AI

Technorati | State of the blogosphere Oct 2006

Colin Henderson

Dave at Technorati does his periodic review of blogs.  There seem to be two big points: the number of blogs (56K) is more than doubled by splogs – spam blogs 4K, or 13.1% of real blogs are considered very high authority (500+ blogs linking in last 6 months) While there another 26K blogs considered high authority (100 – 500 blogs linking in last 6 months), this remains a big number, and the law of averages, plus point number 1. above, suggests there are spam blogs polluting that number. So I think we don’t want to prematurely jump to conclusions, but I liked … Continue reading Technorati | State of the blogosphere Oct 2006

AI2 Comments

DIGITAL UTOPIA / A new breed of technologists envisions a democratic world improved by the Internet

Colin Henderson

This piece from Dan Frost at the San Francisco Chronicle about sums up Web 2.0 as well as anything I have seen so far.  Well done Dan. Behind the random silliness of YouTube videos and the juvenile frivolity of MySpace Web sites lies a powerful idea: Everyday people are using technology to gain control of the media and change the world. Source: DIGITAL UTOPIA / A new breed of technologists envisions a democratic world improved by the Internet This quote from O’Reilly continues the theme.  Winners on the Internet “have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence,” O’Reilly … Continue reading DIGITAL UTOPIA / A new breed of technologists envisions a democratic world improved by the Internet

Payments1 Comment

Barclays launches ‘carbon neutral’ card – AllPayNews

Colin Henderson

 Nice touch from Barclays with a ‘green’, environmentally friendly debit card. Barclays customers are set to go green with the launch of the UK’s first carbon neutral debit card. This new card, which is entirely blue including the edge, is being rolled out to the bank’s 11 million debit card users as their current ones expire. Barclays has worked closely with Axalto, its card manufacturer on this innovative card. Axalto, advised by The Carbon Neutral Company, has undertaken to finance projects that work to reduce carbon emissions in the developing world, effectively balancing out the harmful emissions of the card’s … Continue reading Barclays launches ‘carbon neutral’ card – AllPayNews

Smart Cards

Finextra: Bank of America begins contactless m-payments trial

Colin Henderson

This is a smart move by Bank of America to start testing contactless cell phone payment now.  This is a smart card in a cell phone.  Its quite prevalent now in Japan, but this is the first instance I am aware of in North America.  Many Customers will like this. Around 500 staff at the bank’s offices in Wilmington, Delaware are expected to take part in the pilot and will use their mobile phones to pay for purchases at vending machines, in a cafeteria and at an internal convenience shop. Source: Finextra: Bank of America begins contactless m-payments trial   … Continue reading Finextra: Bank of America begins contactless m-payments trial

Web/Tech

Google Co-op – Custom Search – Bankwatch community

Colin Henderson

 I set this up tonight.  The concept is that it searches only the sites that I included.  I took the liberty of including sites that have generally aligned interest and content in the banking space, and that will provide relevant search results.  Volunteers to be included, (or excluded) are welcome. We can try it, to see if the relevance is useful in ours/ others searches for research and planning. Search Bankwatch, and sites of blogging colleagues sites included to date: https://bankwatch.wordpress.com/ http://bankervision.typepad.com/bankervision/ http://www.edmblog.com/weblog/ http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/ http://digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com/digital_money/ http://www.ingblogs.com/mycupofcha/ http://ozrisk.net/ Source: Google Co-op – Custom Search Engine   Technorati tags: Google+co-op, banking+search Continue reading Google Co-op – Custom Search – Bankwatch community

Web/Tech

Mastering the Three Worlds of Information Technology (McAfee)

Colin Henderson

Thanks to Confused for this article from the always readable Andrew McAfee. He summarises the problem I and many in positions who work closely with technology groups, fully understand. (emphasis added) Adding to executives’  diffidence, corporate IT projects have often delivered underwhelming results or been outright failures. Catastrophes – such as the one at American pharmaceutical distributor FoxMeyer Drug, which went into Chapter 11 and was sold in 1997 when a $100 million IT project failed – may be less frequent today than in the past, but frustration, delay, and disappointment are all too common. In 2005, when IT consultancy CSC and … Continue reading Mastering the Three Worlds of Information Technology (McAfee)

AI

Parsing the symbolic logic of the Smith Barney campaign

Colin Henderson

 Fascinating post from Grant who takes a somewhat unique analytical approach to considering Smith Barney’s marketing “working wealth”.  (Thanks Nishad for the tip) It is a pleasure to report that the SmithBarney campaign is a superb piece of consumer centricity. It addresses the barrier in place: the fact that most consumers fail to fail to how money makes money. Now, I know this complete confounds the financial industry. “What’s not to get?” they want to know. But that is the point of consumer-centricity. It doesn’t matter what we think. It matters what the consumer thinks, and the further they are … Continue reading Parsing the symbolic logic of the Smith Barney campaign

AI3 Comments

Can an "Internet only" bank work? or ….. Can a branchless bank work?

Colin Henderson

Great thought provoking discussion going on in the comments, that made me realise it warrants deeper analysis. Except for eBank (run by President Taiichi Matsuo, former LTCB) all other Internet banks had strong parents with deep pockets to establish the online brand or leverage the existing brand (Sony). Although these banks are definitely not modeled after a phone bank, they are marketed strongly in the offline world. And eBank is marketed and operates more like a Paypal. Source: BankerVision: Can an “Internet only” bank work? « Bankwatch James started it off here, and the title outlines the context. First of … Continue reading Can an "Internet only" bank work? or ….. Can a branchless bank work?