Quote of the day

Provided by a friend, the AIG vice chairman Jacob Frenkel appears to have said the following, which is a pretty accurate statement of the situation, unfortunately not confined to AIG:

"The left side of the balance sheet has nothing right and the right side of the balance sheet has nothing left"

Accelerating trends in the media landscape

An excellent slideshow providing an overview of the radical transformation of the media, marketing & communication landscape. These are the trends on which many start-ups have been able to thrive in Europe over the recent years. Now of course, as the game is becoming much more serious and the economic context gets tougher I expect there will be quite a few casualties...

Social Media

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: networking network)

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Randy Pausch's Time management lecture

Or why time and money cannot possibly be considered as merely interchangeable... "You can always earn more money later, but you can't get your last two years back"

What if a major brand was to bring the stop sign to market?

Yahoo! strikes an alliance with Google

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" seems to be the rule at Yahoo! even when that means striking a stunning alliance with old-time rival Google. According to French news agency AFP and to CNN Money, the two companies came to an agreement for the US and Canadian markets, whereby Google would be able to sell advertising space on Yahoo's search pages. Aside from being an admission that Yahoo! stands no chance to compete head to head with Google in this space, the agreement is interesting in that it contains a provision saying that should Yahoo!'s ownership status change by way of an acquisition or other operation within the coming two years, the company would have to pay Google 250 million dollars.

That provision could be seen as an attempt to ward off any attempts to acquire Yahoo! for the next 24 months even though when a company like Microsoft is willing to pay over 45 billion USD to acquire Yahoo! I doubt 250 million would make a difference even if paid to archrival Google. I would personally focus my interest much more on the time horizon of the said provision because in my opinion it speaks volumes about the internal expectations of Yahoo! as to the time when its future strategic direction will have matured and started to deliver the first results. Microsoft's takeover bid most certainly was a wake-up call for top execs at Yahoo! Now of course, the question that remains to be sorted out is whether activist investors like Carl Icahn will give Yahoo! two years.

Tighter legislation of online and interactive marketing

In yet another sign of a maturing market for new generation marketing and communications services, stricter legislations and rules are being enforced in Europe. The clipmark is about the UK market where legislation has been tightened considerably over the past few years. For example, the legislators have taken steps to make it impossible to target children with dedicated web sites and online activities. Now techniques of influence marketing are being regulated in a stricter manner to limit if not eliminate manipulation of consumers. The interesting question of course is whether legislators will apply the same kind of logic to politicians and their spin doctors...

clipped from www.visinsights.com Buzz Marketing techniques to become illegal in UK? Effective on the 26 of May 2008 certain activities will become a criminal offense when the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations becomes effective. Seeding positive messages about a brand in a blog without making it clear that the message has been created by, or on behalf of, the brand will be an offense. Using “buzz marketing” specialists to communicate with potential customers in social situations without disclosing that they are acting as brand ambassadors will be an offense.