Business Diary: Bloomsbury turns off the volume

Strange goings on at Bloomsbury Publishing, whose staff last week posted a video of themselves singing along to "Small Town Girl", the Journey track, on YouTube – much to the amusement of folk on Twitter. Now the video has mysteriously disappeared. Did the Harry Potter publisher take suggestions that their employees had too much time on their hands rather too seriously?

Cable books in with Cowell

So here's your morning quiz question: what do Vince Cable, Ant & Dec and Simon Cowell have in common? Well, according to Travelodge, they are behind the three books most commonly left by travellers in hotel rooms. Vince's work, The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and What it Means, as if you could have forgotten, comes in third behind Ant and Dec and then an unauthorised biography of Cowell. What exalted company the Business Secretary keeps.

Twitter pays its own way

Twitter cynics take note: the social networking site has prompted something of a growth industry. Unemployment may now be rising in many areas of the economy, but in one small niche of the digital world, Twitter is boosting the jobs market, claims Peopleperhour.com. The number of businesses looking for "Twitter consultants" to help them exploit the messaging service has grown by 300 per cent this year, says the online recruitment company.

Saatchi lands red-hot contract

Congratulations to M&C Saatchi, which has picked up a potentially racy new client: the American company ICM Registry, which wants the agency to work on its new project, the .xxx internet web suffix for adult content. ICM, which is run by Briton Stuart Lawley, won the rights earlier this summer and is now working out how best to exploit them. With M&C Saatchi onboard, the advertising campaigns promise to be memorable.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk