Bürohr – business news of the week: After Partyguide.ch and Tilllate, Usgang.ch is now at the end

2023-05-13 21:30:01

After Partyguide.ch and Tilllate, Usgang.ch is now finished

The “Bürorohr” of the Sunday newspaper is an institution. Rumours, farces, success stories: Here you can read what is happening in the economy apart from the big headlines.

Published: 05/13/2023, 23:30

“We’re now checking whether we’re doing a relaunch,” says Pascal Frei, Managing Director of Energy.

Photo: Stefan Bohrer (Keystone)

Clicking through the photos on the website the day after to see if you made it into the photo gallery: for anyone who was a teenager in the early 2000s, this was part of the partying experience. But technological and social change has overtaken the earlier cult portals. After Partyguide.ch and Tilllate, Usgang.ch is now finished. The website has not been available since Friday. In its wildest days, the portal had expanded from Zurich’s Löwenplatz to other Swiss cities and established branch offices in Ticino and western Switzerland. In 2006, Ringier Axel Springer bought Usgang.ch, where it became part of the Energy group. “Usgang.ch hasn’t been doing so well for about ten years. In order to be able to restart business after the pandemic, significant investments would have been necessary, »says Pascal Frei, Managing Director of Energy. That’s why Usgang.ch was temporarily taken offline. He prefers not to speak of a definitive shutdown. “We are now examining whether we should relaunch, sell the brand or end Usgang.ch completely and forever,” he says. And what happens to the hundreds of thousands of sparkling photos? “We save this,” says Frei, “on a secure server.”

After resigning as EU chief negotiator: Livia Leu gives a lecture on “More than neighbors – Switzerland in Europe”

Livia Leo as the chief negotiator with the EU, throws down the begging. Critics speak of a wear and tear at the head of the foreign department. On the same day that Leu’s resignation became known, an e-mail landed in the inboxes of many journalists. The Association of Swiss Companies in Germany invites you to a presentation by State Secretary Livia Leu. The topic: “More than neighbors – Switzerland in Europe”. Bad timing? Not necessarily. Leu becomes the new ambassador in Germany. As such, she may only need to rewrite her speech slightly for the occasion.

Will be the new ambassador in Germany: Livia Leu.

Photo: Gaetan Bally (Keystone)

Migros receives “a handful” of negative reactions to Genderstern in the image campaign

Migros uses the gender star in its new image campaign. Why is the retailer working under the new boss Mario Irminger the special character, even though several surveys show that many Swiss people don’t think much of it? When asked, Migros confirmed that it had received “a handful” of negative reactions to the gender star. But in view of the numerous inquiries on all sorts of other topics, these are only very few. However, Migros itself does not seem entirely convinced. She already used the gender star in the alcohol vote last year, but she refrains from doing so in her media releases – also in “Migros-Magazin”. Sometimes it appears on the job portal, sometimes not. Is that the typical Swiss variety? Perhaps Migros will also do “meh für d Schwiiz” here.

The new Migros boss Mario Irminger.

Photo: Gaetan Bally (Keystone)

Migros launches a new offensive for the Coffee B coffee system

Speaking of Migros: The recently resigned Migros boss Fabrice Zumbrunnen had to answer the question in almost every interview. How is business with the Coffee B coffee system going? One is satisfied, on schedule, success takes time, said the French-speaking Swiss. Sounds more like reluctance on the part of customers than like rapid sales. Migros regularly tries to boost the coffee ball business with discounted machines. Now the orange giant is going one step further: members of the cooperative with a Cumulus card can get the machine for 50 francs and also receive free coffee balls for 50 francs. The machine is actually free. Perhaps this will at least reduce the number of negative online reviews for the machines that have occurred at times. After all, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.