The Wardman Wire

Miscellaneous Blogs

One of my interests (and aims of the blog) is to encourage participation in politics as widely as possible. At least two of the three main parties have been talking about training, including media training, for younger members. The Liberal Democrats are talking about why their Leadership Academy should train everyone as they are all potential leaders.

Meanwhile, the Young Britons’ Foundation ran a training day at the Conservative Party Conference for young activists. Mike Rouse has kindly written an account for the Wardman Wire.

News has reached me that one of our esteemed contributors, Sadie of The Tavern, has reached the ripe old age of 29 this morning. So, here is a Birthday Cartoon from Indexed in celebration.

For a little longer we continue to have about 6 contributors under 30.

I also have it on good authority that she starts wearing purple next year. Or perhaps it was last year.

A real Friday post. The website bankaholic.com has been sold for $15m.

From Paidcontent.org:

Financial info site BankRate is expanding its financial product listings, as it’s acquiring Bankaholic, which provides info on deposits, savings accounts, and money market accounts. The company will pay $12.4 million up front, with another $2.5 million possible earnout over the next 12 months. Bankaholic’s sole employee John Wu will assist in the transition and remain for an unspecified period of time.

Interesting points

• The blog is built on Wordpress.
• It is run by a single person - Johns Wu, and has been purchased by bankrate.com.
• The traffic is not *that* high, which tells us something about the value of financial niche markets.
• The blog is relatively new (the domain was first registered in 2006).

A short antidote to all the long political speeches. The Renault Robot. For 16 seconds.

According to cassilis.co.uk, Liam has hung up his keyboard.

If he has gone, it is a piccolo tragedy, as Cassilis was a distinctive and thoughtful voice in the blogosphere, and his Think Tank Roundup was one of the two or three most innovative initiatives of the last 12 months. It was also probably the only one that penetrated the big media space as elegantly as a knife in hot butter.

I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I’m not feeling optimistic.

A nagging voice says that he deserves to have been hired by the MSM. I wish him well.

And the Heritage Open Days website is .. er .. down.

Yesterday it was saying “Database Error”.

Today it is just dead:

Weekend IT cover is always a good idea for big weekends, boys and girls.

Ah well - good job heritage buildings last longer.