More than 70 business leaders attended a reception last night for the launch of the 2012 Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire supplement which will be published in The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo on June 26.
The event was held at the Cheltenham campus of Gloucestershire College and the supplement is being sponsored by BPE solicitors, Endsleigh Insurance and Hazlewoods accountants who were all represented.
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Speakers and sponsors at the Top 100 Businesses networking event
Ian Mean, Editor in Chief of Gloucestershire Media, publisher of The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo said the Top 100 supplement was first launched seven years ago and had now become “a bible and barometer of business success in Gloucestershire.”
And he announced some exciting developments in Gloucestershire Media’s business coverage. The launch of a new southwestbusiness website dedicated to Gloucestershire, Bristol and Bath and a new glossy monthly business magazine for the county called Agenda.
Through the website the latest business updates will be emailed out daily to the county’s opinion formers.
“It is quite a big development and there is a lot of interest from our business partners,” said Ian Mean. “The new Agenda magazine is going to humanise business in Gloucestershire.”
He thanked the county’s businesses for supporting Gloucestershire Media’s business publications - both editorially and commercially.
“Kevan Blackadder, Editor of the Gloucestershire Echo, and I believe business is a very good story,” Ian told the business leaders. “But without your partnership we don’t have anything.”
Chris Pitt, marketing manager of Gloucester-based Ecclesiastical, which took the number four spot in last year’s Top 100, said the insurance group was celebrating its 125 anniversary but looking to the future.
As a protector of some of the nation’s most important historic buildings, Ecclesiastical was the real expert in the field and would stick to its principles confident this was the way forward.
He said The Top 100 was a great way to celebrate the thriving businesses in Gloucestershire.
Chris Pockett, head of communications at engineering group Renishaw, said whilst it was good to see new businesses breaking through there was “a certain reassurance” to see the same company names appearing in the Top 100 list year after year.
Renishaw was in a strong position, performing well and seeking 100 skilled people to help ensure the group’s future success. It is also planning to expand its county sites by 280,000 square feet
The group will donate £90,000 to community organisations this year within a 50 mile radius of its Wotton-under-Edge HQ
“Whilst a list that highlights business achievement can be an excellent barometer of the wealth of Gloucestershire , in many ways it can also be a useful guide to the health of Gloucestershire,” said Chris Pockett.
And John Workman, senior partner at BPE solicitors, said: “Business is what makes Gloucestershire. We have a relationship with the business community that is time honoured and this is our heartland.”
He added that despite the recession businesses had learnt to “live with the new reality” and get on with it.
Ruth Dooley, partner at Hazlewoods accountants and business advisers, said it was good to talk up the county’s good business stories and celebrate success.
It was also good to see the private sector become involved with the public sector through initiatives like the Local Enterprise Partnership and have a voice to Government.
“There is a real will to promote business in Gloucestershire,” said Ruth. “We are delighted to be one of Gloucestershire’s growing businesses.
“We are delighted to be supporting the Top 100 supplement.”
Leave Business Secretary Vince Cable alone – he’s the moral centre of this Coalition - Daily Telegraph
The true test of loyalty comes when a minister’s support is sacrificial, in the sense that it is unpopular with his own political base and therefore damaging to his personal interests. Mr Cable endured just such a test, and emerged with flying colours, when he threw his full-hearted backing behind the higher education reforms, the responsibility of his Tory junior minister David Willetts, in the early months of the Coalition.
These reforms, and in particular the proposal to raise tuition fees to an upper limit of £9,000, were toxic among Liberal Democrats. Mr Cable could have stood aside, and there were some who advised him to do so. Instead, he joined the battle.
He has shown comparable self-effacement in his loyalty to George Osborne. History is full of self-confident business secretaries who have embarked upon a war with the Treasury and sought to set out their own rival economic strategy: George Brown in the mid 1960s and Michael Heseltine in the early 1990s are well-known examples. Mr Cable, who set out his own plans for economic revival ahead of the 2010 election, would have had every excuse.
But he has shown unstinting support for Mr Osborne’s financial strategy, and resisted what must have been a very substantial temptation to set himself up as an alternative chancellor. Accepting that retrenchment was inevitable, he oversaw a significant reduction in the number of his department’s civil servants, once again a hateful move for Liberal Democrats. He has not just acted by the letter, but in the full spirit of this reforming Government, quietly privatising the Royal Mail, standing out against new regulation in the workplace, and becoming a powerful advocate of Oliver Letwin’s “red tape challenge”. Mr Cable deserves the bulk of the praise for the recent small surge of inward investment into Britain, though characteristically he has not tried to grab all the credit.
Now we come to the Beecroft report, the source of the latest trouble and the excuse for so much Downing Street-inspired private briefing against Mr Cable in recent months. The core point to understand is that the Business Secretary did not block Beecroft. Indeed, he accepted almost all of his recommendations. On only one issue, Mr Beecroft’s now notorious proposal for “no fault dismissal” – the disastrous consequences of which were unwisely described by the private equity mogul as a “price worth paying” – did Mr Cable object. It is worth noting that he did not initially dismiss even this proposal out of hand, taking the emollient and considered step of putting it out for consultation.
Mr Beecroft has responded by labelling Mr Cable a “socialist” and a danger to good government. The language is intemperate, but more importantly Mr Cable is right and Mr Beecroft, along with his Conservative admirers, has taken a very dangerous wrong turning. The kind of untrammelled free market capitalism which Mr Beecroft is advocating is inhumane, unedifying and unBritish, and ultimately comes close to the false proposition that the Conservative Party should be the plaything of very rich men pursuing their financial interests at the expense of a disempowered workforce.
It’s easy for Mr Beecroft to make his sweeping statements. He is very rich. Apax, the company he helped to run, was one of a number of similar concerns which made vast fortunes for a tiny financial elite on the back of Gordon Brown’s tax reforms at the turn of the century. Ed Miliband, who was a special adviser at the Treasury during this period, showed quite breathtaking hypocrisy in attacking David Cameron yesterday for his links with millionaires.
In truth, Mr Cameron, who has stood by his Business Secretary over Beecroft, does not emerge too badly out of this affair. None the less, the man he needs to thank for keeping the Conservative Party in touch with rudimentary human decency is the widely despised Vince Cable.
It sounds paradoxical to say so, but Mr Cable is a new type of politician. He has knocked about the world, working as an adviser to the Kenyan government and chief economist of Shell. He has unusual personal accomplishment, as anyone who saw his remarkable appearance on Strictly Come Dancing will know. He is the author of the most gripping memoir by an active politician since that by David Blunkett. He has known personal tragedy through the slow death from cancer of his first wife, Olympia. He has rough edges and has enjoyed a genuine career outside Westminster. Alone among the Liberal Democrat members of the front bench, Mr Cable has managed to stay loyal to the Coalition without surrendering his identity.
There was a time when age was an advantage in British public life. It was recognised that the old possessed qualities that were unattainable for the young. This respect for human longevity helps explain why William Ewart Gladstone, the greatest prime minister of the 19th century, did not enter No 10 until he was 58, and enjoyed three terms of office thereafter. That time may yet come again. Mr Cable is now in that very interesting place: he is the moral centre of gravity for the Coalition and of British public life. If Nick Clegg, as widely expected, steps down as Lib Dem leader before the general election, Mr Cable – should he decide to run – is highly likely to replace him. His best years may lie ahead.
Business Matters: Is Vevo Considering An IPO? - Billboard Business News
Is Vevo Considering an IPO?
-- Vevo is seeking new investors to help fund its international expansion, according to reports at Sky News at the Financial Times.
A report by Sky News claims the company has hired investment bank Allen & Co to look at the possibility of an initial public stock offering. However, sources have told the Financial Times an IPO is not under discussion with Allen & Co.
Vevo is a joint venture of Universal Music Group and Sony Music with an investment by the Abu Dhabi Media Company. The video network syndicates its content to a number of partners, including YouTube and MTV.com, in addition to streaming its content at Vevo.com and its mobile apps.
The company has always had expansion on its mind. It launched in the U.S. and Canada in December 2009, expanded to the U.K. last year and launched in Australia via a partnership with MCM Media. Former Starcom MediaVest executive Nic Jones was hired as Vevo's SVP of International in September.
( Sky News, Financial Times)
Report Says Online Video In State of Disruption
-- Growth in mobile-first social apps could be hurting YouTube, suggests a blog post by mobile analytics company Flurry. The company won't come right out and say that mobile apps are cannibalizing YouTube, instead calling the divergent trends "a signal of disruption."
Google Sites went from 378 monthly minutes per U.S. viewer in September 2011 to 472 in December 2011 and then down to 425 in March. In those months, minutes per viewer on mobile apps tracked by Flurry increased from 110 to 152 to 231.
Here's Flurry's recap: "As online video consumption dropped by 10%, mobile app video consumption increased by another 52% [in the first three months of 2012]. By the end of March, consumers were spending 54% of amount of time in mobile video apps compared to Google Sites [primarily YouTube] online, 231 minutes in apps versus 425 minutes online."
Flurry chalks up the change in viewing to growth in mobile-only video apps such as Viddy and SocialCam. "Trained by the sharing behavior of Facebook, and enabled by a confluence of underlying technology like built-in HD video cameras, hardy on-device processors, increased network bandwidth, cloud storage and user-friendly applications like Viddy and SocialCam, social video apps are taking off."
It's unclear what this means for music videos. Vevo's online traffic has declined in recent months, too, going from 871.6 million streams in November to 674.2 million streams in April, according to comScore. When asked about the decline in viewership, a Vevo spokesperson noted that comScore does not track app-based viewing and claims Vevo's mobile video views "are rising."
But the shift to mobile could spell trouble. Music videos undoubtedly benefit from YouTube's position as the world's most popular video site. Fewer people viewing videos at YouTube mean less music discovery on the platform. And the fact that fewer people viewing videos online - 49.5 million in April versus 53.4 million in November, according to comScore - raises hopes that mobile apps are making up the difference.
( Flurry blog)
Social Startup Shaker Launching Music Initiative With Live Nation, BandPage
-- A social-minded digital startup called Shaker will launch a music initiative on June 8 in collaboration with Live Nation and BandPage. Details are expected to be announced soon about how the company, which has raised $15 million from a litany of venture capital funds as well as Troy Carter and Scooter Braun, will work with the concert promotion, ticketing and management giant (Live Nation) and the developer of the most Facebook music app (BandPage).
Shaker purports to facilitate "fun" online social experiences. "Shaker adds another dimension to the Social Network - a layer of places," the company explains at its website. "By giving your Facebook profile arms and legs, Shaker lets you walk around the different venues and environments, choosing from all kinds of events or simply have a good time. You can chat up your friends and their friends, get introduced to like-minded people, listen to music you love or even host your own meet-up and get your people together."
( TechCrunch)
Money matters: Kranjcar admits being tempted by a big money move to Russia - Daily Mirror
Tottenham midfielder Niko Kranjcar admits he could be tempted by a big-money move to Russia or Ukraine.
A series of injuries and the excellent form of Gareth Bale meant Kranjcar started just nine Barclays Premier League games last season.
The Croatian, who joined Spurs in 2009, has been linked with a move to Ukrainian side Dynamo Kiev and he concedes that could be an attractive option, providing he receives a handsome wage.
"In Russia and Ukraine playing football you can earn huge money," Kranjcar told Croatian website Index.
"Whether we admit it or not, money is important."
Russia has become a popular destination for players looking for a big payday recently, with teams like Anzhi Makhachkala willing to offer eye-watering wages, reportedly up to £15million a year.
Clubs like Zenit St Petersburg, Rubin Kazan and CSKA Moscow have shown Russian teams are no pushovers in European competition in recent years and Kranjcar is a big fan of how eastern European teams have developed.
"Football in the east has progressed," the 27-year-old said.
"The teams are always high up in the Champions League or are in the Europa League final. It's not like it was 10 years ago."
Tottenham's activity in the transfer market is likely to have a big impact on their success next season.
Luka Modric and Gareth Bale have been linked with moves away from White Hart Lane, but Daniel Levy insists they will stay.
The Spurs chairman is also keen to tie up a permanent deal for Emmanuel Adebayor and add at least two more signings, with Marseille forward Loic Remy and Ajax defender Jan Vertonghen thought to be high on the club's list of targets.
The north London club are also set for a clear-out of fringe players, chief among them Mexican misfit Giovani Dos Santos.
Spurs had big hopes for Dos Santos when he arrived from Barcelona, but the forward has not started a league game since August 2008 and now faces yet more uncertainty over his future after a proposed move to Spanish side Villarreal fell through following their relegation from the Primera Division.
"We were very advanced in terms of agreeing for Giovani to play for Villarreal, but that has all collapsed now because they have been relegated," Dos Santos' lawyer and representative Vicente Montes was quoted as saying on the website of Mexican Radio station Grupo Formula.
"Villarreal being relegated has affected everything - the transfer, the wages. It would have been different had they stayed in the Primera Division."
I've no idea how much money we make from advertising alongside porn says Google chief - Daily Mail
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Power: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in a position to filter out adult content for all searches
A google executive claimed yesterday to have ‘no idea’ how much money the search giant makes from advertising alongside online pornography which can be viewed by children.
Sarah Hunter, head of UK public policy for the company, pleaded ignorance during a debate hosted by Google on whether to block porn on the internet to protect youngsters.
A spokesman for the firm later said: ‘We do not break out our revenues for any area.’
But it is clear that Google makes thousands of pounds per day from paid-for advertising alongside search results after a user keys in a word such as ‘porn’ on the British site.
Google’s own AdWords programme, designed to help advertisers work out how much it will cost to buy the top advert next to a key word such as porn, indicates it will cost as much as 8,000 a day.
Adverts further down the list cost less, but Google’s British profits would clearly run to thousands from ads placed next to every word associated with pornography. Worldwide profits would be far more.
Mrs Hunter told the Google Big Tent media event yesterday in Hertfordshire that the responsibility for protecting children from pornography on the internet lies solely with parents.
Her comments fly in the face of a Daily Mail campaign to protect children by blocking internet porn from computers unless an adult user specifically opts in and elects to see the content.
Google has nearly total domination of the search engine market and is in a position to filter out adult content for all searches, but it refuses to do so as it insists it is a parental responsibility.
Campaigners suggested one reason for Google’s insistence that children’s internet use is the responsibility of their parents is the amount of money the search giant makes from porn advertising.
Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell argued that the internet was ‘full of the most debasing sado-masochistic pornography that no child should ever see’ and said an opt-in policy was the best option.
But Mrs Hunter, a former adviser to Tony Blair on media issues, warned that legislation to filter pornography on the internet was a ‘mistake, absolutely’.

Fortune-maker: The boards at the Nasdaq change one by one as Facebook begins trading at the Nasdaq in Times Square in New York City
BIG BROTHER THREAT
CONCERNS over Google’s creeping intrusion into private life were heightened yesterday when its executive chairman said it would like to know even more about its customers.
Eric Schmidt told the Big Tent event that knowing who users’ friends were and what they cared about would improve its services.
‘Don’t you think that Google search – with your permission, I need to say very precisely – will do a better job if we have more information that singles you out – who you are, what you care about – in terms of search results?’ he asked.
His words will strike a sinister note for civil liberties campaigners who already believe that Google harvests too much information about its users. Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘Sadly it is impossible for the average person to figure out what data Google is collecting and how it is being used, a problem exacerbated by the company’s pursuit of combining data from across its services.
‘As far as companies like Google are concerned, you and I are not their customers, we are their product.’
Asked about the amount of money pornography brings in for Google, which makes almost all of its profits through advertising, Mrs Hunter said: ‘I have no idea. We don’t go out of our way to make money from pornography.
‘Like all search engines, we do allow advertisers to place adverts alongside searches that show adult content.
‘But it’s legal. Let’s just be clear. I don’t see the problem with that as long as we put in place sufficient safeguards, as much as we can, for children.’
The event, at the five-star Grove Hotel, was hosted by Channel 4 figures and free copies of the Guardian were handed out.
The Google spokesman added: ‘Like other search engines, our policies allow ads to appear next to search results that contain links to legal pornography.
'We also place ads on other people’s web pages but not on pornographic sites.
‘We understand that some people don’t want to see this material, or have their kids stumble upon it.
‘Google’s Safe Search screens for adult websites and advertising and removes them from search results.’
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