http://tinyurl.com/2d9bcr8

Big banks need IT reform almost as badly as regulatory change

WHEN Metro Bank, which claims to be Britain’s first new high-street bank for more than 150 years, opens its first branch on July 29th in inner London, customers will notice the lollipop jars and water bowls for dogs. But what really sets Metro Bank apart is its state-of-the-art IT system. New customers will be able to get their account, chequebook, debit and credit cards within 15 minutes, and all the data for each customer will be kept in one place.

That puts Metro Bank in an enviable position. IT at many other Western banks is often a hotch-potch of homemade systems. Banks were the first to use mainframes in the 1960s; many are still using the original applications because it is risky to swap them out. Over the years more and more systems have been slapped on. Banks were often profitable enough to afford big IT teams, writing programs themselves rather than buying off the shelf.

As a result banks tend to operate lots of different databases producing conflicting….

http://www.netvibes.com/en

All in one place and always up-to-date, Netvibes is the faster and easier way to enjoy the entire real-time Web. Instantly create as many different dashboards as you’d like to track all of your latest interests, live.

A world of connections

Online social networks are changing the way people communicate, work and play, and mostly for the better, says Martin Giles

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15351002

THE annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, currently in progress, is famous for making connections among the global great and good. But when the delegates go home again, getting even a few of them together in a room becomes difficult. To allow the leaders to keep talking, the forum’s organisers last year launched a pilot version of a secure online service where members can post mini-biographies and other information, and create links with other users to form collaborative working groups. Dubbed the World Electronic Community, or WELCOM, the forum’s exclusive online network has only about 5,000 members.

Gregory Galant | Dec. 31, 2009

• Wikipedia
• Gmail
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter
• AdWords
• Amazon AWS
• RSS (started in ‘99 but didn’t catch on till the ’00s)
• Meetup
• iPod
• Google Maps
• Podcasts
• Mint
• Skype/VOIP
• iPhone
• Google Docs
• Creative CommonsFlickr

http://www.businessinsider.com/18-awesome-things-we-didnt-have-10-years-ago-2009-12

Starring Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers (1942)

A radio correspondent tries to rescue a burlesque queen from her marriage to a Nazi official.

Back From Eternity

Starring Robert Ryan and Anita Ekberg (1957)

A pilot, a hooker, a killer and eight others crash among headhunters, but only five can leave.

NETWORK EFFECTS, Dec 17th 2009

They do a wonderful job of tying together the history of how one technology impacted another, and how the Internet will continue to impact not only newspapers, but news itself. It’s worth the read to get the right perspective on all of this.

How a new communications technology disrupted America’s newspaper industry–in 1845

CHANGE is in the air. A new communications technology threatens a dramatic upheaval in America’s newspaper industry, overturning the status quo and disrupting the business model that has served the industry for years. This “great revolution”, warns one editor, will mean that some publications “must submit to destiny, and go out of existence.” With many American papers declaring bankruptcy in the past few months, their readers and advertisers lured away by cheaper alternatives on the internet, this doom-laden prediction sounds familiar. But it was in fact made in May 1845, when the revolutionary technology of the day was not the internet–but the electric telegraph.

For the rest, see the article at http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15108618

1. Twitter
2. Google Chrome
3. Google Maps
4. Facebook
5. WordPress
6. Adobe AIR
7. iPhone platform
8. Google Apps
9. Hulu
10. TweetDeck

thanks Reid Hoffman –

Information Scientists knew all this in the 1980s,  but  haven’t exported the knowledge of their discipline into the business sector. Information science and communication experts  explored these issues regarding how to use email, when not to use it,  and what to avoid. There is much to translate into use by business, but we haven’t managed to make the message heard by those who can use it the most.

Have a look at the video:

http://online.wsj.com/video/when-not-to-use-email/4B047658-21CD-4B60-8FE0-A97862875C9E.html

• “The psychology of buying at auction still tends to favour the bidder in the room. He or she is part of the audience and can judge more easily whether competing bidders are approaching their limit. That is one reason why Christie’s has been slow to introduce online bidding in its high-end evening sales of contemporary art.”

The world’s biggest saleroom

Nov 26th 2009 The Economist
Auctions are moving online

Now technology has opened up another possibility: online bidding. The auction houses are divided. Matthew Girling, Bonhams’s chief executive for Europe and the Middle East, is against it: “We’re not building an online business.” Sotheby’s has an elegant website that allows customers to browse its catalogues, look at sales figures going back all the way to 1998 and get real-time auction results for several sales at once. But it stops short of letting clients take part in auctions online, except for wine.

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14941237