Tesco buys Giraffe restaurants – Makes a change from Horse meat!

Supermarket group Tesco has bought the restaurant chain Giraffe for £48.6m.

The move will see the supermarket open Giraffe branches near to Tesco stores as it seeks to create “retail destinations” for customers.

Tesco will hope that the acquisition will help revitalise its UK business.

via BBC News – Tesco buys Giraffe restaurants.

ePrivacy – Google given $7 million Street View fine

I makes a change for North America to be a little more aggressive when it comes to challenging large corporates on privacy goofs than EU countries. France handed down an £87,000 (100,000 euro) penalty which whilst the largest ever handed out by CNIL pales into insignificance compared to our North American cousins. In the UK the ICO was simply not bothered enough and as Nick Pickles, head of UK privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch rightly put it “British regulators barely managed to slap Google on the wrist for this, so yet again British consumers seem to be left with weaker protection of their privacy than other countries,”.

via BBC News – Google hit by $7m Street View fine in US.

Online Food Ordering Startup Delivery Hero Fully Acquires Hungryhouse

The online food ordering market has become even more competitive after Berlin startup Delivery Hero announced it has fully acquired UK-based firm Hungryhouse, as well as purchasing smaller UK player EatitNow.co.uk, and putting pressure on its major rival Just Eat in the UK and across the world.

The deal comes after Delivery Hero acquired a ‘controlling interest’ in Germany’s Lieferheld and a ‘pivotal’ stake in Hungryhouse in March 2012, adding its resources to the UK brand and allowing it to triple the size of its business with more than £6 million in sales across 11,000 restaurants every month.

“We believe there is still a lot of growth potential left in this business, and so we re- invested 98% of the purchase price of our shares into Delivery Hero,” says hungryhouse Co- Founder Tony Charles. “We had always planned to make an exit, but the opportunity to continue the Delivery Hero success story was too much fun to turn down!”

via Online Food Ordering Startup Delivery Hero Fully Acquires Hungryhouse.

Apps providing spin-off opportunities for popular magazine brands | Technology | guardian.co.uk

A great article on how some publishers are looking to bespoke apps and experiences to monetise mobile rather than replicating the magazine format on tablets and mobile.

… a new app released by Dennis Publishing’s male health mag aims to change that, although it’s no digital replica. Men’s Fitness Cover Model Body Plan is a spin-off: a £1.49 paid app offering workout plans promising “you’re just four weeks away from a physique worthy of the cover”.

While I mull the prospect of a “V-shaped torso” by Springtime, the app’s release also made me think about the market for these kinds of spin-off apps for magazine publishers, as they slice and dice their archives of articles and photography in new ways for smartphones and tablets.

Much of the focus on magazines and apps has been on the replica editions, whether offered through aggregators like Zinio, or as standalone apps in the app store newsstands of Apple and Google.

via Apps providing spin-off opportunities for popular magazine brands | Technology | guardian.co.uk.

Backlash against Amazon tax in the UK

So two things strike me as odd about the Amazon sweepstakes.

1. We don’t have Black Friday in the UK as we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving so it’s an odd promotion for the UK.

2. They don’t seem to have engaged anyone about the broadly negative comments about their tax avoidance schemes in the UK.

Such as

Felicitas Aga Are you kidding, Marco? Amazon doesn`t pay tax in uk!!!

Annina Eales i won’t be buying anything from you again unless you start paying tax

via Timeline Photos.

Hungover? There’s a ‘cure’ for that as detox patch goes on sale – Health News – Health & Families – The Independent

As usual it’s the comments that make most articles on news sites in my opinion and this is no exception as DJL2 highlights the irresponsible ‘journalism’ at work simply running a press release as news.

“…after nine or 10 Martinis…works great”

DLJ2 – “that’s 20 units? nearly 3 bottles of wine?
fully enough to pose probable alcohol poisoning and risk of death then. with a proposed solution of a berocca under a sticky plaster?!

It’s really irresponsible journalism to just run with a quote like that in this article and not point out the health risks. Is this even an article or just a paid-for advertisement?”

As the Indie runs the following story/press release…

Christmas revellers have been offered a helping hand with an American hangover “cure” that claims to be second only to having an “intravenous stuck in your arm”.

The Bytox Hangover Prevention Patch, invented by the US plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Leonard Grossman, has gone on sale in the UK following its launch in New York late last year.

via Hungover? There’s a ‘cure’ for that as detox patch goes on sale – Health News – Health & Families – The Independent.

Zynga closes UK office, closes games and axes 5% of staff | The Wall Blog

We have already seen stocks in social networking firms quickly decline this year and last night more of the bubble burst as social gaming firm Zynga announced, timed to coincide with the launch of the iPad Mini, that it was cutting 5% of its 3,200 workforce.

The cuts will include the closures of its operations in the UK and Japan although no word on how many are affected by these cuts.

Along with the job cuts Zynga plans to dispose of 13 older games and reduce its investment in the game The Ville.

via Zynga closes UK office, closes games and axes 5% of staff | The Wall Blog.

Amazon wipes customer’s Kindle and deletes account with no explanation | Money | guardian.co.uk

An Amazon Kindle user has had her account wiped and all her paid-for books deleted by Amazon without warning or explanation.

The Norwegian woman, identified only as Linn on media commentator Martin Bekkelund’s blog, approached Amazon when she realised her Kindle had been wiped.

She was informed by a customer relations executive that her account had been closed, all open orders had been cancelled and all her content had been removed, but has been unable to find out why.

via Amazon wipes customer’s Kindle and deletes account with no explanation | Money | guardian.co.uk.

Tweets on 2012-04-18