by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 30

NYT: Itineraries: Internet Use Grows at Meetings, as Do Challenges — Hotels, conference centers and event organizers struggle to provide enough Net access for corporate clients.

WSJ: How Historic Was Dolphins’ Turnaround?

Wired: Clive Thompson on How YouTube Changes the Way We Think

USATODAY: Colleges, offices scrap land lines —  An estimated 25% of businesses are phasing out desk phones in effort to save more money.

CoStar: Major Retailer 2008 Store Closings Significantly Outpacing 2007.

WSJ: The Promise of Broadband–Is the Umpteenth Time a Charm?

by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 29

Fortune: 21 Dumbest Moments in Business 2008

WSJ: The Weekend That Wall Street Died

WSJ: Why It’s Hard to Judge Polls

NY Times: By Saying Yes, WaMu Built Empire on Shaky Loans — Yet even by WaMu’s relaxed standards, one mortgage four years ago raised eyebrows. The borrower was claiming a six-figure income and an unusual profession: mariachi singer.

WSJ: Retailers Brace for Major Change — Fallout from the dismal holiday sales season promises to have a lasting impact on how the retail industry operates, with some prepared for a large number of bankruptcies and store closures.

WSJ: Madoff ‘Feeders’ Under Focus — The investigation into Bernard Madoff is starting to turn to the middlemen who attracted billions of investment dollars to his funds.

TechCrunch: Canary In The Coalmine: NYT Sees First Decline In Online Ad Revenues

by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 23

WSJ: Best and Worst Ads of 2008 — no surprise that Microsoft’s Jerry Sienfeld ads were on the list.

Wired:Nation’s First ‘Underwater Wind Turbine’ Installed in Old Man River

ReadWriteWeb: XBRL: Mashing up Financial Statements —  Follow up to Dec. 22’s SEC Mandates Interactive Filing

USAToday: Ad Track: Microsoft wants you to throw a party for its Xbox — On a recent Saturday, about 1,000 women across the country moonlighted as marketers for Microsoft’s newest Xbox services. Microsoft … More proof that Wii found a niche that Xbox and Playstation 3 missed — women.

WSJ: Regulator Let IndyMac Backdate Infusion

NY Times: For Craft Sales, the Recession Is a Help

WSJ: Notebooks Overtake Desktop PCs — Notebook shipments rose nearly 40% to 38.6 million units during the period, while desktop shipments fell 1.3% to 38.5 million units.

WSJ: Who Should Foot the Bill of a Lawsuit?
— In the U.S. the loser of a lawsuit pays the legal fees, which differs in other countries, including Canada, Germany and the U.K. Also tort costs as a percent of GDP are 2.2 percent according to a study by Towers Perrin, which are twice the rate of other countries. Germany was second with the costs being 1.1 percent.

by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 22

NY Times: The Year of the Simpler Gadget — Nintendo has sold more than 30 million Wii game consoles since they were introduced two years ago. But at $250, it is outselling the more expensive Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3 combined by almost 2 to 1.

The Long Tail: Do something new every three years

KK Lifestream: This new economy has three distinguishing characteristics:…

BoingBoing: A visit to the coldest town on Earth

NY Times: For Conservative Radio, It’s a New Dawn, Too

NY Times: The Media Equation: Newspaper Shuns Web, and Thrives — At a time when most big newspapers are embracing the Internet as their future salvation, a small weekly in New Jersey is shunning it, and thriving.

WSJ: U.S. Developers Seek Their Own Bailout

Paid Content: SEC Mandates Interactive Filing; Will Start Phasing In Next Year

Bloomberg: Commercial Loan Defaults May Triple as Rents Decline

ReadWriteWeb: Cyber War Games Confirm Flaws in US Security

AP: Toyota projects first loss in 70 years

by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 19

WSJ: My, How U.S. Energy Consumption Has Changed

THR.com: Study: Young people watch less TV

TechCrunch: Facebook Is Gaining Ground On Google In Time Spent On The Internet

Wired: Danish Supercar Sports 1,104 Horsepower — Danish boutique automaker Zenvo’s new ST1 redefines “excessive.” The turbocharged supercar accelerates superfast (over 60 mph in three seconds) and the company claims it’ll go into production next year.

NY Times: The Reckoning: Tax Break May Have Helped Cause Housing Bubble — A 1997 change that ended the capital gains tax on home sales was a new incentive to plow money into real estate.

by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 18

Publishing 2.0 —When A Newspaper Stops Publishing In Print, What Happens To The Print Advertising Dollars? — daily newspapers are seeing about a quarter to one-third of the ad buy when ad dollar go from print to online.

CNNMoney — Sign of the times: Stolen Christmas trees

NY Times: Madoff Scandal Shaking Real Estate Industry — Commercial brokers and developers had heavily invested with Bernard L. Madoff, whose business style mirrored the practices of the real estate world.

WSJ: BlackBerrys Again Get Sleeker but Can’t Challenge iPhone

WSJ: One Man’s Quest to Catch Bernard Madoff

WSJ: How Apple Could Survive Without Steve Jobs

TechCrunch: Death To The PR Embargo — PR firms are out of control. Today we are taking a radical step towards fighting the chaos. From this point on we will break every embargo we agree to.

by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 17

ReadWriteWeb: Top Marketing Geeks Make Their Predictions for 2009

MSNBC: Bury me with my cell phone

Drudge: Top 10 News and Media Category Websites By US Market Share

Washington Post: HUD Chief Calls Aid on Mortgages A Failure

NY Times: S.E.C. Looks into Family Ties With Madoff Firm

CNNMoney.com — Three days that shook the world

Lessing: The made-up dramas of the Wall Street Journal

NY Times: Madoff’s Sanctum, Where Wealth Went to Vanish

NY Times: The Novel That Predicted Portland — “Ecotopia,” the ’70s cult novel, has seeped into the American groundwater without becoming well known.

NY Times: Drilling Down: Contagion of Cheapness at Checkout —  If you’re planning to redeem coupons as you buy gifts this season, be forewarned: not only might other shoppers think you’re cheap, but the stigma could extend to the person behind you in line.

by eubie

Reading around — Dec. 10

ReadWriteWeb: Report: Corporate Blogs Not Trusted — According to a new report by Forrester Research, corporate blogs are the least trusted information source of all. Only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs say that they trust them. And what is most trusted? Email from people you know, consumer product ratings/review and portals/search engines.

WSJ: New York Times Takes Steps to Aid Liquidity

CNNMoney: GMAC on the brink – why it matters

CNNMoney: Dow 4,000: 8 really, really scary predictions

Earth2Tech: Will the Economy Slow Utilities Entering Solar?

WSJ: How Much Does Pizza Delivery Cost?

Footnoted.org: What are they shopping for at Dillard’s?