Archive for the ‘E-mail & the internet’ Category
Wednesday, November 6th, 2013
Photo credit; Butch Lebo on Flickr
New Zealand expat Rebekah Campbell, who started Posse.com, which she says is the world’s first social search engine, started selling flowers and golf balls by the side of the road when she was a child just because she likes the idea of starting a business.
The former Wellington native evolved to managing bands and originally established Posse.com as a way for bands to engage their fans to help promote them and sell concert tickets.
But after selling the fan engagement platform, Campbell rebranded Posse.com as a social search engine that helps people find the favourite places of their social network. The mobile app and site launched in March of this year and has signed more than 35,000 merchants worldwide, including 7000 New Zealand stores.
Users tell Posse what they want, such as “great coffee”, “brunch” or “a gym” anywhere in the world and they will get recommendations from their “posse” of friends and local experts.
It covers most world cities, including Auckland and Wellington. The denser the population the better.
A two-tier subscription model lets businesses send customers gifts and special offers. From next year, $50 and $100 monthly subscriptions will give stores access to additional features to help them build customer communities.
The successful business has attracted a lot of attention from major tech players.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: New Zealand, Posse, social network
Posted in consumers, E-mail & the internet, Facebook, New Zealand, new zealand business, online marketing, Online Sales, online shopping, onlines store, social media, social networking, Success story | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 6th, 2013
Photo credit; Nick Kean on Flickr
The Kiwiest of domain names is getting ready to take flight in December and it’s the Kiwiest because it is literally .kiwi.
Christchurch-born Tim Johnson, head of Dot Kiwi, first had the idea for the domain name about two-and-a-half years ago.
When .kiwi launches – hopefully in December – it will be the first top level domain outside of .co.nz to get approval from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers with a truly Kiwi feel.
“Running a new domain name is a really big responsibility, we had to meet a lot of criteria,” Johnson says.
For about $39 businesses and individuals will be able to claim email addresses and websites with .kiwi instead of .co.nz.
A percentage of Dot Kiwi’s revenue from the sale of .kiwi domains will be donated to the Dot Kiwi Christchurch Trust.
Johnson, a marketing executive, said Dot Kiwi was born from a desire to set up a company that would have the longevity to pump funds into the local community.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: .Kiwi, business, Dot Kiwi, New Zealand, online, Tim Johnson
Posted in computer, E-mail & the internet, email, emails, New Zealand, new zealand business, New Zealand government, Online Sales, onlines store, Success story | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
Photo credit; Eliot Phillips on Flickr
Two New Zealand businesses lost “significant sums of money” after they placed orders with Chinese companies that fell victim to internet hackers, police in New Zealand said recently.
Both companies had good relationships with their Chinese suppliers for many years, paying deposits into international bank accounts for goods which they then  imported into New Zealand.
In both cases, the e-mail accounts of the Chinese suppliers had been hacked, resulting in the Kiwi companies inadvertently rerouting payments to the hackers.
“The New Zealand businesses received an e-mail asking them to transfer their usual deposit into a different bank account. When the businesses replied about why they have been asked to deposit money into an account that differs from the usual one, the companies were confirmed that the directions are correct,” the police said.
“The confirmation e-mail was a fraudulent message that has been sent by hackers who accessed the Chinese e-mail account,” said the police.
The crime had come to light after several weeks when the Chinese suppliers contacted the New Zealand importers to inquire why they had failed to pay their deposits.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: China, cybercrime, hacking
Posted in computer, E-mail & the internet, email, emails, fraud, hacking, New Zealand, new zealand business, online scams, online security | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 30th, 2013
Photo credit; Nick Kean on Flickr
Successful New Zealand online advertising firm Gopher aims to make online advertising easy for small businesses, making it accessible both in concept and price. It does this by offering a wide range of digital advertising products and packages.
Co-founded by John Campbell, Gopher has central hubs in Auckland and Jakarta, which service New Zealand, Australia and South East Asia. It also has key partners in other countries like Singapore, where it regularly sends staff.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Auckland, business, Gopher, New Zealand, online
Posted in E-mail & the internet, New Zealand, new zealand business, Online Sales, Success story | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013
New Zealand’s largest online auction site will likely see its earnings growth slow to about 8% in the coming year from a 12% pace last year.
Photo credit; David Antis on Flickr
The slow down is projected as the site reinvests in its business but it is also projected to pick up again in 2015 as those investments pay off.
Trade Me chief executive Jon Macdonald said he is comfortable with analyst estimates in a Reuters poll for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to rise 8.2% in the 2014 financial year, and accelerate to an 11 % pace in 2015.
Trade Me was the biggest disappointment in New Zealand’s 2013 reporting season, based on its stock price reaction, after it warned earnings growth would slow in the coming year as it bolstered its business to drive future profits.
The company’s shares have slid almost 4% since it reported earnings on August 21, and the stock is the third worst performer on New Zealand’s benchmark index the past month, having slid 8%. The stock was recently up 2% to $4.52.
“Fundamentally we are still very much a growth company,” Macdonald  said. “There’s an enormous amount of headroom that we have.”
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: auction, New Zealand, profits, Trade Me
Posted in E-mail & the internet, New Zealand, new zealand business, Online Sales, online shopping, trademe | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 17th, 2013
Photo credit; epSos.de on Flickr
Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter will be live in New Zealand as of Nov. 13.
The US-based platform, which has helped raise more than $US800 million for creative projects broke the news recently via its online blog.
“In August we announced that Kickstarter would soon open up to projects based in Australia and New Zealand for the first time. Today we’re happy to announce that the day has finally come!,” the blog read.
The company said New Zealanders could start building their projects now and would be able to launch those projects on Wednesday, November 13.
“We thought the month-long gap would give everyone plenty of time to build and tweak their projects before launching. Beginning November 13, they can launch and share their projects with the world.”
Crowdfunding is a modern alternative to traditional funding avenues such as bank loans. It enables people to raise money through pledges from a large number of people, usually through a web-based campaign.
Until now, Kickstarter has only been open to US, UK and Canadian citizens.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: crowdfunding, Kickstarter, November
Posted in E-mail & the internet, New Zealand, new zealand business, social networking | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 16th, 2013
Photo credit; Ronaldo Ferreira on Flickr
Former teacher David Cameron started his online tutorial service, LearnCoach, off small, offering math and physics tutoring to New Zealand students. But when he shifted his focus to teaching English in China via online videos, that’s when his business really took off.
“In the six weeks it was active we had more than 3,000 students and teachers signed up for our learning resources and were delivering over 40,000 learning tutorials per day,” said Cameron, who was teaching secondary school in Dunedin when he launched the business in 2012.
Cameron secured funding through AMP’s Regional Scholarship programme and was then accepted into a three-month business accelerator programme called The Lightning Lab where he received $18,000 in seed funding, an office space, and mentoring that prompted him to refocus the business on China.
“They really encouraged us to move faster. We thought ‘how can we create a more scalable business that can help more people in a way that’s more profitable,” he said.
“It just got to a stage where we thought China was the bigger market.”
Lightening Lab culminated in a “demo day” at Te Papa in May where Cameron pitched the new idea to 150 investors and ended up attracting $750,000 in capital.
Cameron, 25, has since relaunched the business as LearnKo, offering English language lessons to people living in China.
The business’ new home is in Wellington where he has six full-time staff and another 30 part-time staff situated around New Zealand.
The next step for the business is to launch its own video service where students can meet one-on-one with their tutors.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: business, LearnKo, New Zealand, online, Wellington
Posted in E-mail & the internet, New Zealand, new zealand business, Success story | No Comments »
Friday, October 11th, 2013
Photo credit; Blaise Alleyne on Flickr
New Zealanders spent $5.4 billion online last financial year according to Roy Morgan Research’s Digital Universe report, but despite that seemingly large number, Kiwi money largely remains outside the digital realm.
“The bulk of New Zealand’s net wealth is not yet in the digital universe,” Roy Morgan client services director Howard Seccombe says.
The reason for that is the baby boomers who have the wealth only deal in the fringes of digital technology. That will change over time as the boomers age out and the next generation who is more familiar with digital technologies take over.
Other findings from the report included:
- This year’s survey shows 61% of New Zealanders are worried about their privacy, Â up 11% from the survey carried out four years ago.
- Smartphones have seen spectacular growth, with 1.4 million users. That’s a growth of 227% in four years.
- Right now 39% of New Zealanders have smartphones.
- The Roy Morgan numbers show smartphones amplify people’s digital behaviour. Smartphone owners are ten times as likely to shop online as non-smartphone owners, eight times as likely to bank online and nine times as likely to view video clips.
- Roy Morgan notes a dramatic 20% decline in desktop ownership. This echoes the fall in traditional PC sales. Meanwhile tablets have grown 557% in the past four years.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: baby boomer, business, digital, New Zealand, online, Roy Morgan Research, wealth
Posted in computer, consumers, E-mail & the internet, Going Digital, New Zealand, new zealand business, online marketing, online messaging, Online Sales, online security, online shopping, onlines store, smartphone, smartphones, tablet, tablets, wi-fi | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 9th, 2013
Photo credit; David Antis on Flickr
New Zealand’s answer to eBay, Trade Me, posted slower profit growth for 2013 and said earnings growth would continue to be lacklustre in the coming year as it reinvests in its business.
Trade Me profit rose 4% to $78.6 million in the year ended June 30, slower than the 8.4% pace a year earlier, the Wellington-based company said in a statement. Revenue rose 15% to $164.1 million as classified advertising sales surged 29% while fees from sales of general items rose 5%. Profit was just above First NZ Capital’s estimate of $77.6 million.
“We expect to grow top line revenue and bottom line earnings but these will reflect slower growth than we’ve recorded this year while we focus on reinvestment in the business,” said chief executive Jon Macdonald.
Trade Me, which has attracted about two thirds of New Zealand’s population to its online marketplace, is adding to its core auctions business to drive future growth.
The company said it had agreed to buy online insurance comparison business LifeDirect, adding to its purchase of inventory management company Tradevine and holiday rental accommodation website Holiday Homes in the past year.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: business, New Zealand, online, Trade Me
Posted in E-mail & the internet, New Zealand, new zealand business, online shopping, onlines store | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 9th, 2013
Photo credit; elhombredenegro on Flickr
NetSafe is warning businesses to be alert after a major retail chain was targeted by overseas cyber criminals in a well-planned phishing attack that attempted to convince store staff to install rogue software on their computers.
IT staff at the chain, which NetSafe would not name, said employees at one branch had downloaded malicious software into computers in the branch after being called by an individual claiming to work for the chain.
The caller identified himself as a senior member of the company and directed employees to a fake website that was designed to look like the chain’s official tech support site.
Staff at the store then downloaded a malicious program that tried to take over computers.
The company’s IT staff noticed what was happening and blocked further access to the fake website on all their systems before cleaning up and alerting all stores to the bogus caller, NetSafe’s cyber security programme manager Chris Hails said.
No data was accessed or lost.
“The effort that has gone into creating a convincing fake website and the use of a real executive’s name is what concerns us,” Hails said.
“The website which delivered the malicious software was designed using the company’s branding, logo and corporate style and the criminals had gone to some effort to register a .co.nz URL which contained the chain’s name.”
Hails said the retail chain had asked Netsafe to keep its identity confidential but wanted others to be aware of the scam.
“Although there were no losses, the company felt there was the potential for people to feel they couldn’t trust them anymore,” he said.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: China, cybercrime, hackers, hacking, NetSafe
Posted in computer, E-mail & the internet, fraud, hacking, malicious software, New Zealand, new zealand business, online scams, online security | No Comments »
