A Car Too Far » Business Online

M$ Evils

Matt — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 08:06:10 +0000

This one is especially for James really. I’ve been storing up a bunch of little posts that I haven’t got around to putting up yet, but I will sooner rather than later. This is one of those ones that makes you snigger a little. One of the chaps over at reddit noticed this little blunder by Evil Corps… (hint, look at the picture, not IE/MS)

’tis the season (to loose people’s data)-part 2

Matt — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:07:06 +0000

No sooner had I been moaning at the major software/OS houses (Microsoft and Apple) but the Social’s are keen to get in on the action. Twitter has recently asked people not to change their logins for fear of losing access to the system. In a statement they said:

“This seems to affect new users as well as long term users,”

Googgle… we’re still waiting….

’tis the season (to be loosing people’s data)

Matt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:54:43 +0000

Maybe it’s something in the air at the moment, or maybe it’s because the darkness is drawing in early but it appears that all that fumbling in the dark has caused a few data “blunders”. Just when you think there’s something pretty bad coming out of the Apple stable (there appears to be a bug in Snow Kitten that just deletes all your data) but Redmond comes bounding back on to the stage, re-affirming it’s position as the bumbling idiots of IT. Oh yes, Microsoft have managed to “almost certainly” loose all the data that customers paid them to look after.

… we (Microsoft) must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost

No official line yet on Apple doing similar, but we’re holding tight for Google.

Waving goodbye to email?

Matt — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:13:47 +0000

Depending on your exposure to all things Geek, you may, or may not have yet come accross a new technology that is being touted as “the new e-mail”. Bold claims like this are nothing new, they just carry more weight when they’re carried by “the big G” (Google).

The new technology is called “Google Wave” and is a pseudo e-mail system that looks something like a constantly updated (dynamic) email. In essence it’s an attempt to solve the problem of ever expanding email messages that get bits added and added, then broken (when the message gets Forwarded to someone outside the original CC), and add some extra functionality. This video (attempts) to give a better description (judge for yourself!)

All clear? Excellent.

OK, so where is it now? Well Google has opened up a “Beta” (an initial implementation that allows them to fix bugs and make it good enough for full public release) and invited 100,000 users to give it a go. Will it catch on? Well who knows. It’s a bold move, and they’ve taken a good step in making it all open source so that others can have have a go making clients and integrating it into whatever system they’re running. Whilst they’re taking a “we’re just trying to make life better” stance, it does, to me, smack a bit of AOL’s attempt to privatise the internet. We like GOOG but we know that they can be just as dangerous as AOL and Microsoft in their quest for world domination. The “Wave-Protocol” is not just the “Wave-Protocol”, it is the “Google Wave Federation Protocol”.

At least you can always “Opt-Out”

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

Financial forecasts – eCommerce

Matt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:30:31 +0000

Has anyone done this? It’s not an easy thing to do with any degree of accuracy.

I’ve been working off my own homegrown financial models, based on a number of KPIs, namely:

“Organic” Visitors (predicted)
PPC traffic based on Google Adwords Estimator
Average Order value (estimated on market knowdlege)
Average conversion rate (based on data from here)
Unit shipping costs
Amortised Returns Factor (A % of gross order intake)
Card processor margins
Staff rates etc

Does anyone have any good models built, or some spreadsheets with a better starting point? Would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Matt