The scale of this potential match-up would make it one of the worlds largest Banks. BARCLAYS has approached Dutch bank ABN Amro with an ambitious merger plan that would create a global banking powerhouse worth £80 billion. The informal approach occurred after ABN Amro became embroiled in a bitter battle last month with activist hedge fund, The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI). Barclays and ABN combined would create one of the world’s biggest banking groups Source: Barclays in £80bn offer to ABN Amro-Business-Industry Sectors-Banking & Finance-TimesOnline There would be nearly 50 million customers in the potentially combined entity. A deal would … Continue reading Barclays in £80bn offer to ABN Amro

 Seth does a nice job of laying out the evolution of advertising until today.  Where he loses me, is in the assessment of today, and Google AdSense. The most effective online ad buy is AdSense, where you bid for traffic and pay by the click. This is permission-based, because your ad shows up next to a Google search or on a relevant page. So the people who are seeing it are the right people. And the click demonstrates that they want to see your page. Source: Seth’s Blog: SquidOffers Google AdSense is not permission based IMHO.  Why? …. because no-one asked me … Continue reading Whats beyond AdSense?

 This is a remarkable set of comments from the leader of a company that is itself in serious strategic difficulty. Ballmer suggested that Google was growing too fast, and had failed to make a success of efforts to diversify beyond search with ads. He dismissed Google’s various other projects as “cute” to chortles from the assembled business students, and commented that “a random collection of people doing their own thing” might not add value. This was taken by many as a jab at Google’s well-known practice of allowing its engineers to spend 20 per cent of their working hours on … Continue reading Ballmer characterises Google as both cute, and insane

 This is startling information which will make the technology groups in Banks laugh.  They will laugh because they don’t believe it.  However I have seen enough outside the Banking environment over the last few months to confirm my earlier suspicions that Banks are hamstrung by legacy beliefs and practices, that restrict how they think about moving forward with technology. This time the focus was very much around the financial costs to build and deploy these web applications (as opposed to elements like lines of code or revenue). It also touched on what it costs in monthly maintenance. Here is an overview of … Continue reading How much does it cost to build the best web apps today, and how should Banks react?

 Fascinating observation from Scoble while at SXSW this week.  VC’s are moving on from technology to environmentalism. He says that the attention of the world’s biggest venture capitalists has left the computer world and moved to the world of environmentalism. Says that the attention there was on material scientists and other scientists who are coming up with ways to save energy, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, etc. I write this because if the world’s richest people are going to start pouring their resources somewhere other than computer science, that’s important to know, especially if you’re someone trying to decide on a … Continue reading The "coolness" leaving Computer Science for EcoStuff? « Scobleizer

 This analysis from Wharton in Philadelphia describes the strategic run up to the current issues.  It also implies the possibility that there might be a soft landing out of this, but its a definite maybe.  In particular the tie to the overall capital markets is worrisome. The final factor was the mushrooming in the 1990s of “securitization,” the bundling of home loans into bond-like securities that could be bought and sold on the secondary market. This allows lenders to get loans off their books so they can lend more. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-governmental lenders, had long sold … Continue reading More on the US sub-prime mortgage market – Wharton

Off topic, but Microsoft is around us all, and I remain interested in their future.  I have been critical of Ray Ozzie, but some things I have noted recently suggest to me, that he (or someone there is getting it). First … recently Scoble noted he was invited to a private NDA session at Microsoft to talk about things, presumably blogging.  Pirillo and others of similar stature attended same session.  This I knew from, of all things, Twitter, so no links. Now a colleague from Unspace, is at Microsoft this week, and since he is under NDA I won’t mention the … Continue reading Microsoft resurgence?

 Off topic, but this article is a bit negative from the usually objective Economist.  At least the title is.  The reality is that Wikipedia as one of the top 5 sites has proven its capacity to further encyclopedia’s evolution, in ways that will not be stopped by one errant person, or even two or three Ryan Jordans’.  He was caught, and others will be caught too. Wikipedia has strengths too, chiefly the resilient power of collective common sense. It benefits from the volunteer efforts of many thousands of outside contributors and editors. If one drops out, another fills his place. … Continue reading Online encyclopedias | Fact or fiction? | Economist.com

 Imagine online banking with no keyboard.  Not so far fetched.  This is a fascinating glimpse into the future, and this was last years TED. Presentation by Jeff Han of a futuristic multi-touch interface during the Adobe sponsored TED2006. Jeff Han is a research scientist for NYU’s Media Research Lab, and the inventor of an “interface-free” touch-driven computer screen. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 09:32) Source: YouTube – Multi-touch interface (from Adobe TED)     Technorati tags: TEDtalks2007, interface+free, multi+touch+interface Continue reading TED 2006 | Multi-touch interface