Chief executives and Twitter: Are they losing out? October 1, 2014 Only a handful of business leaders tweet, which may be a good thing. "I owe you one @BenKaufman! Here’s my #IceBucketChallenge. You’re up Sarah and Steve Immelt and Ken Chenault!” So tweeted General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt on 21 August. It’s difficult to imagine the company’s august co-founder and former president Charles [...]
Twitter is investing $10m in MIT partnership to make sense of social data with a new Lab for Social Machines October 1, 2014 Twitter is investing $10m in a partnership with US university MIT, renowned for its tech credentials, to make sense of the huge amount of social data shared by people across the world. The Lab for Social Machines (LSM) will focus on “the development of new technologies to make sense of semantic and social patterns across [...]
ARM is betting on the Internet of Things with new mbed OS October 1, 2014 ARM, the uk chipmaker which makes processors for most of the world’s smartphones and tablets, is creating a new operating system for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The mbed OS is designed to use as little battery and memory as possible and will work in devices which use its own chips in a bid to [...]
Rocket IPO: Shares priced at €42.50 with €1.6bn valuataion October 1, 2014 Rocket Internet has priced shares for its initial public offering at the top of its range at €42.50. The German internet firm will debut on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on the 2 October, joining fellow German tech startup Zalando which went public a day earlier. The float of just over 20 per cent of the [...]
Adidas: Real Madrid did not sell 345,000 Rodriguez shirts in 48 hours October 1, 2014 Adidas has refuted reports that Real Madrid sold 345,000 James Rodriguez replica shirts within 48 hours of his official unveiling at the Bernabeu. After Los Blancos made the Colombian their latest "galactico" for a fee of £63m, it was widely reported that the club had sold an unprecedented number of shirts bearing the player’s [...]
EU hearings: Lord Hill failed to convince Brussels he can be Europe’s next finance commisioner October 1, 2014 Lord Jonathan Hill, the candidate to become Europe’s chief finance man, has failed to convince EU committee members in Brussels of his suitability for the job. Hill will now face another hearing in front of MEPs next week after a three hour grilling in Brussels today. Hill, whose candidacy as financial services commissioner is backed [...]
Did another Tory MP defect to Ukip? No. Here’s how Twitter reacted and bookies’ changed odds October 1, 2014 Another tory MP defection to Ukip was almost certain the bookies said. With Ukip calling a press conference, everyone was pretty confident this was the moment for a third defection after Mark Reckless and Douglas Carswell. Alas no. To much disappointment, there was news (of sorts), but not the much anticipated defection everyone was holdng their [...]
David Cameron speech: Twitter reaction to benefit cuts, NHS and Russell Brand October 1, 2014 David Cameron's speech to the Conservative Party conference was hijacked by campaign group Ukuncut – on Twitter. Analysis of the Twitter reaction to the Prime Minister's speech by Impact Social showed the response was largely negative and that an attempt by Russell Brand to help UKuncut commandeer the hashtag #CPC14 was successful. Here he comes! @David_Cameron – [...]
Former Tory donor Arron Banks hands Ukip £1m October 1, 2014 On the day David Cameron delivered his pitch for a Conservative majority government in 2015, Ukip has landed £1m from former Tory donor Arron Banks. This afternoon at a press conference in Bristol the latest Conservative supporter to jump ship to Nigel Farage's eurosceptic party said he had originally intended to give £100,000. There had [...]
Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons: Have investors given up on supermarkets? October 1, 2014 Tesco's share price has fallen 3.4 per cent today. Wm Morrison's has declined by 5 per cent. Sainsbury's share price tumbled 6.6 per cent. Although they operate in the same sector, each of these three supermarkets is suffering its own problem. So what is happening? Tesco's well documented £250m black hole in its [...]