Author Archive
The big rush for cash
A recent Citi estimation talks of 600bn$ of cash being hoarded up by hedge funds. Not a surprise. The fly to safe lands (cash) coupled with deleveraging was already happening, and it looks like it is assuming epic dimension right now. Not a suprise, considering the following gib question marks:
the 700bn$ bailout is facing challenges. […]
2008, not the year of mobile (yet)
For something like the last 10 years, every year mobile advertising has been considered the next big thing, supposed to happen in the following two years. Shall we renew the tradition this year too?
Definitely, 2008 hasn’t been the year of mobile advertising going mainstream. Despite a substantial growth of mobile ad revenues, it is still […]
Sponsored search and economic crisis
What we have seen so far in online advertising is a shift from brand spend to direct response spend, i.e. from banner into sponsored search, affiliate marketing and the likes. It does make complete sense. Given the though economic environment, and the pressure in companies on controlling costs while maintaining revenues, a shift from brand […]
Goodbye Steve
Today I said goodbye to Steve.
Steve (Boom, SVP Connected Life, Yahoo!) was visiting London today to say goodbye to friends and colleagues. His last day, next Tuesday. After 10 very good years at Yahoo!, he has decided to move on, take a bit of time off and to think to the next thing.
I value Steve […]
Cool Devices
I am looking for a new cool phone to replace my blackberry. It does work, does a fairly good job, but it is getting old. Hell, it has 18 months! Also, the screen is quite small, surfing is quite a nightmare, it doesn’t have GPS. It does mail particularly good, but sometimes it would re-boot […]
The 1.8 trillion dollars bailout
CNBC has made an interesting analysis on the US government bailout of the financial crisis.
It’s not just 700bn$, more like 1.8trn$. Quick laundry list:
700bn$ recently announced plan to buy assets from bank
150bn$ MBS purchase by Fannie and Freddie
85bn$ for AIG
90bn$ in repayment to JPM for Lehman
200bn$ for Freddie and Fannie
300bn$ for FHA
200bn$ of currently outstanding […]
The pessimists are the true optimists
When it is down to human-made forecast of complex project delivery time-lines, you’re always going to be wrong. But how much wrong is a topic of particular interest, especially in business. Say you expect to deliver a project in 60 days. You know it’s almost sure it will take longer (Murphy’s law are quite right). […]
So you wanna bailout the whole world?
Courtesy of Bloomberg a possible explanation of the 600points Dow swing that today blew up all the (sensible and justified) short positions in financials. Apparently, we are heading toward some pretty serious system-wide bailout.
“Schumer urged forming an agency to inject funds into financial companies in exchange for equity stakes and pledges to rewrite mortgages and […]
Lehman and Merrill
OK - this is old now. I wrote it early this morning, and the world changed egain, but hey! Why should I not post it?
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At the end, it did happen. A “major” financial institution has gone bust. So the FED has sort of “saved the face” with regard to Moral Hazard. Merrill would have probably […]
Chrome
I think Google’s browser is a good piece of software. I am using it, and find it quite cool. Not that is anything much beyond Firefox, but it’s nice to use new things.
What really disturbs me is the T&C, where they state that, plain and simple, any content produced with Google browser becomes IP of […]