London Archive

The LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) is a commuter rail line that runs from NYC out to the Hamptons. Yesterday on our sister blog InsideTransit, we wrote about a proposal from Senator Charles Schumer. Schumer has reached out to the Long Island Rail Road to get WiFi access for passengers noting, “make commuting more productive and pleasant.” Apparently Obama’s stimulus funds can be used to pay for the $1,000 per train fee to get the access installed. If we can get WiFi on a plane, why not on a train as well? It appears many other commuter rail lines around the world have WiFi access already. No word if commuters will have to pay for the WiFi access.

Robert Andrews from MocoNews is reporting that the UK regulator is investigating whether the UK’s National Rail violated any rules when they forced some third-party mobile apps developers offline while pushing their own new mobile train tracking application. Interestingly, the two apps that were pushed offline were free while the “official” app is just over $8.

The two apps in question are the  UK Train Times mobile web app and the MyRail iPhone app.

Robert notes, “Now the Office of the Rail Regulator (ORR) says it’s ‘investigating the supply of Real Time Train Information (RTTI) (by NRE) under the Competition Act 1998, having been made aware of concerns in this area including from members of the public, and from Members of Parliament on behalf of their constituents. RTTI is a key input into the provision of live train running information to passengers through media such as train information websites or services accessed over mobile phones.’”

I’d love to see real time tracking for bus and train service in the U.S. — it would be a great way to create more usable time for passengers.

After the major launch of “Where It’s At” yesterday, today AOL has announced the launch of the AOL portal to the UK market. Last month we wondered why AOL pushed their big acquisition of Bebo aside to pimp Facebook and Twitter. The good news is that it seems Bebo is one of the top four being pushed in the UK version of the portal service.

It appears in the UK users prefer different types of content than we do here in the U.S. Here are some of the differences between the UK and US AOL portal sites:

UK version of My Stuff – shows Horoscopes over AOL Radio – all other items are the same

UK version of My Networks – here we see the UK version pushing Bebo over AIM and also pushes Twitter to slot 4 while the US version pimps Twitter first (which is a huge mistake) and doesn’t even list Bebo in the top 4.

The content and stories on the UK version appear to be UK-based which is a good thing.

The Marketing Donut launched today and their goal is to, “provide small and medium-sized businesses with tools to make their marketing more effective.” The site is based out of the UK and they guarantee not to show any ads (although they show sponsor offers). The first two sponsors are Google and the Royal Mail (the post office for the U.K.).

The Marketing Donut gathered 100 experts to provide advice in a number of categories including PR, marketing, advertising, customer support, market research, events and strategy. There are also a number of pre-packaged themes for startups.

It looks like the experts traded their content for a listing in the consultants directory. The directory is broken up by location in the UK and each expert has a bio page and contact information.

The site has a lot of good content but what’s missing are the connections and subscriptions. For example, there appears to be no way to subscripe to the different content sections – either via RSS or an email notification once new content is added. They have a Twitter account but it’s not listed anywhere on the site. There’s a share button but only on some of the pages – sharing should always be everywhere! Same goes for the tools section – give me a way to be notified when you add more tools! This is the type of site that a person will visit and then might not return to – the email/rss is critical to get users to continually return.

Earlier this week there was chatter about some schools in the U.K. swapping out normal education for more new-tech-oriented education. I mean who cares about what happened in the past, just how quickly we can type a SMS, enter a Google search or post a lolcat to Twitter.

Gumshoo has put together a comic strip related to the announcement which I thought was worth sharing:

WebMD has announced a new partnership with Boots (similar to CVS in the U.S.) in the UK to create a consumer health portal. The portal will combine health information from WebMD plus pharmacy and online sales via Boots.

"We are excited to be working with Boots UK as an important part of our strategy to expand WebMD’s presence internationally," said Wayne Gattinella, CEO and President, WebMD. "Boots is the recognized leader in pharmacy and healthcare in the UK. Together we will build a powerful new health information resource designed to help UK consumers lead healthier lives."

The new portal site will launch in mid-2009 and WebMD and Boots will share in the development costs of the site. WebMD will manage the online advertising on the site but both companies will share equally in the generated revenue.

In the SXSW expo hall, there’s an area dedicated to UK startups. I was able to grab a quick interview with CannyBill. Here’s their company overview, "CannyBill is a web based invoicing and billing solution for businesses and web designers. Easily create, send and manage invoices and accept payments online via credit card. You can also sell your products and services using order forms."

Check out the video below – we talk about what the company does and how it compares to other invoicing services like Freshbooks.

Last Post is a London-based startup that hopes to help people leave last messages for their loved ones upon death. The company notes that, "1 person dies every 30 seconds in a car crash." Their goal is to help you setup letters today to leave for others. I have to admit it’s a bit of a different startup than we typically cover on CN.

What I don’t see on the site is how they know when the account holder has died. Last Post offers a variety of account plans which I’ve commented on below. The paid plans allow you to include printed pieces which you mail to the Last Post offices in London. Naturally anyone who creates an account with Last Post assumes they will be around long enough to deliver the mail and messages to your loved ones. 

The free account allows you to send 10 emails immediately upon death. They also offer yearly paid plans from GBP 9.99/year to GBP 29.99/year. This is where it gets interesting. The paid plans allow you to pick a date past death to send the letters. Let’s say you pick a date 5 years after death on an anniversary. The account holder pays the yearly fee until death. After that, Last Post notifies the recipient about the letter and then that recipient must pay the yearly fee until the letter is sent (in this case 5 years). This might be the most interesting business model I’ve seen lately.

There are so many songs about passing and not being able to say goodbye. Last Post is trying to change that – while I am not sure about their business model, I think the concept is a good one.