November 2004 Archives
ZD Net: Nanotech golf ball corrects its own flight. Golf ball developed by NanoDynamics in Buffalo, N.Y., expected to hit stores in the spring and cost about $7 each.
Pansonic decides to stop making VHS recorders and a major retailer in Britain decides this month to stop selling them. The days of VHS are numbered. From Lockergnome's Tech News Watch: Converting VHS to DVD.
Business First of Buffalo: Commercial banks: Spitzer's next target?
Phoenix Business Journal: Flight schools soaring again
Puget Sound Business Journal: Low-carb fare is losing its luster
Dallas Business Journal: Desperately seeking drivers: Trucking industry losing business for lack of gear-jammers
Puget Sound Business Journal: New military target: payday loans
Phoenix Business Journal: Cold meds restrictions rankle retailers
Sacramento Business Journal: Retiree finds success marketing once-forgotten route across U.S.
Oligopoly Watch: DVDs triumphant. The main source of revenue for movie studio feature films is now the DVD release (63 percent) compared to 21 percent from the box office. "On the whole, however, the DVD is making the movie industry more than ever into the beneficiary and slave of the same market forces as face Coca Cola and Colgate."
If you need more suggestions on writing for the web, especially with a business blog, go to BusinessLogs and their PDF on Writing for the Web.
Among the suggestions:
* Break articles up with headings.
* Use meaningful titles that tell the reader what the section is about.
* Use bold text to place emphasis on important words and phrases.
* Start the article with a short summary.
* Short paragraphs, especially in longer articles.
NY Times: What Wal-Mart Knows about Customers' Habits. It another of those Wal-Mart articles that creates both admiration and concern, such as Fast Company: The Wal-Mart You Don't Know. Their vast amounts of data, more than twice the amount available on the internet, gives them the ability to see that demand for Pop-Tarts and beer will go up before a hurricane. They make sure there's plenty in effected stores.
They are tough competitors and do so many things with brutal efficiency. We as consumers enjoy those low prices, while at the same worry about what else are we buying with Wal-Mart's low prices. One view of the Sears/Kmart merger announced this week is that combining the two will create a stronger competitor to Wal-Mart (NY Times: Trying to Get Big Enough to Battle Wal-Mart).
CBS MarketWatch: The free vs. subscription debate: Commentary: Did the online ad model win?. "So now that the Web has been commercial for about 10 years, can we conclude that the online advertising model for news is a better mousetrap than a subscription-based model? Apparently."
GlennLog: What Bandwith RSS Uses. This article takes a look at the growing bandwidth on this well-known tech blog through its RSS feed. The problem isn't RSS as it is ill-behaved aggregators that hit the same sites repeatedly even when the sites are not updated. Its become a costly issue for bloggers when they face bandwidth surcharges.
NY Times: Work Out Now, Ache Later: How Your Muscles Pay You Back. The old culprit was lactic acid. Now scientists aren't sure. They're focusing on the theory that the pain is caused by microscopic tears in the muscles.
Boston Business Journal: Tomato squeeze: Shortage hits eateries
San Francisco Business Times: Buffett betting big on workers' comp: Oracle of Omaha sees billion-dollar opportunity in California
Washington Bureau: VCs see federal R&D cuts, but gold in Calif.
BBC News: How to smash a home computer. Freezing hard drive not recommended for repairing hardware.
Tabloid newspapers (size not content) are looking like the new thing for print newspapers. Since converting to a tabloid, Times of London, the paper's environment has changed dramatically. The editor of the Times says the changes were driven by the realization of what the internet is doing to people's reading habits and tabloids were a better format for that. Tip: The Pomo Blog.
Romenesko points to a Chicago Tribune article where design guru Mario Garcia reiterating his prediction from 1996 that a large number of daily newspapers will be tabloid format by 2020.
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch: Your Odds of Becoming an Identity Theft Victim. Odds are 1 in 465.
HometownLocator offers lots of info on 42,500 U.S. cities, towns and ZIP Codes. Tip: ResearchBuzz.
Minonline: How Not to Be Your Print Magazine Online. "Most brands have gotten beyond that early online impulse to recreate their magazines online and have discovered that extending a brand online means locating and focusing on its core competency in a task-oriented Web environment."
Examples: "At People Online, the staff recently moved onto the same floor as the print side, yet the editorial direction of the Web site has become much more focused on a core competency, using the Web to break celebrity news." and at "Fortune.com the emphasis has turned to print archives for financial researchers and deeper versions of the famous "lists" of corporate and individual wealth."
Oligopoly Watch: Betting on solar power. This entry by Steve Hannaford looks at how large energy and technologies dominante the field. A few days earlier, he had this entry, "Wal-Mart and the landscape," looking at the difficulty of filling their space when the Wal-Mart and other giant retailers move into other buildings in the area or close.
NY Times: "How to Avoid Living Like a Poor Student at Age 70" by Ben Stein. Putnam Investments releases this week a survey of 2,000 recent retirees (within six years) finding they are money-worried, cash-strapped and dependent on Social Security, but they say they are satisfied. A PDF of the press release of the survey is available.
Bob Stepno's Other Journalism Weblog: "Writing Styles for the Web." An outline of writing styles and links to examples of the various types of journalism writing, including print, broadcast and blog.
Typographica.com: Clearview: A New Typeface for US Highways. The designer of Clearview spent 8 years developing it. Tip from kottke.org.
Atlanta Business Chronicle: City revisits panhandling laws: CAP/King & Spalding study may suggest 'blue box' zones
Cincinnati Business Courier: With Joy sales slumping, it was time for P&G to clean it up
San Francisco Business Times: Limbering up gay business: S.F. backs entrepreneurs
Wired News: Careful Where You Complain. Ga. couple is unhappy with siding job on their house, complains on web site, and N.C. manufacturer of product sues. The issue now becomes a free speech issue.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was an inspirational photographer. In photography classes and afterwards, I'd be amazed at his work. I also admired W. Eugene Smith and Margaret Bourke-White.
Today I came across this 2000 Washington Post essay about a Cartier-Bresson exhibit then. I had read a passing mention about his death earlier this year.
For quick views of work by Smith, Bourke-White, Weegee and others try Masters of Photography web site.
ACBJ: ACBJ study: Galveston nation's best test market
Boston Business Journal: A harmless lie? Clearing up the mess made by a false statement on a résumé can be a costly and time-consuming proposition
The Denver Business Journal: Pollsters missing wireless voters in their surveys
The Business Journal of Kansas City: Hallmark leads off local effort to fight depression at work