Leading Lights

The simple ideas are always the best.  It’s a universal truism, but oddly one that hasn’t really been taken to heart by the hospitality industry. 

They fervently believe it’s their subservient duty to bend over backwards while lavishing choice after choice on their guests – from pillow menus to, well, you name it.

CitizenM see it a different way.  And this small but perfectly formed hotel chain has got the less-is-more formula spot on.  With just three locations – Central Amsterdam, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, and Glasgow – the have perfected the essence of what a hotel should be. 

Rupert Murdoch feels the pinch

Hard as it must be for Rupert Murdoch to swallow, News Corporation’s acquisition of the social networking site, MySpace has been a colossal failure. 

It was the US’s most popular networking site in 2006, then something happened.  Something that all the business brains at Harvard can identify, but still can’t quite harness or reverse.  Facebook – set up by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, ironically – stole its crown.

There was a time when you couldn’t open a newspaper without finding a chart-topping band or artist whose raw talent had been uploaded and immediately discovered like the Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen, and legions of other ingénues who’ve since fallen by the wayside.  MySpace was literally a goldmine and News Corp. quickly set up MySpace Records to capitalise on the undiscovered talent still waiting to reveal itself.