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Originally Posted by Sharpink

“On the 26 February 2015, I will have achieved 3 years as a non smoker.

3 years, wow where has the time gone! 9 years for me, blimey.

We are fully certified ex smokers, never to restart

I can't abide the smell of fags, or the stale smell that lingers around smokers. As controversial as it has been in recent years, I love the fact that restaurants and pubs are smoke free.

Has been a cracking thread, charting yourself stopping smoking and hope it has inspired others.

There is a certain young lady who needs to stop but keeps falling off the wagon! Come on dreamraven, time to give it a go again, we need an update....

So the Beeb has lost Rugby, Football, Golf and Formula One. At least they've still got the darts

It's going to be a hypochondriacs dream!

Every time I think of Brighton now I think of bin strikes!

Didn't realise it was a Green seat!

As Google morphs from a search engine to a content destination, it rolls out a new update for the medically minded.

According to the Google blog: health info in the Knowledge Graph

"one in 20 Google searches are for health-related information

So starting in the next few days, when you ask Google about common health conditions, you’ll start getting relevant medical facts right up front from the Knowledge Graph. We’ll show you typical symptoms and treatments, as well as details on how common the condition is—whether it’s critical, if it’s contagious, what ages it affects, and more..."

So no more Doctors visits, you can now Google diagnose yourself and the NHS should save a fortune 

On a more serious note, this is probably the most obvious visual signal of where Google is going and how it is utilising it's growing Knowledge Graph.

It won't be long now before Google will want to drop the term "search engine" as that will be seen as a relic of the early internet.

Leading on from a recent thread about haggling and negotiation, how about the Premier League? That was some haggle!

Sky paid £4.2bn for five of the seven TV packages while rival BT paid £960m for the other two in the record TV rights auction. The deal will run for three years from 2016.

Sky paid 83% more than it did in the last round three years ago.

BBC News - Premier League in record £5.14bn TV rights deal

Poor old BBC, it's never going to compete in that kind of market! So it works out at over £10m for each game. 

Sky obviously expect to get a return on their investment, but you wonder how much more costs can increase? The numbers involved now are baffling 

If you go in your local Marks and Sparks you'll probably see it, and a lot of pub chains seem to be rolling it out. I imagine it wont be long before most newsagents will have it, so most average small purchases will soon be potentially contactless.

Facebook seems to be losing direction IMHO. There is a lot of backlash or at least perceived backlash by users and businesses. Business pages now get a fraction of the exposure they used to on Facebook, forcing them to promote posts, which then clutters up peoples timelines with promotional posts. Then there are attempts at search with the open graph data but it's not really that usable. Are they a wannabe search engine, commercial ad platform or social media?

Seems a good opportunity for Google plus to try and capitalise on the commercial side of social media, whilst maybe giving an opportunity for a completely non advert or commercial service for those users that want an uncluttered interface. Could this be exploited by ello?

It's a fickle world we live in and even giants can tumble. Remember when My Space was the social media darling and everyone had a Nokia phone. Maybe Facebook has peaked?

Well I did get an invite, then in my Social Media ineptitude forgot to do anything with it 

But ello is now open to the world.

Signed up to it last night and it does feel like you have stepped back in time, which I'm not sure is a good thing or bad, in this visual age we live in.

It seems to be focused around a 100% non commercial social media interaction and keeping everyones information private, which is admirable and I like, at least from a personal point of view.

Not quite sure how they will make any money out of it though. Standard rhetoric is anti Facebook and anti business. They will need to monetize it in some shape and form unless it's set to become an online hippy commune, so shall continue to watch with interest.

Anyone played with it, think it will be the next big thing, or will it be a damp squid?

It seems the ethical business question is becoming a hot topic looking at the Beeb this morning.

In a survey, the Forum of Private Business (FPB) found that over three-quarters of respondents think big firms put profits before ethical standards.

Tax avoidance, treatment of suppliers, and late payment were all areas of concern, the ComRes poll of 2,000 people found.

Politicians must stand up for people who play by the rules, the FPB said.

The survey also found that 74% of respondents agreed that the majority of big businesses have no concern for small business owners in the UK.

Big firms face crisis of trust - BBC News

I think it can be frustrating running a small business, knowing you are whiter than white when it comes to HMRC and playing by the rules, when you hear all this talk of tax avoidance and shady practices going on.

I see this morning HSBC has been caught out helping super wealthy clients in tax avoidance by an internal whistle blower, which is set to cause some embarrassing questions from HMRC, as they were made aware of this apparently in 2010 but have only prosecuted 1 person.

Still not convinced personally religious leaders should be getting embroiled in what is going to be a key political debate, in the run up to a general election. But it looks like we are going to hear a lot more about this and won't be surprised when other banks are found to have been helping out tax avoidance for select clients.

Reference previous Disney comments, can highly recommend the book, Disney War about the downfall of Michael Eisner, Disney Chairman and CEO. Fascinating read, shatters the myth of a warm cosy Disney image and gives the inside story of a bitter boardroom battle, powerplay how to nearly destroy a corporation. Certainly wouldn't take any business advice from Disney