I’m sitting with Jonathan Gabbai from eBay at Olympia and he’s just told me about eBay To Go, which is a pretty nifty way of embedding practically any eBay object in a web page. That’s what I call widgetisation. Jonathan’s telling me that this is a great way to expose the company’s API to users… Continue reading eBay widgetised
Month: September 2007
Stopping a run
So let’s go over the logic of a run on a bank again shall we. To begin with, I guess it’s worth repeating, a run is never a good thing, neither for the bank nor for the wider economy. Runs rob institutions of the funds they need to operate. At best they freeze investment and… Continue reading Stopping a run
Keen and Twitter
Read a bit of Andrew Keen at lunchtime. I do feel like I ought to. I like heretics. Still, it’s a pretty miserable read. Immediately cheered up when I got back to my desk, though, by a tweet from my 9 year-old boy’s class saying: “We have just compared two story openings. We have focused… Continue reading Keen and Twitter
Transforming trade unions
The debate about wage discipline leaves a lot unsaid. Unions, government and employers all have their points of view but none can acknowledge the simple economic truth that underlies the need to keep salaries under control. It’s not a pleasant truth. I think we’d rather not think about it. We ought to, though, because it’s… Continue reading Transforming trade unions
Deli duel
Here in Radlett on the Northern fringes of London’s suburbs we’re getting ready for an awesome deli smackdown. Yummies, the incumbent – just renovated and under new ownership – is getting ready to take on nervous-looking newcomer Tzar, a few doors down the road and now sporting a sightly defensive banner saying “it happened here… Continue reading Deli duel
Hacking the iPhone
I love this lad‘s story. I hope he can take this globe spanning triumph of geek ingenuity and teenage self-belief and build something really substantial on it. He’s just started his degree course so he has plenty of time to screw it up. Seriously, though, smart kids like George Hotz will form the next generation… Continue reading Hacking the iPhone
Mid-century masterpieces
Another great big muscular 20th Century prom last night, with exceptional music from the old Austro-Hungary. I’m a sucker for this kind of ambitious, cerebral and passionate music: something dark and vital about it. Something to do with its origin slap bang in the middle of Europe during its most turbulent century too. These works… Continue reading Mid-century masterpieces
Making TV news more open
Channel 5’s proposal to make TV news more honest should become a standard for transparency in media production. David Kermode announced that Channel 5 news is banning ‘noddies’ and some of the other artefacts of old school news production. This is a big deal. Channel 5’s been trying to shake up news for a while… Continue reading Making TV news more open