In the world of social media, it would seem that the Facebook domination has a new contender. Pinterest is a social site that allows users to pin pictures and content onto their profiles to create interesting collections, and it has just become the latest company to receive an evaluation of more that £630m ($1bn) following it’s latest round of funding worth $100m.

While effective valuation estimates have range from $1bn to $1.5bn, they have highlighted the fact that Pinterest has already established a business model wherein it collects ‘affiliate’ payments from the purchases that people make via their site. This new valuation is a leap of at least fivefold since the last valuation of $200m was made in October 2011.

The company has literally shot to fame in the last few months and has become the 16^th most visited US website, according to Alexa, the measurement company. In April, it had over 20m registered users, a huge increase from the 1m member it had in July 2011, according to the ranking company ComScore.

After being named as one of the top 50 websites of 2011 by Time Magazine in August 2011 its traffic went through the roof, and by December of last year it was welcoming more than 11m visitors a week worldwide, according to Hitwise.

Now it has received a new round of funding from a consortium led by the online Japanese retail giant Ratuken, with other participants including its existing investors Bessener Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, Andreeseen Horowitz and several angel investors. During October 2011 it received a funding of $27m which raised its valuation to $200m, and its latest valuation is remarkable considering it only opened in March 2010.

Whilst the company haven’t disclosed their revenue, the strategic marketing expert Rags Srinivasen, who carried out modelling in March, estimates it to be around the $10m mark, or possibly less.

General Motors have announced that they are to create 700 jobs at their plant in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. This is in addition to hundreds more that are being created in their supply chain to deal with the building of their latest model in the Astra compact car range, and gives a great boost to the car industry in the UK.

The US car manufacturer, who lost $747m in Europe last year before tax, said on Thursday that they are investing £125m in the plant after the 2100 workers agreed to a ‘ground breaking new working agreement’. The plant at Ellesmere Port is one of only two that will be building this new model, and a German plant is set to lose out due to the decision, but this should secure the future of the plant until the early 2020′s.

Figures that were released last Thursday revealed that nearly 500,000 cars were built in the UK during the first 4 months of this year, with over 400,000 intended for the export market. The number of engines that were built increased in April by 1.2% to 192,408 while the production of commercial vehicles rose 3.2% to nearly 9000 on a year on year comparison, although it actually fell 9% during the year to date.

The new GM work agreement, will come into force in 2013, will be leading to a 3 shift system in 2015 as well as flexible working, which makes the plant one of the most competitive within GM’s manufacturing network in Europe. The Astra is currently being produced by 3 plants on 2 shifts, leaving the capacity for expansion.

It is expected that Ellesmere Port will produce a minimum of 160,000 vehicles per year and GM, who sell their cars in the UK under the Vauxhall brand, will also be raising the local supply content for the new Astra by at least 25%, creating more jobs amongst suppliers.

One of the driving components of Singapore’s knowledge based economy is high tech start-ups, with an increasing amount of policy attention being given to start-ups in order to continue to nurture new high tech ones that that just need a bit of a kick start. Those that deal with intellectual property are given even more support by the government.

According to a survey that was performed in 2011 by Professor Dr. Wong Poh Kam, about 10% of the start-ups received some type of investment from VV’s, or from private business investors (VCA).  Most of them that did not receive funding, stating that they had two main problems in attempting to receive VCA investments: that valuation was set too low or that they were unable to attract interest.

Despite this fact, those that are able to get over the hurdles and get started have proved to be very successful in Singapore, with many fast paced and growing start-ups turning into technological hotspots. In fact, some believe that Singapore could be the next Silicon Valley if the government continues to encourage growth and if the current technological start-ups continue to grow.

As the costs of manufacturing and operating are much more affordable inSingapore, it would not be unheard of for stronger high-tech companies, that are already notable in size, to move into the area, helping to boost the economy of the country even more while at the same time promoting the start-up culture of the area.

If we are to believe everything that we hear in the media, we are now a country where getting a loan or a mortgage is nigh-on impossible, yet the fact that for sale signs are having sold slapped across them tends to make these claims seem somewhat unfounded. The truth is that if you have an excellent credit rating, banks will still help you, they have just had to tighten their criteria due to the recession and aren’t taking the risks that they used to. A quick way to assess your credit history before an application is by taking a free credit report from an online provider.

Whereas at one time there were only two types of bank accounts; current and savings, there are now dozens of them all offering different things to their customer and if you are thinking of opening a new bank account you really need to shop around. Many of us have had the same old account for years, and have never been able to upgrade, whereas by switching banks to one with a slightly different criteria you can score with various perks.

If you apply for a new bank account and are offered one of those that for a monthly fee carries such things as mobile phone and travel insurance take it, even if you don’t need all of the perks. For the sake of £10 a month you can really improve your credit rating by keeping this kind of account in good order and ensuring you never go overdrawn without an authorised overdraft, and ensuring there is always enough money in to cover direct debits.

These are the kinds of accounts that will help you in the future to obtain loans and mortgages so it is in your best interests to ensure you treat it with respect. If you are unsure of what accounts are on offer and the banks’ criteria for them, check out an online comparison site, as well as your credit score. This will enable you to gauge which ones are worth applying for, and giving your future credit rating a real boost.

In an effort to alleviate the worry of an Iran fallout, Saudi Arabia has promised that they will increase their oil supplies. The results of this guarantee were falling crude oil prices after a few months of extreme highs. The small one percent drop in oil prices offered the UK government a bit of relief as inflation data collected this week showed a smaller drop then what was expected. 

Central bankers and ministers are hoping that inflation will quickly drop this year helping to relieve a bit of pressure on households that are finding it hard to manage with rising unemployment and smaller wages.

For the past few months, there have been warnings that oil prices could continue to rise higher over the Iran situation and possibly increase the inflation rate, but Saudi Arabia stating that they would start to increase their oil production at the fastest rate in the last few decades helped bring back down the Brent crude oil prices to just about $124 per barrel.

At the beginning of the year they were as high as $127 per barrel, which created fear that the global economy would fall back into a recession just as it started to recover. As tensions continue to increase between the west and Iran, Saudi Arabia has been taking care to ease the oil tensions with Ali al-Naimi, the oil minister of the country, announcing that the country will increase its output to as much as 12.5m barrels per day if it is needed.

There is reportedly a dramatic decrease in learner drivers taking to our roads, and driving schools are having a tough time of it. You can blame a number of factors for this; rising unemployment, the cost of buying a car and then keeping it on the road are all viable arguments, but recent research has shown that the number one reason for keeping people of the roads is the rising cost of car insurance in the UK.

Even long established drivers with a clean licence and significant no claims bonus are groaning when their renewal notices drop through the letterbox. They have a right to do this as well to be honest, as the numerous claims that are being made by younger drivers are making it more costly across the board.

It is a statistical fact that 25% of young drivers make a claim within their first 6 months of driving, and this claim more often that not far outweighs their hefty yearly premium. Depending on what insurance group the car is in, whether they are being put onto a parents policy as a named driver or are taking out an individual policy, you are looking at several thousand pounds for a years insurance. Despite this fact, it is still well worth shopping around for car insurance quotes as they can vary greatly between insurance providers.

If they are involved in an accident that results in fatalities or serious injury the claim will make their premium seem like chicken feed, and the money to pay these claims has to come from somewhere, hence the ever rising cost of car insurance in the UK. Two car families have seen themselves forced to go down to one, and this also been a contributory factor to the surge in popularity of car sharing.

Ultimately, there is little you can do to reduce your car insurance premiums apart from the obvious; keeping a clean licence and not having accidents. There is talk of fitting black boxes to young drivers’ vehicles to restrict their mileage as less driving lowers the chances of an accident. Until this happens however it is very much a case of grin and bear it, and keep shopping around for the best quotes.

Nintendo, one of the top names in the world of gaming, have just announced their first ever annual loss of £329m and the rumours are already rife as to how this has come about. The Japanese giant reported a net loss of 43.2bn yen for last year, compared with a net income of 77.6bn for the previous year. The company, based in Kyoto, has said they expected a loss as the strength of the yen make exports much more expensive.

The fact that the yen is now weakening however has given Nintendo hope that they will return to profit when the figures for 2012 are released. The company who once led the field with such titles as Super Mario and Pokemon has suffered in recent times from casual gamers playing on their smartphones instead of laying out cash for a console.

They were even forced to sell their 3DS handheld gaming device at below cost price to shift stocks in face of the increased competition from within the smartphone sector. It is pinning a lot of hopes on the launch of their new 2D version of Super Mario Bros in August this year, and the fact that sales will also increase for their flagship Wii console.

Sales of the Wii have slowed down of late, but the company still managed to shift 9.84m units in the year ending March 2012, and over 95m have now been sold in total. Nintendo are hopeful that the long awaited updated version, Wii U, which is expected to be launched at the end of 2012, will breathe some new life into the flagging console market, and get a whole new audience into the console that gets bums off sofas to play.

Some analysts, however, are claiming that the time of the console is over, and smartphone apps and social network gaming is the future. This is the kind of prophecy that Nintendo, and the other gaming giants, will be praying doesn’t come true.

After a ruling on Wednesday, companies may no longer be allowed to advertise for graduates to fill their job vacancies. The court said that by advertising for graduates, older employees were being discriminated against, and being prevented from applying for a better job or promotion, due to the fact that they did not hold a degree.

The ruling came about after the court had heard the case of Terence Homer, an ex police officer who had been working on the Policy National Legal Database in a role as an advisor. The court heard that Mr Homer had been at a disadvantage when compared with younger workers and he hadn’t had the time to complete a law degree before he had retired from the police force, meaning that promotion was unattainable.

Following the ruling, lawyers said that it would have wide spread implications throughout the private sector and would effectively change employment law in London and how companies went about recruiting and promoting their employees in the future.

Chris Wellham is an employment lawyer at the law firm of Hogan Lovells, and he said that employers would now have to be cautious in their approach when they wanted to recruit people with degrees, or refusing to promote employees because they didn’t have one. He added that it brought the old debate back into the limelight as to whether experience was comparable with having a degree.

One sector who will particularly welcome this ruling is that of the older worker, who have argued for years that they were at a disadvantage compared to younger staff when applying for high paid jobs as despite years of experience and all the skills required, they lacked that vital piece of paper.

There are many employers who openly advertise for candidates who have degrees, and some industries, such as manufacturing, law and engineering require a degree as a minimum entry requirement. This results in the older worker ,despite their years of experience in the field, falling at the first hurdle.

The Homer ruling could well revolutionise the way job adverts are worded, and effectively outlawing the terms graduate or degree qualified. These will be seen to be comparable with the words energetic and enthusiastic, which have all but disappeared from job adverts for fear that the employer may be accused of trying to recruit only younger applicants.

Deutsche Bank, the giant of the German financial sector, has reported a steep fall in profits, partly due to the weakening performance that has come about from the deepening Eurozone crisis. The banks net income for the first 3 months, or quarter, of 2012 was 1.4bn Euros, down by 35% on the 2.1bn Euros that the bank made in March 2011. Overall revenue has dropped by 12% and stands at 9.2bn Euros.

The bank commented on the figures, saying that although the business environment is more stable than it was at the end of 2011, it is still a lot less favourable that it was a year ago. The biggest bank in Germany also took a hit to the tune of 257m Euros after having to write off its holding in Actavis, the pharmaceutical company.

Revenue within the investment banking division of the bank fell by 8% to 6.3bn Euros, while those in the banks asset management arm dropped by 17% to $3.4bn. Postbank is the retail arm of Deutsche Bank and they also reported a drop in revenue due to lower interest rates and the moves it took to minimise the risks across its operations.

The company have said that this is still a strong result that reflected the good performances they had enjoyed across most of their business, despite the increased risks and lower activity amongst their clients than in recent years. Investors seem to think differently however, and after the figures were announce, the shares in Deutsche were down 3.7% when the Frankfurt stock exchange closed.

Looking to the future, the bank has said that it was focusing on consolidating its position and building up their reserved. The chief executive of Deutsche is Josef Ackermann, and he has said that they were continuing to pursue their strategy of reducing the legacy risks while at the same time strengthening their capital position, and used the disposal of Actavis as an example.

One of the most exciting aspects of setting up your own SME is looking for premises. This also an area, however, where the biggest mistakes are made that could ultimately cause your business to fail during those crucial first 12 months. While those glorious penthouse offices with the great views may be tempting, the exorbitant rent will take hefty chunk of your budget and could leave you with critical cash flow problems.

An SME has to be both sensible and practical as far as their office space is concerned, and sit down and woke out exactly what they need. How many employees will there be, how much equipment and peripherals is needed, these are the kind of questions you need to be asking yourself. The smaller the space the lower rent, so start small as you can always expand later when your business is established.

One of the best options open to those starting up an SME is the serviced office to rent. These are generally is a centre that has a staffed reception area, and you can rent out individual rooms or suites that are suitable for anywhere between two and two hundred people. These come fully furnished with all equipment, effectively relieving you from having to buy the equipment you need, such as PC’s etc, as the rental of these is included in the price.

When you first look around for serviced office space, you may think the rent is rather high, but sit down and do your figures and you will see that it is cost effective in the long run. For example, what you see is what you pay, everything is covered. Rent a non-serviced office and you have to consider the costs of furnishing it to start with, then there is the rent, rate, energy bills and paying for reception staff, security, IT infrastructure and the telephony service.

The rental periods are also more flexible than ordinary offices that tend to work on a yearly basis, and you can rent a serviced office for 3 months to start off with if you want. An SME looking for office space should definitely have serviced offices at the top of their list, and put that penthouse office as a goal for the future.