Sporkings: PepsiCo, the owner of Mountain Dew soda brand has rented a bowling alley in Brooklyn to throw a “taste test” party. They were testing the brand new “Ultraviolet” diet soda. Most of the guests were Twitter users and fans. On a projector screen, everybody could watch Twitter search queries related to @mtn_dew and occurrences of the hashtag #newdietdew.
People were really starting to enjoy the new product and Twitter searches for #newdietdew showed that it received very few negative responses to the taste test. From within the guests, one could hear exclamations like “truly the king of sodas,” “like drinking a rainbow…everybody knows the best part is the purple,” and “THE summer cocktail mixer of ‘09.” This could be partly because some tweets could win prizes like an HDTV or a casino weekend package.
In the end, nobody knows for sure if this Twitter advertising campaign will work or not. “You can use Bitly-type links that have specifics and analytics baked in, but you need to have a pretty clear business goal to know whether it worked…Were you trying to raise brand awareness? Were you trying to get a certain amount of traffic to a certain page? You have to be measuring the actual business role you were trying to get done.” – Laura Fitton, Pistachio Consulting.
Pepsi Using Twitter To Market Its Latest Product [Sporkings]
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Cnet News: URL-shortening services are abundant and becoming more so. They're usually designed with a priority on minimum character length, not easy reading: Is.gd, Bit.ly, Twurl.nl, Tr.im, Sn.im", Cligs, and TinyURL.
So what's new now? First, Twitter, and second, shortening URLs is becoming an actual business--notably at present through the addition of "analytics" features that can let those who use the service see data about how many people clicked on links, when, where they're located, and the Web page where they found the shortened link.
One of the problems with short URLs is knowing what you're getting into when you click them. Is that link really the fun video of the guy tripping into the lake, or is it site that will spam you or attempt to install malware? Is it really a warning from your bank about a bad transaction, or is it a phishing attack to try to fool you into parting with your password?
Clicking many regular URLs involves a leap of faith, to be sure, but not being able to see a "youtube.com" or "bankofamerica.com" name because it's masked by a short URL makes that leap even longer.
Read here for more of cnet's insightful article on the URL shortening trend.
URL shortening is hot - but look before you leap [Cnet News]
Examiner.com: Crowdsourcing is a phenomenon that is gaining fast acceptance in the business community and beyond. It has the potential to affect business quite fundamentally and can usher in radical changes to business models and business processes everywhere.
Crowdsourcing is a method that involves and uses “crowds” (i.e., large, undefined, randomly distributed, undirected, unsupervised groups of people) to performs tasks and accomplish goals.
Here are 2 live examples of successful crowdsourcing:
MOBILE PHONE DESIGN
As recently as April - June 2009, LG crowdsourced the design of their next mobile phone. In a job posted to crowdSPRING in April 2009, LG has issued a challenge to people everywhere: Design the future of mobile communication device. Here is what the listing actually said:
“Predict what's next. What do you think mobile phones should look like in 2, 5, or 10 years? We are asking for your help. We're NOT looking for a long list of specs or phone ideas that already exist. We're looking for a cool new concept or "big idea" supported by usage scenario illustrations."
AUDITING EXPENSES FILED BY YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
The U.K. newspaper – Guardian – recently launched a crowdsourcing application called “Investigate your MP's expenses”.
The landing page says it all: “Join us in digging through the 700,000 documents of MPs' expenses to identify individual claims, or documents that you think merit further investigation. You can work through your own MP's expenses, or just hit the button below to start reviewing. (Update, Thurs evening: More added now and more coming all the time. Check back if you haven't found your MP yet).”
Each MP's expenses and claims are presented as a set of images, and users can determine what entries there are on a page, and decide whether the page is unimportant, interesting, "interesting but known" or worthy of investigation.
As of June 18th, the site had 77252 pages of documents, of which 23891 are unreviewed. Click here to launch it.
To read on more about other examples of crowdsourcing, please read on here.
A new Internet gold rush called crowdsourcing [Examiner.com]
FT.com: In recent years, some forward-thinking chefs, who believe that personal expression and creativity are more important than slavish devotion to symbolic luxury goods, have abandoned the antiquated approach of haute cuisine, a style of cooking traditionally based on a few select ingredients.
These forward-thinking chefs are seeking out the highest-quality ingredients, usually from their area, without regard to their place in the traditional fine dining canon. Combined with a deeply held belief in the transformative power of the cooking process, they are setting an example that, if it catches on, could change what we grow and eat, both in restaurants and at home.
Revaluing ingredients – starting with the assumption that a potato or a carrot can taste as exciting as foie gras – is difficult in a high end kitchen. It requires more labour, more imagination, and more carefully sourced ingredients – mediocre foie gras will always seem more “worth it” than a mediocre carrot. It’s riskier as well, going against diners’ deeply ingrained expectations. But as many modern restaurants, such as Noma, have shown, the rewards can be considerable, providing more vibrant, compelling food and a closer emotional connection with their customers.
Carrots are the new caviar [FT.com]
FT.com: There is a new movement afoot. Just as the self-build trend is gathering pace, so too is a new wave in do-it-yourself (DIY) projects for the home – embracing everything from plumbing, woodcarving and pottery to robotics, electronics and recycling.
At the spiritual heart of all this is California-based magazine Make, which, since launching in print and online in 2005, has evolved into a virtual community with an archive of instruction videos, an online store and a network of Maker Faires, one of which was recently held in the UK. Its success is based on rising interest in hobbies with tangible results and the connective power of the internet, which lets enthusiasts share skills.
For even more ambitious DIYers, there is Ponoko, a digital production facility with bases in Wellington, New Zealand and San Franciso, which can cut pieces to any design submitted by a customer from a variety of materials, then deliver them by post. Through the website, currently receiving 500,000 page views per month, visitors can buy one another’s designs and assemble them at home with help from online instruction videos.
“At the moment we’ve aimed it at designers, which is the market that can take advantage of the technology available; the number of consumers that want to design and build unique products is very small at the moment,” says co-founder Derek Elley. But “with education and easier use of technology that could change very fast.”
A new wave of DIY [FT.com]
Packaging Digest: Clever spin on packages such as bottles with diffusion closures, multi-dimensional shapes, feel-good visuals.
Winners of the 46th Annual Package Awards competition of the National Association of Container Distributors (NACD, www.nacdnet), evaluated in February in seven categories, demonstrate clever shapes, functionality and decorating options.
Honored during the association's 2009 annual convention in Las Vegas, in April, the winners include Gold, Silver, and Bronze Awards that were presented to the top three containers in Cosmetics/Personal Care; Drug/Pharmaceutical; Food/Beverage; General Industrial; Household Chemical/Automotive; Novelty; and Pet & Vet categories. Other awards presented include one for a creative Use of stock components, the Bernard M. Seid Best of Show award, and the People’s Choice Award.
The NACD People’s Choice Award went to Bath and Body Works' Halloween promotion, distributed by O. Berk Co. Bath & Body Works produces various bottles for holidays to stimulate product sales and comes up with some interesting shapes: a pumpkin, ghost, bat and snowman. In 2008, the company challenged its packaging suppliers to produce a multi-faced pumpkin bottle for hand soap.
The blow-molded, high-definition bottle has the illusion of three separate pumpkins each enhanced by pad printing that accents features on each pumpkin's face. Topped with a green lotion pump, the pumpkin bottle was deemed a major success in terms of its striking appearance and sales.
NACD Packages of the Year put the spotlight on innovation [Packaging Digest]
Chalfont St Peter: Mums from across Bucks are set to unite when Chalfont St Peter hosts what could become the first of many baby fayres. The event, which will take place on Saturday, September 13, is designed so that women working in the baby industry can promote their businesses to other parents.
Paula Atkinson, of Lansdown Road, Chalfont St Peter, came up with the idea after she started her own business, Chiltern Baby Massage. She said: "I have met lots of women who are in my position, running their own business but struggling to find the time to promote what they do. This is why I looked at the idea of a local baby fayre, an ideal opportunity for working mums to come together and inform other parents about what they do."
"Most of the mums who attend my baby massage classes are new mums and are keen to find various classes, activities and products. I think there are plenty of us mums working for ourselves who can provide the relevant services and products that these new and first time mums are looking for. With this in mind, I contacted as many local women whose businesses deal with babies and toddlers and invited them to come and exhibit at the baby fayre."
The event will include displays from a variety of different organisations including music groups for babies and toddlers, personalised clothing, educational books and wooden toys.
Baby business booms with brand new fayre [Chalfont St Peter]
Express Hospitality: The supermarket has become more than just a place to buy; it is increasingly becoming the place to hang out or unwind.
Supermarkets are slowly replacing bakeries, becoming hangout zones for youngsters, where the cold drink is colder and the snacks are less cumbersome to manage. For men, supermarkets are taking the place of paanwalahs, where they can come in for a quick break and buy cigarettes and cool drinks. The working community looks to these supermarkets as places to unwind before heading towards work or home. These shoppers typically hangout at the doorstep after their purchase and are prime shoppers for impulse products.
These are some of the trends that have been observed based on intensive work that have been done at modern format food and grocery outlets. Action on these lines will not only result in better revenues but will also enhance shopability for the consumer and ultimately lead to enhanced loyalty for the store.
Chew on this trend [Express Hospitality]
San Diego Metro News: Strobe lights, the smell of stale beer, martinis and toddlers. As they say on “Sesame Street,” one of these things is not like the others.
But that's the scene at Aubergine nightclub in San Diego's Gaslamp district on a Sunday afternoon. Young families line up behind a velvet rope to get into a Baby Loves Disco event, where kids can boogie to the beat and their stylish parents can either join in or watch from the sidelines with a drink in hand.
It's the brave new world of parenting, where child and adult worlds often intersect. Forget the old idea of parenthood, a life filled with minivans, Elmo sneakers and trips to Chuck E. Cheese. A growing number of new parents are trying desperately to hang on to their pre-kid lives, replete with cool clothes and hip hangouts, just with slight modifications.
Parenting to a new beat [San Diego Metro News]
GetEntrepreneurial.com: Competition is as inevitable in business as death and taxes are in human existence. Even if your startup business has stolen a march on the rest of the world with your product, service, execution, distribution or customer service, somebody else will inevitably try to chase you down and beat you at your own game.
Most entrepreneurs become concerned about competition early on and never quite shake their fears. In fact, besides tax issues and the matter of health care coverage for their employees, a recent survey reveals competition is the biggest concern of small business owners. And most of them are far more worried about the guy down the street than they are about being stomped by some Fortune 500 corporation.
But there’s one fail-safe way to avoid a preoccupation with your rivals – and that is to focus always on making your startup business the best that it can be. Whether your edge on the competition lies mainly in unique product selection, supreme customer service or cutting-edge marketing, you’ve got to maintain or increase that lead – and then look around for some other way to best your competitors as well.
Beat The Rivals [GetEntrepreneurial.com]
Fast Company: A few years ago, a new sexual classification emerged on the scene. As funny as I thought it was when I first heard the term "metrosexual," I think it's even funnier that it stuck around. Oh no, metrosexuals weren't just a passing fad --people now comfortably identify themselves as such. Now it appears there is a new name for members of the fashion-forward jetsetting set, "Jetrosexuals." Also known as "flash-packers," jetrosexuals revel in fashion and travel.
Applied to individuals who travel worldwide in search of fashion bargains, jetrosexuals are known for having their passport ready to go at a moment's notice, and an eye for stylish, cheap faux couture clothing. Most commonly found travelling from the US to Asia in search of a bargain, jetrosexuals are known to carry little more with them than an iPod and the latest issue of Vogue.
Apparently, the new trend is being fueled by two things: Ridiculous airline discounts that chop $1000 fares to Asia to less than $50 from gateway cities, and the booming Asian textile industry.
And it's not just the jetrosexuals who are evolving -- the money spent on textiles and fashion in Vietnam has brought about dramatic change in the economic and cultural landscape of Hoi An. Although still conjested and plagued with poverty, this city is now known as a tailoring hub. It all started years ago when European and American designers began outsourcing the production of their fabrics to Asia.
What's the Deal With Jetrosexuals? [Fast Company]
The Herald News: Forget swimming lessons and soccer, the latest trend in extracurricular activities for children ages 4 to 16 is cooking class. And not just any cooking class. There are culinary summer camps, cooking birthday parties, private cooking lessons, plus a plethora of new cookbooks for the young chef who aspires to be the next Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay.
"Part of what we are seeing is a trend in 'eatertainment' with all the cooking shows,'' says Stephen Hengst, spokesman for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Indeed, kids even make up a large part of the audiences for cooking shows, says Mark O'Connor, a spokesman for the Food Network, noting that at book-signings and public events, kids flock to see celebrities like Ray and superstar chef Emeril Lagasse.
"Based on our Web site traffic, message boards, mail questions and telephone calls, we know that there are a major amount of kids watching from as young as 5 up to 15 years old," O'Connor says.
For the parents of budding chefs, getting kids in the kitchen for something other than meals is about capturing a bit of nostalgia, says Hengst. "They used to cook with their mother or grandma, but life is so hectic they don't have time to do the same for their kids." So they send them, or go with them, to cooking class.
Kids savor new trend: cooking classes [HeraldNewsOnline.com]
BBC: In the 80s, fast-food burger joints flooded UK town centres. By the 90s, coffee shops took their place on every street corner.
But now that the noughties are well established, the new fast food fight is on a rather healthier battlefield. Warnings about obesity and increased awareness of the importance of eating five fruit a day have fuelled a surge in healthy eating. The UK smoothie market is worth £100m and doubling yearly.
London's Crussh, which opened its 15th branch just off Oxford Street in October, is the UK's biggest smoothie chain. The firm, now eight years old, expects to turn over more than £5m this year.
Smoothies: the new coffee wars? [BBC]
MercuryNews.com: From industry giants Mattel and Hasbro to smaller players LeapFrog and VTech, toy manufacturers are lowering the age ranges for their high-tech and educational offerings at this year's Toy Fair, betting that "toddler tech'' will help reverse several years of slumping sales.
But perhaps most alarming to the toy business is slumping sales, as video games, cell phones and MP3 players compete for kids' attention and parents' dollars. U.S. retail sales for the toy industry as a whole fell 3.6 percent to $21.3 billion in 2005, according to NPD. That followed a decline of 3 percent in 2004.
The toy industry has responded by embracing technology, adding interactivity, creating whole new categories of educational toys and expanding the use of sophisticated electronics in products for kids as young as newborns. Notably, NPD said that sales of learning and exploration toys rose in 2005, adding 6 percent to $400 million.
Toy makers push high tech for tots [MercuryNews.com]
Trendwatching: Remix Culture is about clever programmers modifying Sony's Portable PlayStation days after it hit the shelves Only days in the US this March; remix fanatics have added chat and TV to the device's functionalities, cleverly capitalizing on the PSP's WiFi connection and other built-in, semi-locked online capabilities.
Is Remix Culture a techie-only affair?
Nope. It works just fine for sneakers, too: all over the web, sneaker freaks are uploading pics of their 'remixed' shoes; check out French Shoes-Up, a gallery where Adidas customers display their own version of Adidas' Superstar line, celebrating its 35th anniversary (see picture above). And who by now hasn't heard of the Adidas Zissou sneakers featured in the movie 'The Life Aquatic'. White/yellow sneakers with light blue striping (see below), these fictional shoes had thousands of sneaker freaks lusting after them, until remixers not only designed and produced their own - the DIY guide is still online - but also put them up for sale on eBay earlier this year.
Customer-Made [Trendwatching]
The New York Times: One of the great contradictions of modern American life is that almost everyone watches television while almost no one agrees anymore about what it really means to watch television. True, we know that as spring gets under way, new episodes of ''Desperate Housewives'' and ''C.S.I.'' and ''American Idol'' will battle for prime-time supremacy in the overnight Nielsen ratings. We also know that local broadcast stations around the country will begin scheming -- just as they do every April -- to win the May sweeps, the tense weeks when rival stations pursue a fierce one-upmanship of flamboyance and hype and the Nielsen-measured audience sizes determine future advertising rates. But when it comes to figuring out how many of us are watching these shows, and whether we're paying attention while we're watching and even whether we're actually noticing the advertisements among the shows we may or may not be watching -- well, this is where things get tricky.
For the past decade or so, watching television in America has been defined by the families recruited by Nielsen Media Research who have agreed to have an electronic meter attached to their televisions or to record in a diary what shows they watch. This setup may not last much longer. Just as programmers and advertisers are clamoring for a better understanding of the television audience, a wave of new consumer products has made it increasingly difficult to satisfy them. One day this January I sat in a Greenwich Village workroom with Bob Luff, the chief technology officer at Nielsen, as he pulled out gadget after gadget to show me what he's up against. Luff seemed to view the modern American home as a digital zoo where the lion is about to lie down with the lamb: radio is going on the Web, TV is going on cellphones, the Web is going on TV and everything, it seems, is moving to video-on-demand (V.O.D.) and (quite possibly) the iPod and the PlayStation Portable. ''Television and media,'' Luff said over the noise of five sets tuned to five different channels, ''will change more in the next 3 or 5 years than it's changed in the past 50.''
Our Ratings, Ourselves [The New York Times]
NewsTarget.com: According to a study conducted by market researchers Constat Inc. and The Kelsey Group, 70 percent of American households now find local businesses using the Internet. A poll conducted in October 2003 found the figure to be 60 percent, with 73 percent using the local newspaper. If current trends continue, the Internet will become more popular for local business searches than newspapers in the next year.
Consumers using internet to find local shopping, says study [NewsTarget]
Gannett News Service: Emulating A-listers such as Gwyneth Paltrow or Halle Berry is a snap: The latest celebrity-channeling accessory is a set of prosthetic choppers modeled after Hollywood's most Chiclet smiles.
Think of the snap-on smile as the white-enameled cousin to the press-on nail. Think of it as yet more evidence of a public firmly sinking its incisors into celebrity culture. Only with this device, attaining Julia Roberts' million-dollar grin doesn't set someone back nearly that much. The resin appliance, which fits snugly over existing teeth, goes for $1,000 to $3,000.
The teeth also are more proof of dentistry's changing focus. "It's not just for health," says Jeff Golub-Evans, a Manhattan cosmetic dentist. "More and more patients go to dentists to look better rather than to feel better."
Copying celebrity smiles is the latest dental trend [Shreveport Times]
Wired News: Sure, it's still March, but summer's fast approaching. For a high school or college student, that means job-hunting season will soon be under way. Plenty of places on the internet are geared toward helping would-be employees find a job. But what if you're looking for seasonal or part-time employment -- is there a more appropriate place to hit up than traditional job sites?
Some websites cater to just those needs. GrooveJob.com, Teens4Hire.org and student-run newcomer JobSherpa.com purport to help students find jobs and refine their employment-seeking skills. Even the federal government has jumped into the act with its site, Studentjobs.gov.
The sites generally operate by charging employers a fee to advertise open positions. Students can search open postings for free, with or without registering, depending on the site. Some also offer extras like résumé-building help or tips for getting through an interview.
Those running the sites say they're more useful to students and those in their teens to early 20s than general job sites are because they list high-turnover, entry-level positions. They might also lead students to jobs with nontraditional hours for those with college schedules to accommodate.
"If you come to our site you'll see not only do we have the right type of jobs that will fit around your schedule ... but we have all the tools, all the resources," said David Hunegnaw, a partner and one of three founders of GrooveJob.com.
Student Job Sites Hit or Miss [Wired News]
The Sunday Times - Business: Experience shows that if you can spot a trend in the market and get your products out there quickly, the rewards can be immense. And the good news is that small- or medium-sized firms are often able to move faster than the big companies.
So how do you spot a trend? David Lewis, who runs the marketing consultancy Neurinx 2, said: “The secret of success is to find out exactly what is going on in the marketplace. You can’t do it from behind a desk: you need to get out there and listen to people.
“Big companies employ cool hunters to find out what is going on. If a firm makes trendy clothes for young people, for example, the cool hunter will go round the clubs the young people go to. Owners of small businesses have to be their own cool hunters.”
HOW TO: Take advantage of the latest trend [TIMES Online]
INVESTORS.com: Colorful shirts, pretty prints and sharp men's suits brought a new look to the apparel industry in 2004. The industry's finances were brighter as well.
Apparel sellers took a beating when the economy went into recession in 2001. Sales declined for three years. But last year, apparel industry revenue finally rose again.
Growth is expected to continue this year. Consumers will likely replace pants, shirts and blouses they've been wearing for several years when money was tight, says analyst Marshal Cohen at the research firm NPD Group.
"After all, you can only wear your khakis for so long before they wear out or don't fit anymore," Cohen noted in a recent report.
During the 1990s, apparel sales grew at a steady pace, peaking in 2000 at almost $176 billion. Last year they nearly reached that peak again, with sales hitting $173 billion. That was up 4% from 2003's $166 billion. Analysts expect industry revenue to reach an all-time high this year.
Apparel Market Wearing Well [INVESTORS.com]
The Economic Times: These two gentlemen personify the global ambitions of their companies. Jalaj Dani, the thirty-something scion of Asian Paints practically lives out of his suitcase.
He has to. Asian Paints, manufactures in 21 countries, are a licensee in 4, and sells in 65 countries, employing 1,400 people outside India from 22 nationalities .
Since 1999, the company has gone on an acquisition spree, lapping up companies around the world, including the troubled paint maker Berger. "It's our aim to be among the top paint companies in the world," says Dane.
In another part of the world, Chuanzhi Liu, chairman of Lenovo Group, acquired IBM's PC business some days ago. With this acquisition, he created the world's third largest PC company, with approximately $12 billion annual revenues for 2003, and has even shifted the headquarters to New York. The total deal was worth $1.75 billion.
"As Lenovo's founder, I am excited by this breakthrough in Lenovo's journey towards becoming an international company. I have been delighted to watch Lenovo become a truly world-class company," Liu was reported to have said.
The two companies that these gents represent portray the rise of their respective country's businesses into multinational companies.
New emerging trends in India, China [The Economic Times]
Technology Review: Ten thousand songs in your pocket. Millions of tunes on the Internet at your fingertips. And books on tape -- they're going down the path of vinyl records.
Welcome to the new world of digital audio.
Though the first portable MP3 player debuted in 1999, most personal music libraries still consist of piles of CDs, and relatively few people listen to digitally recorded radio talk shows and books.
The consumer electronics industry is doing its best to change that, there being serious lucre in prodding people to join the digital audio revolution as long as it's convenient.
At this week's International Consumer Electronics Show, it was impossible to walk more than a few feet in the 1.5-million-square feet of exhibition space without stumbling over a digital audio equipment display.
Digital Audio Aims for the Mass Market [Technology Review]
TrendTracker: The future is likely to be the age of virtual businesses. The newly opened two-person office will be able to look big, established, and successful. Build a really good website, toss in some color printers, fast computers, and cell phones, and you're halfway there. After that, it's a question of leveraging your creativity and ability to partner with other entrepreneurs.
The virtual business is the epitome of the less is more dictum -- less expense leaving more profit.
Not every business in the future will be able to go virtual -- at least we don't think so today. But as the line between what's virtual and what's real blurs, going virtual will become more attractive.
Let's make one thing clear, virtual doesn't mean the business isn't for real. It just means all that heavy, expensive stuff won't be sitting there eating money when not in use.
Who cares whether the home office of Acme Thingamajig has 300,000 square feet as long as Acme is able to deliver those thingamjigs. Performance is what counts, not the number of employees or the size of the company cafeteria.
Trend: Small Businesses go Virtual [TrendTracker]
Small Business Trends: The Death of Distance - "Telecommuters and remote workers are closing in. Recent improvements to enterprise voice-over-IP (VoIP) are promising to make the concept of location irrelevant." The article points out that users of enterprise VoIP are finding out the cool things that can be done with it, not just the cost savings. Those cool things -- such as integrating with Microsoft Outlook -- will help make distance among workers irrelevant.
Desktop Search Heats Up - The amount of data that users store on their desktop computers is exploding. A whole new industry has popped up to enable users to search their desktop files easily, including Google's desktop search tool, and startup Blinkx.
Rise in Web Services - The ability to transmit data on the Web and make it really useful, go the heart of Web services. By the end of 2005, 45% of companies will use Web services. Even bloggers: "Protocols like Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom have caught on among bloggers, allowing them to make their content available to anyone to pour into their own web pages. By the end of 2006, most vendors of web publishing software will incorporate support for RSS in their products, according to Gartner."
Home Sweet Digital Home - Red Herring says that the digital home -- with interconnected devices all around us -- is finally becoming a reality. Computers and entertainment products are converging, to bring unprecendented amounts of entertainment and digital content to us in our living rooms. "The ultimate winners will be companies that adopt Internet-based platforms, open standards, and customer-friendly products, which could most likely mean startups with new ideas and innovative technologies."
Top Technology Trends for 2005 [Small Business Trends]
Business 2.0 Blog: Craigslists, the biggest online business still pretending not to be a real business, knocked another company out, a San Francisco area apartment listing service. The San Francisco Chronicle notes that:
RentTech, which bought Berkeley's Rental Solutions about five years ago, closed earlier this fall. Two other rental services -- San Jose's Home Renters Guide and Berkeley Connection -- were purchased and folded into San Francisco's MetroRent in 1999 and 2000.
There's one other way to look at this. Part of the reason for the collapse is that the residential rentals are getting cheaper and cheaper. Which suggests that housing prices here are really getting out of control. Read more about the relationship of rents to housing prices here.
Rental Listing Firms Fail [Business 2.0 Blog]
TrendTracker: The future is likely to be the age of virtual businesses. The newly opened two-person office will be able to look big, established, and successful. Build a really good website, toss in some color printers, fast computers, and cell phones, and you're halfway there. After that, it's a question of leveraging your creativity and ability to partner with other entrepreneurs.
The virtual business is the epitome of the less is more dictum -- less expense leaving more profit.
Not every business in the future will be able to go virtual -- at least we don't think so today. But as the line between what's virtual and what's real blurs, going virtual will become more attractive.
Let's make one thing clear, virtual doesn't mean the business isn't for real. It just means all that heavy, expensive stuff won't be sitting there eating money when not in use.
Who cares whether the home office of Acme Thingamajig has 300,000 square feet as long as Acme is able to deliver those thingamjigs. Performance is what counts, not the number of employees or the size of the company cafeteria.
Trend: Small Businesses go Virtual [TrendTracker]
smallbusinesses.blogspot.com: "Entrepreneurs can be tempted to "push" the financials to show more value than can be supported. That's especially true in service and technology businesses.
For example, Internet entrepreneurs have a hard time valuing Internet traffic in a business plan. During the days of the dotcom boom, traffic tended to be overvalued. Today at least the overvaluation is gone. But even today there's still no good way to place a value on Internet traffic per se.
The same is true for a service company with a strong name and reputation. Capturing the value of "brand" is a challenge. One high profile example I can think of is LLBean's accumulated relations with customers -- its brand reputation. There is tremendous value in LLBean's brand reputation. Yet, LLBean's brand value is not something than can be captured adequately in the company financials."
Business Plans -- The Inside Scoop [Small Business Trends]
Adverblog: A study by IDC (U.S. Wireless Wallpaper and Graphical Content 2004-2008 Forecast) reveals that graphical content has emerged in 2004 as the fastest-growing mass market for wireless data in the United States. The business, which includes wallpapers, caller ID graphics and screensavers, should grow from just under $150 million this year to over $1.1 billion by 2008.
Despite this interesting indication, low penetration levels of advanced handsets, lack of digital rights management standards, lack of cross-carrier shortcodes and relatively low user awareness of the availability of such content still represent a huge obstacle to the business development.
Emerging market for mobile graphical content [Adverblog]
Entrepreneur.com: From high-tech clothes to wine, eBay drop-off stores to tech security, the business ideas on our 2005 hot list run the gamut. But they have one thing in common: They're sizzling hot and just waiting for you to bring them to life.
13 Hot Businesses for 2005 [Entrepreneur.com]
Having a branded product isn't enough these days for the truly affluent. Apparently, there is a new trend in fashion where rich customers are seeking out unusual, personalised products that suit their wimps and fancies. Luxury brands from Gucci to Goyard are tapping on this new trend and offering personalized touches that allow customers to choose the color, fabric and even inscribe a personal, handwritten message on the lining, according to the New York Post.
This spring, Giorgio Armani will introduce the "Giorgio Armani Atelier" program for clients willing to pay upward of $40,000 for a one-of-a-kind evening gown. Such personalized services are "a direct reaction to the saturation of the market by some labels, which have sought to impose the 'must have' accessory upon everyone," said Gaetano Sallorenzo, Armani's U.S. president of sales and marketing. For the truly inspired, the possibilities are endless. Verdura, a jeweler founded by an Italian Duke in 1939, recently mailed its latest catalog composed entirely of one-of-a-kind pieces such as a $115,000 sunburst brooch.
Read: Anything Won't Do [NYPost]
According to the New York Times, more retailers are rushing to take advantage of what has become a $17 billion market for room furnishings designed to appeal directly to school-age youths.
It is a market, said Michael Wood, a vice president at Teenage Research Unlimited, that has "really exploded in the last two years." And instead of leaving furnishing decisions to their parents, older teenagers and their 8- to 14-year-old sisters and brothers - called "tweens" by retailers - are proud, insistent even, about making those decisions themselves. Last year, teenagers and tweens spent an average of $386 each to decorate their own rooms - more than double the figure of a decade ago, according to Wonder Group, a youth-marketing company in Cincinnati.
Read: A young market that is growing fast [New York Times via IHT]
Genencor International, a US-based biotech company, has an ingeniuous way to keep its thousands of employees happy and productive: by allowing them to design their own headquarters. Fast Company reports:
Genencor International's headquarters in Palo Alto are the physical manifestation of what happens when you effectively transform employees into designers of their own work environment. The 1,260-employee, $380 million company, which focuses on health-care products and enzymes, such as those used in Tide laundry detergent, has generated remarkable worker loyalty and greater productivity. Its turnover rate was less than 4% in 2003. The national industry average is 18.5% and the Bay Area's is 17.8%, according to the Radford Surveys. This isn't a one-year blip either. When the economy was roaring in the late 1990s, Genencor's turnover rate hovered around the same level.
Better than stock options, eh?
Read: Mutual Benefit [Fast Company]
According to this Reuters article, Microsoft and dozens of other big-name technology companies, from France's Alcatel to Japan's Sony Corp to chipmakers like Intel Corp, are betting that big money can be made in the years ahead by changing forever the way that news, entertainment and information reach consumers: digitally, and over the Internet.
"It's all about giving consumers the freedom to access the information and entertainment they care about in the way that suits them best," said Lichtman, who leads Microsoft Corp's TV software business.
Insightful analysis of how the trend will further develop makes this article a highly useful one for all of us who are interested in taking a slice of the pie of the 'digital homes' market that is simply growing by the days.
Read: Digital Home to Set Off Next Big Electronics Wave [Reuters via Yahoo! News]
Small Business Trends reports on a new trend in the tourism market: the emergence of small boutique hotels that compete against large hotel chains by offering a unique vacation experience. In the article, General Manager of The Hibernation Station, Zack Paul, is quoted as saying:
"A small steady migration is taking place toward privatizing hotels. Hotels that have been part of a chain are breaking off and new ones are being put up without a franchise. These small private hotels are sought after mostly for something they offer that is different. It could be a mystical offering or just something romantic or representing the environment of the area in which they are located. The franchise hotels, on the other hand, deliver consistency no matter where you stay across the globe."
Read: Small Boutique Hotels Growing [Small Business Trends]
The major affluent tech markets are maturing, with sales getting more sluggish by the years. Undoubtedly, the new growth markets will be those of China, India, Thailand, Brazil, and so on. With the masses in such countries getting richer, a golden opportunity presents itself in the developing world for tech companies to cash in on the new big wave. Business Week describes the new opportunities:
During the first 50 years of the info-tech era, about 1 billion people have come to use computers, the vast majority of them in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. But those markets are maturing. Computer industry sales in the U.S. are expected to increase just 6% per year from now to 2008, according to market researcher IDC. To thrive, the industry must reach out to the next 1 billion customers. And many of those people will come not from the same old places but from far-flung frontiers like Shanghai, Cape Town, and Andhra Pradesh. "The robust growth opportunities are clearly shifting to the developing world," says Paul A. Laudicina, managing director at management consultant A.T. Kearney Inc.
Read: Tech's Future [BusinessWeek]
In recent days, news headlines are dominated by how the rapid growth of Asian countries like China and India is providing lots of opportunities to strike it rich. With the Iraq war and terrorism in the Middle East, one could be forgiven for overlooking the region as a potential growth market. Despite its many problems, the Middle East continues to hold a lot of promise for the world's capitalists. The region won't be spared from the culture of consumerism, as highlighted in an article by an Egyptian newspaper.
If we try to imagine what the cities of the Middle East will look like in 20 or 50 years time, we might predict that the majority will consist of creeping slums and rampant poverty, coexisting cheek by jowl with international hotels and large spaces dedicated to consumption and leisure time for those who can afford it. Disneyfied satellite cities in the desert will provide suburban annexes for the well-to-do. Modern communication systems and technologies, at least in the formal sector of the economy, will be as efficient as those of any Western country.
Read: Brave New Mall [Al-Ahram Weekly]
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