An interesting report came out recently which highlights the shift in where Americans are choosing to live.  For the first time, Americans are more likely to live in an apartment than in a house.  Reasons for this include the uncertainty in the housing market making home ownership less attractive, as well as the prohibitive cost of the purchase. 

In terms of life style, Americans are also less likely to be married than they used to be (there are more unmarried people than married people for the first time), and are living the “bachelor” life for longer.  I think shows like “Friends” displayed single, apartment life as glamorous, and therefore many people didn’t feel pressured to get married and “grow up”.

It’s amazing that we are in the 21st century and we seem to have solved many of life’s mysteries, yet can’t seem to get our hands on quality customer service. I have therefore decided to make a short step-by-step guide for companies that find themselves in trouble with customers. They need to engage in what I call “Recovery Customer Service”, or recovering the trust of expectations that they lost due to their error. The following are three main rules that executive officers of corporations should memorize, and instill in their customer service departments.

Google, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, has been testing TV ad serving in a move which targets the $54 billion market for TV ads.  Google already serves search ads, contributing about 99% of their $10 billion in revenue, and has been testing serving radio ad placements recently.  

This delve into traditional advertising’s stronghold is sure to upset the old media, who are seeming more and more vulnerable each day.  It will be interesting to see who opens their hands to this initiative and which old media reject it.

Recently, a lot of media attention has been focused on the threat that internet video is posing to traditional TV and cable.  While there is research that shows that users of video sharing sites watch less TV, I think it is important to look at the current challenges internet video poses before it can dethrone traditional TV and cable.

Environment

Christopher Null, over at PC World, has painstakingly put together a list of the 50 most important people on the web.  I can’t even imagine the amount of time and research it must have taken to make this list, and how you can narrow it down to 50.  It seems that each week a handful of new names climb the ladder.

Here are the top five:

1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin
Executives, Google

2. Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

3. Bram Cohen, Cofounder, BitTorrent

4. Mike Morhaime, President, Blizzard Entertainment

5. Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia 

JetBlue Airways, founded just over seven years ago, was created for one purpose: to provide low cost American flights with top-notch customer service.  Their dedication to that goal made them one of the only profitable airlines since the 9/11 attacks, receive satisfaction rates that pummel their competitors, and even got them featured in a wildly successful business book.

On the stormy day of February 14, 2007, none of that mattered. Their most valuable differentiation between all other airlines, their “customers come first” attitude, was severely tarnished.  JetBlue Flight 751 kept passengers on board a stuck aircraft for over 8 hours, as well as cancelled around 1,000 flights over the next few days.  Passengers had trouble breathing on the plane and the attendants actually had to open the doors several times to let some air in.

Many of us who run businesses, especially small businesses, send gifts to our key clients each year during the holiday season.  The reason we all do this is because it is expected of us, but the real reason behind it is to improve relationships and even use this yearly event as a marketing tool.

So how do you stand out from the crowd and make your gift translate into the best return?

Make It Last

Often when I have used the Copy & Paste function I was stuck with frustration - I wanted to replace text somewhere, but didn’t want to lose the content I was replacing, or I wanted to copy more than one piece of information and be able to paste it elsewhere. 

 A practical example of this is imagine you have a username and password that someone emails you.  They are both long and filled with all types of characters (basically impossible for you to remember just by looking at it). 

In case you hadn’t noticed, bottled water has become quite a big business in the last 10 years. The larger an industry gets, the more time and effort gets put into packaging and marketing.  Let us take a look at how the packaging and marketing can affect consumer decision.

As with any industry, it is always entertaining to start with a few facts.

Quick Bottled Water Facts:

- $11 Billion US Market
- Average American consumed 28.3 gallons of water last year
- 2nd most consumed beverage in the US (after soft drinks)

Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin has often said he would like to purchase XM Satellite Radio, the only other major player.  Today he may very well have gotten his wish.

Sirius would buy XM for $4.6 billion in stock, which gives current XM stock owners about a 20 percent boost on their shares.  The new company would have 14 million subscribers.

Under the deal, Mel Karmazin, the more charismatic of the two companies’ CEOs, would be the CEO of the new company, while XM Chairman Gary Parsons would retain his position in the new company.