Online Food Ordering Startup Delivery Hero Fully Acquires Hungryhouse

The online food ordering market has become even more competitive after Berlin startup Delivery Hero announced it has fully acquired UK-based firm Hungryhouse, as well as purchasing smaller UK player EatitNow.co.uk, and putting pressure on its major rival Just Eat in the UK and across the world.

The deal comes after Delivery Hero acquired a ‘controlling interest’ in Germany’s Lieferheld and a ‘pivotal’ stake in Hungryhouse in March 2012, adding its resources to the UK brand and allowing it to triple the size of its business with more than £6 million in sales across 11,000 restaurants every month.

“We believe there is still a lot of growth potential left in this business, and so we re- invested 98% of the purchase price of our shares into Delivery Hero,” says hungryhouse Co- Founder Tony Charles. “We had always planned to make an exit, but the opportunity to continue the Delivery Hero success story was too much fun to turn down!”

via Online Food Ordering Startup Delivery Hero Fully Acquires Hungryhouse.

Support the Stonewall – Hold your peace campaign

If you are an advocate of equality (and let’s face it why wouldn’t you be?) then you should support the @StonewallUK campaign for #equalmarriage  – check out their campaign at Stonewall or if you are too lazy then here are bullet points!

On Tuesday 5 February 2013 MPs will vote on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill which will extend the legal form of marriage to same-sex couples. This is the first key parliamentary step towards securing marriage equality in England and Wales.

Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Write to your MP

Please write to your MP to let them know why you support marriage equality. If you hear back from your MP don’t forget to let them know by emailing [email protected]

You can find out who your MP is and how to contact them here.

Tweet your MP

Tweet your local MP to let them know you support #EqualMarriage.

You can find out if your MP uses Twitter here. If you hear from your MP via Twitter then again let Stonewall know by tweeting them at @stonewalluk.

And don’t forget that you can also share one of their fantastic e-postcards with them!

Show your support for equality online

Stonewall have a huge selection of Twitter and Facebook profile pictures, Facebook banners and e-postcards that you can share online.  Make sure your friends and family know that you’ve said ‘I Do’ to equal marriage. Check them out at the stonewall website http://www.stonewall.org.uk/

Donate

Your donation will help Stonewall tackle this very well-funded campaign against equality and help us continue to push for the extension of the legal form of marriage to same-sex couples.

Become a Friend of Stonewall

Stonewall will be campaigning hard over the coming months to ensure that MPs and members of the House of Lords support this final modest measure of legislative equality.

They need your help to do this. You can become a Friend of Stonewall by donating just £5 a month.

Follow Stonewall

And don’t forget to follow Stonewall on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date with the campaign – tweet about the campaign using #equalmarriage.

via Stonewall.

Oh, those crazy Frenchies: Facebook faces family photo tax in France • The Register

Facebook should pay the French government for hosting the holiday photos and status updates of the French people, a new report commissioned by the French government has suggested.

The new 200-page report* on taxing the digital economy – commissioned by four French Cabinet Ministers – proposes that France should tax data collection. The touted idea would see new tax bills from the French government landing on Google, Facebook, Amazon and any other web companies that store data about their French users.

via Oh, those crazy Frenchies: Facebook faces family photo tax in France • The Register.

Apps providing spin-off opportunities for popular magazine brands | Technology | guardian.co.uk

A great article on how some publishers are looking to bespoke apps and experiences to monetise mobile rather than replicating the magazine format on tablets and mobile.

… a new app released by Dennis Publishing’s male health mag aims to change that, although it’s no digital replica. Men’s Fitness Cover Model Body Plan is a spin-off: a £1.49 paid app offering workout plans promising “you’re just four weeks away from a physique worthy of the cover”.

While I mull the prospect of a “V-shaped torso” by Springtime, the app’s release also made me think about the market for these kinds of spin-off apps for magazine publishers, as they slice and dice their archives of articles and photography in new ways for smartphones and tablets.

Much of the focus on magazines and apps has been on the replica editions, whether offered through aggregators like Zinio, or as standalone apps in the app store newsstands of Apple and Google.

via Apps providing spin-off opportunities for popular magazine brands | Technology | guardian.co.uk.

What will happen once the ASA starts to regulate Online Behavioural Advertising? « Privacy and information law blog

Early next year, the UK Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA“) will start regulating Online Behavioural Advertising (“OBA“) in the UK – meaning that online advertisers who serve targeted ads to website visitors will have to worry not only about the risk of cookie consent enforcement by the ICO, but also the risk of investigation and public admonishment by the ASA.  A regulatory double-jeopardy, if you will.

via What will happen once the ASA starts to regulate Online Behavioural Advertising? « Privacy and information law blog.

Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work • The Register

This is genius! I wonder how many people at my office are doing the same as a lot of their days seem to consist of the same ‘work days’.

After getting permission to study Bob’s computer habits, Verizon investigators found that he had hired a software consultancy in Shenyang to do his programming work for him, and had FedExed them his two-factor authentication token so they could log into his account. He was paying them a fifth of his six-figure salary to do the work and spent the rest of his time on other activities.

The analysis of his workstation found hundreds of PDF invoices from the Chinese contractors and determined that Bob’s typical work day consisted of:

9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos

11:30 a.m. – Take lunch

1:00 p.m. – Ebay time

2:00-ish p.m – Facebook updates, LinkedIn

4:30 p.m. – End-of-day update e-mail to management

5:00 p.m. – Go home

via Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work • The Register.

Privacy winds blow through Clouds towards Switzerland • The Register

Unsafe harbour

Companies with links to the US will have to prove they are not simply shipping all data to the US, and this may prove impossible. The lack of oversight and control over use of the US PATRIOT Act renders the whole Safe Harbor agreement effectively meaningless, yet companies without such links will only have local legal leverage available as an offset to the risks posed by laws that effectively seek to bypass due process. Europe may be safer, but not safe.

via Privacy winds blow through Clouds towards Switzerland • The Register.

Think of Facebook “as a self-absorbed, petulant brat, one that doesnt understand how to play well with others” | The Wall Blog

“think of Facebook as a self-absorbed, petulant brat, one that doesn’t understand how to play well with others” 

 

Advertising Age has published what reads as a damning round up of recent activity at Facebook. This includes the controversial recent privacy changes. The point of the piece is that Facebook isn’t a start-up anymore and these are growing pains. Shockingly perhaps, Facebook will be ten next year. Yes, 2013 represents its ninth birthday.However, the piece argues that “despite Facebook’s Harvard-dorm-room roots, the company’s modus operandi is more stubbornly childish than post-collegiate”.  The Ad Age piece says we should “think of Facebook as a self-absorbed, petulant brat, one that doesn’t understand how to play well with others” and that include users, investors, partners, competitors”.

via Think of Facebook “as a self-absorbed, petulant brat, one that doesnt understand how to play well with others” | The Wall Blog.

Amazon’s and Facebook’s Ad Privacy Practices Irk Ad Agencies | Digital – Advertising Age

Two of the biggest publishers on the web don’t use the advertising industry’s standardized ad-privacy program, and it’s a problem for even the largest digital-media buyers.

Facebook and Amazon both offer targeted display advertising that can sometimes incorporate behavioral data from third parties. However, while nearly every other relevant media firm, ad network and ad-data firm either uses the industry’s self-regulatory Ad Choices program or operates one that can be easily integrated with it, Facebook and Amazon do not.

via Amazon’s and Facebook’s Ad Privacy Practices Irk Ad Agencies | Digital – Advertising Age.