NEWS IN BRIEF
For the record 18 March
18-03-2008
by Sylvia Leatham
International stock markets start to rally | 'Silver surfers' are big spenders online
US and European stock markets continued to rally on Tuesday as investors' nerves calmed after a volatile weekend. Markets reacted positively to better-than-expected results from investment banks Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, while the US Federal Reserve Bank was widely expected to announce a generous interest rate cut. In end-of-day trading, the ISEQ in Dublin was at 5,887, up 2.9 percent, while the London Stock Exchange had risen 6.8 percent to 1,202. The Nasdaq was up more than 2.6 percent to 2,233 in mid-morning trading. Yahoo also confirmed its positive outlook, reaffirming its target of revenues of USD8.8 billion by 2010.
Digicel Pacific, a sister company to Caribbean mobile operator Digicel Group, has been awarded a licence to operate a GSM network in Vanuatu. Digicel Pacific plans to spend USD35 million on building an extensive GSM network in the country. The announcement comes two weeks after the firm was granted a mobile licence in Fiji. Digicel Pacific plans to offer a pan-Pacific GSM network across five markets: Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Fiji and Vanuatu.
Annual revenues from mobile search services are expected to reach USD4.8 billion by 2013, according to new estimates from Juniper Research. Local search services will be the most popular with advertisers, attracting 40 percent of mobile search ad-spend over the 2008-to-2013 period, the research firm said. The report also said that while revenue generated by data charges associated with mobile search is currently much higher than revenue generated by mobile advertising, the gap between the two will close over the next five years as the relatively young mobile advertising market establishes itself.
'Silver surfers' -- those aged over 50 -- account for 21 percent of adult internet users in Ireland and are the biggest online spenders in a range of categories, according to a new study from iReach. This group shops online as often as younger generations, with 70 percent of the over 50s shopping online regularly -- a similar level to the 18-to-34 age group. The actual spend of the silver surfer is significantly high, accounting for 30 percent of all online spending in Ireland in 2007. Irish silver surfers are also the most regular and active users of internet banking, online shopping, online tax returns, news and entertainment sites, and e-mail.
Mobile giant Vodafone and Warner Music International have completed an agreement to distribute music from Madonna's forthcoming 'Hard Candy' album to Vodafone customers, in advance of the album's release on 28 April. Starting on 21 April, a total of seven tracks from the new record will be released at a rate of one a day. Each track will remain live for 24 hours for download by Vodafone customers for a set fee per track.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 