Facebook floats

February 2nd, 2012

The title of this post should perhaps instead be ‘Facebook takes the plunge’. Yes, it’s what anyone interested in internet business and social technology is talking about… Facebook is poised to sell shares in itself. It’s expected to be worth between $75bn and $100bn (that’s up to £63bn, or thereabouts). Yikes.

It’s the first social media platform to sell shares, and I’m sure the owners of other big companies will be watching carefully – though with over 800m worldwide users, it’s difficult to draw comparisons between Facebook and other organisations. It’s just so massive.

The move has revealed a lot of facts about Facebook that people could previously only guess at. For example, it makes around $1bn in pure profit and 85 per cent of its revenues come from advertising, which is a lot, despite being a lower proportion than in 2010 and 2009. It doesn’t currently use advertising for its mobile apps, which is something which may change, as surely smartphone use can only increase over the next year.

One of the statistics which really struck me was that 250m photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. That’s just incredible. And, perhaps more amazingly, 12 per cent of its revenues come from Zynga, the company behind Farmville. I’ve always steered clear of that app myself… I think it’s annoying. I had to ban it from my news feed because I got sick of people inviting me to feed their imaginary cows, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with it. But you’ve got to hand it to Zynga – they invented an extremely contagious game.

Silly distractions aside, if you’re thinking of buying some of those shares, its ticker on the stock exchange will be ‘FB’. Maybe I’ll have a dabble.

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24 movie in sight

February 1st, 2012

I was interested to hear recently that the movie version of 24 starts filming in April. Kiefer Sutherland, who plays central character Jack Bauer, confirmed it in a press interview.

24 was one of my favourite TV shows of the 2000s… or the noughties, whichever term you like to use. It feels strange to say that, as despite now being in 2012, I don’t look back on 2000 to 2009 as being its own decade – or on programmes like 24 being ‘last decade’. It’s weird.

For the uninitiated, 24 was a US television drama which followed events in real time – so each episode was an hour long, with everything in it happening within an hour; and the series was 24 episodes long, meaning the entire season would be one day. It’d either take six months to watch on TV, week-to-week; or a few days to watch on a DVD boxset (my personal preference).

You might think ‘How does that work? Wasn’t it boring when the characters slept for eight hours?’ – but you’d be on the wrong track. They never slept because there was too much action going on. Jack Bauer was the toughest guy ever (trademark!) who worked for a government agency (except in some seasons he’d been sacked) and each season would follow a major crisis which arose, usually due to the actions of a heinous villain, along with a host of subplots. There was a lot of running around and use of cutting-edge communications technology, which I thought was particularly cool. I’ve loved gadgets like headsets ever since. Some of the ones they used looked a bit like the Plantronics CS60, which I use for work.

Though I’ll be keen to see the film, I don’t know how successful a movie version will be, as it’s unlikely it’ll be more than three hours – and if they stick with the real-time concept, it’ll be quite a challenge to make a plot feel ‘epic’, limited to that time frame. We’ll see.

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iPhone 5 to be made soon?

January 26th, 2012

I’m really excited today because there are rumours that the iPhone 5 might be on its way. Apparently, someone who works for a manufacturer in China called Foxconn has claimed that it’s about to go into production.

With ‘leaked’ information, you never know whether it’s true or not… but it would make sense, as if they start with trial products now, it would be ready to launch by summer. That’s what industry experts seem to be predicting, anyway. I’m still very happy with my iPhone 4S, but if a newer model becomes available, I fully intend to be one of the first in the queue!

Quite a lot of my friends have Android phones instead of iPhones. They do seem really good, but for me, nothing really matches up to Apple. The company’s rise in the last decade has been phenomenal – a combined achievement of style and substance. That’s the main thing standing in the way for Android phones, I feel – there’s no key brand identity in quite the same way. As for BlackBerry… well, it hasn’t gone well there in the last year or two. They have a clunky image, in terms of style, public relations and the product itself.

I’m a technology person, first and foremost, so branding isn’t generally my area… but it’s impossible not to consider image and aesthetics when it comes to items like phones, as they’re a style accessory as well as a functional item.

In terms of appearance, the word is that the iPhone 5 will have a larger screen and generally be longer and wider than previous models. This will make it more difficult to fit in pockets – but if it brings with it the same quality of new features that the iPhone 4S did, I don’t think people will mind too much about that.

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Recruitment agencies

January 25th, 2012

I’ve been dealing with a lot of recruitment agencies recently, because of my ongoing hunt for a part-time shop job. I’ve had very mixed experiences, which has made me realise that it’s really, really important to deal with decent ones. The bad ones drive me crazy.

It shouldn’t be complicated, really. There are companies out there who want to employ decent workers, and people who want to be employed by decent companies. But, somehow, a lot of recruiters manage to make their role as middleman into some strange unhelpful role that doesn’t solve anything.

I’m someone who generally prefers to communicate by email than by phone – I guess it goes with my personality and life choices, seeing as I work with computers – and it really frustrates me when I provide all my details in writing, in an easy format, then they call me anyway and ask me all the same questions. Sometimes it’s just not convenient to talk – and I get the feeling they’re not listening anyway. I’m just lucky I’m not jobhunting while in other employment.

There are some good recruiting agents, though. The best ones are those who listen to what you want and read your CV and preferences properly before contacting you for further information. And, in short, who just act like human beings instead of gatekeepers. A lot of the time, the job might not even be a good one. Recruitment should always be a two-sided process. I don’t want to be expected to impress a company unless it’s also prepared to try to impress me and deliver a good role. Otherwise, why would I go and work there? It just wastes everyone’s time if someone is recruited, then gets disappointed and leaves. So, yes, in summary – I am going to keep a note of the good recruiters I’ve encountered and ignore the rest.

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Car production booming

January 22nd, 2012

I read recently that more cars were built in the UK in 2011 than 2010, despite the difficult financial climate. That’s great news… especially for people like me, who love cars. It’s not as if they wouldn’t be available if they were made anywhere else, but it’s nice to know that there are more homegrown products of any kind, really.

A total of 1.3 million cars was built in UK factories in 2011, according to the Society Of Motor Manufacturers And Traders (SMMT) – with engine production going up to 2.5 million. In fact, vehicle manufacturing went up by 4 per cent worldwide, showing that prospects are good everywhere for the motor industry.

I don’t actually have a car at the moment, but I may get one – especially if I manage to get a part-time job that requires a bit of a commute. I’m not really keen on public transport. I know it’s better for the environment, and means you don’t have the stress of maintaining a car… but it can be really unreliable… and whenever I use it regularly, I seem to catch colds all the time.

It’s not actually very cheap to use public transport, either. If there are two or three of us travelling together, it’s often just as cheap (if not cheaper) to club together for a taxi than to get the bus. How ridiculous is that?

I’m not keen on cycling, either. My friends say it’s because I’m not keen on any exercise at all, but it’s not that – it’s just cycling in particular that I don’t like. Most of the year the weather is awful, which takes a lot of enjoyment out of any outdoor activity – and it can be dangerous, too, cycling on the roads. That’s probably mostly because of inconsiderate or reckless car drivers, but there’s no point in placing blame – it doesn’t change the actual problem.

So… yes. When the time comes, I think I’ll continue to support the car industry. Hopefully, one day, the motor gods will smile on me and I’ll be able to afford a sports car.

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Choosing products

January 20th, 2012

My friends are always asking me to for product recommendations, when it comes to computers and general electronic stuff, as I’m seen as an ‘expert’. I don’t think I am, really, but I suppose I do know more about technology than the average person.

Sometimes I find it funny, though, the kinds of things I get asked. For example, my friend Nigel recently asked me about which phone I’d recommend for his business. Not a flashy smartphone or anything like that – just a desk phone for his office. It’s hardly my primary area of expertise, so I had to do a bit of research (I should have told him to do it himself, lazy get, but I like to be a good friend…) and the best one I found was the Converse 2300 Black from BT. A lot of people don’t realise that BT makes phones as well as operating a nationwide telephone network, but they do – and they’re really reliable machines.

This one in particular has a caller ID function, which is great if you want to avoid calls from spam companies – or perhaps avoid calls from annoying people in general! It also has a mute button, a big directory for names and numbers and a LCD screen that shows the call time and things like that.

When choosing products, a lot of it does come down to being sensible and doing lots of research. It’s good to check and compare features – and also to check user reviews, to see what other people think of products that you’re considering. Once you’ve done that and narrowed your choice down to an appropriate model, you can look for the most cost-effective place to buy it from. Providing it’s a reputable company, it doesn’t matter too much – it’ll still be the same product and you’ll have the same consumer rights. Follow that advice, and you can’t go wrong! I know my friends will still ask me though, no matter how many times I tell them…

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The Costa Concordia – yikes

January 18th, 2012

Is Friday 13 unlucky? Well, we had pretty good evidence for it in the last week, didn’t we? I’m talking, of course, about the gigantic cruise ship disaster. I can’t believe these things actually happen.

For those who don’t know, the Costa Concordia was an enormous cruise ship carrying over 4,000 people. It hit a rock off the Italian coastline on Friday 13 January 2012 and keeled over. Even after seeing the photographs and videos, it’s kind-of difficult to picture it, as it’s nearly a thousand feet long – even bigger than the Titanic was. Fortunately, unlike the Titanic, the vast majority of people were safely evacuated – though there have been several confirmed deaths and numerous more people unaccounted for, which is really sad.

No one is quite sure exactly why it happened – though I’m sure the full truth will unfold with time. It seems that it cruised closer to the coast than it should have done and hit an underwater reef, then ran aground and began listing to one side. It must have been really scary to be a passenger! Apparently most people were in the dining hall, as it was between 9pm and 10pm – there was a loud bang, then the power went out, then the boat started shaking. But the evacuation didn’t begin until over an hour later, when the ship had started to tip over – and it was hard to launch the lifeboats because of that.

I wonder how they’ll remove the wreck? It’s going to take about a month just to get rid of all the fuel, experts have said. There’s some speculation that the whole thing could be refloated and tugged away. I’d be fascinated to see that.

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Vital jobs are often dull…

January 12th, 2012

My computer crashed this morning – I’ve had to reinstall a load of things to make sure it’s properly up and running again. It’s so annoying! Resetting everything is extremely boring, but needs to be done. I depend on my computer for my income, so it’s essential.

A lot of the world’s most boring jobs (or, at least, boring-sounding jobs) are very important. For example, working on a factory line. Fair enough, fastening household gadgets together isn’t life or death, but if you’re putting together plane or car parts, it suddenly becomes a bit more serious. It’d be terrible if a crash was caused because you didn’t check that a bolt was in the right place!

Inspection jobs must also be pretty dull at times – though I imagine some are better than others. Checking on the hygiene standards of restaurants could be quite revealing at first, but you’d probably get bored of it pretty quickly once you started to see the same issues cropping up all the time. Same with ticket inspectors… it must give some people a thrill to have that little bit of power – but surely the novelty must wear off. But then, there are also things like pipeline inspection, which are really, really important when it comes to looking after the environment and keeping things running smoothly. Industrial pipelines can carry anything from oil to water to waste, all of which can cause big problems if they leak.

I think knowing how essential something was would definitely keep me working hard. But there are some jobs we’d all be better off without, in my view. For example, in the world of boring jobs, one thing I could never do is telesales. My friend Brian does it and it’s so, so dull. He rings random people all day and tries to get them to sign up for things they don’t need or want. I can’t imagine anything worse. Maybe I shouldn’t complain so much about having to mend my computer…

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Mobile broadband and freedom

January 9th, 2012

Apparently, ICT regulator Ofcom has said that 4G licences will be auctioned to operators later this year, which means that mobile broadband will become more widespread. The idea is to ensure that at least 98 per cent of the UK population will be able to access the internet via phone handsets, if they have the inclination and the right equipment.

I think it’s a great move forward, as demand for mobile data can only get bigger. I’m lucky at present because I work from home most of the time and can choose how I spend my time and access the internet on my computer whenever I want. But if I got a standard job again – or a part-time job, or did contracts that required me to work in-house for another company – I would really miss being able to check things out on the internet whenever I want to. Having reliable access to mobile broadband would be a big help.

By that, I don’t mean that I would skive off work to use it – but it’s good to know the option is there, for tea breaks and so on. It always seems strange to me that some companies are draconian about use of phones and the internet, yet still allow staff to chat to each other in person about non-work things, or take cigarette breaks! But I suppose the latter is now becoming much rarer, too. I don’t smoke myself, as I don’t like it – but I have quite a few friends who do, and I don’t think the odd five minutes here and there really hurts anyone. If I manage to get a part time job, I’d hope it’s the kind of place that’d let me use my phone at my own discretion. Otherwise, I suppose I’d use it on the bus there and back!

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Back to work and other things…

January 4th, 2012

Wow, it’s now 2012. Only three years until 2015, the year featured in Back To The Future Part II. THREE YEARS. It’s amazing. No sign of flying skateboards or cars yet, but some other stuff they showed, like voice-controlled televisions, might be less of a wild prediction!

I was busy seeing people over Christmas and New Year and really enjoyed it, but it’s nice to have a quiet existence again. The festive season definitely has a shelf life, as far as I’m concerned. Once you’ve caught up and celebrated with everyone, you can’t help feeling a bit worn out and antisocial.

From Christmas Day onwards, I had a great time on my own searching for sales deals online. There are so many things you can buy at better prices. It’s not worth trudging out into the cold weather and crowded shops. I got myself quite a few things, but I’m particularly pleased with my new Plantronics CS60 headset. I’m always getting new stuff from my home office – it’s one of my guilty pleasures. For some people it’s buying clothes and for others it’s too much chocolate… but for me it’s electronic accessories!

I wouldn’t mind getting myself a new desk and chair too, at some point, and generally restyling my work space – but it’s important not to do too many things at once. I need to make sure I concentrate on my work. I’m still hunting for a part time job too, but had a bit of a hiatus over Christmas because it’s hardly a prime time for interviews. So it’s full steam ahead now we’re past New Year…

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