A belated Happy New Year
Posted on January 10, 2008 by Tim
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So, after a bit of a frantic December we’ve launched the new moneywise website - www.moneywise.co.uk. Technically quite interesting in that it’s allowed us to explore a number of new things without the same legacy restrictions and considerations we have with interactive investor, namely:-
1. Drupal.
The obvious content management system / site framework for a site such as Moneywise. That said, it’s got quite a few quirks and there have been a few challenges to customise in areas. Other options were looked at, but only Drupal seemed to have momentum and an active developer community of any reasonable size.
2. OpenAds.
I introduced a friend to this opensource adserver a few years back and have followed it since. It’s a fantastic product already and having met some of the team, many of whom have experience of working on competing products (DoubleClick etc), they have a very bright future in my opinion.
3. Google Analytics.
For free, I don’t think anything beats it for tracking site usage and key metrics. Interactive Investor uses HBX which is more complex and comes with a price tag. We’ll know whether that price tag is justified having given Google Analytics a good run out.
4. Campaign Commander (by Email Vision).
We’ve looked at a number of outsourced email send / reporting / software companies. Managing deliverability, ISP sender reputation, new SMTP authentication technologies, increased demands on reporting and of course the ongoing overhead of list cleansing is quite a challenge for a small IT group.
Most companies we saw were selling vapourware or run by a bunch of crack heads; which left…..a French company. These chaps claim to send more email, on behalf of their clients, than anyone else in Europe. That of course could be a bad thing. In terms of ISP relationships and being forced to manage those extremely proactively- it’s probably a great thing.
Anyway, we’re giving their service a trial for Moneywise newsletters prior to considering moving interactive investor’s newsletter send requirements on to them.
5. Since this is my geekiest post for a while, I might aswell mention other stuff we’ve used and can recommend:-
PostCode Anywhere - a great suite of web services for address completion and user demographic data.
Blip.TV - OK , we’re already using them for iBall ; but this is a great video publishing platform - now used for the Moneywise videos too.
Crysis - Not project related but it’s often easy to forget just what PCs are capable of when working on websites. It’s all a bit static and text based really, for an obvious reason. The gaming industry is one I admire greatly and this release pushes the boundaries in terms of visuals and gameplay to a completely new level. It’s games like this that stop me from having those ‘what the hell am I working for at this time of…..
<LAUNCHING>>>>>>>>
Aunty loves GAP.
Posted on November 23, 2007 by Tim
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It wasn’t long ago that email systems administrators would be kindly advising their colleagues not to simply forward on the latest virus warning to thousands of their contacts in the hope of being their saviour, certainly without validating it first.
Most of course were a hoax, typically triggered by some bored kid wanting to make an impact on global bandwidth and disk space rather than consume more porn.
Then, the marketing departments caught wind of the viral email effect and have very sucessfully tapped in to the high number of ’suckers’ (I’ll refrain myself here) who forward on leaked offers to their thousand of mates - a percentage of whom are also suckers. Accidental discounts; bugs in websites; secret logins : all of which usually mean vastly discounted products for sale….in theory.
Now then, that’s not to say it never happens. E-commerce systems go wrong frequently and there are of course genuine discount offers out there; but the merchant is rarely in a legal position where they have to honour the thousands of orders for plasma screens priced at 2p. Of course not, the Sales of Goods Act or whatever legislation ‘common sense’ hides behind covers them more than adequately.
Which is why it’s disappointing when major brands continue to pull this stunt and the media promote it further without thinking it through. Not for the first time, GAP has ‘leaked’ out an offer to the internet - this time apparantly offering 60% discount if a user presents a print out of the PDF attachment at the till. The story goes that it was created by a disgruntled employee. Yeah, sure.
GAP of course then become the hero by stating that they’ll provide a (reduced) discount anyway to anyone who presents the voucher. Seemingly the marketing department weren’t satisfied with the uptake of the 30% offer they had authorised so they thought they’d spin it. More people in store = more purchases that perhaps would never have happened = more money.
All very clever perhaps, however it really didn’t need to be item number four in this morning’s Breakfast News on BBC stating how GAP had been the victim, did it ? How much more exposure can one viral campaign need, without the leading morning news TV channel covering the story ?
Of course, within a year we’ll all be getting so many offers that most will be ignored, legit or not, thankfully like those virus hoax emails. Plus of course the follow-on brands (with second rate marketing departments?) will try the same stunt, so we’ll be getting 500 Creme Eggs for the price of 10 at Woolworth offers…or something.
Next viral idea anyone ?
Shambles
Posted on November 20, 2007 by Tim
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What kind of organisation posts 25 million personal records on CD Rom to get some data from A to B ? The same one that want to issue every person in the land with an ID card.
Like a high percentage of law abiding citizens, I was, in principle, in favour of the identity card; but clearly this Government and any future civil service regards your and my data in the same way it does a greetings card.
Buzz alert!
Posted on October 31, 2007 by Tim
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The Saga Group, famed for their love of the older (wiser) generation, have launched a “Facebook for the over 50s”.
Featured as a story on BBC’s Breakfast this morning, sure enough, the site has since crashed and my attempt at adding 20 odd years to my age and joining this new social networking phenomenon is pending a database fix.
At least their main saga.co.uk services are still running - else there’d be lots of angry silver surfers blaming web 2.0 buzz for their inability to renew their cheap car insurance; or just bashing on their keyboards wondering why nothing is happening on the screen if my mum is anything to go by.
Of course, why the over 50’s would feel compelled to want to socialise online by publishing their blogs in a space only accessible to other over 50 year olds is beyond me. Maybe I have to grow up a bit.
Dragon Smoke (and mirrors)
Posted on October 22, 2007 by Tim
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Theo Paphitis, you’ve just invested £200,000 in an online gaming affliate play, are you nuts ?!
(Dragons Den, BBC2, Series 5 Episode 2 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/)
I won’t go in to the detail other than to say that the unique angle of ”Gaming Alerts Ltd” (http://www.gamingalerts.co.uk) , a company now valued at over half a million pounds is that it offers a downloadable desktop alert tool to keep you informed on the latest online poker, casino, bookmaker, and bingo offers.
I’m not convinced. Sure Emmie Matthews, the female half of the duo wasn’t a bad looker, and she did say “please” in a very persuasive kind of way; however lets look at the fundamentals behind the business - many of them highlighted for Theo’s benefit by the other Dragons’.
1. For starters, the technology behind it all isn’t theirs. Skinkers (www.skinkers.com) can be customised and rolled out by anyone who believes a user will keep desktop alert software installed for a longer period than the research suggestions:- 3 days. I’ll dig that out asap to back that up, it’s about somewhere. In other words, for the avoidance of doubt, this is not a technology play.
2. The ‘group of websites’ have a Google page rank of no higher than 4. The number of inbound links to their sites is minimal. Sure, searching for “Casino Alerts” brings up their Casino Alerts website on top; but it’s hardly the phrase people will be searching on.
3. The online gaming landscape is so saturated with affiliate deals, whitelabels, online and offline promotion that I find it hard to see how this service will get exposure of sufficient levels to do the numbers proposed.
4. Whilst online gamers are indeed transient as they seek out better experiences and sometimes offers; most online poker, casino and bingo players probably know where they’re going to move to next or will very quickly decide based on recommendation or a search or two.
5. Serious competitive players will be signed up to receive email alerts of all major online competitions. The alert software offers no benefits there.
6. Anyone who is understands anything about betting on fixed odds will be monitoring the various bookmaker websites and/or newspapers. There’s also plenty of odds aggregation tools out there, and anyway, use BetFair - you’ll be much happier for it.
The Bookie Alerts showing this evening on my desktop, Monday 23:00hrs, were :-
a. A preview of the Rugby World cup Final (incase you missed it 2 days ago)
b. We lost the football in Russia (no you can’t bet on it, it closed last Wednesday)
c. Coral are to pay out on Mark Cueto Bets - yes, but I bet they didn’t alert me to bet on him 2 minutes before he ’scored’; and anyway that was in the paper this morning.
..and so on. This is not inspiring stuff. It’s not going to make me open an account anywhere. It’s not useful to my online gaming/gambling experience. It’s uninstalled.
7. The duo asking for investment admitted that they spent a significant part of their time running JackMedia - an online ad buying agency for the gaming industry. Further, that they weren’t prepared to include it. So how does Theo guarantee any level of focus?
Theo, you only make me want to put a wishy washy proposal together even more.
On the flip side, and in all seriousness, I’m sure Theo invested in the people presenting as much as anything else - they clearly did a good job in the eyes of a very successful businessman. I’m even more sure though that the idea really does need expanding rapdily to have any chance. Good luck.
When 0.0002% might just be enough.
Posted on October 15, 2007 by Tim
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According to the Mobile Data Association some 37 billion SMS messages were sent by UK mobile users in 2006 ; that’s around 126 million every day. That’s a lot of sore thumbs. Better than aching wrists I guess.
According to my own research (guess), around 0.0002% of those messages contained share prices. That’s 74,000 of the beauties, each one enlightening a savvy investor as to the position of their beloved stock/s. I offer the plural option because further research suggests some extremely wise and informed investors request more than one quote - particularly those who have their phone bill paid by their company and spend a lot of time in ‘meetings’.
Now then, a live quote delivered to your handset in a couple of seconds comes at a premium, much like ringtones and wallpaper only more useful (unless you’re 12 years old). It also helps to pay for lovely IT trips out, to Maplins, PC World and if we’re really lucky - Tottenham Court Road.
Imagine, 74,000 messages x 50p = £37,000. That’s a lot of new laptops, which means we code faster and can get you more good stuff. A win win situation 
Simply text quote VOD ; or quote VOD.L to 88668 ; where VOD is the ticker of the share you just can’t afford to be out of touch with. Add ’nasdaq’ or ‘nyse’ after quote for US stocks , i.e. “quote nasdaq msft” for Microsoft.
Oh, and why not add 88668 to your contacts list under ‘iii’ - you never know when it will be useful again.
Finally, I believe you’ll find she’s smiling not because her boyfriend has just sent the millionth mobile picture of the day; but because Northern Rock has just risen 12%.
iPhone optimised service launched
Posted on October 15, 2007 by Tim
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OK, you can laugh about how my <cough> ‘imported’ iPhone is a useless brick if I choose to upgrade it to Apple’s latest firmware; however early adoption does have it’s benefits.
The iPhone has two challenges currently. Whilst it displays web pages in all their glory (minimised), the pain of scrolling, zooming and accidentally clicking on wrong links due to their close proximity can get a little frustrating. Second that with the more serious dilemma of having to download fully sized webpages over GPRS (expect a 3G model in 2008) and you quickly realise that the mobile internet isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on this otherwise beautiful piece of engineering.
One evening I stumbled across http://www.digg.com/iphone , the Digg site designed specifically for the touch screen capabilities and dimensions of the device. Looks rubbish in a normal browser, so what, visit www.digg.com for the full experience next time you’re at your desk.
So, on the assumption that there’s thousands of interactive investor users who, like us, are suckers for the next best thing, we present interactive investor for the iPhone - www.iii.co.uk/iphone. Easy access to your portfolio, quotes, charts, news, latest discussion threads, editorial, and some ideas for your next credit card / loan / savings account.
Roll on the 9th November.
The name’s Terry Tibbs. Talk to me.
Posted on October 5, 2007 by Tim
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I like Fonejacker, particularly the character Terry Tibbs (catch up at Channel4 OD). A wheeler dealer of note, tells you how it is.
If only everyone operated like him, deals and decisions would get made so much quicker.
It’s not really like that though. I’m continually bombarded by software and IT solutions companies, and so are many of my colleagues. Inevitably some of their warez look interesting and we take a look. But it’s at the point of being partially interested that so many companies we deal with fall down.
I’m in italics.
“So, what’s the price?”
“Well, that depends on when you’re looking to buy and how many x of y you’re going to buy over n years”.
“Oh, but what about buying it in the way that’s relevant for my business needs?”
“OK, but when are you looking to commit?”
“Not sure, can you give me a price and I’ll work out how it might fit in to my budgets and development road map.”
“Right, no problem. The price is £x”
At that point I typically go away and digest. The price they’ve given me in my mind is what they consider to be the fair market value for their product, I always ask them for their best price. I also understand the economics of closing deals at quarter, half year or year end.
– 2 weeks or a month typically go by. I’m invariably called 20 times. Ultimately it leads to the following –
“I just wanted you to know that if you can commit by x then the price can be reduced substantially.”
“I think I asked for your best price initially?”
“Yes, but it depends on what your net value per client is”
“What has that got to do with you? Your pricing is based on no risk and now you’re trying to factor in how much money we earn from the number of x we require on your z ?”
“Yes. I didn’t mention that. It also will depend on how many modules of b you take and whether it’s hosted at r or s”
“Goodbye.”
Keep the deals simple !!!
About our Technical Insight service
Posted on October 3, 2007 by Tim
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Today we launched a new service called ‘Technical Insight’.
It can be accessed currently via the tabs at the top of any UK / US share or index page, here for example. You will need to be logged in to our site to access the new tool.
The service offers tools that allow investors and traders to perform independent research on financial instruments and sectors using technical analysis. The result is a simple-to-use tool that makes it easy to incorporate technical analysis into day-to-day decision-making, even for those who are new to this form of investment research.
There’s always been debate amongst our community as to the value of charting / TA; however we believe the service can be used to compliment existing research and investment strategies, and we hope provide a number of trading ideas. We’d welcome your feedback via this blog.
Some useful tutorials are available here :-
An intro to Technical Analysis
How to use preset searches
Web based live chat support
Posted on October 1, 2007 by Tim
Filed Under Technology | 2 Comments
How many times has web based live support chat worked for me? None. It’s clearly something that’s very hard to get right and do well.
An example of my (last?) attempt today:-
tim has joined the room
Hi, I am sara. How may I assist You?
tim says: Hello. Are you human?
sarah says: yes
tim says: I have a query regarding order 12977
<software disconnects>
tim has joined the room
Hi, I am sara. How may I assist You?
tim says: yes, hello again
sara says:jumail
tim says:what happened there, I seem to have got cut off
tim says:what does jumail mean ?
tim says:anyway, I’m missing an item on order 12977
sara has left the room
—-
At that point I reach for the phone and get no response. How about Sara, she’s free surely? Oh no, she’s left the room.
Rubbish.
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