FT.com / Services & tools / SearchFT.com / Services & tools / Search

FT.com / Services & tools / SearchFT.com / Services & tools / Search: "COMPANIES THE AMERICAS: Google acquires wiki pioneer JotSpot

By: By Richard Waters inSan Francisco, Financial Times
Published: Nov 01, 2006

Google's steady encroachment into the corporate software market continued yesterday as it announced the acquisition of JotSpot, a three-year-old private company that runs wikis, or communal web pages.

The acquisition also opens a new front in the competition between Google and Microsoft, further rounding out the internet company's package of 'productivity' and collaboration tools that are coming to resemble an online version of the Office desktop software.

Founded by Joe Kraus - whose earlier creation, the internet portal Excite, experienced one of the most dramatic rises and falls of the dotcom era - JotSpot is one of several 'Web 2.0' companies that have aimed their services mainly at corporate rather than individual users.

Wikis are web pages that can be written or edited by a group, making them a potentially useful tool for workers in different locations who are trying to collaborate.

As such, they reduce the need for large numbers of group emails and attachments, which have become the bane of many office workers' lives."

FT.com / Services & tools / SearchFT.com / Services & tools / Search

FT.com / Services & tools / SearchFT.com / Services & tools / Search: "Google to beat TV in race for ad revenues

By: By Carlos Grande and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in London and Richard Waters in San Francisco, FT.com site
Published: Nov 01, 2006

Google is poised to overtake Britain's main TV channels in the race for advertising revenue, underlining the internet's challenge to traditional media.

The internet search company's advertising revenue in the UK is expected this year to surpass Channel 4's anticipated 2006 take of �800m. Within 18 months, it is forecast to overtake ITV1, Britain's leading commercial TV channel and the country's biggest single recipient of advertising revenue, according to Mindshare and Initiative, two top media buying groups.

Carat, another media buyer, believes the milestone could be passed as early as next year.

ITV1 accounted for 90 per cent of the ITV group's �1.63bn total advertising revenues last year.

"

FT.com / Companies / Telecoms - 3mobile to put Google searches on its handsets

FT.com / Companies / Telecoms - 3mobile to put Google searches on its handsets: "3mobile to put Google searches on its handsets

By Philip Stafford andAndrew Parker in London

Published: November 16 2006 02:00 | Last updated: November 16 2006 02:00

The 3mobile group yesterday announced a deal with Google, the internet group, to put its search function with its handset, in a move that 3mobile says is a key step to making the internet fully mobile.

The Google deal is expected to be among several partnerships with technology companies unveiled today by Hutchison Whampoa, owner of the 3mobile phone network.

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The Hong Kong-based group regards the partnerships as the most significant development for its third-generation mobile networks since their launch three years ago.

The deal will allow 3mobile customers to benefit from direct access to Google search and will be rolled out to individual markets in due course.

"

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Google Earth spurs Bahraini equality drive

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Google Earth spurs Bahraini equality drive: "Google Earth spurs Bahraini equality drive

By William Wallis in Manama

Published: November 24 2006 21:29 | Last updated: November 24 2006 21:29

Since Bahrain’s government blocked the Google Earth website earlier this year for its intrusion into private homes and royal palaces, Googling their island kingdom has become a national pastime for many Bahrainis.

The site allows internet users to view satellite images of the world in varying degrees of detail. When Google updated its images of Bahrain to higher definition, cyber-activists seized on the view it gave of estates and private islands belonging to the ruling al-Khalifa family to highlight the inequity of land distribution in the tiny Gulf kingdom."

FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Google to cancel Google Answers service

FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Google to cancel Google Answers service: "Google to cancel Google Answers service

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: November 29 2006 23:50 | Last updated: November 29 2006 23:50

Google said on Wednesday that it would end its Google Answers service, marking a rare decision by the search company to trim its rapidly-expanding portfolio of services as it shifts its product development focus to improving those considered to have the greatest potential.

The admission of defeat also points to an area where Yahoo, though widely seen as still lagging Google in search, has outstripped its arch-rival.

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Google Answers, launched four years ago, provides online answers to users’ questions by drawing on contributions by real people, rather than the algorithmic search results for which Google is better known.

According to ComScore, in June the service attracted just under 1m users in the US, compared to the 12.3m for the similar Yahoo Answers. Yahoo itself on Wednesday claimed 60m users worldwide for the"

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Google and BSkyB move to take online ad model to TV

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Google and BSkyB move to take online ad model to TV: "Google and BSkyB move to take online ad model to TV

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson,Media Editor

Published: December 7 2006 02:00 | Last updated: December 7 2006 02:00

Google has taken its first step towards moving its online advertising model into television, launching a broad-ranging alliance with British Sky Broadcasting that the search group said could be its most lucrative deal.

The partnership will at first see Google provide its user-generated video, e-mail, search and targeted advertising tools to customers of BSkyB's five-month-old broadband internet service - the first licensing of the videotools Google bought when it acquired YouTube in October.

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The companies plan to extend the partnership to BSkyB's core television platform, however, by replacing traditional 30-second television adverts with targeted commercials stored on the hard drives in BSkyB's set-top boxes."

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Google outlines BSkyB thinking

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Google outlines BSkyB thinking: "Google outlines BSkyB thinking

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnsonin London

Published: December 8 2006 02:00 | Last updated: December 8 2006 02:00

Can James Murdoch create a British YouTube? This week's British Sky Broadcasting alliance with Google covered many areas, from putting sky.com e-mail accounts on the Google Mail platform to exploring ways of taking Google's online ad model to TV viewers.

The partners' plan to collaborate on a Sky-branded user-generated video portal was the first such licensing of Google's technology, which has been greatly enhanced by its $1.65bn acquisition of the YouTube video sharing site in October. But it may also offer BSkyB new opportunities to exploit its premium content.

Plans to organise the portal, expected to be called Skycast, into themed areas will allow it to appeal to specific groups of sports and film fans, rather than the general audiences drawn to Google Video and YouTube.

"

Retail Medicine - from an NGO's point of view

Health Care in the Express Lane: The Emergence of Retail Clinics - CHCF.org: "Health Care in the Express Lane: The Emergence of Retail Clinics

Mary Kate Scott

July 2006

With catchy slogans such as 'You're Sick, We're Quick,' and promises of affordability and convenience, a new wave of retail health clinics located in mini-malls and popular discount stores is making its mark on the health care landscape.

This report examines this innovation from a national and California perspective. It provides an overview of in-store clinics and converging trends in retail and health care, and explores the potential for these clinics to succeed as a viable business model.

Surveys indicate that retail-based clinics appeal most to higher-income consumers willing to pay for convenience, and uninsured consumers, who have few alternatives and limited flexibility. According to the report, national consumer reviews have been positive and retail clinic numbers are expected to skyrocket from less than 100 in mid-2006 to several thousand by the end of 2007.

In California, which has a relative handful of in-store clinics, the lure of a huge consumer market is irresistible. But health regulations and looming turf battles with physicians may limit profitability and scalability.

The complete report is available under Document Downloads at the link.

In the GME, it's about time

FT.com / Business Life - Pioneers of retail therapy:

"When a truck arrives to deliver a new CheckUps clinic, its contents have been packed so that they can be unloaded in a precise order for assembly. The walls come first, with finished interiors in rich cherry and maple woods. All the wiring is pre-installed. Laboratory equipment, including an X-ray machine, is rolled out, followed by the finishing touches of furniture, computers, medical supplies, doors and decorations.

It takes the company only about nine days from being granted building permission to transform a 800 sq ft space inside the retailer into a low-cost, walk-in medical clinic.

A nurse can then begin to see customers for minor illnesses such as sore throats or preventive measures such as vaccines. Clinics offer routine healthcare with prices of between $30-$50 a visit – significantly less than patients would pay to see a doctor.

Such clinics are not only appearing in supermarkets. Companies such as RediClinic are now setting up operations in city-centre drugstores across the US.

Operators hope that as well as delivering care, their well-appointed clinics will send customers an important message: access to healthcare can be inexpensive, but it does not have to look cheap.

Watch Wall Mart and the Health Business

FT.com / Business Life - Pioneers of retail therapy:

"to push the cause of the electronic age, Mr Barrett has formed a coalition of at least 10 large companies, including Intel and Wal-Mart. It aims to establish a standard for employees’ electronic medical records, with the data stored at an independent repository.

In the Google Mart Economy, you can get a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, by watching what Google and Wall Mart are doing.

Retail Medicine

FT.com / Business Life - Pioneers of retail therapy:

"Advocates say they could fundamentally change how healthcare is managed in the US by providing the infrastructure for a nationally accessible system of electronic medical records."

Will it be different this time?

A standard narrative of the post war economy, is that when America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.

Now some are arguing that has changed. But they have argued that before.

Only time will tell.



FT.com / Comment & analysis / Analysis - Europe bets on weathering a US downturn:

"Europe bets on weathering a US downturn

By Chris Giles and Ralph Atkins,

Published: December 4 2006 18:45 | Last updated: December 4 2006 18:45

Currency traders have become convinced over the past two weeks that something big is afoot in the global economy. They are not convinced by the sanguine noises coming from the Federal Reserve and think the risks of a “hard landing” in the US economy have risen. But, in a departure from the old wisdom, they do not seem worried about the effects of a US downturn on European economies – rejecting the old adage that “when the US sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold”.

They appear to be trading on the belief that, while US interest rates will fall in an effort to counter a slowdown, European rates will continue to rise – and, by implication, that Europe’s economic upswing has some way to go. This has led to steep declines in the dollar, which tumbled to a 20-month low against the euro and to a 14-year trough against sterling."

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Google acquires wiki pioneer JotSpot

FT.com / Companies / US & Canada - Google acquires wiki pioneer JotSpot:

"Google acquires wiki pioneer JotSpot

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: November 1 2006 02:00 | Last updated: November 1 2006 02:00

Google's steady encroachment into the corporate software market continued on Tuesday as it announced the acquisition of JotSpot, a three-year-old private company that runs wikis, or communal web pages.

The acquisition also opens a new front in the competition between Google and Microsoft, further rounding out the internet company's package of 'productivity' and collaboration tools that are coming to resemble an online version of the Office desktop software.

ADVERTISEMENT

Founded by Joe Kraus - whose earlier creation, the internet portal Excite, experienced one of the most dramatic rises and falls of the dotcom era - JotSpot is one of several 'Web 2.0' companies that have aimed their services mainly at corporate rather than individual users.

Wikis are web pages that can be written or edited by a group, making them a potentially useful tool for workers in different locations who are trying to collaborate.

As such, they reduce the need for large numbers of group emails and attachments, which have become the bane of many office workers' lives.

The acquisition echoes Google's recent purchase of Writely, an online word processing service, which was relaunched last month as Google Docs and packaged with an undated version of the company's spreadsheet service.

JotSpot's service will also be moved onto Google's software architecture, and will be integrated with these and other Google services, said Mr Kraus.

He added that the push for tighter integration was part of a broader effort at Google, begun by its co-founder Sergey Brin, to move from releasing large numbers of stand-alone services to building tighter integration and 'richer' features into the services Google already has,

Google has said that its aim is not to replace Microsoft's Office, but to create a range of services that are more suited to online collaboration between groups of workers. JotSpot has so far sold its service to 2,000 companies, said Mr Kraus, but the fees will be dropped now that it is part of Google.

He added that the wiki service was likely to fit closely with the company's word processing and spreadsheet services, which are aimed at a 'crossover market' of both consumers and small businesses."

Staples opens digital copy services centers - 10/19/2006 - Purchasing

Staples opens digital copy services centers - 10/19/2006 - Purchasing: "Staples opens digital copy services centers
By Staff
Purchasing
October 19, 2006




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As a way to help purchasing further consolidate its supply base, Staples now offers its contract customers digital copy and print services.

Through Staples Digital Copy Services, office buyers at mid-sized to large businesses can get high-quality on-demand copy and print services with quick turn-around and delivery, says Lisa Hamblet, vice president of business-to-business services for Staples in Framingham, Mass.

Staples has opened two new digital production centers equipped with digital technology. One in Edison, N.J., serves customers in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., while the other in City of Industry, Calif., serves customers on the West Coast.

Staples started offering Digital Copy Services to contract customers in December, 2004, when it opened its first pilot center in Sharon, Mass. The center provides customers with marketing collateral and brochures, training manuals, employee handbooks, college course guides, full-color presentations, signage and postcards. In the 18 months it's been open, the center has experienced double-digit sales growth which the company expects to continue over the next five years.

"

no money to be made with the dinosaurs, back to the mammals

News - Hoover's: "10/23/2006 10:43:57 AM EDT
Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) (KRT)

Oct. 19--FedEx Kinko's is done trying on hats and seeing little change on the balance sheet.

Last week, it told 175 account executives that their positions were being reassigned as the company focuses its energy chiefly on small businesses and providing a mobile office to the growing number of Monday-Friday road warriors."

Advertising Age - Draft FCB Wins Wal-Mart's $580 Million Ad Account

What's going on at Wall Mart's?

Advertising Age - Draft FCB Wins Wal-Mart's $580 Million Ad Account:

"Seismic shift
The decision marks yet another move in Wal-Mart's seismic shift in corporate image and physical presence. The review, managed by Catherine Benison, CEO, Select Resources International in Santa Monica, Calif., and captained on the client side by Wal-Mart's senior VP-Marketing Stephen Quinn, highlights a year of changes as the retailer moves away from a consumer-product-marketing approach to a retail-marketing approach focused on its 'store of the community' program. "

Google Book Search sells books

Boing Boing: Google Book Search sells books:

Publishers attending the Frankfurt Book Fair this week have gone on record thanking Google for its controversial Google Book Search program, which makes searachable indices of millions of books available online. They say that making their books visible to Internet users searching for answers converts these searchers into customers. They also say that Amazon's likewise controversial Look Inside program has been good for sales (duh -- Amazon isn't interested in programs that reduce sales of books).

'Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers,' said Colleen Scollans, the director of online sales for Oxford University Press...

'When we looked at the first six months of stats, we saw that 30 percent of Google Book Search clicks went directly to our site, while roughly 40 percent went to Amazon,' said William Shepherd, Osprey's managing director.

'Our sales through the Web are steadily increasing in proportion to our total sales, and we're confident that Google Book Search will accelerate this growth.'

Walter de Gruyter/Mouton-De Gruyter, a German publisher, said its encyclopaedia of fairy tales has been viewed 471 times since appearing in the program, with 44 percent of them clicking on the 'buy this book' Google link.

One of its many scientific titles, 'Principles of Visual Anthropology', has seen about one-quarter of the 1,206 views click on 'buy this book'.

Link"

Time zone is a competitive advantage

In article about Chicago, and the role of 24 hour derivative exchange and the wealth it has brought to the city, this paragraph caught my eye..

The two executives’ travel plans in September reflect how the introspection has been reversed to leverage the demands for 24-hour global trading, using Chicago’s advantage of a time zone capturing parts of the business day in Asia and Europe as its hub.

...Chicago may have lost its mantle as manufacturing capital of the world, but has been honest and nimble enough to groom itself as the pre-eminent derivatives centre”.

The link

And then there is the infrastructure business

The Link to the FT Story - Engines of globalisation: the story of Maersk:

In fact, Maersk reveals little more about its activities than the minimum required by the Copenhagen Stock Exchange and says almost nothing about its corporate strategy. But the Copenhagen-based group’s $38bn annual revenues last year make it not much smaller than Microsoft, the software giant.
...
As the largest company in the sector, Maersk is a key driver of the reduction of the costs of ocean shipping that has been under way since the container was invented in 1956. The process has been crucial to making globalisation possible and has driven costs down so far that it often now costs more to ship a container by road 100 miles from a port to its final destination than it does to move the container by sea from China to Europe.

When it costs less to move a container across the ocean than 100 miles inland, what does that do to the definition of space?

The most important goal they identify is that Maersk should control as many as possible of the companies that influence its containers’ movement from country to country. The other is to pursue scale – both in the size of the company’s main businesses and in its ships.

The company can be single-minded in pursuit of these objectives because it is largely immune from short-term shareholder pressure. The founding McKinney-Møller family holds 55 per cent of the shares and 75 per cent of voting stock, with 49.8 per cent of the shares all held by a single family charitable trust.

When a private company can be this successful, what does that mean for the comparative advantage of a public corporation?

"Image" = Brand? = Trust = Sales?

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: How Bad Is Wal-Mart's Image?:

"How Bad Is Wal-Mart's Image?

Well, the big retailer’s image is better than President Bush’s, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s, Vice President Dick Cheney’s, but not as good as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s.

Here’s what the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found when it asked respondents to “rate your feelings” toward the following.
Very or somewhat positive Very or somewhat negative
Wal-Mart 45% 31%
Rumsfeld 31% 43%
Bush 42% 49%
Cheney 43% 50%
Rice 55% 28%

And for comparison…

Target 51% 10%

(Rows don’t add to 100 because remainder were neutral or weren’t sure.)"