Month: May 2014
-
B52 upgrades + other news
B52 upgrades B52 receives first tech upgrade since 1961: Now with color screens and wireless networking – this is a credit to the engineers that designed and manufactured to the B52. The longevity there was something dieselpunkish about mixed analogue and digital controls that appeals to me though. The B52 was originally designed as a…
-
Daum Kakao merger
Yesterday evening I read that two Korean companies were merging: Kakao Corp. and Daum Corp to form Daum Kakao. Kakao Corp. are the makers of KakaoTalk a mobile messaging application with more sophisticated functions than Whatsapp. It has over 90% penetration of the Korean smartphone market and is more popular than Facebook. The application has…
-
Retro phones: the new trend?
Retro phones take off apparently The South China Morning Post wrote an article about what it perceived as a rise in usage of feature or retro phones. The article cited Lëkki as an example of such handsets becoming trendy, rather like retro re-issues of Nike Air Jordans or the adidas Originals range.In reality: Probably one…
-
Naspers + other news
Naspers Red-Hot Web in China Richly Rewards Foreign Investors (David Barboza/New York Times) – great to see that Naspers were getting a bit of respect. Naspers is a South African media company that moved into online retail and venture capital investing. Naspers were fortunate to buy into Tencent in 2001 and become their largest shareholder.…
-
New York Times culture
The internal Innovation report by The New York Times leaked widely and has been reported on, mainly in how it reflected the internal politics that led so the departure of Jill Abramson from the paper. It has also been heralded as document of importance in the industry. Given the nature of the document I decided…
-
Beats + Apple post
Before Beats there was Mega Bass Before you can talk about Beats, you need to go back into the history of consumer electronics. If you had a Japanese made personal stereo in the 80s through to the early noughties the words ‘Mega Bass’ meant something. It was printed on everything from clock radios and boom…
-
AirBnB + other news
AirBnB AirBnB seems to be the goldilocks of the sharing economy. It has at least as much disruptive negative impact as Uber, yet doesn’t seem to attract the same level of vitriol. On the demand side of things, while I know people who have had negative AirBnB experiences, they still don’t seem to realise its…
-
10 considerations of branding
Origins of 10 considerations of branding 10 considerations of branding goes back to a Ten years ago I used to work in an agency representing one of the pioneers of modern branding Henrion Ludlow Schmidt. I was fortunate that I got to work with the two managing partners at the time Chris Ludlow and Klaus…
-
Loose lips sink ships
During the second world war nations promoted a heightened state of awareness in citizens that they could be overheard through the use of propaganda materials. Including the iconic phrase loose lips sink ships. Loose lips sink ships is also a good maxim for modern business lives. We are now in an age when everyone can…