FeedPosted Mar 11th 2011 2:00PM by Connie Madon (RSS feed)
Filed under: Launches, Industry, Consumer Experience
The publishing industry is experiencing an new and booming business in e-books. According to Forrester Research, consumers spent $1 billion on e-books in 2010. That number is expected to triple by 2015. In the US there were about 10 million e-readers in circulation in 2010, triple that of 2009.
The two leading players in the e-reader market are Amazon (AMZN) with its Kindle and Barnes and Noble's (BKS) Nook. With these readers a single reader can use the reader or a friend can be added as long as they know each other's email, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading e-Book Lending -- the Next New Thing
Posted Mar 4th 2011 11:20AM by Connie Madon (RSS feed)
Filed under: Launches, Consumer Experience, Ford Motor (F)
Do you use a GPS System in your car? If not, here are some points to consider. GPS systems give you the shortest distance to your destination. With gas nearing $4.00 per gallon, a GPS could save you priceless gas and save you money.
Yet, using a GPS does not always ensure a gas savings. Take for example a traffic jam. While your GPS is giving you the shortest route, you could waste a lot of gas sitting for hours in tied up traffic.
Continue reading Ford's New GPS System Is a Super Gas Saver
Posted Feb 11th 2011 4:30PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Forecasts, Products and Services, Launches, Consumer Experience, Apple Inc (AAPL), Verizon Communications (VZ), Smartphones
Yesterday marked a pretty big day for Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), as customers could finally walk into a Verizon store and pick up an iPhone. Some analysts had expected to see some long lines, but they did not materialize, creating the impression that the launch was less than successful, but looks can be deceiving.
It is easy to understand where the confusion comes from. In the past, whenever Apple released a new iPhone we saw long lines and often not even supply to cover the launch date demand, resulting in long waits for eager iPhone fanatics to get their hands on the new smartphone.
Continue reading Small Lines for Verizon's iPhone Launch Could Be Deceiving
Posted Feb 9th 2011 2:10PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Consumer Experience, Competitive Strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL), Wal-Mart (WMT), AT and T (T), Best Buy (BBY), Verizon Communications (VZ), iPhone
Tomorrow is a big day for Verizon (VZ) customers who have been waiting to get their chance to join the iPhone revolution, and we now learn that Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) will also be carrying the Verizon iPhone 4 at 600 retail stores across the nation.
As of today, when you visit Apple's (AAPL) website you are given the option to order an iPhone for use on either AT&T (T) or Verizon, with the price being the same for either option.
Continue reading Walmart Joins the iPhone Party
Posted Feb 3rd 2011 2:30PM by Connie Madon (RSS feed)
Filed under: Consumer Experience, Commodities, Federal Reserve
This year get ready to open your wallet wider and expect higher credit card bills for the basics like food, clothing and energy. You are probably wondering what is going on. While you weren't paying much attention, the price raw commodities surged in 2010. Corn, sugar, wheat, cotton, coffee and soybeans prices soared last year, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.
A confluence of factors pushed prices up. We had and still have demand explosion from China and India. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's monthly food index which monitors a basket of commodities including meat, dairy and sugar rose for the sixth straight month to a record.
Continue reading Higher Commodity Prices Are Grabbing Your Money
Posted Feb 2nd 2011 11:00AM by Connie Madon (RSS feed)
Filed under: Consumer Experience, Personal Finance
Are credit card rates too high? The answer is a resounding YES! The Federal Reserve just gave the banks $600 billion in cash in the form of a second round of quantitative easing. What are they doing with it? Raising the rates on credit cards, of course, so they can turn that $600 billion into $1.2 trillion in four years.
You are probably wondering how they are doing this. It's very simple. If you use the rule of 72s, at 18%, money doubles itself every four years (you divide 72 by the rate of interest).
Continue reading Are Credit Card Interest Rates Too High?
Posted Jan 25th 2011 1:00PM by Gary Shilling (RSS feed)
Filed under: Consumer Experience, Currency
Economist Gary Shilling has agreed to share with BloggingStocks his 18 investment strategies for 2011, beginning with Gary Shilling's Investment Strategies for 2011. But he will only be revealing them a little at a time, over the next few weeks, so check back often!
My investment strategies for 2011 are driven by my forecasts for the economies and financial markets here and abroad. In my view, the overarching reality that will dominate 2011 and, indeed, the next decade or so is financial deleveraging, as spelled out in my new book, The Age of Deleveraging: Investment Strategies for a Decade of Slow Growth and Deflation, which was published in November 2010 by John Wiley & Sons.
Continue reading More Investment Strategies for 2011
Posted Jan 19th 2011 12:30PM by Beth Gaston Moon (RSS feed)
Filed under: Consumer Experience, Competitive Strategy, Starbucks (SBUX), Technology
It's not enough to be on every metropolitan street corner; now Starbucks (SBUX) is trying to be even bigger (in one sense of the word) -- and faster, too. Thirsty folks longing for a Big Gulp-style coffee beverage are in luck as the Seattle-based coffee chain is set to roll out its new "Trenta" size for iced drinks.
The new size, seven ounces bigger than the Venti, will be 31 ounces. Trenta, by the way, means "thirty" in Italian. It's also a valley in Slovenia and a small town in the Italian province of Cosenza. This new size trumps Dunkin Donuts, which offers its iced beverages in 24-ounce serving sizes.
Continue reading Starbucks: New Size, New Payment Method
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