Two weeks ago, I enjoyed a night of being wined and dined by the good folks from SONY as they unveiled their new BRAVIA line of TV’s.
I’ll tell you a secret. Having been a tech writer and editor for more than 10 years, I’m at my most uncomfortable self writing about anything to do with A/V products. Not because I don’t understand flat screen TV’s or audio — it’s more about trying to describe in words an experience that’s best felt when you’re there. How do you write about 3D? How do you write about 7.1 surround sound? You can shove a thousand words to your reader and he still won’t get it.
Jonathan is what I would call the “reverse bartender.” He’ll listen to you. He’ll engage in small talk but in return he’ll serve you an upper. Jonathan Choi is the proprietor and head bean of Magnum Opus Fine Coffees, an artisan coffee shop located in the always-busy intersection between Aguirre Ave and Elizalde in BF Homes, Paranaque.
‘The Golden Mean’ was a Horatian ode that deconstructed the topic of ‘balance’ in the same way that the Dark and Light sides of ‘The Force’ must be kept in check.
On my first visit, Jonathan confirmed a suspicion about how I make coffee. I’ve postulated that my el-cheapo handpresso can pull a better shot of espresso than my relatively more expensive 16 bar espresso machine.
Kobe Bryant is Lenovo Mobile’s new endorser for both the Philippines and China. In the advert, he’s touting the flagship K900 smartphone powered by Android and Intel.
Finally, it’s here in local shores! The iPhone 5 is a beautiful device, but suffers (like all other smartphones) from drained battery woes especially when you have LTE turned on the whole day. Although the battery management has slightly improved (speculation has the iPhone 5 battery carrying a wallop of 1400 to 1700mAh), these numbers are meaningless to the general consumer! The BoostCase for iPhone 5 adds about a full charge + 50% more battery life to your existing iPhone. So that means if that your iPhone is pulling 6 hours before drain, the BoostCase will give you 9 hours aggregating your total count to roughly 15 hours. That’s for the 2200mAh one.
It looks like Multiply CEO Stefan Magdalinsky has an official reply as well, and would not comment further on the exact reasons. His Twitter account (@smagdali) does not mention anything as well.
If you check Multiply.com, you will find this message:
Multiply is closing on May 6
We regret to announce that Multiply will be closing on May 6, 2013 and ceasing all business operations by May 31, 2013.
Multiply will maintain normal site operations through May 6. We will use the rest of May to make sure the all accounts are settled and that merchants receive full payment for all the transactions they completed on our platform. This will also provide our merchants with time to find and migrate to alternative ecommerce platforms, settle all payments on items bought and delivered, and to minimize disruption to their businesses.
Multiply will ensure that you receive all funds you earned on the platform no later than May 31, 2013. We will close the actual marketplace sooner, on May 6, 2013, to ensure that all orders have sufficient time to complete and be delivered to your customers before the end of the month.
Merchants who have premium subscriptions should contact our customer support and we will ensure that they receive a full refund for the un-used time on your subscription.
Very little words, really. Last year, Multiply announced that they will be shifting their focus from social networking into full on eCommerce and it seems they are closing that chapter as well. I have gotten confirmation from Jack Madrid that this is true.
Could it be the influx of new players such as the Rocket Internet group (composed of Zalora and Lazada) or that the boutique / second hand market is really just heavily involved in other forums such as Sulit? Multiply has been a huge enabler for entrepreneurs to set up small garage sales all over the Internet and it’s indeed sad to see them go. You’ll be missed.
