Since the Madoff story broke, his wife Ruth presumably hasn’t been able to go anywhere without groups of her friends quickly winding up hushed conversations and greeting her with big, fake smiles. Her florist and hair colourist wouldn’t take her business. She’s been harassed by paps when trying to buy some Jarslberg. Worst of all, everyone’s been casually linking her to the crimes, as it seems inconceivable that she couldn’t have known about them. Well, she’s now innocent in the eyes of the law, if not the eyes of angry Palm Beachers - the feds have decided there’s no evidence…MORE »
By Ben Beaumont-Thomas | July 02, 2009 11:02AM | No Comments » |
Copyright aggravators and internet underdogs The Pirate Bay announced yesterday that they’ll be selling the site to games and internet café owners Global Gaming Network for about £4.7million - given that it’s in the top 100 most visited sites on the web, this isn’t really very much. The money is just a token though, say the Swedes, who, characteristically, won’t be lavishing it on themselves, but jizzing it all on a foundation dealing with free speech, freedom of information, and “openness of the nets”, as they charmingly put it.
At least one of them must be getting tired of the cash-sapping “cause” by now - the goodwill needed…MORE »
By Jennifer Allan | July 01, 2009 1:10PM | 2 Comments » |
Lloyds are lining up Win Bischoff, still pretty fresh from being dropped by Citigroup, to be the new Lloyds chairman. As we saw recently, previous chair Victor Blank had to go lest the Lloyds shareholders release the hounds; his cocktail chat with Gordon Brown, persuading him to drop competition law and let Lloyds take over HBOS, has become one of the most infamous moments of the financial crisis (even though it might turn out rather well for Lloyds in the end). Now Bischoff has the task of placating investors and corralling Lloyds’ vast new asset pool.
Bischoff was chairman of Citigroup…MORE »
By Ben Beaumont-Thomas | July 01, 2009 11:35AM | No Comments » |
Yesterday, Bernard Madoff - Diet Coke drinker, Neil Diamond fan and $65bn fraudster - was given a life sentence for orchestrating the giant Ponzi scheme that left Kevin Bacon without any life savings. The farcical nature of American sentencing means that actually he got nearly two life sentences, 150 years, presumably insuring against spectacular advances in science over the next few years that would allow Madoff to live to 221 years old. One wonders why the judge didn’t go the whole hog and sentence him to “like, a squillion years”.
Still, it sends the message that this was a Very Bad Thing…MORE »
By Ben Beaumont-Thomas | June 30, 2009 11:10AM | No Comments » |
Screen Digest, one of those media analyst companies that exist solely to make ad salesmen cry, is all set to publish its latest report, and it’s predicting a $2bn fall in US TV advertising. And what with online services like Hulu carrying around a quarter of the ads that the same programming on TV has, internet advertising isn’t going to being making an extra $2bn any time soon.
Spake author Arash Amel to the Financial Times: “Online video is not mature enough and won’t mature quickly enough to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional TV advertising”. But he…MORE »
By Ben Beaumont-Thomas | June 29, 2009 11:03AM | No Comments » |
A new travel website, Simonseeks.com, launched last week – offering its writers a share in advertising revenue. Created by Simon Nixon, the guy behind price comparison sites moneysupermarket.com, it aims to make “high quality, independent mini travel guides freely available to everyone”.
Calling itself the “YouTube of Travel”, Simonseeks is a community where “travellers, journalists and celebrities” can write guides and get paid half the revenue created by a user clicking through from your guide to make a holiday booking, or clicking on an advert. Like YouTube, content is reviewed by other users, meaning that popular guides get bumped up the…MORE »
By Ruth Stokes | June 25, 2009 12:53PM | 1 Comment » |