Interesting Features in Investor Relations Websites
October 24, 2008
Palm, the company that more or less started the mainstream PDA movement, has an interesting little feature on their Investor Relations page called the “Shareholder Briefcase.” It is nothing too complicated really, but a nice touch in the realm of user interaction.
The Shareholder Briefcase is a way for an investor or potential investor using the Palm IR site to collect several documents or files as they explore the information available and determine what they want to take with them to research further. In many ways, it operates very similarly to the shopping cart feature on most e-commerce sites.
Of course, such a feature requires a user to register. Actually, it doesn’t, it could easily be handled by cookies, but that wouldn’t work across multiple browsers or computers, and why pass up the chance to get an obviously interested person’s contact information?
Once registered, the user can navigate the IR portion of the site at their leisure. When they find something that interests them, they just click the “Add to briefcase” icon. 
This keeps the user from having to click and open every PDF file, DOC file, or PowerPoint file they are interested in while they are on the site. Instead, the user keeps a running list of what they have found of interest and then when they are ready, they can either download all the files, or even email all the files to themselves.
Either way, the users of the Palm investor relations web site have a great way to collect all that information and then go through it at their leisure instead of maybe skipping important information due to time constraints, or worse, forgetting a useful document that they wanted to review, but did not open initially.
Can something like this work for any Investor Relations page? Yes. The software to handle something like this already exists in many formats. It may actually be possible to use your company’s existing shopping cart software with just a few modifications to handle functionality similar to this.
You can never go wrong giving the user another way to get what they need.
Drinks Industry : Accidental Leaders In Sustainability
October 7, 2008
Alcohol – one of the most damaging drugs ever created by man. Excessive use leads to permanent brain damage and organ failure. Marriages, families and communities are continually torn apart by it.
Last year, the Medical Research Council published a report in The Lancet which took into account not only the physical damage but also the social repercussions of drug misuse.
The report names alcohol as the fifth most damaging drug, behind heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and black market methadone.
Last month, Alcohol Concern released a report showing that nearly three quarters of UK men drink at least once a week, with up to a quarter indulging in binge drinking. Read more
Banks Demonstrate Casual Approach to Sustainability
September 24, 2008
On 19th September 2008 I realised something rather profound … I’m now a Lloyds TSB customer. Both my wife and I have always had a Halifax account (although it’s not my main one) but I’ve always had an aversion to Lloyds TSB.
Now the two are coming together to create the UK’s first SuperBank. For no other reason than this I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and make Banking, specifically Lloyds TSB and HBOS, the first of my FTSE 100 Website reviews. Read more
FTSE100 Website Reviews
September 16, 2008
Back in the mists of time, 8th November 2006 to be precise, the Companies Act (2006) received Royal Assent. This momentous event is still causing repercussions as various parts of it become law.
For instance, on 1st October this year a new tranche of regulations come into force governing conflicts of interests and precisely which individuals or bodies can be named as a company director.
However it is the part of the act which came into force last October which is of interest to this blog.
College Students Craiglists
September 2, 2008
It all started with Craigslist. It is one of the top ten internet properties and a widely known place to buy and sell just about anything. The founder Craig Newmark — whose official title is “Founder, Chairman, Customer Service Representative”, is an interesting businessman. He doesn’t want to change his somewhat antiquated text-based website, is against placing advertising on the site and is happy with the rather modest financial performance of his business. The only sales sources are charges for placing job ads and real-estate listings in only three cities. Some analysts estimate total yearly sales of only $10 million (USD).
Because of its popularity, Craigslist has an ever growing number of competitors. Perhaps its most prominent competitor is eBay who already owns about 25% of Craigslist and is trying to acquire it. Ebay launched Kijiji a Graigslist-like site with bells and whistles. Another competitor is OLX which received an additional $13.5M in Series B funding from General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners, Founders Fund, and DN Capital. Then there is publicly traded LiveDeal.
While these “catch all” classifieds sites are noteworthy, what is interesting is a growing number of Craigslist-like websites targeted toward college students. The main driver is the price of textbooks. A recently launched site CollegeMedium started with books and expanded into other items, jobs, housing and chat.
But wait, there’s more –
|
SITE |
FEATURES |
| Uloop | Requires an .edu e-mail address, takes you to full classifieds site for your school |
| Campustrade | Not limited to your school, full classifieds |
| Campusx | Full classifieds, college reviews, scholarship information |
| Campusclassifieds | Focus on books but offers free classifieds. Accepts business advertising |
This is only a sampling. There are more and because of the market potential additional sites are likely to be launched. It will be interesting to observe who will survive.
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