Spotify to record profit

An apparent success in double digit terms of converting their non paying customers to the paid for premium tiers of Spotify, who have also had a successful launch in the US, is set to result in the Swedish-based music streaming company reporting a profit this year according to an analyst.

Despite the uproar caused when Spotify changed their free tiers to appease record labels it succeeded in having music addicts paying for their tracks (the results of which will be known in next year's financial results unless they provide any snippets of news when they report their 2010 results later in the year), and the company is estimated to convert their then paying subscribers across Europe (they apparently now have 1.9m paying punters with their launch in America) to revenues of £52m according to Martin Scott of Analysys Mason - who said:

"I think we are talking about a modest profit of a few million euros.

It's down to the fact that they have successfully managed to convert a double digit [percentage] of their customers to the paid-for service."

If they do post a profit it will be a first for Spotify, who declined to comment on the story.

Spotify has also done a deal with Virgin Media to offer the cable company's subscribers their premium music tiers at a discounted rate.

Skype launches Apple WiFi Hotspot app

Microsoft-owned (well, soon to be) VoIP provider Skype have launched an Apple iOS based application for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad which allows their users to pay for access to WiFi Hotspots worldwide using Skype Credit.

The Skype Wi-Fi service was previously only available on PCs and Macs and gives users access to hotspots from the likes of BT Openzone and Orange, who the company has done commercial deals with.

Announcing the news. Skype product manager Shadi Mahassel said:

"With the new Skype Wi-Fi app, you can go online on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch (running iOS 4.1 or above with multitasking) at over 1 million Wi-Fi hotspots around the world, including hotels, airports, train stations, convention centres, bars and restaurants."

Skype's hotspot solution has the advantage of being pay-per-minute (as well as with unlimited downloads), so that users do not have (although they can if they wish) to purchase vouchers that they will not necessarily use all of. The application is downloadable from iTunes and prices start at 4p per minute including VAT.

Facebook Deals. Done.

Facebook have pulled the plug on their rival to group buying sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial after a four month test in which Facebook Deals failed to gain traction in the market dominated by beauty treatments and deals for carpet cleaning (going by my experience of the Groupon mailing list).

Hot on the heels of the behemoth social network effectively withdrawing from competition with Foursquare after they killed off the 'check-in' functionality within their mobile application, Facebook will be shutting the Deals service down in coming weeks.

They added that they will "continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses". And themselves, naturally!

Googler discusses company's plans in Edinburgh: News roundup

Google executive chairman and former chief executive Eric Schmidt spoke at the Edinburgh Television Festival on Friday, and it's fair to say that the bespectacled executive had plenty to say about the company's products and future plans.

The appearance was much covered ahead of the event with many content providers having previously pilloried Google over issues such as piracy and digital rights, and Schmidt went out of his way to emphasise that Google is behind the TV industry as a whole as well as covering a number of other issues.
Google TV to launch in the UK next year

Schmidt revealed that they plan to launch their connected TV service in the UK next year, with the service set to compete with players that are already in the market as well as the upcoming YouView service (also set to launch in 2012).

Google TV uses a special set top box and a consumer's broadband connection to deliver content to the household, and has relatively bombed in the US with users bemoaning a lack of content and user interface problems.

Schmidt said to the conference:

"Google TV is a case in point. When it launched, some in the US feared we aimed to compete with broadcasters or content creators. Actually our intent is the opposite. We seek to support the content industry by providing an open platform for the next generation of TV to evolve, the same way Android is an open platform for the next generation of mobile.

Just as smartphones sparked a whole new era of innovation for the Internet, we hope Google TV can help do the same for Television, creating more value for all. We expect Google TV to launch in Europe early next year, and of course the UK will be among the top priorities."

Schmidt added his belief that YouView have been late to the party and that the UK is lagging behind in such services accordingly.

We'd pay more tax if you let us!

Google have often been criticised for the relatively low amount of corporation tax they pay in the UK, channelling funds through their Irish base - where corporation tax is lower and the country's government have targeted technology firms to have them base their European headquarters there with tax and other incentives.

Earlier in the year The Sunday Times calculated that the search giant has saved as much as £3bn over the last 5 years by using such practices (also passing funds through countries like the Bahamas and Holland), and whilst Google have not (yet) been targeted by groups like UK Uncut they are clearly wary of the issue and Schmidt said that they would pay more tax were they permitted to and emphasised their commitment to the UK, where they employ 1,000 staff - largely based in their Victoria offices in London (and of course those staff all pay tax, spend money in the UK economy etc):

"It is true we could pay more tax but we would have to do so voluntarily. It's called paying the legally minimum amount of tax required.

The fact of the matter is there are lots of benefits to [being in Britain]. It's very good for us, but to go back to shareholders and say 'We looked at 200 countries but felt sorry for those British people so we want to [pay them more]' ... there is probably some law against doing that."

The corporate governance point is clearly a key one, but you wonder if George Osborne is thinking up some schemes to take Schmidt up on his offer on the back of his comments?

The UK needs more tech education

The lack of education in mathematics and science for UK children and students was also criticised by Schmidt, who has concerns as to what it might mean for the next round of technology innovation:

"Over the past century the UK has stopped nurturing its polymaths. There's been a drift to the humanities — engineering and science aren't championed.

Even worse, both sides seem to denigrate the other... you're either a 'luvvy' or a 'boffin'."

He added that technology should be a compulsory subject to GCSE level and that the UK suffers the risk of "throwing away" its computing heritage, giving the example of the BBC Micro for when it was at its peak.

Google+ is primarily an identity service

Whether it was a slip-up or not, Schmidt said in response to a question that Google+ was primarily an identity service and that it was important that people use their real names on it in case they build any future products using it as their key identity platform.

Google has come under criticism from many identity and privacy advocates over the insistence on the use of real names on Google+, which the company officially positions as a social network.

Schmidt emphasised that anyone worried about privacy can elect not to use the service or delete their account, but many have pointed out that doing the latter does hamper the use of other Google applications and tools.

BT to hike call charges by 5%, add 70p to line rental

In the highly competitive broadband market - cut-throat would not be an exaggeration - companies do all they can to keep the headline price of their broadband product low, compensating to ensure profitability through the pricing of other services in 'bundles' they offer to consumers. This is usually resultant in higher prices on telephony line rental and for calls consumers make using their landline.

BT have announced their second price increase this year, with the company hiking the cost of call charges for residential customers by up to 5% from December 3 - and bumping up the cost of line rental by a further 70p to £14.60 per month. In April they increased the price of line rental by 30p per month, and added a further 9% on some call charges at the same time.

BT have been heavily discounting their packages to attract customers and investing in the rollout of their 'Infinity' faster broadband speeds, both of which would have already hit the company's bottom line had the effect of the previous price increases not already flowed through as per their Q2 financial results.

They have followed Sky's lead - the satellite provider announcing a price freeze the day after they implemented a price increase - though in implementing a price freeze after the changes are implemented, saying that they will not be increasing their prices from then until 2013.

Michael Phillips of price comparison site Homephonechoices.co.uk expressed disappointment at the news:

"We are disappointed that BT is raising its prices on the heels of significant energy price hikes just a month ago.

While BT's price increases of 5% or less may be in line with inflation, it will prove very unpopular with households who are already feeling the pinch.

This marks the 10th price rise from a major provider this year alone and it is inevitable that others will further add to this total."

In response BT said that many of their prices were lower than those of competitors and added via a spokesman:

"A report from Ofcom shows the UK has lower prices than the USA, Spain, Germany, France and Italy. The UK market is highly competitive."

In July BT's Wholesale division was ordered by Ofcom to cut prices in rural areas where there is minimal competition and they are the only network provider - and no doubt these price rises will also help trade off the financial impact of the lower revenues as a result of Ofcom's decision.

BT and Virgin criticised over streetworks record

BT and Virgin Media have been criticised for the quality of the streetworks that their access divisions undertake in Scotland, with a recent report from the Office of the Scottish Road Works Commissioner (OSRWC) revealing that 37% of the work they undertake in the country fails inspection - compared to just 26% for utility firms as a whole.

The commissioner, John Gooday, said of the companies' record:

"Although there has been an overall improvement and the results are the best ever achieved, I am disappointed to have to say that a number of organisations still fall short of the step change being sought.

I am currently in discussion with my legal advisors on the potential actions which I might take and when these discussions have concluded, I will determine my course of action."

He has the power to hit the firms with a £50,000 fine if their record does not improve, which is clearly something that Openreach and Virgin's access division are focusing on going by the story.

BT said via a spokesperson:

"We met with the commissioner recently, told him that we accept his results and we have improvement programmes in place to turn our performance around."

Openreach will in particular be very keen to improve their record as they would not like to be hit with fines as both them and their subcontractors roll out their FTTC-based faster broadband network (which requires much digging up of roads). Virgin's cable network is already in the ground.

Germany unlikes Facebook

Germany is generally the country in Europe at the forefront of online privacy, as shown by their infamous run-in with Google over their Street View cars filming the country - and their recent spat with Facebook, with a regional privacy regulator demanding that the social network turns off their new facial recognition software in the country and deletes any data of German residents already captured by it.

In another blow for the social network the data protection commissioner of the state of Schleswig-Holstein has ordered that websites remove the ubiquitous Facebook 'Like' buttons from their pages because of the data being captured by them by Facebook being, the state believes, in breach of both German and European privacy laws.The commissioner, Thilo Weichert, said:

"Whoever visits Facebook.com or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be tracked by the company for two years. Facebook builds a broad individual and for members even a personalized profile."

He has the power to fine any sites still using the buttons at the end of September 50,000 euros, and also highlighted that data such as the IP Address of users was transmitted to Facebook's US offices.

For their part Facebook say that they "delete this technical data within 90 days" and disputed that they are in breach of any laws.

If nothing else it shows that they clearly need to invest some time and money in lobbying the German privacy community.

New Apple top man gets a million shares ... if he hangs around

Tim Cook was last week appointed as the successor to Steve Jobs as chief executive of Apple as the company's co-founder stepped down from the role. He will remain as chairman of Apple however, and as their figurehead for many disciples of the company and its products.

As you'd expect for someone taking a chief executive role - Cook has been acting in this role whilst Jobs has been on medical leave and has been promoted from Chief Operating Officer (COO) - at the world's most capitalised company (i.e. richest in terms of stock market valuation), the remuneration package is impressive and Cook will be will rewarded if he stays at the company's helm over the next decade.

Cook has been awarded a million shares in the company - value of around £235m at the price they traded on Friday - in two chunks, with half a million of them vesting after 5 years and the remainder after 10 if he stays with the company according to a SEC filing the firm made on Friday.

That's a heck of a golden hello!

Google reaches half billion dollar settlement with US prosecutors in AdWords pharmaceuticals case

Search giant Google have reached a USD$500m settlement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to settle a criminal investigation over the company allowing companies selling unlicensed pharmaceuticals to take out AdWords advertising.

AdWords is of course Google's headline advertising product and chief source of revenue, so naturally the company was keen to settle with the DoJ to minimise embarrassment and any PR damage over the case that goes back as far as 2003. Google put a stop to the advertising being taken out by Canadian based pharmacies - for whom it was mostly illegal for them to be shipping drugs into the US - in 2009.

Announcing the settlement, Google said in a statement:

"We banned the advertising of prescription drugs in the US by Canadian pharmacies some time ago.

However, it's obvious with hindsight that we should not have allowed these ads on Google in the first place."

The USD$500m represents the profits that the company made from selling the adverts according to the DoJ, and the payment will prevent a criminal prosecution that they were likely to have been subject to otherwise.

The DoJ warned of the risks in their own statement:

"While Canada has its own regulatory rules for prescription drugs, Canadian pharmacies that ship prescription drugs to US residents are not subject to Canadian regulatory authority, and many sell drugs obtained from countries other than Canada which lack adequate pharmacy regulations."

Update @1556: One state prosecutor has alleged that Google chief executive and co-founder Larry Page knew that the adverts were running illegally on the search engine, quoting incriminating e-mails that have apparently been uncovered. These are unlikely to ever see the light of day in court though, with both parties having signed a binding non-prosecution agreement. Google only repeated the same statement above when questioned on the additional allegation.

Virgin rolls out new install vans

The cable guys at Virgin Media are rolling out new install vans themed around classic TV vehicles from programmes such as The A-Team and Starsky & Hutch for their install crews - with the vans promoting the company's products such as their 100Mb broadband and their TiVo connected TV service.

In their last major revamp of their install fleet Sky introduced a 'wow' factor to many of the vehicles by promoting their HD content assets on the vans, and Virgin's following that lead is bringing some fun to Britain's roads - the vans of BT Openreach engineers are now looking even duller in comparison!

A video the company has posted shows some of the vans in action with their staff members:
Talking at the launch, Virgin Media's executive director for access Maurice Daw said:

"We want to bring the total entertainment experience to our customers and it's the extra touches that really make a difference – we hope the new fleet will make our customers smile and make the installation process a fun one.

TiVo is all about delivering the best on the telly and personalising your viewing experience so it makes sense if we're giving you your TV favourites on one box that we use the UK's favourite TV vans to deliver it!"

The van designs were chosen based on a poll the company undertook.

Verizon picks up cloud technologists

With Verizon's staff having returned to work in the wake of their strike as the company and unions continue talks on their dispute over changes to employee contractual terms, the business as usual running of the company is clearly returning with the news that they have made a major acquisition to bolster the services offered to other businesses by their IT service provider subsidiary Terremark.

The US telecoms giant has announced the acquisition of cloud computing specialists CloudSwitch for an undisclosed sum.

CloudSwitch's technology makes it easier for firms to vary their infrastructure of services between ones they host themselves and the cloud as business demands change and sudden demand spikes happen, for example when e-commerce providers are undertaking large marketing campaigns or for major charity events.

Announcing the deal Verizon said in a statement:

"With CloudSwitch, applications remain tightly integrated with enterprise data center tools and policies, and can be moved easily between different cloud environments and back into the data center based on the requirements of the business."

Cloud computing is clearly hot property as the future of technology and several firms that supply cloud technology have been acquired for tidy sums over recent years.

The Anti-PowerPoint Party

No, it's not a get together of fans of Google Apps but is in fact a new political party that has started up in Switzerland ahead of the country's October elections - the purpose being to ban the ubiquitous Microsoft presentation software.

PowerPoint is of course a valuable business tool if used correctly, but I also definitely see the point of party founder Matthias Poehm in that he believes that extensive use of the software does distract people from the message of a presentation and can even be used to distract the audience from how little the presenter sometimes knows on the subject matter.

300 people have joined up to the party and they need 10,000 signatories to be allowed to run in the elections - and you'd have to say that this party is probably way too single interest to be able to secure a place on the ballot let alone any parliamentary representation.

Social media marketing at its best

Turkish mobile phone provider Turkcell came up with one of the best social media 'viral' marketing campaigns I've seen, their 'post it' style campaign having generated much interest, huge amounts of traffic on social networks and much consideration from members of the public.

The campaign was across multiple channels including YouTube and Twitter - with Twitter being where the key action happened - and this video shows how the campaign operated:
Those taking part in the game had to tweet to get post-it notes removed and in the end get a celebrity to 're-tweet' them in order to get access to the smartphone inside the box, showing what can be achieved with a relatively cheap and low value prize at the end of the campaign.

Turkcell's campaign ended up trending in the country for 8 days, several celebrities got involved and they generated 3.6 million campaign impressions - which is a hell of a bang for a very small buck and shows the power of really thinking through a campaign and executing it with simplicity cleverly across multiple channels.

No doubt plenty will copy it accordingly.

Google opens Thai office

Google have opened an office in Bangkok, emphasising the company's commitment to the provision of services in the South-East Asia region, the fastest growing region on the planet for the company's services.

The new Thai office supplements a Malaysian branch of the company's operation which opened in January and the company's regional managing director Julian Persaud said in an interview:

"Southeast Asia is coming into prominence but not much of content about the region is available on the Internet. With over 120 million people online in the region, we are particularly excited about growth in the region."

Google is set to hire a further 500 staff across Asia - 100 of them in South East Asia - this year, in a region that Persaud says they see as a "massive" growth opportunity.

Facebook quits in Foursquare battle

Facebook have given up the ghost in the battle between their 'Facebook Places' check-in service and that of market leader Foursquare, going by the new update of their own mobile client which excludes the check-in functionality altogether.

As part of an overall revamp of their privacy approach - after heaps of criticism of course - the functionality, which let users check-in and name others that were with them in the location they are at, has gone from the app. Many had, of course, thought previously that Facebook Places would kill off Facebook - far from it in practice.

Facebook users can still include the location on their status updates, but without the 'check-in' functionality it does make it of little use. No doubt celebrations were held when the news came out at Foursquare, who are working hard to monetise their service on the back of a recent injection of an additional USD$50m of funding.

The privacy changes to Facebook (more on them here) are largely to make settings more overt and have users actively decide what they are sharing and with who as they do it, rather than hide the controls away in a settings tab of the massive social network.

Caffè Nero does WiFi deal with Sky owned operator

High street coffee shop chain Caffè Nero has done a deal with Sky-owned The Cloud to offer free WiFi access to their customers from next month, adding 450 stores to a similar deal that The Cloud has inked with Pizza Express.

The Cloud now has over 5,000 WiFi Hotspots nationwide and are competing strongly with their leading rivals at BT Openzone, with Sky's strategy being to use the network for out-of-home access to their content via Sky Go.

Caffè Nero's business development head Shane Moates said of the deal:

"Our customers expect a premium espresso-based coffee experience at Caffè Nero and the Wi-Fi experience they receive should match this level of quality. Having a strong, fast and reliable internet connection is important to our customers and helps integrate Caffè Nero into the local community as a neighbourhood gathering spot. We chose The Cloud because we wanted a partner that is dedicated to understanding Wi-Fi, with a set service level agreement in place to ensure we receive the very best service."

Commercial terms between the two are unknown.

The size of Apple's profit margin

The size of the profit margin that Apple makes on their hugely popular iPhone smartphones is really brought home by this Infographic:No wonder Steve Jobs is apparently worth USD$20bn in terms of market capitalisation himself alone!

Best Buy turns to video

US electronics retailing giant Best Buy - who have had mixed fortunes in their linkup with the Carphone Warehouse in the UK - are one of the best companies in use of social media for customer service (see Twelpforce) and help online.

The retailer is now making extensive use of video to help customers, and encouragingly it's not the over produced glitzy videos that too many companies seem obsessed by when it comes to using channels such as YouTube - it's a lot more practical in using the expertise of their own staff members to get key content out online, even if it is occasionally rough around the edges.The Best Buy unboxed YouTube channel (the content also being available on their website) has become a massive differentiator over the last three years as the company uses a video production unit in their own customer service centre to produce compelling content. The unit even has makeup facilities.

It's an ideal way to humanise your brand and produce compelling and relevant content quickly, and it's good not to see the likes of marketeers getting in the way of the approach - actively encouraging it instead.

BBC launches crowdsourced 3G map

An interesting experiment by the BBC and Internet performance measurement company Epitiro has mapped out 3G coverage across the UK - and it's of no surprise that coverage and performance are best in built up areas like London while at their ropiest in rural areas such as parts of Wales, including the train line between Cardiff and Bristol - a notorious blackspot.Epitiro also provides the data for Ofcom's performance throughput testing of mobile broadband services, although their client download solution is of course ultimately flawed when measuring throughput given that it is subject to the vagaries of the machine it is installed on and any limitations it might have (hence Ofcom choosing SamKnows for their fixed line throughput benchmarking of ISPs), but their Android app based solution for 3G coverage measurement seems to be as good an independent measure as consumers will get.

The results are an amalgamation of tests from 44,600 volunteer app users and, while there are glitches such as optimistic areas of 3G coverage where there are no posts anywhere near, it's a good and useful tool given how reticent some operators are to release performance, signal strength and coverage data - and if it helps consumers in particular locations choose which network to go on when purchasing a mobile, perhaps it might help push the operators to be more open with some of their data.

More info and the maps themselves can be found on the BBC website.

Miramax launches movies on Facebook

Facebook is fast becoming a rich media platform in itself.

After news of an FA Cup tie being screened live on the site the latest announcement that film studio Miramax is to offer films streamed via Facebook backs up the development, with the site's users in the UK now able to watch films and TV.

Movies will be priced at around USD$3 (£1.80) and will be active for 30 days worth of viewing as rentals. Initially only 10 films will be made available (20 in the US) and will be paid for via the site's own currency, Facebook Credits. Facebook will take 30% of the revenues with the remaining 70% (see, I can subtract) going to the studio.

The move is clearly one by the content owners to chase where the audience is, as confirmed by Miramax chief executive Mike Lang:

"We wanted to fish where the fish are.

We could have created the most robust Miramax.com in the world and other than my family members, who would be there?"

Lang added that their intention is to use Facebook as an enabling platform and "eventually as a digital locker cloud service".

BBC Worldwide are also said to have signed up, and will sell episodes of the now tired Top Gear via Facebook.

Social security numbers of 43,000 Yalers exposed

Amateurish security at Yale University resulted in the social security numbers of 43,000 staffers, students, faculty and alumni in being exposed to the open Internet for a period of around ten months, it has been revealed.

The vulnerability of the data was as a result of the information being stored on an openly available FTP server, with the University's IT staff seemingly relying on an obscure file name and directory location for people not to find it - and they were also not aware that changes to Google's search algorithm made such files indexable.

Yale, who have given all affected two years of identity theft insurance and free credit monitoring, are simply the latest organisation to learn that security through obscurity never works and proper measures need to be put into place.

It is not clear whether the information was in fact found from Google and the file accessed - the search engine firm would not reveal whether anyone had accessed the information.

Chinese portal invests up to $40m in video company

China's leading online portal Sina.com is said to have invested something between USD$30-40m in the fully subscribed IPO of video site Tudou - the loss making site that is occasionally known as China's YouTube.

The investment came to light from sources that Reuters spoke to, and gives them around a 4% stake in the country's second largest video site - and is set to pave the way for a new wave of cooperation between the two firms in what is the world's largest Internet market with in excess of 450 million users.

Virgin to roll Superhub firmware

Cable company Virgin Media are planning a major firmware update to their 'Superhub' gateway (i.e. combined router and cable modem) device over the next few weeks to resolve outstanding wireless coverage issues - and to also allow their subscribers to implement 'modem mode', which (as the name suggests) allows them to turn it into 'just' a modem and to be able to use their own wireless router with it.

Whilst the company emphasised that the "vast majority" of the 400,000 customers they have installed with the devices in the last 6 months have had a "flawless service" they recognised the issues they have experienced in declaring their commitment to the resolution of them via their Twitter feed:In an update on the company's forums they add:

"We've been working hard to address some issues that some customers have been reporting when using wireless on the new Virgin Media SuperHub. These issues affect certain customers due to the proximity and number of other wireless devices in the vicinity," said the company.

We're currently testing a firmware update to resolve these issues which we expect to release in the coming weeks following feedback from our beta testers.

In the meantime, as there are other customers with SuperHub that have been patiently awaiting a new feature in the new firmware – modem mode – we are re-opening our call for beta testers to allow customers waiting for this feature to get the firmware ahead of full release."

A spokesman added that they have been experiencing teething problems that they are in the process of overcoming.

BlackBerry confirms music service

As expected, BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) have confirmed a social music service is coming to their phones via their BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) instant messaging tool.

The poorly kept secret was confirmed by RIM, who announced that the unlimited playback service will include a cache of 50 tracks that their users (many of which will presumably be rioting chavs if you listen to the politicians) can play - being able to swap in and out 25 tracks per month and grow their allocation by using social features to share their music with others over BBM.

BlackBerry's music service will cost USD$4.99 per month (no news on UK pricing yet) when it launches later this year. RIM goes out of their way to emphasise their belief that BBM is a social network in itself (like Facebook and Twitter, who were in all to see the government today after this month's riots - thankfully the ministers saw sense over calls to censor social networks) and say it has 45 million users.

Celebrity .xxx domains removed from availability

As you may recall, a new top level domain (TLD) of .xxx for the hosting of pornographic websites has been launched and domain registrar ICM Registry has blacklisted a whole host of celebrity names from being able to be registered in the TLD.

The blacklist seems to be based on how famous various celebrities are - and the fact that only one of the members of the 'Celebrity' Big Brother house are in it tells you pretty much all you need to know about that TV show - and cybersquatters have been blocked from registering domains such as Beyonce.xxx, BritneySpears.xxx and even Elvis.xxx.

ICM Registry, who will neither publish their blacklist nor reveal how many entries are on it, are also holding back a whole swathe of 'premium' domains that they intend to auction off at a later date and have pre-registered others that would be culturally offensive should they appear in the .xxx domain space.

Sky's Somerset punters hit by outage

Sky's Twitter feed this morning announced that customers in the Yeovil and Martock area of Somerset have being affected by a prolonged outage to their broadband and talk (home phone) services from the satellite provider since 0140am this morning, the reasons for which they have not disclosed.The tweet links through to an update piece on the company's service status page, and curiously worded it is indeed:It's not clear how often Sky deploys the incorrect engineers to work on faults!

It appears that the company's satellite TV service is unaffected, which would suggest it's an LLU equipment problem.

Jobs: iGo

Steve Jobs stood down as the chief executive of Apple overnight, being the latest figurehead of the biggest of the online tech firms to have stepped aside - after Google's Eric Schmidt and Microsoft's Bill Gates - from day to day roles of running the organisation. Jobs remains chairman of Apple and is succeeded by current Apple chief operating officer (COO) Tim Cook.

Ever since the news broke in the small hours of this morning UK time the media has been full of the usual fawning coverage of Jobs, confirming his status as the messiah ("he's not the messiah, he's just a very naughty boy" - Monty Python) in the eyes of his disciples, the sheep who buy his products no matter what (including the price) and will not question anything Apple does - far too many of whom are in the media themselves sadly.

Jobs has been on sick leave since January - having previously recovered from pancreatic cancer - and his last major pronouncement as Apple CEO was to launch the iCloud digital content locker in June.

As you would expect with such a charismatic figurehead and co-founder of the company stepping down as CEO, Apple shares took a hit (down 5.13%) on the back of the news - which many expected would happen at some stage in the near future, although the timing was unexpected by all.

Update @2017: Jobs is not going to go hungry though, being worth USD$20bn himself thanks to Apple's market capitalisation.

Googlenet goes live in Stanford

The news that Google planned to launch local fibre based broadband in the US for residential areas near their own network with speeds of up to 1Gb throughput attracted much attention, and the service is now starting to go live with those hooked up to it getting their first year's service for free.

Residents near Stanford University in California are becoming connected to the Googlenet and reporting actual throughput speeds of 150Mb downstream / 92Mb upstream, and local university staff are making particular use of it - including one economics professor who regularly sends 20MB+ files and has really noticed the difference.

Professor Martin Carnoy said of the service:

"It used to take several minutes to send big files with the AT&T broadband service I had before.

I felt like I was always waiting around when I was sending or receiving files. But now it takes seconds. There's no waiting."

When they announced the service Google emphasised the need to have much faster broadband speeds to drive innovation, and it's naturally both easier and more cost effective to launch such speeds when the appropriate infrastructure is close by.

YouView 'set to fail'

A report has suggested that the YouView connected IPTV service is setup to fail with both the overall digital TV market and the pay digital TV market having reached saturation point.

The service, which is being developed by a consortium including large ISPs and content providers and has been racked with problems, is not expected to launch until next year now after Lord Sugar was brought in to 'kick the tyres' on it - but they've missed the boat, claims Digital TV Research.

Report author Simon Murray reported that overall digital TV penetration is at 95% with pay TV penetration at under 58% - and doesn't see where YouView will take any significant market slice, saying that IPTV services are "unlikely to ever make too much headway" in the UK.

He added:

"Free-to-air services are responsible for much of the recent digital TV growth.

Digital pay TV penetration is not expected to climb much and will remain below 58 per cent of TV households."

ISP partners of YouView include BT and TalkTalk, firms that have been keen to use the service to offer compelling bundles to end consumers alongside their broadband and telephony products.

Scots government told to "cheer up" on next gen funding

It's almost like Terrance and Philip (catchphrase: "cheer up, guy" in case you missed the link) have taken over the silly season.

The Scottish Government have been told to "cheer up" after they complained about what they saw as a paltry £68.8m of funding for the rollout of faster broadband and universal coverage of at least 2Mb broadband by 2015 - when Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment Alex Neil said that they needed at least £300m to be able to hit the central government's target.

The controversial comments came from Scottish Secretary (i.e. in the Westminster government) Michael Moore, who said:

"The Scottish Government needs to be more upbeat. It takes a rather sour outlook to turn nearly £70 million into a setback. Cheer up for goodness' sake and get on with delivering the improvements to our rural communities.

Instead of looking for the negative, they should step up and meet the challenge of matching UK Government investment in broadband for our rural communities. If they do that, we can move towards achieving the target of 90% of Scottish premises having superfast broadband - and everyone having access to at least 2Mbps - by 2015.

If they don't invest then they will be failing Scotland's rural communities and businesses."

Naturally Neil took the comments less than well in his response:

"We do find it funny that Mr Moore, as Secretary of State for Scotland, appears unaware that this funding allocation doesn't reflect the fact that Scotland has a third of the UK landmass and some of the most remote areas in these islands."

I wonder if Moore will take his lead from Cartman for his next comments?

Facebook to open second Californian campus

Social network Facebook is growing quickly through increased usage and a faster programme of acquisitions and this is reflected in the news that the company intends to open a second campus in San Jose, even before they have completed the move into the first one - previously the home of Sun Microsystems (who are of course now part of Oracle) in California.

Facebook is seeking permission to start construction of a second campus in 2013, in a city where they already house 3,600 employees. They seek to get approval to eventually house 9,600 staffers in San Jose according to a source close to the company:

"They're not going to grow to 9,600 people overnight, but if they want to get to that size in the next couple of years you have to start planning things now.

Given the players going after Facebook, they want to be ready if they need to grow."

Cisco spends $31m on fulfilment software assets

Networking giant Cisco have announced their first major buy since their business wide strategic review, with the company picking up fulfilment software AXIOSS from Comptel for USD$31m in an all cash buy.

The AXIOSS software is going to be used in network and service management functions by Cisco, whose intention is that it will enable the quicker provisioning of video, data, mobility and cloud services across multiple platforms.

Providers launch late summertime deals

There's been a swathe of ISPs launching late summertime deals as they seek to boost their customer bases ahead of their financial results for the third quarter, the cut off for which is at the end of September.

BT have launched a pair of offers - one via their main 'own' brand and the other via their Plusnet 'value' sub-brand.

New customers joining BT on their 'TV Essential + Broadband and Anytime Calls' package get a bundle for £4 per month (on top of line rental and a £30 activation fee) for the first four months, with the service then reverting to £20 per month afterwards.

Available until the end of this month and exclusively open to online signups only, the offer comes with an 'up to' 20Mb broadband package (10GB per month usage allowance) and their BT Vision TV service as well as a calls package and the usual bells and whistles such as a Home Hub.

Plusnet are offering the same broadband speed as their parent company in a deal that makes available their 'Value' broadband package at half price for the first 12 months (i.e. down from £6.49 to £3.24 per month) if the new customers take their home phone product too - which comes with a line rental of £11.99 per month.

The bundle also includes up to 10GB per month broadband usage and a calls package for those joining the provider before October 5 (which is of course in the start of Q4 of the financial year, however they will be relying on those joining them being front loaded). Other call packages are also available.

Tesco have launched an offer that gives new joiners 4 months broadband free and 1,000 Clubcard points when they sign up for their service online on an 18 month contract when they pay £11.75 per month for the company's home phone line rental.

The company, whose broadband service predominantly runs over the Cable & Wireless network, offers packages at £8 and £12 per month thereafter and the company highlights that their services all come with UK call centres.

Infographic: The death of the music industry

I found this Infographic a really good way of explaining the death of the music industry and how it has changed over the last 30 years - and it really emphasises the importance of labels being more open minded about embracing innovative business models and stopping to cling on to what revenues they do bring in from direct CD sales:Click on the image to play the animated GIF at the destination site. Thought this was a brilliant way of bringing the message home - more details here.

News Corp backed music startup to launch by year end

The online music market is littered with well funded failures in the wake of rampant piracy and excessive licensing cost demands from the music labels - and even those that have attracted large user bases like Rhapsody and Spotify have had their run ins and issues along the way to building their business.

A new startup, which is backed by News Corporation amongst others, is set to go into beta in October and launch by year end - in both the US and the UK - that has a radically different business model.

Beyond Oblivion are launching their all you can eat service under the brand name Boinc after protracted negotiations with record labels, with the company's business model being based on a lifetime subscription being funded as part of the purchase price when a user buys a computer or a smartphone - and they claim that they are already close to inking a partner in each market to support their launch.

Site founder and chief executive Adam Kidron (FT - paywall):

"Unlike any other service currently in the marketplace Boinc offers users access to all music with no download charges, no monthly subscription fees and no ads – while also ensuring artists are fairly compensated.

We are now gearing up for commercial launch in the UK and US, and will be revealing news about global music licensing agreements and commercial partnerships in the coming weeks."

To call their business model complex would be an understatement.

It is predicated on their being a ceiling of 92% of their revenue (which comes from the equipment manufacturers, although it will also be possible to purchase a subscription) being paid to rights holders throughout the lifetime of the device, with a 40% payout made up front when they connect for the first time. They guarantee that the labels will receive a minimum 70% share of their annual revenues, however.

Whether it will catch on is another thing altogether of course. It's not as if News Corp have a great track record of tech industry investments!

Windows 8 to include App Store

Windows 8, the next version of Microsoft's ubiquitous operating system, is to include an App Store the company has revealed.

In a blog post the company's president Steven Sinofsky revealed that the Mac OS X-like functionality will come in the new version of Windows which is expected to launch next year.

He said that there are around 35 teams working on Windows 8, each of which makes up 25 to 40 developers apiece.

Facebook to like 7 firms by year end

Mahoosive social network Facebook has already hoovered up 13 companies this year and plans to make 7 further acquisitions by year end according to the company's corporate development director Vaughan Smith.

Their sights are set on a variety of mobile and design firms according to Smith:

"Two years ago we didn't have a track record in acquisitions.

While we expected them to work well, it was still a crapshoot how they'd turn out. We've built a culture that supports entrepreneurs, and it's working incredibly well."

Facebook has increasingly made a number of smaller fry acquisitions over recent years, and certainly nothing on the scale of some of the buys that Google have made - the latest one of which being their USD$12.5bn intended purchase of Motorola Mobility.

They could be set to make bigger acquisitions after they free up cash in their upcoming IPO, and could then join the big league of those spending whopping amounts in the tech acquisitions market.

Stolen cable recovered in police raids

Stolen cable from the access networks of BT (i.e. Openreach) and Virgin Media has been recovered by police in Bolton after a series of raids on scrap metal dealers.

Around £1,000 worth of Openreach cable was recovered, remembering that customers would have experienced outages when the cable was ripped out of the ground by thieves (in fact as they would be for Virgin customers).

In Virgin's case over 4,000 metres of lead and copper cable was recovered, along with fibre optic cable - which is of course glass and no use from a resale perspective as it's not metal - and the cable company said that they recovered enough cabling to serve 10,000 homes.

Greater Manchester Police Chief Inspector Clara Williams said:

"Metal theft is not a victimless crime and we have recently seen an increase in this type of offence corresponding with the increased value of metal.

An investigation into who has sold this property to scrap dealers is now underway."

BT says that cable theft causes them losses of millions of pounds annually.

Is this as good as customer service gets?

I've seen some amazing customer service stories that have been enabled by the world of social media, but I'm struggling to think of one better than the one outlined at this blog - of the steakhouse that made and delivered to the airport a steak to a regular customer who happened to tweet that he fancied one before catching his late night flight:Morton's The Steakhouse are the amazing company in question, with their clever CRM system, innovative chain of command (to enable such quick decision making) and willingness to show the faith to undertake such a logistical challenge (where, let's face it, a lot could have gone wrong) when the nearest store is 23.5 miles away from the airport.

Naturally word of mouth has spread and they'd be the first place I'd consider eating at when I'm in the US next because of it, and that's the point really about the power of social media.

Great work Morton's and keep it up!