This is just a fantastic post from Matt (WordPress) that is a clarion call to the Sun, Microsoft, Oracle, group of old guys who really need to get with the programme, or they will be gone. I’ve given up, I’ve lost hope, and our business has moved on. We’re growing fast and adding infrastructure faster, all on a tight budget, and I’m less inclined to depart from the LAMP-based architecture that Digg, Flickr, Wikipedia, and dozens of other sites I respect use. Personally I’m far more excited about what Amazon is doing these days. Source: Photo Matt » Sun Isn’t … Continue reading Photo Matt » Sun Isn’t Relevant to Startups

Poor old CIBC just keeps getting nailed with this stuff.  A couple of years ago it was a long stream of faxes containing customer data going consistently to a private company, and now this. CIBC is the latest major company to lose sensitive customer data, making 470,000 clients vulnerable to dreaded identity theft. The bank announced Thursday that a file being transported between Montreal and Toronto went missing while in transit. Source: CIBC Loses 470,000 Private Client Files :: Hack In The Box :: Keeping Knowledge Free One has to ask why one company is consistently hit with this stuff, courtesy … Continue reading CIBC Loses 470,000 Private Client Files

I have updated the blog domain tonight, to:  thebankwatch.com Everything else about the blog is unchanged.  If you read in a feed reader, here are the rss links.  Any questions, please email me: New feed address:  http://thebankwatch.com/feed/ New comments feed address:  http://thebankwatch.com/comments/feed/   Technorati tags: bankwatch, thebankwatch Continue reading Domain update

 Phil’s article touches on several of the unspoken secrets of Banking that (today) ensures traditional banking drills down into the apparent secret sauce of wealth management for the few, yet leaves untapped the mass group that are sometimes characterised as ‘unbanked’ who represent significant opportunity. Why?  The average bank will tell you behind closed doors that the ‘average’ annual profit per customer is in the range of $10.  This is the classic average with the lower end being a loss.  If you can add in a group such as unbanked at positive profit, you are basically off to the races.  … Continue reading The Longtail of Banking

 Interesting news for web site owners (everybody!) – Firefox continues to grow market share and the autoupdate install of IE has not changed that share.  Despite downloading it, people are changing their usage patterns. While Microsoft had the WebSideStory numbers correct, it didn’t tell the whole story, says Geoff Johnston, an analyst with the Web metrics company. “[The growth of IE 7] seems to be exclusively at the expense of IE 6,” says Johnston. “It’s not eating into the Firefox share at all. Source: Despite 100 Million IE 7 Installs, Microsoft’s Browser Still Loses Ground – News by InformationWeek This … Continue reading Despite 100 Million IE 7 Installs, Microsoft’s Browser Still Loses Ground

 Simple evidence that social marketing is not easy, and people must need to want to see it.  Its all about the customer.  The story about Obama’s approach using online video is bigger news than the video itself.  Here is one sample – note the number of views. OBAMA 03:07 Tags: OBAMA Added: 1 day ago in Category: People  Views: 48 Source: YouTube – Broadcast Yourself.   Technorati tags: video+marketing, customer+centric Continue reading YouTube – video marketing – its not easy (Obama)