The James Kilgour Blog

This should be released as a single. It’s AMAZING! That Credit Crunch Stuff looks yum!

JK

Millions of us go abroad every year, and what’s one the most important things we pack? Our Mobiles. With them, we can keep in contact with family and friends, and even take snaps of our holiday.

But using them aboard is ridiculously expensive. Sending a text in Spain, for example would cost 40p, compared to 10p in the UK!

Now the EU wants to force the networks to reduce their prices. Of course, they’re not happy.

But why? Most of the major networks actually own networks abroad, for example Orange provide network in Spain under the Movistar name.

So actually, why would it cost 30p more to send a tiny piece of data, over two networks they own?

The EU have already lowered the cost of calling, although it could have been more drastic. Hopefully Texting will follow.

JK

ChaCha are a fairly new company, in the Question and Answer market. Basically, US users text in any questions they like, free, and ChaCha texts back the answer.

How they do this, is using “Guides”; knowledgeable individuals, who get paid to reply to the questions through the ChaCha web portal. For every answer, they get paid $0.10; the top guides getting twice as much.

Out of curiosity, I tried to become a guide earlier today. Unfortunately, they rejected me at the first questioning stage; the ChaCha Fitness Stage. The topic? ChaCha.

Of course, I had no idea. To be honest, the founder of the company, the place that it was announced and the company’s ethos do not really interest me in the foggiest.

I can imagine how important to an American when their out-and-about to find out that “Cha” means dance in Chinese, and Scott Jones invented the concept. Wow.

I also fail to see how ChaCha actually makes any money. Users don’t have to pay anything to the company to text in, and the texts don’t have ads. Great business model.

JK 

Halifax Bank of Scotland is one of the UK’s big four financial institutions, and whether separate or together, have been part of the highstreet for years. In fact, the bank holds 20% of all mortgages in the UK, and has millions of savers.

The events of the current economic climate though have caused unsteadiness, with the HBOS share price falling by more than three quarters.

But is a Super Bank a good idea for the UK? The new bank would have just under 40 million customers, with a 28% hold of the Mortgage market. (Under UK law, no financial institution is permitted to hold more than 25%.) The Bank would also have nearly 3000 branches, making it unmissable on the highstreet. 

The bank would offer unrivaled security, and would prevent collapse of HBOS, which if this were to happen could be devastating for the UK economy.

The bank would also have unrivaled financial powers, and would gain a controlling stake in the UK economy. However, with plentiful smaller alternatives,  I doubt it would really have an affect on the consumer.

JK

As fuel and food prices soar, we hear more about the “Credit Crunch”, and how we are heading for a recession. But is it our fault? Have the days of spending on credit caused this?

Yes and No. One the one hand, we borrowed what was offered to us, even if it was obvious we couldn’t pay it back, and that was not right. But who was in control? The banks. Their greed in lending irresponsibly has lead to huge debts and the fall in global economy. But who are the ones feeling the burden? Us. Were the ones struggling to pay the bills, as the cost of living has shot up. The banks should take responsible for their actions and be accountable.

JK