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Marketing
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The rise and fall (in weight) of the woman's handbag
The rapid development of personal entertainment and communication technologies is causing quite seismic
changes in the weight the average UK female carries in her handbag.
Research conducted for UK Department Store chain Debenhams each year
for the last two decades shows that the doubling of weight of the
handbag between 2002 and 2006, due to the adoption of laptops, has been
completely reversed in just three years by the adoption of smartphones, replacing laptops and filofaxes.
Women’s handbags now weigh an average of 1.5kg in the United Kingdom, a significant 57% less than the average of two
years ago. A new generation of smaller, lighter multi-purpose gadgets such as the iPhone and Blackberry have replaced heavy laptops, old fashioned mobile phones and filofaxes.
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Psychology
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Self-Control Is Contagious, Study Finds
When you restrain from scarfing down unhealthy foods or hold back on that extra drink, others may deserve some of the credit. Self-control is contagious, a new study suggests.
In a series of studies in a lab setting, researchers found that watching or even thinking about someone with good self-control makes others more likely show the same restraint.
And they found the opposite also holds true - people with lousy self-control influence others negatively. The effect is so powerful, in fact, that just seeing the name of someone with good or bad self-control flashing on a screen for 10 milliseconds changed the behavior of volunteers.
"The take-home message of this study is that picking social influences that are positive can improve your self-control," said lead author Michelle vanDellen, a psychology professor at the University of Georgia. "And by exhibiting self-control, you're helping others around you do the same."
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Making $$ on the Web
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Making Money with Social Media
Do blogs and tweets help a company's bottom line? One startup thinks it has the answer.
By Erika Jonietz
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
In retrospect, 2009 may be viewed as the year "social media" came of age: Facebook passed 350 million active users, Oprah made Twitter mainstream, and LinkedIn introduced a service to help recruiting agencies search the site for job candidates. But using microblogs, photoblogs, user-generated content, and even traditional blogs to interact with customers takes time and money, and some companies still question whether all that effort is doing them any good. So how does a company not only measure the results of its social media efforts but also effectively manage them?
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Social costs: The Spredfast dashboard lets users track the reach and efficacy of integrated social media campaigns, including blog posts, Facebook updates, tweets, and Flickr streams.
Credit: Social Agency
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Early in December, Social Agency, a five-person startup based in Austin, TX, launched a Web-based software package called Spredfast that helps companies manage their social media campaigns. The software not only measures audience size and engagement but also allows coordinated planning and automated posting across multiple social media platforms.
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Startup Profile
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Google sharpens aim buys Admob
2009-12-29 10:03
California - Four years ago, Omar Hamoui was just
another ineffectual entrepreneur trying to spruce up his resume in
graduate school.
Now, he's poised to become Google Inc's newest
weapon as the company aims to extend its dominance of online
advertising from computers to mobile devices.
Google is buying Hamoui's expertise in a $750m acquisition of AdMob,
a network for ads on iPhones and similar gadgets. He launched the
business while struggling to support his wife and children as a student
at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
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Startup / Entrepreneurship
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City entrepreneur creates New Britain Web site
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 10:36 PM EST
By JAMES CRAVEN
NEW BRITAIN — If necessity is the mother of invention, then tedium and a bad economy must be close sisters.
The bad economy and slow business climate left local entrepreneur Tom
Matuszewski with some time on his hands but like many creative people,
he quickly put his mind back to work and came up with an idea for city
residents looking for information.< /p>
“The Best of New Britain Web
site came about because I was looking for some local information and
couldn’t find it,” Matuszewski said.
The owner of Trydella, a Web design company at 122 Main St., Matuszewski decided city residents
needed a one-stop Web site where information was free and easy to find.
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Startup / Entrepreneurship
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Possible dream? Starting a company in a recession
By Joyce Rosenberg / AP
Updated: 01/08/2010 01:36:31 PM MST
While much of the business world struggled with cutbacks and layoffs
during 2009, many people saw opportunity. Undaunted by the recession,
they started their own companies.
Entrepreneurs are by and large an optimistic lot, with faith in
their ideas and their ability to execute them. So it's understandable
that they would find reasons why it made sense to start a business in a
sickly economy. Among them: It's easier to rent commercial space at a
discount when landlords are hungry for tenants.
Still, many had some scary moments as customers stayed away or
money ran low. A look at how four new business owners fared last year:
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