'Tis the season for year-end lists of every variety. Time Magazine has 50 such lists, one of which--Top 10 websites--I'd like to take a closer look at. 1. Lemonade.com 2. AskSunday.com 3. Wink.com 4. TechPresident.com 5. GoodReads.com 6. MenuPages.com 7. DontForgetYourToothbrush.com 8. VolunteerMatch.com 9. Fatsecret.com 10. Indeed.com It's pretty easy to see the common thread here--services made possible, or made …
Gisele Scoffs At Our Measly Dollars
The U.S. dollar is in trouble. And people with money know it. According to Bloomberg, the dollar has lost 34 percent of its value since 2001 and investors say it will weaken further as home sales fall and the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates. The dollar plummeted to its lowest ever last week against the euro, Canadian dollar and Chinese yuan. It is also the cheapest in 26 years against the British pound. Which is …
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Russians To See More Ads
Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising and marketing giant WPP Group PLC, is bullish on Russia. In Moscow for a WPP board meeting, Mr. Sorrell said WPP wants to quadruple the size of its Russian business over the next five years. "Our business in Russia is the smallest in the BRICs, but it's the fastest-growing," he said, referring to Brazil, Russia, India and China. New acquisitions in Russia this year have …
Big Money In Sales
Fortune reports that the job du jour is online ad sales rep. In fact, the field is so hot, journalist Jessi Hempel was offered a "mid-six-figure" salary by a CEO to defect while reporting the story. Hiring a sales director "is the single biggest challenge that we have faced," says Dina Kaplan, co-founder of Blip.tv, a video-sharing site. Kaplan says she spends as much as six hours a day searching for the right …
When The Economy Tanks…
The dollar sank to a record low against the euro Thursday and traded at parity against the Canadian currency for the first time since 1976. In semi-related news, A VC sees a downturn coming in Web 2.0 products and services. The venture market in any industry (biotech, nanotech, green tech, comm equipment, web, etc) does best when the supply of new companies is relatively modest and the demand to invest in them is …
Not A Pretty Picture
A credit crunch, sparked by the subprime crisis, prompted depositors to make the first run on a British bank in a generation, developers of London's tallest skyscraper to postpone construction plans and economists to warn that economic growth will shrink. [via USA Today] …
The High Cost of Pulling Riches from Silicon Valley Salt Mines
I didn't even need to open to the Business section of today's Sunday Times to find a disgusting article about wealth, status and the American dream. For today, the article is conveniently splashed across the front page. Hal Steger, the gentle creature depicted above, is a marketing executive worth $3.5 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. Yet each …
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Consumer Resistance Mounts
Do you need proof that 99.9% of the ads currently in circulation suck? If you do need such evidence, Associated Press has it. Consumers put away their wallets in June, sending retail sales crashing by the sharpest amount in nearly two years. The Commerce Department reported today that retail sales fell by 0.9 percent last month, the biggest drop since August 2005. Demand for autos, furniture and building supplies all …
