IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 14 April
14-04-2009
by Sylvia Leatham
Cubic Telecom signs Qik deal | Amazon blames glitch for gay book removals
The Irish Times says that the political blogger who broke the story that triggered the resignation of British prime minister Gordon Brown's senior aide Damian McBride says he would like to set up a similar blog dedicated to Irish politics. Blogger Guido Fawkes, whose real name is Paul Staines, obtained e-mails sent by McBride to former Labour spin doctor Derek Draper, in which they discussed plans to set up a website to publish unsubstantiated stories and smears against Conservative Party leader David Cameron and other Tories. McBride resigned on Saturday. The British-born blogger, who has Irish citizenship and lives in Wexford, says he harbours ambitions to establish a blog dealing specifically with Irish issues.
The paper also reports that Cork company Cubic Telecom has signed an exclusive deal with US start-up Qik to provide it with branded SIM cards which it claims will save Qik customers up to 80 percent on phone and data charges when roaming. The deal was announced in San Francisco as part of a week-long trade mission to the US by Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan. Qik owns software that can be downloaded to mobile phones, enabling users to broadcast live video from their mobile to the web.
The same paper reports on the launch of Smallbusinesscan.com, an online resource for small and medium-sized enterprises. The website says it aims to help businesspeople grow their enterprises by sharing knowledge, experience and contact networks. The site is open to all businesses and subscription is free. The entrepreneurs behind the website are Greg Byrne, author and lecturer on entrepreneurial marketing; Ron Immink, specialist in start-up strategy and consultant for the OECD; and Fionan Murray, finance and technology journalist and ex-chief executive of software applications business, LeT Systems.
The paper also notes that US president Barack Obama plans to allow American telcos to apply for licences in Cuba. He will also ease restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, permitting Cuban-Americans to make more frequent family visits as well as send more money to relatives, an official said. Obama has no plans to scrap an almost 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, administration officials have said.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com has said an internal cataloguing error inadvertently removed more than 57,000 books from its sales rankings and main search page. The online retail giant was criticised in recent days by the authors of affected books, mainly those focusing on gay themes. But Amazon said the problem was global and affected other categories such as health, mind and body, reproductive and sexual medicine and erotica. "This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloguing error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection," said Drew Herdener, Amazon's director of communications. Amazon declined to explain its cataloguing process or what had gone wrong. "Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future," said Herdener.
The paper also reports that eBay has sold StumbleUpon, a move likely to increase speculation the e-commerce giant may soon move to unload internet-telephony unit Skype. eBay, which bought recommendation site StumbleUpon two years ago for USD75 million, said it had become apparent there are few long-term, strategic synergies between StumbleUpon and eBay's other units. eBay CEO John Donahoe has also acknowledged there are few synergies between eBay and Skype. eBay did not disclose the price at which it sold StumbleUpon, which is now backed by the original company founders, as well as a number of well-known investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital.
The Financial Times reports that UK telco BT is considering cutting several thousand more jobs, in a fresh round of cost cuts. The job reduction scheme is not expected to reach the 10,000 cuts BT achieved in its last financial year, which ended two weeks ago. BT declined to comment. Investors are braced for bad news when the group's full-year results are released on 14 May.
Free! "In the papers" email newsletter -- get the full text to your in-box every business day. Email itp@enn.ie with 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 