One thing that stuck out like a sore thumb from his presentation was his attitude to the internet. Not once did he mention how Microsoft was going to make peoples lives easier or make the internet a better place. This is in stark contrast to the values and principles that got Microsoft to the position they are in today. For Microsoft to become a competitor to Google, with regards to the revenue they generate from the internet they need to look back at their history and adopt the principles they had towards personal computing and apply them to the internet i.e. to make the web a better place by making peoples lives more productive and to enhance their internet experience. Currently their attitude is all about profit and about maximising the revenue from existing internet visitors and internet technology. This is opposed to taking the lead and developing the internet for the benefit of mankind. If Microsoft doesn’t adopt this attitude they will always be playing second fiddle to Google, always.  Steve Balmer was saying how search is ripe for development, how the basic model hasn’t changed from day one i.e. You get an ad at the top, search results to the left maybe ads to the right and ads at the bottom. OK he may be right but I don’t see Microsoft trying to develop this model and as far as it goes, search is about finding what you want not entertainment, maybe he’s right but we’ll never know until Microsoft start implementing some ”developments” to their search engine. Steve Balmer stated that Microsoft spending 5% of their revenues on Search. That’s massive money but he stated it’s a good risk return gamble. Probably is but considering the cash that’s being spent they still look way behind Google, both in search results (although they are improving massively) and in online advertising. 

Steve Balmer also stated that they won’t be successful if they do what Google does. OK, Microsoft wants to take the lead. Fine, they don’t have to do what Google does but they do have to have the same principles as Google if they want to be successful. Google’s principles is basically to encourage the development of the internet, reward people for making good content and reward people for using their search engine by giving them relevant results, basically making the Internet better place for all of it’s stakeholders. Whereas Google is building the highways and helping people to build towns and cities along their highway, Microsoft is making money from the people that travel on the road. They are making money off the traffic that Google is creating. Which one do you think is the leader, the pioneer, the inspiration? Steve Balmer stated that Microsoft is ONLY interested in showing it’s advertising on large websites. Why? So they can control the message and the context that the ads are shown in. This could be one of those cases where the 20% of the largest sites only have 20% of the traffic. If this is the case then this strategy is a loser. Something else Steve Balmer said rang alarm bells “Google doesn’t have a strong presence in display space” I must have misunderstood this as I can’t believe Microsoft has anywhere near the ad display space as Google. I stand to be corrected though. Another point that was made is that Google is overrated ergo online advertising is over rated. Brand advertising (I assume he meant offline) is what creates peoples interest in a product or service, people then search Google for these brands and Google gets the credit for converting these searchers into buyers, as if Google did all the work and it’s a miracle worker. This may be true, at the moment at least, but it is not Google’s fault that this is the way it works. At the end of the day Google provides the platform, it’s up to it’s customers to use it in anyway they see fit. I believe when people truly start to appreciate the power of the principles used by Google this will change, and change beyond all recognition. But Google does not have a patent on good fundamental principles. Steve Balmer was optimistic about MSN, stating that traffic was up 40%. Is it possible that the reason for this is that MSN is the default opening page on internet explorer on new computers? And the fact that the internet is gaining new users who are perhaps unaware that they can change this due to their inexperience. Just a thought. 

Steve Balmer stated the lack of revenue from its ad system at the moment was a lack of conversion and a lack of relevancy. Microsoft want to get more revenue from advertisers, to get more revenue from advertisers Microsoft needs more people using their search engine or visiting their online content and providing more relevant ads. Lack of relevancy is down to lack of advertisers. Why does Microsoft have fewer advertisers than Google? A number of reasons, possibly the biggest, is a lack of exposure for their ads, the second, lack of conversion due to ads being shown on pages which are not as relevant as Google ads, the third is possibly that Microsoft’s ad system is harder to use or lacks the functionality of Google ad words. Microsoft’s search revenue is going to increase in direct proportion to the increase in search volume. Nothing else. If Microsoft is looking for a big breakthrough in ad revenue they need to massively increase the ad exposure that their current advertisers get and I don’t see search volume massively increasing, it’s going to have to come from somewhere else. The answer to this one is simple. The other way Microsoft can increase their ad revenue is by having more advertisers. Increasing the number of advertisers will have an exponential effect on the online ad revenues. Advertisers will get more bang for their buck in 2 ways. The first is higher conversion rate on clicks due ads being more relevant to searches and second an increased number of advertisers in itself will bring more revenue. How does Microsoft encourage more advertisers? Microsoft has to increase advertisers ROI on their ad spend and to do this advertisers need highly relevant potential clients clicking on their ads. This is a catch22 situation for Microsoft (at least it should be looked upon as one), they want to increase revenue by showing more ads but they also want their advertisers to have the maximum ROI (at least they should). The advertisers should win on this one. Microsoft may have to show FEWER ads to increase the ad relevancy to the search term. Microsoft’s control of what ads are shown where could be limited and at least less advanced than Google’s control of their ads, this may make the relevancy situation difficult to resolve for Microsoft, especially if the search terms do not have much competition between advertisers. 

In a nutshell, lack of advertisers is a major problem for Microsoft. If they can dramatically increase the number of advertisers they have this will sort out a lot of their current problems on their own. A larger number of advertisers will increase the relevancy of the ads shown, it will increase the ROI for advertisers, and it will increase Microsoft’s revenue. Increased ROI for investors and increased relevancy of ads will encourage more advertisers and snowball from there. Microsoft’s problem is that advertisers don’t want to fund Microsoft’s development period while they attract more advertisers. Microsoft has to be ruthless with what ads are shown where to give its ad system credibility. Really this is just the beginning of a long road for Microsoft, even to get to the same level as Google now. The real challenge starts when Microsoft has to start filtering the ads that are shown for particular terms, this is where Google’s technology really comes into play.  

Oh my God Google is not the answer to everything! Well, maybe they are but they need to evolve search or maybe start Google World, a search engine which not only gives you results directly to what your looking for but also gives results to subjects which might be relevant to what your searching for, even though some or none of these results contains the terms you were originally searching for. I know this is something Google is working on but it may be some time before it becomes a reality.

For now at least, the mass media is king, newspapers, tv, radio and magazines not the internet and not Google, not for now anyway.

I think so and Ill tell you why by giving a few examples.

First of all it was block exemption, rules which were brought in to give consumers a wider choice of dealers where they could buy their new car and still have the car come with the full warranty. When the EU was seperate and was NOT a free trade area, car manufacturers could refuse to honour the warranty on a new car if it was bought in a different country. Now this is illegal, so now, the consumer can choose the dealer they prefer no matter what country they are in, whether they prefer the dealer based on cost or friendliness. Whatever the case may be the EU made it law that consumers could get a better deal on their new car.

If the EU were dissolved and all the countries were seperate with the trade barriers that go with it, consumers would be paying more for their cars because the manufacturers would have the power, ie big business would have the power. The EU has given the power back the man in the street and away from big business. And yet the people that benefit the most from this law are the ones who are most against the EU. Why?

The second example, again cars, before if yor car was serviced by a non main dealer, then the warranty would be invalidated, not now, now the consumer can have their car serviced by anyone they wish and as long as the appropriate checks have been done, the warranty remains. Again better for the consumer, this law benfits everyone especially the less well off, yet the less well of are the most anti EU. Why?

The third example. Mobile phone roaming charges, the EU has made it law for mobile companies to reduce their charges when using their phone abroad. Again something that benefits the consumer, yet the people who benefit the most are most against EU. Why?

The Birmingham Super Prix around the Bull Ring was a monumentally successful international event, not only for Birmigham but also for the UK motorsport industry as it was a unique event for the UK. Yet, the complaints of the few has hurt the interests of the many.

And dont forget its not just enjoyment of the many being infringed by the complaints of the few, the complaints of the few  are limiting the success of one of the UKs most successful industries and this cannot be allowed to happen.

Dont get me wrong, circuit owners should do their best in being fair and accomodating as much as they can towards complainants by doing the things I have listed initially. But circuit owners should not restrict the success of their business for the complaints of few, especially if they have taken reasonable step to keep local residents informed.

Otherwise, where is it going to end?

Their argument is that putting aside crops to grow fuel instead of fuel hurts the World’s most vunerable people because food prices increase and they cant afford to feed themsleves. The biggest load of nonsense Ive heard in my life and I cant believe that even so called environmental groups have fallen for it.

Im going to deal with the faults with this argument one by one.

First of all the only reason that it pays to grow fuel crops instead of food crops is because oil is so expensive. Now fuel is the most crucial part of developing economies so if you want to keep or push a country back into poverty high oil prices is the thing that is going to do it. Poor countries spend by far a greater percentage of their wealth on fuel. For example there are case of poeple in Vietnam who are being forced to revert to farming with animals because the price of the fuel is too high to run their tractors. Talk about a backward step, talk about a reduction in productivity. Now Im not saying that this is the fault of the oil companies but lets support these countries in growing their own fuel instead of saying bio fuels is bad which is what is being said at the moment, its not going to happen overnight but lets give them time to develop their systems. Think about it with machines one man can work 1 acre a day for example by hand, but with a tractor he can work 100 acres, now I here you say what going to happen to the people who used to work the land, 1 man is doing the work of a hundred. They will do what every other country does and they move to the cities. Now tell me something else, which food do you think is going to be cheaper, the food produced by a 100 people of the food produced by 1 person with a tractor. Its not rocket science. Fuel prices are the primary problem not food prices

Now people are also saying people cant afford to eat. Who cant afford to eat? It must be the people in the cities because farmers are self sufficient. Why havent the people in the cities got the cash to buy food? because their economy doesnt produce enough cash. If high oil prices and growing bio fuels isnt a ticket to a giving a country a BOOMING export industry, I dont know what is.

Bio fuels are going to increase the price of food. This is only true if we dont develop new farmland. Now as Ive mentioned before, there are millions of acres of uncultivated land in Africa. So all we have to do is to expand argricultural land. But then the argument is what about the carbon emissions from transporting all this food thousands of miles. Simple, the fuel used will be from bio fuels.

Food is like any other comoditity, oil, corn, gold whatever. As demand and prices go up, its becomes profitable to develop new agricultural land, just like it is to develop oil fields in hard to reach places. America looks like its going to pass laws to develop off shore oil drilling around the coast of America. They could do that or they could grow the fuel. The fact of the matter with the USA is that they have a finitie amount of land and its all used for something. They really are in a bit of a pickle becuase you know the farmers want to make as much money as possible and not just America but all developed countries. Germany, UK, France, USA, Japan all the countries are close to being maxed out with regards to the growing capacity fo their land. Food, OK there is enough land to be close to self sufficent, but can you imagine the problem when the farmers have the oppurtuinity to produce fuel as well. Food competing with fuel. Bio fuels are really not an option, at least for the West. Really, its the last thing that governments want. The US govenrment really is panicking, they have opened a Pandoras box and they know it. As if the high price of oil wasnt a big enough problem there are also the environmental pressures.

The only obvious solution at the momentis bio fuels, it kills two birds with 1 stone. Carbon Neutral and it WILL be cheap to produce if sufficient money is invested. The problem? The West arent in a position to solve the problem themselves. Its comes back to what I was saying, the West doesnt have enough land, nowhere near enough. The West needs access to millions of acres of uncultivated land.

What’s Cardiff got to offer? Probably the nicest central shopping district in Britain. Name a town or city which you think is nice and Cardiff will beat it. Fantastic architecture, super clean, super organised, the layout (semi-organic, semi-planned) could been done better, massive variety of shops from one store businesses to your national chains. On top of the shopping Cardiff has probably got the best nightlife in Britain. OK some people are saying how can that be right? Look at the music scene in London! OK your right but for shear variety of pub and clubs in a compact area, it really cant be beaten.

Bit of a culture vulture? Cardiff has a spectacular opera house, spectalucar civil engineering (Cardiff Bay) One of the most well kept castles in Britain smack bang in the town centre. The millenium stadium which is both spectacular from the outside and inside not to mention it seats over 70,000 people and cost 250 million to build whereas the new Wembley can seat 90,000 but cost nearly a billion to build. The millenium stadium is not just a stadium for the rugby team, it shows how well run Welsh organisations can be.

If you like your sports, the atmoshere throughout the day and night on the streets and pubs is second to none when there is a Six Nations International (home or away game). If you want a more relaxed weekend avoid the Six Nations weekends

Where to stay? the Angel Hotel is as good as anything