nickshanagher

There is a great moment in the film, The SocialNetwork , when Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, met Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, the founders of Facebook, in New York. Parker has made the trip to New York to meet Zuckerberg and this face-to-face meeting will make all three immensely wealthy. In Aaron Sorkin’s script this is a pivotal point in the success of Facebook. Saverin is in New York meeting potential advertisers to try and turn their start up into a business. He is thinking it could be worth a million dollars. Zuckerberg is not interested. He thinks Facebook is cool. He is keen to meet Parker because he has cool reputation as the man who brought the music industry to its knees. The other person at the dinner table is Christy, the girlfriend of Saverin. It is a fancy restaurant and Parker is 25 minutes late and Saverin does not like him or being there. After initial discussions Parker scales up Zuckerberg’s ambition. Facebook, he says, could be worth a bill...

I was asked by Emma Spencer to draw retailers attention to the Newsagents' Helper page on Facebook and I am happy to do so. The page is open to UK news retailers and is strong on humour and sharing frustrations about the behaviour of shoppers and the failings of suppliers. Amid the general chatter there are some very strong items about issues, such as a post about how an epos system was sold or a post about a spate of armed robberies. What I like are the posts about when something great happens, such as when a customer switches his Saturday newspaper order to the i but insists on being charged what he was charged before because he does not want the retailer to lose out. Where I think retailers have to be careful is when they blog about frustrations. There is a danger that you can fall into the trap of sharing your frustrations on line and projecting a negative world view. While it may be frustrating that your shoppers go to Tesco, it is also a fact of life. The solution is to...