I am always one to take the consumer view in channel management, but Canadian politicians are guilty of confusing consumers on the ATM fee issue.  The Canadian Banks are quite right in their assessment of the impact on their results if they are forced to eliminate ATM Fees. Lets look at Duceppe’s (Leader # 3 party in Canada) rater ignorant comment. Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe said later the banks are rich enough they should be able to absorb the cost of getting rid of ATM charges. Source: Canadian Banks & Insurance Consider the facts: The vast majority of Canadians do … Continue reading Consumers … always have the option of "voting with their feet."

 Some good stats updating the 1% rule that we reported on last year  … click through to Church of the Customer for the whole story. Just 0.16% of all visitors to YouTube upload videos to it, and 0.2% of visitors to Flickr upload photos. That’s according to data shared by Hitwise‘s Bill Tancer this week at Web 2.0 Expo, adding a few sizable blocks of evidence in support of the 1% Rule. But apparently Bill also reported that “4.6% of all visits to Wikipedia pages are to edit entries on the site.” If that’s the case, that’s a new number … Continue reading Update to the 1% rule

 The banks involved seem to be narrowing down to La Salle in Chicago as a key component in the merger stakes.  John Varley, Barclays’ chief executive, has received several expressions of interest in La Salle, ABN’s Chicago-based retail bank, including one from Bank of America. BNP Paribas, Wachovia and Citigroup are also thought to be interested in the business, which is worth about £5bn. By selling the American business, Barclays believes it could come close to matching any rival offer for ABN that emerges from a consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Fortis. Source: Barclays plays ABN trump … Continue reading High stakes plays to complete ABN Amro merger

William Azaroff – Vancity My take:  their site is a branding play, and complements their overall business strategy.  It levers the lower of local, yet is an ideal online vehicle.  Its also a flexible enough platform to provide enormous opportunity for Vancity in the future, provided they maintain the integrity of the community spirit, and no-one understands that better than William. Some comments on Vancity that are relevant before we talk about the social network 2nd most trusted organisation in BC Triple bottom line – fiscal, social, environmental Social network is about brand differentiation, not about product typical bank – … Continue reading Netfinance2007 meeting notes – Vancity changeeverything.ca

There are issues with social networks that can create opportunities for people to observe too much information.  Looking at a couple of specific instances recently, this has really been made clear to me. Especially if you are signed up for social networks, its worth searching for your own name, and ensuring you are comfortable with the results.   Technorati tags: social+networks, privacy Continue reading Social Network and privacy

 Steph’s comment here is brilliant in its simplicity.  The reference is to Tim O’Reilly’s suggestion for a blogging code of conduct. BBC NEWS | Technology | Weblogs ‘need content warnings’ Sorry, but this sounds so American. Should people wear content warning badges to indicate they might produce strong language? Source: steph’s bookmarks on del.icio.us   Technorati tags: US, America, Europe Continue reading America as seen by Europe

 This is a long and rambling article full of anecdotes, requiring the reader to form their own conclusions, but its still a very powerful piece.  It has anecdotes about all the recent corporate mis-steps, such as Edelman/ Walmart, Southwest Airlines, and a host of other.  But here’s the interesting paradox: The reputation economy creates an incentive to be more open, not less. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it. Being transparent, opening up, posting interesting material frequently and often is the only way to amass positive links to yourself and … Continue reading The reputation economy | transparency as a judo move

 If you appreciate things happening when you expect, and as you expect .. something that rarely, if ever, occurs in North America (think about that), you must read this.  We in North America have no concept of service… none.  I will debate that with examples with anyone.  I wrote about hits before, but Jan’s post here does real justice to the precision that occurs in Japan, and that will make anyone else in the world simply cringe.  Consider … a late subway is not an acceptable excuse … you need a late note, or they won’t believe you.  I recommend Jan’s post … Continue reading Jan Chipchase – Future Perfect: Predictability, Margins of Error, Quality of Life

 Technorati produce their quarterly report renamed the The State of the Live Web, April 2007.  Japanese is the #1 blogging language, and there are 22 blogs in the top 100 media sites, vs 12 last quarter. Link to the full report below. 70 million weblogs About 120,000 new weblogs each day, or… 1.4 new blogs every second 3000-7000 new splogs (fake, or spam blogs) created every day Peak of 11,000 splogs per day last December 1.5 million posts per day, or… 17 posts per second Growing from 35 to 75 million blogs took 320 days 22 blogs among the top … Continue reading Blogs have gone mainstream