Commonwealth Bank of Australia set to launch offensive on UK mortgage market – Business News, Business – The Independent 2000 story on Commonwealth Bank’s plans for expansion tags: commonwealth bank of australia, mortgages The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is preparing an aggressive assault on the UK mortgage market. The bank, which is looking to expand away from its increasingly crowded home market, is in the final stages of plans to launch a range of low-cost mortgages by the end of the year Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012 | eHomeUpgrade Gartner’s top 10 disruptive technologies 2008-2012: … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/16/2008

Eric Schmidt in conversation with Ken Auletta | Outside the Lines – CNET News.com wow … this is the archetype business mission statement! tags: google, eric schmidt The goal of the company is not to monetize everything. Our goal is to change the world. Monetization is a technology to pay for it. Google is not different than the success of companies 30 years previously. The difference is it all happened quicker. It all happens in six months, not six years. At Sun we had two-year product roadmaps…at Google we have trouble doing six-month roadmaps. The compression of time occurs because … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/12/2008

I am largely over Twitter. I feel weird when I post something there instead of here. I get a ton more discussion here. – FriendFeed Steve continues to push to envelope with good thinking on microblogging, and online conversations. FF is built by ex Google folks who built gmail, so they understand well written applications, and scalability. tags: friendfeed, twitter, micropersuasion, steve rubel “I am largely over Twitter. I feel weird when I post something there instead of here. I get a ton more discussion here.” Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/10/2008

Gates’ last act: frees IE 8 and Silverlight second betas | The Register tags: microsoft, IE, browsers Gates noted his company had “a renewed effort to invest in Internet Explorer”. “We are hard at work on a new version of that: IE 8 – a very creative name we came up with,” he said. He also talked up Microsoft’s plans for Oslo, which will feature a new modeling language, repository, storage mechanism and way to manipulate models. A Community Technology Preview (CTP) is due this fall. The next edition of Visual Studio, meanwhile, will support the Object Management Group’s Unified … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/05/2008

FT.com / Companies / Financial services – Higher capital requirement could reshape banking model tags: banking model, utility, bank strategy Whether we are talking of investment banking or commercial banking, returns will undoubtedly be lower in future. The only question is how much lower. There is a possibility, if the politicians are in the mood for such a move, that the banking system might even revert to the role of a utility, which is the way things were before the great deregulatory tide began in the 1970s. Not a cheerful prospect for risk-hungry bankers. Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/04/2008

Deloitte Targets Shortcomings of Online Lending – 06.01.2008 – American Banker Article Despite overwhelming satisfaction with the convenience and speed of online loan applications, a significant portion of bank customers still harbor doubts whether they gain any true advantages from the process. Some 41 percent say they’re still more comfortable with traditional in-branch or call-center applications, according to a new report from Deloitte LLP. tags: deloitte, online lending, consumer trends Despite overwhelming satisfaction with the convenience and speed of online loan applications, a significant portion of bank customers still harbor doubts whether they gain any true advantages from the process. … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/03/2008

Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012 tags: disruptive, gartner, 2012 Gartner’s top 10 disruptive technologies 2008-2012: Multicore and hybrid processors Virtualisation and fabric computing Social networks and social software Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms Web mashups User Interface Ubiquitous computing Contextual computing Augmented reality Semantics FT.com / Capital markets – Libor calculation to remain unchanged tags: libor, BBA “Now that there is less reason to think the BBA will tinker with how Libor is set, the market will focus on the underlying issue: why are unsecured rates so high compared with the Fed funds rate,” said … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 06/01/2008

Loic Le Meur Blog: PR secrets? bull@#$% “The best person to represent the company is not a PR person and even less an external one. It is YOU. You, the founder, you the CEO. Look at Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, they are the PR machines.” tags: loic le meur, PR I hate the term “PR secrets”. It only PR for PR companies trying to sell their expensive consulting to the poor startup CEOs. Continue reading things I read yesterday … 05/26/2008

Facebook Platform, One Year Later tags: facebook Facebook has had its share of missteps, but no matter how much they improve the platform, it is only as strong as its apps (which at this point simply aren’t very good). Continue reading things I read yesterday … 05/25/2008

comScore Releases April 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings why does Microsoft bother with search? tags: comscore, microsoft, google, search April 2008 U.S. Core Search Rankings In April, Google Sites extended its share of core searches to 61.6 percent, up from 59.8 percent the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 20.4 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.1 percent), AOL LLC (4.6 percent), and Ask Network (4.3 percent). FT.com / In depth – Food prices forecast to stay high for 10 years higher food prices here for 10 years. tags: ft.com, food, biofuels, developing countries The report, by the Organisation for … Continue reading things I read yesterday … 05/23/2008