Copper
China’s giant pile of copper is inflating its credit bubble | Quartz – China’s import data surprised many today when it revealed that its traders bought 397,459 tonnes (438,124 tons) of refined copper in January, just shy of the record 406,937 tonnes imported in December 2011, and up 63.5% on January 2012. I would want it audited to show that the copper actually existed somewhere. Is the copper in a bonded warehouse? It would be very easy for an overly ambitious trader to sell copper they didn’t have
Business
Chinese brand equity makes for stock hits | beyondbrics – who says that China doesn’t get brand. I think that many Chinese companies don’t understand the difference between sales and marketing but that’s changing
I am out of tune with these times |Bronte Capital – …but the valuation has to make sense on fairly modest assumptions before I get excited. I owned Facebook in the twenties. I could make the per-subscriber numbers work – interesting read, I imagine Warren Buffett’s take would be similar
Consumer behaviour
Digital Intelligence :: Europeans spend 18% more time using apps than Americans – report – the European user base launched their apps more than their US counterparts
US v China: is this the new cold war? – FT.com – if it isn’t now, it will be due to Communist Party of China doctrine of struggle and aspirations for hegemony
There are six kinds of Twitter conversations, and here they are | io9 – researchers say they’ve found six distinct shapes that Twitter conversations take
Economics
Sophisticated Brands for Sophisticated Consumers | Wolff Olins – how Chinese consumers are altering the requirements for their brands
Spain exporting it’s way out of trouble | Quartz – something the UK could learn from, Spain still has a long way to go however
The European banking system still is a mess: RBS edition | Quartz
FMCG
Boots to sell Puritane e-cigarettes from Imperial Tobacco subsidiary | Marketing Magazine
Custom-Order ‘Mix-In’ Ice Cream Chains Realize They’re a Rip-off
Can the Same Manager Sell Pampers and Pantene? P&G Says No | Wall Street Journal – beauty needs specialist management
How to
How strategists level up — Undercurrent Collection
How To Build (And Sustain) A Remote Workforce | FastCompany
What to do if your organisation is the victim of a fraud attack | Out-Law.com
Ideas
Benedict Evans InContext Keynote | A VC – worth a watch during your lunch hour
Social media is making you stupid | Time
Indonesia
Only in Indonesia: Twitter votes come at a price on popular TV show – how did they manage to charge for tweet vote entries?
Innovation
Intel, Sun vet births fast, inexpensive 3D chip-stacking breakthrough | The Register – a way to allow communication in 3D stacked chips without the expense and fabrication hassles of creating physical connections
China is spending a fortune on science—and is getting robbed blind by corrupt scientists | Quartz
Luxury
Gucci is selling too much to the wrong people | Quartz
Want to sell luxury handbags to Chinese tourists? Open more stores in Paris – Steadily growing throngs of spendthrift Chinese tourists have been one of the lone bright spots for consumer economies around the world – luxury tax, tax avoidance by business people and a desire for experiences drive overseas purchases
Marketing
Lecture: Trust and the Fall of Public Relations | Jericho Chambers
These Are The Metrics That Really Matter For Social Media | BusinessInsider – Many brands are finally realizing that social media isn’t a transactional engine or sales machine in the traditional sense. As they do, they’re dropping half-baked indicators and letting go of the idea of social ROI
Chartered Institute of Public Relations – State Of The Profession – once you take account of their natural bias to flog CPD and qualifications it makes an interesting read (PDF)
David Beckham a role model for Hong Kong househusbands | CampaignAsia – Describing the inner life of a misunderstood species of Hong Kong consumer. (Paywall)
China-based social marketing service Kmsocial raises ‘tens of millions’ – good quality near real-time measurement and analytics tools that actually work in China are a big need. Marketing automation can then follow
Media
Facebook, Twitter and the User Narrative | GroupM Next
Life Before (and After) Page Numbers | The Atlantic
WhatsApp is the first of several big acquisitions for Facebook – I, Cringely
Retailing
Esprit embraces “fast fashion” in China turnaround | beyondbrics
Security
Homoglyphs for SEO | Terence Eden
Lookout study: hackers target mobile attacks by region | PCWorld
South Korea green lights Stuxnet-like code weapons to nark NORKS – how successful would this really be against North Korea? Also given that South Korea is one of the most connected countries on earth and reliant on poor quality security enshrined in law based around ActiveX, retaliation would be devastating
Software
Surprise, you’ve got a Windows Phone app! Microsoft irks big brands in bid to stock mobile store – GeekWire – is this dodgy from an IP point-of-view? One has to view their app numbers with skepticism
Google reportedly forcing Asus to ax Android/Windows tablet project
Apple Confirms Burstly Buy – owner of the popular iOS beta testing platform TestFlight
Jolla’s Sailfish OS and smartphones are commercially ready and heading into new markets – smart of them to get this new out in advance of MWC media scrum
Android users will get to install Jolla’s rival Sailfish OS, bit by bit – Jolla’s Sailfish OS isn’t Android – not even an Amazon-style fork – but it can run Android apps and manufacturers can put it on the same hardware they use for Android devices – now if they could get this running on Huawei hardware so you can bin the crap Emotion UI…
Technology
Tim Cook on Big Acquisitions: ‘We Have No Problem Spending Ten Figures for the Right Company’
E-cigarette lets you smoke, take calls, and play music | Irish Examiner – The new Supersmoker Bluetooth e-cigarette, you’ll be able to receive calls right from your e-cig. For €79, the Supersmoker also acts as a speaker for your music. – wrong, just wrong
Telecoms
Nokia may consider merging with Juniper: report – German outlet Manager Magazin Online has reported that Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN), the bits of Nokia Microsoft didn’t buy, is considering a transaction of some sort with Juniper Networks.… – interesting move, I think that this is better than Alcatel Lucent
Web of no web
Huawei has created the world’s ugliest smartwatch | BGR
Wireless
NTT DoCoMo on 5G mobile – (PDF)