Monthly Archives: June 2008

Caius greatest student prank

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Revealed after 50 years: The secret of the greatest-ever student prank at Gonville & Caius, revealed by the Daily Mail, back when Rob was a student there. Wonder if he knew any of them?

Reply from Rob, off to Perth in Oz via Dubai on Emirates, tomorrow out of Birmingham Airport:

“I remember Peter Davey as a very bight student with particular interest in motor transport . Both he and Hugh Montfiore were in my year of 1955….. Hugh was a mature student who had a room inthe same courtyard as Mike Canon and I in the first year…….. Caius students at that time had a high percentage of Engineers and medics.”

Inspired by a comment on the Daily Mail piece that MIT had done much better pranks I left a comment on my own top prank when at Christ’s College, but they weren’t interested it seems, probably rightly as it was the most ridiculous attempt by me to claim a hand in ending the Cold War!

Someone’s not impressed with VISA on Facebook

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Visa Inc. on Tuesday launched a new business network on Facebook and is paying for $2 million of advertising on the site. (Found this on the San Jose Business Journal today, but it makes a wider point)

Through the new site, Visa said it expects to tap into Palo Alto-based Facebook’s more than 80 million active users, while Facebook expects to bring in more advertisers to its site and generate more revenue.

The new site is expected to help small business tap into a global network of peers and advisers from among the more than 80,000 small businesses already on Facebook. The site will also provide small business owners with business tools and help identify and target prospective customers by reaching more than 80 million active users worldwide.

In order to promote the campaign, Visa will provide the first 20,000 U.S.-based businesses that join the Visa Business Network with a $100 Facebook Ads credit. The small businesses that receive the advertising credits are expected to use Facebook to market their services and products online in the future.

Antonio Lucio, Chief Marketing Officer of Visa Inc. said, “Working with Facebook, Visa is breaking new ground by harnessing social networking to connect business owners. We are putting the power of the network in the users’ hands, and it will be fascinating to see how the community evolves.”

Several thousands of Internet programs have been developed specifically for Facebook, but the majority of these applications are dedicated to gaming, music and picture-sharing, rather than to commerce.

(1) Comments
Kristoff ott  June 26, 2008 12:40PM EST
Let’s be realistic, this is a social networking site for”big people”. This story is like many I’ve heard. While all of these contacts are nice they don’t mean anything to your bottom line. Why would you pay to be able to directly contact someone who you don’t really know? Services such as http://www.referralkey.com/ require that you invite real-world associates to your network however the result is a thriving network with qualified business leads being exchanged daily.

I’m a small business professional and I don’t need to pay to message 500 strangers. I need qualified and timely referrals. ( bold & emoticon added by me)