The dark clouds of recession are upon us. People want answers to their quesions. "What's the Fed going to do about this? Can I sell my house in this market? Will my business fail?" Business too seeks answers. The Wall Street Journal looks closely at the key retail sector after weak holiday spending. Chains are slamming the brakes on store openings, cutting back on inventory and girding for leaner times as consumer …
Faux Paparazzi
Time Magazine has a disturbing story about people paying faux paparazzi up to $1500 to follow them around town with cameras. The trend is driven by the twin obsessions with chronicling one's life and experiencing fame. "We live in a culture where if it's not documented, it doesn't exist," says Josh Gamson, a University of San Francisco professor of sociology who studies culture and mass media. "And if you don't have …
Free Idea for Howard Schultz
For any brand that builds community in real life, doing so online is a natural. Starbucks wants to be your community gathering spot. In many cases, it is. But I feel Starbucks has a ways to go online. Here's what I can "discover" about my local Starbucks on the company's site: I'd like to discover more than that. I'd like to see a list of the people working there, with a little bio on each. They know my name. I want …
Studying Silicon Valley’s Higher Math
Microsoft's $240 million investment in Facebook, which bought them a paltry 1.6% of the company, might now be a model for other social media investments. According to The New York Times, Slide, the maker of applications for social networks, has raised another round of funding – $50 million from the private equity funds at Fidelity and T-Rowe Price, two major Wall Street investment houses. The firms have taken a nine …
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Daily Tweet
Evan "Ev" Williams is a native Nebraskan who went on to help create Blogger, which he and his partners then sold to Google. Now, he and Biz Stone have Twitter and whatever else becomes Obvious. …
Quills Shoot From Her Head
Trade show advertising isn't exactly the sexy stuff ad people clamor to do. Which is too bad, because consumers have nothing to do but wander from booth to booth between cocktails. In other words, it's the perfect time to engage the audience. The ad above (for an unknown intellectual property company) is part of Engadget's "best of the worst" collection from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year. …
We Can Do Better Than Coal
According to The Washington Post, the coal industry is fighting for Mr. Peabody, even though his coal train long ago hauled it away. In Kansas, where a state agency rejected a permit for two proposed coal plants, opinion polls show that roughly two out of three people opposed the plants. That sentiment, plus soaring construction costs and uncertainty about federal climate change legislation, last year prompted U.S. …
One Little Password For One Gigantic Interweb
According to Wired, Yahoo's adoption of OpenID is a huge victory for the OpenID foundation. Until now, despite support from larger sites like AOL and Plaxo, OpenID has remained largely a tool of the geek-elite, but Yahoo’s announcement is set to change that since it provides even those Yahoo users who’ve never heard of OpenID a simple way to use it. And that in turn gives startup sites an even greater incentive to …
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