I’ve been a huge fan of Pocket, probably the best known of the “save it for later” apps, for a year. It seems I’m not alone: Pocket has accrued 17 million registered users, and one billion items have been saved to its repository.
Pocket is a very clean, eye-pleasing app that wins on simplicity and functionality. See something you like on your desktop? Use the Pocket extension to save it – and file with multiple tags of your choice. Same goes from your phone browser, and many apps. When you’re ready to read, you don’t need to be online to do so – making it great for commuting or other downtime.
It does have its competitors, both in apps like Instapaper and in Facebook’s own Save Link feature and Apple’s Newsstand. Indeed, Facebook is not one of the 1,500 apps (like Flipboard, Twitter and Zite) to integrate with Pocket, making it hard to save from – irritating, as that’s where I find my most randomly interesting articles.
Using a tagging system has proven illuminating. My content focus is on – well, content, and writing – and on technology, mindfulness, yoga, finance, property, recipes – and cleaning tips.
Using my saved content, Pocket recommends other content to me. I was recommended Mark Twain's Top 7 Tips for a Simple and Productive Life (tick), Mobile and the Death of PC (tick) and a New Yorker article on politics (fail).
But content discoverability is still a weakness. Pocket’s Highlights – whereby it showcases content you’ve saved (if you have saved enough) that it deems most relevant – still doesn’t work, despite me having 250 articles saved. It also recently added Recommendations, so you can share your own favourite articles and follow others.
The app is free; a premium version costs US$44.99 a year and gives you a permanent library of all articles and pages you save, so they remain accessible even if the original page changes. When the half-life of an article is only 18 months, that could prove very useful.
What stops me from really embracing Pocket is the fear of losing my archive (unless I fork out for premium) when the internet is still so young and ever-changing. So although Pocket appears to be a deep pocket, I’ll probably keep mailing myself the best links too.
Q&A
Who’s behind Pocket?
San Francisco programmer Nate Weiner created Pocket (then called the straightforward Read It Later) as a Mozilla Firefox browser extension in 2007.
Any famous fans?
Ashton Kutcher is one of the investors who have collectively sunk $7m into Pocket. “It allows people to never miss a moment because it acts as a DVR for our digital lives,” he says. “Pocket gets that the right time isn’t always right now.”
Is it well rated?
It’s got 5 stars in the iTunes store, 4.5 on Google Play, 4.5 on the Chrome Web Store, and has won two major awards – a Webby for best productivity app last year and a Google Material Design Award this year.
Any good Pocket tips?
If an app you’re using doesn’t support Pocket, you can send links to add@getpocket.com. Pocket also plugs into IFTTT to help you move articles from place to place – for instance, saving links from Twitter favourites direct to Pocket, or to send Pocket links to Evernote for long-term storage.
Any issues?
Make sure the entire article has downloaded before you close down, otherwise Pocket won’t save the entire article – a pain to discover when you’re offline later and ready to read.
What are people saving?
Interestingly, Pocket’s analysis found the average article length is a chunky 3,190 words – a 15-minute read. People don’t save breaking news, for instance, but a more detailed aftermath commentary and analysis. So much for listicles.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
MO
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Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
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