Slide Show: Olympic Innovation * Case Study: Ambush Marketing With the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the eyes of the world have turned to China. The McKinsey Quarterly has taken [...]

Behind the Scenes

ron — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:45:51 +0000

Today the Economist published an article titled “Confessions of a risk manager”. Here, an insider explains why it is so hard to stop traders behaving recklessly. In addition, a detailed elaboration on the credit crunch and beyond is also given.

Top 100 Olympic Athletes

ron — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:15:34 +0000

From Daley Thompson to Emile Zatopek, the Times Online presents the greatest Olympians of all time backed up with statistical prove. You can find the complete report here.

Credit Crunch: Who is to blame?

ron — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:51:37 +0000

One year after it all started, who is to blame for the global credit crunch? Different people have different explanations for the parlous state of the world’s financial markets. The BBC asked various experts to tell us who they thought was responsible. Find the full report here.

Cuil

ron — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:31:58 +0000

Former workers at the web giant Google have launched a rival search engine. Called Cuil (pronounced “cool”), from the Gaelic for knowledge and hazel, its founders claim it does a better and more comprehensive job of indexing information online. The technology it uses to index the web can understand the context surrounding each page and the [...]

GE: Reorganisation @ Work

ron — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:49:00 +0000

Following my previous post on GE and its slugging share performance. Last Friday, GE announced a major restructuring of its global business operations. In an attempt to revamp its organisational and corresponding stock performance, General Electric will reorganise its operations by folding its six business segments into four. A background article on organisational and financial performance can [...]

Legends Always Reunite!

ron — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:27:28 +0000

Last week Dennis Bergkamp started with his trainee post at his youth love, AJAX. As part of the official course of becoming a licensed trainer/manager. Earlier this year Marco van Basten, AJAX’s new manager, offered Bergkamp a trainee post alongside him at AJAX,. Read more in my previous post “Van Basten offers Bergkamp trainee post“.

Will GE Weather the Storm?

ron — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:59:06 +0000

The pressure to lift the share price is building. But CEO Jeff Immelt’s options are limited. After a historic first-quarter fumble (earnings miss of 7Cents below expectations) GE met targets for Q2 FY2009. But the market didn’t reward GE. The battered stock price rose just 2Cents on the day’s news, to US$27,66. Since the beginning [...]

The YES dance

ron — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:52:28 +0000

Shocking, entertaining, and inspiring! Can one ask for more?

The Other Cost of the Financial Crisis

ron — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:37:42 +0000

London’s hedge fund managers and stockbrokers have more than their bonuses to worry about: many are now fretting about their marriages, according to a new study. About 80 percent of those surveyed believe that the turmoil — and lower bonus payments — will prompt more women to seek a divorce before their husbands’ wealth evaporates further. Here [...]

Chinese Telecom Market Liberalisation?

ron — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:47:15 +0000

To date foreign Telecom players like SK Telecom (S-Korea), Telefonica (Spain), and Vodafone (UK) have been limited to minority stakes of under 7% in Chinese telecom operators. However brighter times for foreign telecom operators may lie ahead! Owing to the ongoing Chinese telecom industry restructuring (consolidation wave) and a planned infrastructure revamp (issuing of 3G Network [...]

Now we’re talking!

ron — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:03:30 +0000

[click to enlarge, sorry about that, couldn't get it to go bigger than this in the post]

Recession, Set, Go

ron — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:25:40 +0000

How much more can markets digest? Inflation worries, near-record oil prices and fears of further bank losses have led to a sell-off of shares across global stock markets. Key share indexes in India and China both fell 3% while Japan’s main index fell for its ninth consecutive day for the first time in four years. In Europe, the [...]

Innovation Avalanche

ron — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:34:33 +0000

The July / August 2008 edition of the Trendwatching Trend Briefing is now online, covering INNOVATION AVALANCHE, including no less than 41 new business ideas, many of them begging to be introduced to the Dutch market. So get your act sorted and gear up into action mode!

Energy and its future….

ron — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:02:16 +0000

The Economist has devoted a special report on the Future of Energy. A previous post related to this matter can be found here. The cover story of the special report suggest the following to encounter the big energy question: The best thing that rich-world governments can do is to encourage the alternatives by taxing carbon [...]

Sunrise over China?

ron — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:53:19 +0000

Is all the negative publicity around China over the last few months truly justified? If you look above the surface the answer may be yes. However much change in happing in China below the surface as well. For example China is increasingly opening up to international media: BBC website ‘unblocked in China’. Although this great initiative [...]

Startups in the Mobile Sphere

ron — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:20:29 +0000

Here a list of promising European startups in the sphere of mobile technology and innovation. The list compromises ideas in the range of social media, internet, video and voice technology.

The World’s Tech-Savviest Countries

ron — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:10:17 +0000

The Nordic European region still dominates the rankings of the most network-ready economies, but the U.S., Korea, and Switzerland posted big gains this year. Whereas the Netherlands drop one spot and is now ranking 7th. A complete ranking of the top ten can be found here.

Web 2.0 money-makers?

ron — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:36:45 +0000

The shortage of revenue among social networks, blogs and other “social media” sites that put user-generated content and communications at their core has persisted despite more than four years of experimentation aimed at turning such sites into money-makers. The Financial Times reports that Web 2.0 fails to produce cash.

China plc

ron — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:51:04 +0000

The BBC wrote a great article on Chine plc. A must read if you’re interested in emerging markets at large and Chinese emerging giants and its challenges in specific. Chinese companies remain in a hurry to expand abroad. “Chinese firms are saying we want to be world-class and we want to do it tomorrow,” says Edward Tse, [...]

Beyond Blogs: The conversation continues

ron — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:14:12 +0000

Beyond Blogs, a BusinessWeek Cover Story by Stephen Baker and Heather Green We’ve spent years talking about the value of the water-cooler conversations,” he says. “Now we have the ability to actually understand what these relationships are, how information and decision-making migrate. We see how people really work.” Why does this matter? The company can spot [...]

Biggest Broadband Countries

ron — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:53:35 +0000

The OECD published the yearly report on Broadband utilisation within OECD countries. Denmark is ranking on top with respect to broadband penetration rates. Please find the full report here and the top ten ranking composed by BusinessWeek here.

Happy 10th Anniversary

ron — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:08:43 +0000

Today is the 10th anniversary of the agreement that launched the single currency. However, residents of the first 12 EU states that adopted the Euro didn’t begin using Euro banknotes and coins until 1 January, 2002. When the euro was launched there were plenty of people who thought it would crash and burn. Ten years on, [...]