Way back in January, we spent some time going over this season’s transfers of each team in the Premiership. After continuing to update the information as the season has progressed, we’ve seen some movement in the table we built to track the most economical teams, in terms of points gained vs. money spent. We’ve also included some other facts that we worked out at the time, such as the tidbit that the total cost of all transfers in 2007/08 is an estimated 615,507,256 million pounds (this is the same as the GDP of Ghana or Bahrain).

As of March 21st 2008 the table of Cost per point won in the Premiership stands at

Blackburn £94,522

Reading £175,714

Arsenal £301,493

Aston Villa £379,571

Everton £415,179

Wigan £491,079

Birmingham £590,704

Bolton £595,920

Chelsea £686,154

West Ham £687,674

Portsmouth £814,980

Middlesbrough £908,065

Newcastle £917,241

Man City £ 982,292

Man Utd £1,035,714

Liverpool £1,049,631

Fulham £1,266,261

Derby £1,594,800

Tottenham £1,611,111

Sunderland £1,622,222

As we can see from this table, the most economical team in the Premier League is Blackburn, who are currently sitting 9th in the table. Mark Hughes has only made a few additions to his squad this season, with the only significant amount of cash going towards Roque Santa Cruz from Bayern Munich. This is an indication of the solid squad that they had at the start of the season.

While Arsenal are the most economical team of the “Big Four” in terms of points-per-pound, perhaps given their recent dip in form in the league they may have been better off splashing more cash on bolstering their squad in the January transfer window?

Sunderland find themselves propping up the bottom of this table; however, they invested over £40M in players in the effort of remaining in the Premier League, which, given the financial stakes, seems understandable. Tottenham, on the other hand, are renowned for paying large transfer fees and yet they sit second from the bottom of our table.

Finally we come to Derby and Fulham, who have both spent heavily as well and not seen the payoff from these investments. These teams find themselves in the wrong end of all the tables under discussion, and with games running out to turn it around, the clubs face dire consequences.

Some other stats gleaned from this research were:

• Average cost of a transfer in the Premier League this season: £3.344 million
• Average cost of a transfer by the “Big Four” this season: £7.071 million
• Average cost of a transfer by the rest of the league this season: £2.413 million

And now the final stats and the title of the post what is the price of Premiership Success?

• With today’s exchange rate, 1 point costs an average of £811,017
• To build a Premiership winning side you would need to spend £69,504,178 (based on the average points totals of the previous winners)
• To survive in the Premiership you would need to spend £32,873,229 (based on the average points totals of the teams which finished 4th bottom and survived relegation)

Yahoo has announced that it intends to implement some of the key standards of the “semantic web.” This move could have major implications for the way we all search in the future, so naturally, we here at Texperts sat up and took notice.

Texperts have a battery of trusted sources to answer most of the questions customers ask, but we also trawl the web for solutions when necessary. Google’s search engine is an enormously powerful tool, and most folks only need to tap a small portion of its potential for their daily search needs. But in addition to those under-used features, there is a whole universe of meta-data out there (some of which Google is already using to compile its page rankings), and more is on the way. All of which has the potential to create a more efficient way of representing and co-ordinating data on the World Wide Web.

The format has struggled a bit, but Yahoo’s endorsement could mean big things for the future of the semantic web. But will it be the glorious solution to all of our searching needs that its boosters promise? Not everyone thinks so. According to one pundit, there are “at least seven insurmountable obstacles between the world as we know it and meta-utopia.” While he goes a little over the top in enumerating the venality, sloth, and self-interest of people and organisations, he’s got some valid points: classification systems are not neutral, and there is an almost infinite potential for ambiguity, error, and “gaming the system.”

In controlled environments, the semantic web can be an enormously powerful tool with the potential to revolutionise the way we search. But as we all know, the web isn’t like that. As these tools emerge, we’ll need to pay closes attention to where the best implementations are emerging, and how to get the most out of them. Appropriately enough, this’ll take some searching…

It’s been an exciting week in Texperts Towers, especially with the induction of Paul Smith as out new music blogger. Check out his inaugural blog on Duffy in Music Texpertise. Other listening pleasures include:

Gnarles Barkley - Gone Daddy Gone: A video tour-de-force from the unstoppable Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse. What could make Gnarles Barkley better? Why, covering the Violent Femmes of course!

Violent Femmes - American Music: We like American Music. Best! Baby…

Ghostface Killah & Amy Winehouse - You Know I’m No Good: Controversial comments from Darren this week about Paul Smith’s Welsh Angel, so here’s a fallen angel for the Dazza instead. Add Eric’s favourite member of the Wu-Tang clan - Staten’s ageless Ghostface Killa - and the phattest Brooklyn funk band on the planet, and you’ve got a sure-fire winner.

Black Mountain - Angels: Notice a theme emerging here? Vancouver’s Black Mountain has been catching Eric’s ear for many a moon. Their new album is stunning - prog, 70s sludge-rock, and a fragile-yet-manly rock tenor combine with an arsenal of fuzz pedals and analogue synths in their latest release. Rock salvation.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights: Mighty, booty-shaking funk. The aforementioned Brooklyn funk. Plus an American diva. Killer. Henry endorses.

Aha - Take on Me: Fred can’t get enough of this tune - or its pomo counterpart.

Tangerine Dream - Rubycon: Sometimes it’s hard to be a techie. Paul loves Tangerine Dream but meets resistance from Texperts Towers when he tries to rock this glorious, analogue sequencer-driven 70s mayhem.

Prince - Purple Rain: Thomas stunned the office with an all-Prince afternoon this week, and we’ve all been wearing purple ever since.

Welsh Male Voice Choir - Cwm Rhondda: Rhod is psyching himself up for the rugger this weekend by rocking out to the rousing strains of Welsh choirs. Of course, the office supports him 100%. Help me Rhondda?

Motorhead - The Ace of Spades: Sarah’s motorbiking anthem. Look out.

I remember the day clearly, as if it was yesterday. In fact it was yesterday, although I also possess an exceptional memory.

The petulant storms were whipping at our window when without warning, a heavenly sound filled the air, the voice an angel no less, glorious and holy. And the world suddenly seemed a better place for it; the rain wasn’t so miserable, the wind not so irascible and skies cleared, blue as a shark hat. The voice belonged to diminutive Welsh popster Duffy, as the radio belted out her uber-slick, Motown-groomed anthem Mercy. It’s a gloriously kitsch throwback to the Sixties that never fails to brighten up the grayest of days.

Duffy is the hottest act in UK music right now, and deservedly so. Mercy has racked up four weeks as the country’s number one single, and her debut album Rockferry sold 184,000 copies in the first seven days when it was released last Monday - nearly as many copies as the rest of the top ten albums sales combined. Together the two releases have achieved a simultaneous number one single and album, which according to Music Week is a feat only nine female solo artists can lay claim to. Barbara Streisand, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Kylie Minogue, Beyonce, Leona Lewis, and now Duffy have all achieved the double.

Madonna is the ninth, though she has topped both charts on three occasions; according to everyhit.com’s date engine these were in June 1986 (Papa Don’t Preach / True Blue), March 1989 (Like a Prayer / Like a Prayer) and November 2005 (Hung Up/Confessions On A Dance Floor).

Meanwhile Mercy had sold 215,731 copies up until Sunday, and is the third best-selling single of the year, behind Nickelback’s Rockstar (250,316 copies sold) and Basshunter’s Now You’re Gone (305,375). Universal support from tv and radio means a fifth week at number one is likely. Aimee Anne Duffy, then. Girls respect her because of her (apparently) effortless, natural ways, and boys adore her because, well - just because. And everyone loves her music, as sweet and fattening as a spoon of Lyons Golden Syrup licked by Marlena Shaw.

And if you needed further proof of angelic qualities, there’s a story making the rounds of Duffy’s chance encounter with a down-and-out-record songwriter that changed his life forever. Coincidence? Or divine intervention? 78% of Americans can’t be wrong…

The prestigious MediaGuardian Innovation Awards have come and gone, and in a tightly-fought competition, Sarah is a runner up in “Rising Star of the Year” category. Here’s what the judges had to say:

“Sarah McVittie is the founder and CEO of the Texperts, a UK-based service which lets people text in any question and have it answered within minutes. This year alone she has effectively steered her company through a complete rebrand, tripled the size of the company to 265 people in order to meet the demand and successfully raised £1.5 million of funding to take the company to the next stage.”

The event itself was great, according to Sarah, and she was glad to see other industry movers and shakers there, including SMS Text News stalwart Ewan MacLeod. All in all, being recognised at the inaugural MediaGuardian Awards is a real honour for Texperts, and a feather in Sarah’s cap.