business

Corruption in Cyprus

Around 55 per cent of companies in Cyprus who took part in a public tender over the last three years claim that corruption prevented them from winning the contract, the highest percentage in the EU, according to the Commission’s anti-corruption report published on Monday.

Conflicts of interest in bid evaluation were reported in 76 per cent of cases, collusive bidding in 68 per cent, abuse of negotiated procedures in 62 per cent, unclear selection or evaluation criteria in 61 per cent, and amendment of contract terms after the contract is concluded stood at 55 per cent.

Now that Google’s selling Motorola, how much did it overpay in 2011?

Just how much did Google (GOOG) overpay for Motorola Mobility when it agreed to buy the phone maker for $12.5 billion in 2011 Shareholders will have to figure that out after Google announced on Wednesday that it is unloading the money-losing subsidiary on Chinese electronics maker Lenovo Group (0992.HK) for $2.9 billion.

Sure, Motorola had $3 billion of cash on its balance sheet when it was acquired and Google later sold a set-top box division for $2.4 billion. But that still leaves Google CEO Larry Page left to explain why he’s only getting $3 billion for the remaining net investment of $7 billion. “Patents,” he’d likely reply.

Analysts speculated all along that Google made the hasty deal only to get control of Motorola’s vast trove of about 17,000 patents. At the time, Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) appeared to be waging an intellectual property war to beat back the Android challenge. Many of those battles continue and intellectual property attorneys are split over whether the Motorola patents have helped Google much, if at all.

Still, Google said it would retain “the vast majority” of patents from Motorola in the sale to Lenovo.

Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work

10 (not so) surprising social media statistics

Fast Company shares the 10 surprising social media statistics that will make you rethink your social strategy. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that all of them are really all that surprising, but they are mostly interesting. Here they are in a nutshell:

The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64 year age bracket.
189 million of Facebook’s users are “mobile only”.
YouTube reaches more US adults aged 18-34 than any cable network.
Every second two new members join LinkedIn.
Social media has overtaken port as #1 activity on the web.
LinkedIn has a lower percentage of active users than Pinterest, Google+, Twitter and Facebook.
93% of marketers use social media for business.
25% of smartphone owners ages 18-44 say they can’t recall the last time their smartphone wasn’t next to them.
Even though 62% of marketers blog or plan to blog in 2013, only 9% of US marketing companies employ a full-time blogger.
25% of Facebook users don’t bother with privacy settings.

Read the whole thing for more details, links, stats, visualization, and ideas on how to utilize this information.

Clashot.com : make money taking photos with your phone

This sounds much like Instagram with some elements of commerce. I haven’t tried out myself yet, but I’ve read a couple of reviews. Interesting tidbits are: no filters included, and that you can group several photos together.