er... about that last post

Small retraction (rather than editing the original post, how big of me): apparently MS have bought a minority stake in Facebook for $240m, which values the site at an expected $15bn. Serves me right for reading early reports on Valleywag.

The move looks like one calculated to piss Google - who were also in the running to buy Facebook - off, and I have to say, in the terms of large business like this, that's utterly childish and massively hilarious.

I wish I could drop $240m just to bug someone. Hugh wouldn't know what'd hit him.

Facebook: on the way out?

Don't get me wrong, I love Facebook as much as the next person. It's helped me get back in touch with loads of people I'd drifted away from and it's generally lovely and a nice place to spend a few hours a week. However...

I don't know about anyone else, but I've noticed things slowing down a bit on FB. Not everyone's as active as they used to be - I know I've certainly stopped the poking and vampires and group-joining, and my homepage feed suggests many of my friends are doing the same. There's always going to be a usage profile like this with social sites; it's the ones which settle down into the background fabric of your life that win out - I say this but realistically haven't experienced it yet.

So, that's the user perspective: the honeymoon is over, boredom and real life sets in. Now two points from a business viewpoint, neither of which are news particularly but hey, it's my blog and I'll regurgitate hackneyed viewpoints if I want to.

1. Their business model just doesn't work. It's based on advertising revenues and yes, a normal revenue model would go through the roof given their traffic stats. However, not only do they have one of the lowest click through rates I've ever seen, their much-vaunted targeting is non-existent and they're massively overcharging for the privilege. There's a limit to how many £300k cash dumps a marketing budget can take before someone starts asking for proof of ROI.

2. They're on the verge, within a few hours I reckon, of being bought. Microsoft and Google are both in the running, but strong rumours suggest that MS is a front runner with a $15bn deal. Although Mr Zuckerberg will only get a tiny slice (if you call $240m tiny, it's still only a 2% stake), so it looks like Steve Ballmer had him over a desk.

Now, the cumulative effect of these two things is this. As a $15bn new toy, it's got to be made to work. So it'll be monetized in different, more aggressive ways. The problem with this is that the relative advertising quiet was / is one of the things that makes Facebook a nice place to be. Given that I'm getting bored already, it won't take many poorly targeted advertising gambits to make me pack up my vampires and head over to Orkut or something.

All that said, I'd genuinely love it to stick around. Partly as I do find it useful, partly as making something as genuinely Web 2.0 as Facebook work as a business would prove that the internet is evolving in a solidly commercial way. And that would make a web professional like me sleep soundly at night.

Next post will be back to rambling nonsense about shoes or something, I promise.

Freeloading, weekend, tentatively satisfied

I'm not sure if you can quite make this out, but it's a photo of the handwash stuff from the men's loos in the Saatchi & Saatchi building on Golden Square. I've posted this purely as it seemed hilarious that after looking up to said organisation for most of my professional life, I found myself on Wednesday night spilling beer and eating more than my fair share of canapes in the foyer whilst Rudy used their lovely plant pots to knock the caps off beer bottles. What class and suaveness.

Anyway, the reason I was there was that a thing has launched recently called Voeveo, which is basically a global platform for sharing and selling content through one's mobile. So anyone who owns anything digital, be it music, video or whatever, can upload it to Voeveo and anyone in the world can buy it and download it. Very interesting stuff, mostly from a financial and back-end point of view which I won't bore you with here. They're from New Zealand, which generally makes them all-round good eggs in my book.

Apart from that, things have been reasonably quiet of late. The rugby finished on Saturday with a fairly limp game on the whole, which the Kiwi and I watched in the Temperance as usual before going home early and going to sleep more or less instantly. Sunday was more eventful; we had lunch with some friends who're not only heading back to NZ for good soon but pregnant as well. Despite one of our party being with child we managed a fairly long lunch and returned home tired and emotional at about 8, I think. Fortunately my rule of going ugly early on a Sunday worked and I have been hangover-free all day.

Last week was project management week, our PM being on holiday. I've refrained from posting on the subject whilst it was all going on, so I could give an overview of how it all went, and I'm pleased to report it all seems to have gone off pretty smoothly. The week wasn't without its learnings, suffice it to say, but on the whole much better than last time, which is good. #

And another thing - I'm only 30% of the way to my target, so dig deep, people. So far, Melvis, the Kiwi and the Milkman have all successfully bought my favour.

A slightly grumpy post

My word, what a weekend. I'll try to give something of a snapshot in a short pre-work post:

 

Friday night, dinner at Satay in Brixton before Maximo Park, which was a brilliant affair although some cruel prankster had slipped some pieces of orange into an otherwise tasty grilled lamb dish (heathens). The Kiwi had the foresight (not to mention the contacts) to check the stage times beforehand, so unlike Kathryn we arrived at about 2145 with enough time to struggle to the bar, narrowly avoid a fight, purchase four pints (THIRTEEN QUID!!) and shuffle to my favoured Academy spot (three quarters of the way down, on the left-hand side) just as they launched into their set.

Now, although they were superb as always, there was something amiss. I'm going to come across as awfully snobby here, but I've consistently noticed that the more popular a band is, the less enjoyable their gigs are. Up to a point - massive stadium shows have their place. What I'm talking about is this. When the Kiwi and I went to see the Park at ULU in early 2005, before the album release, we paid about £9, got into a packed venue and generally got a bit excitable with the rest of the crowd. The Academy on Friday night was full of proper part-timers: drunk, lairy, pushy and aggressive. Barely paying any attention to what they'd paid £18 to see, acting more like they were in the local Wetherspoon's. Sort of takes the edge off the whole thing, if you catch my drift.

As for the band, predictably ace, with an almighty version of Limassol which built up into a massive, practically Jesus and Mary Chain-like frenzy of feedback and general noise. Graffiti and Our Velocity also stood out, note perfect. My one criticism, and again accuse me of being elitist or whatever, was that they lacked their earlier sense of desperation and mania - hate to use the word but I think 'edginess' is what they lacked here. Paul Smith always seemed on the verge of a complete breakdown whilst performing; on Friday there was more swagger, more comfortable self-assuredness, and that really didn't sit with the Park brand. Even Lukas Wooler's trademark jerky flailing seemed a touch contrived.

I guess it's unavoidable in some ways - if success removes you from the environment that formed part of your original formula, it'll be hard to reproduce with any credibility. Oasis are a case in point here. And maybe I'd been put in a sour mood by paying thirteen quid for four pints of watered down Carling.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend consisted of the two of us driving up to West Yorkshire in a lovely silver Peugeot convertible (much good that did us this weekend...), staying with an old friend who's just moved up there, watching the rugby (hooray!) and coming home again. It's so good to be reminded that there's more to this country than horrid old London, and the north really does have the best bits. 

Flying

There's always something a little unreal about travelling to Dublin like this. I think it's got something to do with getting up at 0445 and stumbling dreamlike through the passages from home to tube to plane to bus to office. It doesn't entirely leave one in a suitable frame of mind for presenting complex multi-million Euro business models.

This morning, though, has been unusually calming. I've found that as I've got used to the journey (although I've not been too much lately), I've started to notice littler things about it which sort of take the edge off - the example this morning which prompted me to get out the laptop and document it before coming back down to earth was on take-off.

London was covered in thick fog this morning, the resultant gloom confusing the mind into thinking it was earlier than it was. Surging off the runway, the Airbus 321 broke through the fog within 10 seconds or so, into glorious sunlight and clear blue skies.

I don't think I'll ever get bored of flying. I know it's quotidian and mundane to many of us these days, but there's something about the seeming impossibility of getting off the ground, travelling so fast and ending up in a completely different country (and in Dublin's case, a completely different century) that never ceases to fascinate. You'd have to be pretty dull-minded not to marvel in childish wonder at it all, you really would.

Anyway, today's the last day of this sprint. The Irish project is still barrelling forwards, alarming some and exciting others. The Project Manager, with whom I'm getting on much better now I'm more comfortable in my role, is on holiday next week, leaving me to pick up from him and drive the project forwards into the next phase. Hopefully this time I'll be able to get a proper handover and won't end up feeling like the idiot I did last time.

And tonight - the perennially amazing Maximo Park at Brixton Academy. I've not seen them since the release of their last album earlier this year and, although I've seen this lot more often than any other act, I'm still so looking forwards to it - it's guaranteed to be brilliant.

Phase end, widget, drinking

More techie stuff, sorry. I'm writing this post using Microsoft Live Writer, which is a little app which lets me write blog posts without necessarily being online, something that's potentially quite useful when travelling etc. Provided it actually works, it'll change the way I use this blog quite a bit.

 

That said, you might start to see more maudlin entries from Dublin hotel rooms moaning about being bored and / or overworked etc. We'll just have to see.

 

Lately work appears to be picking up - I'm feeling less like I've no clue what I'm talking about, which is a good start, and of late have occasionally been producing stuff I'm actually rather proud of, even if it's just a well-turned spreadsheet. So that's all good. This phase of the Irish project finishes tomorrow (day trip to Dublin, bah), with next week once again resembling a great unknown filled with terrifyingly unbillable days.

 

However, I'm largely ignoring that at the moment, looking forward instead to heading up to Leeds to see an old friend and watch the England v France game amid a storm of homemade cocktails. Speaking of which, caught up with Melvin on Tuesday in the lovely La Perla on Maiden Lane, happy hour margaritas and top notch Mexican food, all good, highly recommended.

The floodgates open...

Wow! In an unprecedented show of generosity, my appeal for lunch money has already garnered a whole two dollars (thanks, Kiwi & Melvin)! Tremendous stuff. I have to confess I'm finding this whole thing absolutely hilarious and, instead of forgetting all about it and eventually deleting it, I've decided to campaign even harder and commit to getting to that target one way or another (if only to see what happens when I do).

We'll get there folks....

Shameless Panhandling

This is brilliant, and I hope you all see it in the same light as me because otherwise it might come across as little more than licensed begging, which in a way I suppose it is. Anyway, the new addition to my blog on the right there is my latest internet toy discovery.

ChipIn is a service where you can raise money for an event, or collect cash a group of people owe you. It's all secure, and the money you put in goes into my PayPal account. Once the cash starts pouring in, you should be able to see the money level rise. As an experiment, I'm seeing if I can raise ten US dollars, which by my reckoning should cover a sarnie and a bag of crisps in central London. Will it work, I wonder?

It's on my Facebook page, too. I know no shame.

Prague 2

Home again, and I can't say I'm sorry to be back - Prague was great and we had a great time, but it's charm was somewhat lost on me I think. Perhaps it was the enormous crowds of shambling octogenarian American tourists (which put me in mind of the Night of the Living Dead for some reason), I'm really not sure. I'm not the world's biggest dumpling fan, either.

This is coming out sounding less charitable than I mean it to - we did have a storming night on Saturday night (bar - restaurant - bar - bar - bar - bar - bar), which was a mighty success by anyone's standards. The smarter bars in Prague really seem to know how to treat you; cigars arriving with proper ashtrays, lighting splints and cutters, malt whisky with water and ice on the side, should you wish to interfere with your drink. Martinis were pretty damn good and they even sold absinthe properly, with the flaming spoon of sugar to swirl into it.

That was all in one bar. We got out for about a tenner each. Amazing. On the whole I'd say it's a great place for a weekend; go for the nightlife, go for the more expensive looking places and don't bother sightseeing unless you particularly fancy gaining first hand evidence to back up your creeping prejudice against the colonial elderly.

As you can imagine, I'm still a bit sleepy. Work is increasingly mental as we're speeding up towards the end of this four-week sprint (still on the Irish project), building a business model and an organisational blueprint for our client. It's all new to me, but I'm learning fast, I think. I hope so, anyway. Two weeks to go...

The picture is the door handle on the inside of our amazing apartment, by the way. What a find...