1. The Acai Berry - Americans have always loved their miracle cures. Little wonder the Acai berry (pronounced Ah-Sigh-EE), from Brazil's tropical rainforests, has become the "it" food of 2008. (Sorry, pomegranates!) If the snake-oil salesmen are to be believed, that $7 Acai drink you're about to quaff will restore your youth AND do your laundry.
2. Twitter - Twitter allows users to write and send, via SMS or online, short (140 characters max) messages to a network of fellow Twitters, usually off-the-cuff updates describing what they are doing at the moment. Facebook offered $500 million in October for the service, but Twitter's CEO and co-founder Evan Williams turned him down.
3. Music Video Games - In 2008, gamers everywhere cranked the volume up to 11, rocking out to Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2. When this blogger's dad sat down at the drums and played through Gimme Shelter for the first time, he knew that music games had arrived.
4. Bud Light Lime - Earlier this year, Budweiser introduced Bud Light Lime, a citrus-flavored concoction, to compete with Miller Chill, a lime-flavored beer introduced by Bud's major competitor in 2007. Accompanying the release of this new beverage, Bud launched a $35 million ad campaign, a strategy that paid off with a 2% rise in sales in the first three quarters of 2008.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d68a4-003b5-03c49-400cb8e1
5. BlackBerry Smart Phones - Swimming in the wake of the Apple iPhone is BlackBerry, with its army of addicted executives eager for the sexy features of touchscreen technology but unwilling to give up the workhorse dependability of RIM's network. This year it unveiled two new phones, the Bold and the Storm, to slake that thirst.
6. Speedo LZR Razor Swimsuit - Speedo spent three years and untold millions researching and designing a super swimsuit. It tested 100 different fabrics and suit designs, and conducted body scans of probably every top-level swimmer in the world (more than 400, the company claims) to come up with the Speedo LZR, the ultimate suit for hydro-propulsion.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d68a8-000a5-03c49-400cb8e1
7. Smart Cars - The smart fortwo started selling in Europe in 1998, but a recent redesign has made it a hot commodity in America in 2008: 20,000 smart cars have been sold in America this year so far; worldwide, around 140,000. Americans eager for the mileage and attention that comes with the smart will have to be patient, however; waiting lists are long.
8. Amazon Kindle - Amazon's Kindle is the first electronic reader to give print media a run for its money. The Kindle's cutting-edge electronic paper technology provides crisp, clean print in any light conditions. The device is thin and light enough to carry anywhere, and can store hundreds of books at your fingertips. Another reason it's so hot? Oprah loves it and gave it a ringing endorsement, calling it her "new favorite thing."
9. Vibrating Mascara - Both Estee Lauder's TurboLash and Lancome's Oscillation debuted in 2008, with celebrity trendsetters test-driving the products and touting their benefits. At one point, Lancome's waiting list numbered 21,000 and NPD says it was the number one mascara in dollar sales in department stores and Sephora combined.
10. Wii Fit - Playing video games used to be a fun excuse for sitting on the couch, relaxing and doing much of nothing. Then came along the Nintendo Wii, and its healthy counterpart, the Wii Fit, and video games were sedentary no more.
11. 3-Ply Toilet Paper - In September, 2008, Georgia-Pacific took toilet paper further than it has ever gone before. With the introduction of Quilted Northern Ultra Plush, the world's first premium three-ply toilet paper, it not only broke tissue boundaries, but may have changed the "face" of America's bathrooms forever.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d73cb-000be-03c49-400cb8e1
12. Flip Mino - The Flip Mino, pronounced Minnow, weighing only 3 oz., is smaller than an iPhone and only slightly taller than a deck of playing cards, yet can capture an hour's worth of VGA quality video on the 2GB of internal memory.
13. Aloft & Element Hotels - Aloft, named because the rooms are like "a loft," have nine-foot ceilings, oversized windows and the wonderful beds for which Starwood is known. Aloft rooms also have high-tech office and entertainment areas with free wireless Internet access, one-stop "connectivity solution" for multiple electronic gadgets -- all linked to a 42-inch flat-panel, HDTV-ready TV.
http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d73cd-001d7-03c49-400cb8e1
14. iPod Touch - In the beginning, there was the Apple iPhone, and users named it good. So good, in fact, that Apple quickly transformed its iPod into the same form, the iPod Touch, and it too has been deemed good. Very good, if sales are any indication.
http://www.walletpop.com/specials/hottest-products
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
25 E-Commerce Tech Terms You Should Know
1. Access Control - The process of determining whether an individual has access to a specific function or piece of information. Authentication and Access Control are related processes with Access Control usually following Authentication.
2. Affiliate Program - Where a company provides a tangible benefit (typically a fee or portion of sales) to the affiliate site for directing traffic toward the site or for providing additional promotion to secure a sale. Affiliate programs have been used for everything from book sales to political campaigns to blogging, and represents an active form of advertisement.
3. Authentication - The process of determining whether the individual signing in under a specific user name actually has an account with permissions to perform specific actions. Authentication can be as simple as providing a user name and password, but especially in high dollar e-commerce settings authentication is usually done in conjunction with access across secure channels and sometimes alternative authentication mechanisms (from thumb prints to retinal scans).
4. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) - A language for specifying business behaviors using Web services, it is a standard produced as part of the OASIS XML standards. BPEL is itself two specifications, an abstract version for describing business processes from a modeling standpoint, and an executable version that can actually perform business processes in conjunction with a BPEL processor. Like most business language specifications, BPEL is written using XML (eXtensible markup language) and is considered an orchestration language rather than a choreography language.
5. Choreography - The establishment of business rules and logic in a distributed environment where there is no central controller--typically the case when the e-commerce systems are across different companies or vendors. Compare with orchestration. Choreography is usually accomplished by building a messaging-oriented architecture.
6. Discovery - The process by which a machine determines the capabilities that a Web services provider offers. This process usually involves determining both the business objects that are exposed (typically via a Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, or UDDI, document) as well as the specific services that these objects exposed (usually using a WSDL document). Once a Web services client has this information, they can more readily build applications that use these services.
7. ebXML - Electronic business extensible markup language is a family of specifications intended to replace the EDI binary standards developed by the United Nations in the 1970s. It encompasses several standards for performing everything from messaging and discovery to handling orchestration, business object modeling and authentication.
8. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - The process of sending messages across a network in order to perform financial transactions. EDI systems evolved in the 1970s in order to handle e-commerce--like messages between a large corporation (such as an automobile manufacturer) and its suppliers. While the EDI standards established by the U.N. (via the UN/EDIFAC organization) involved binary formatted data, most EDI in the 2000s use XML messages and SOAP-based Web services to accomplish the same thing.
9. Federated Identity - The process of creating a way that different service providers (say a hotel and an airline) can provide a common way to share basic identity information and perform authentication across each provider's systems. A federation is a collection of distributed entities, so the federated identity is the total of all pieces of information for a given individual. Federated Identity lies at the heart of single sign-on systems, and is also used (with some difference) as the foundation for the OpenID standard.
10. Federation - Systems built on Web Services are distributed by nature; this term describes multiple independent Web services, which cooperate as a single system to external systems.
11. HTTPS/SSL - Secure HTTP (HTTPS) combines the venerable HTTP standard for Web communication with a security system built using the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). A Web site or Web service that uses HTTPS provides a "certificate"--an electronic document--that is issued by a trust authority indicating that the site is indeed who they claim to be and that they are not involved in fraudulent activity. Once the browser receives such a certificate, then it uses the information in the certificate to encrypt the contents being sent back to the server. This provides a reasonable degree of security for handling sensitive electronic information, such as credit card numbers.
12. Long Tail - his idea states that the Internet makes it possible to capitalize upon smaller micro-markets that nonetheless in the aggregate make up a considerably larger market. Chris Anderson first proposed this in Wired magazine in 2004, though a study by Anita Elberse of Harvard Business School argues that marketing and business trends do not in fact support the long tail hypothesis.
13. Merchant Account - A line of credit extended by a bank, which accepts payment on behalf of a merchant, required to process and accept credit cards online.
14. Messaging - A messaging oriented architecture sends message packets (electronic documents) from a Web service to a queue, which then processes each message in periodic batches. Messaging architectures work better in distributed systems such as the Internet, because they don't force the participants to remain in contact with one another once the message has been sent (in computer parlance, this communication is asymmetric).
15. Orchestration - In an orchestrated architecture, a single controller (like the conductor in an orchestra) is responsible for the coordination of information flow between vendors in a network. Orchestrated systems have the advantage of being simpler to develop, but at the cost of potentially making the controller into a bottleneck. Compare with Choreography.
16. PCI/DSS - A set of standards that provide for secure communication for financial transactions over the Internet. The PCI Data Security Standard was a concerted effort in 2006 by a consortium made up of members including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover in order to minimize Internet-based credit card abuse, though the DSS standard is finding its way into other secure financial transactions as well.
17. Phishing - A form of fraud where malicious users fake information--usually e-mail--from a legitimate entity in hopes of tricking users into logging in to a lookalike site under someone else's control. From there, the attackers steal login credentials.
18. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of configuring Web content in order to gain the highest potential rankings for a given search engine. While early SEO systems involved simple keyword matches, SEO has evolved considerably to the level of performing semantic searches on content, optimizing the specific layout of a page to make its terms more indexable and using complex mathematical algorithms to better match anticipated search engine behaviors.
19. Single Sign-On - An approach to authentication in which a person maintains some kind of "wallet" (either locally on their machine or Web-based), which stores user names and passwords for various sites. When the user revisits that site, the sign-on provided by the system "unlocks" the user name and password for that site, rather than the user having to remember both of these keys for different sites.
20. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) - An XML-based language for describing a particular kind of document called an envelope that can in turn be used to hold other documents, computer services calls, or error messages. SOAP-based systems prevalent in financial and eCommerce services, either in a messaging mode or as a vehicle for performing remote procedure calls (XML-RPCs).
21. Universal Business Language (UBL) - A standard produced by OASIS-XML that defines a large set of common business terms and their relationships, making it easier to model these in a way that will have the least degree of discrepancy between different organizations' data model.
22. Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - An XML-based document that specifies the services that are available on a given Web services provider, including how these services are invoked and what the applications expect as parameters. WSDL is used most commonly with SOAP-based systems, especially when SOAP is used as an XML-RPC.
23. XML Business Reporting Language (XBRL) - An XML-based specification designed to simplify corporate accounting and financial reporting. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the governments of England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia and New Zealand all either accept (in some cases even require) or are developing pilot programs to explore XBRL as part of their regulatory mechanisms.
24. XML-RPC - A remote procedure call is a request from one computer in a network to another computer to perform a certain action and (generally) return a response once that operation is completed. XML-RPCs use XML messages in order to contain the instructions to perform these actions and get responses, with SOAP/WSDL- based XML-RPCs being the most common XML-RPC types. Note that Web architects are moving away from RPCs toward messaging systems because RPCs tend to make for fragile applications that have too many interdependencies.
25. XML - A language for marking up document and data structures in a human readable and easily computer understood format. It is used heavily in e-commerce, describing everything from orchestration systems to SOAP messages to business objects to the Web pages that provide a human interface for these documents.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/22/tech-starter-kit-ent-tech-cx_db_1022ecommerceglossary.html
2. Affiliate Program - Where a company provides a tangible benefit (typically a fee or portion of sales) to the affiliate site for directing traffic toward the site or for providing additional promotion to secure a sale. Affiliate programs have been used for everything from book sales to political campaigns to blogging, and represents an active form of advertisement.
3. Authentication - The process of determining whether the individual signing in under a specific user name actually has an account with permissions to perform specific actions. Authentication can be as simple as providing a user name and password, but especially in high dollar e-commerce settings authentication is usually done in conjunction with access across secure channels and sometimes alternative authentication mechanisms (from thumb prints to retinal scans).
4. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) - A language for specifying business behaviors using Web services, it is a standard produced as part of the OASIS XML standards. BPEL is itself two specifications, an abstract version for describing business processes from a modeling standpoint, and an executable version that can actually perform business processes in conjunction with a BPEL processor. Like most business language specifications, BPEL is written using XML (eXtensible markup language) and is considered an orchestration language rather than a choreography language.5. Choreography - The establishment of business rules and logic in a distributed environment where there is no central controller--typically the case when the e-commerce systems are across different companies or vendors. Compare with orchestration. Choreography is usually accomplished by building a messaging-oriented architecture.
6. Discovery - The process by which a machine determines the capabilities that a Web services provider offers. This process usually involves determining both the business objects that are exposed (typically via a Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, or UDDI, document) as well as the specific services that these objects exposed (usually using a WSDL document). Once a Web services client has this information, they can more readily build applications that use these services.
7. ebXML - Electronic business extensible markup language is a family of specifications intended to replace the EDI binary standards developed by the United Nations in the 1970s. It encompasses several standards for performing everything from messaging and discovery to handling orchestration, business object modeling and authentication.8. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - The process of sending messages across a network in order to perform financial transactions. EDI systems evolved in the 1970s in order to handle e-commerce--like messages between a large corporation (such as an automobile manufacturer) and its suppliers. While the EDI standards established by the U.N. (via the UN/EDIFAC organization) involved binary formatted data, most EDI in the 2000s use XML messages and SOAP-based Web services to accomplish the same thing.
9. Federated Identity - The process of creating a way that different service providers (say a hotel and an airline) can provide a common way to share basic identity information and perform authentication across each provider's systems. A federation is a collection of distributed entities, so the federated identity is the total of all pieces of information for a given individual. Federated Identity lies at the heart of single sign-on systems, and is also used (with some difference) as the foundation for the OpenID standard.
10. Federation - Systems built on Web Services are distributed by nature; this term describes multiple independent Web services, which cooperate as a single system to external systems.
11. HTTPS/SSL - Secure HTTP (HTTPS) combines the venerable HTTP standard for Web communication with a security system built using the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). A Web site or Web service that uses HTTPS provides a "certificate"--an electronic document--that is issued by a trust authority indicating that the site is indeed who they claim to be and that they are not involved in fraudulent activity. Once the browser receives such a certificate, then it uses the information in the certificate to encrypt the contents being sent back to the server. This provides a reasonable degree of security for handling sensitive electronic information, such as credit card numbers.
12. Long Tail - his idea states that the Internet makes it possible to capitalize upon smaller micro-markets that nonetheless in the aggregate make up a considerably larger market. Chris Anderson first proposed this in Wired magazine in 2004, though a study by Anita Elberse of Harvard Business School argues that marketing and business trends do not in fact support the long tail hypothesis.
13. Merchant Account - A line of credit extended by a bank, which accepts payment on behalf of a merchant, required to process and accept credit cards online.
14. Messaging - A messaging oriented architecture sends message packets (electronic documents) from a Web service to a queue, which then processes each message in periodic batches. Messaging architectures work better in distributed systems such as the Internet, because they don't force the participants to remain in contact with one another once the message has been sent (in computer parlance, this communication is asymmetric).
15. Orchestration - In an orchestrated architecture, a single controller (like the conductor in an orchestra) is responsible for the coordination of information flow between vendors in a network. Orchestrated systems have the advantage of being simpler to develop, but at the cost of potentially making the controller into a bottleneck. Compare with Choreography.
16. PCI/DSS - A set of standards that provide for secure communication for financial transactions over the Internet. The PCI Data Security Standard was a concerted effort in 2006 by a consortium made up of members including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover in order to minimize Internet-based credit card abuse, though the DSS standard is finding its way into other secure financial transactions as well.
17. Phishing - A form of fraud where malicious users fake information--usually e-mail--from a legitimate entity in hopes of tricking users into logging in to a lookalike site under someone else's control. From there, the attackers steal login credentials.18. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of configuring Web content in order to gain the highest potential rankings for a given search engine. While early SEO systems involved simple keyword matches, SEO has evolved considerably to the level of performing semantic searches on content, optimizing the specific layout of a page to make its terms more indexable and using complex mathematical algorithms to better match anticipated search engine behaviors.
19. Single Sign-On - An approach to authentication in which a person maintains some kind of "wallet" (either locally on their machine or Web-based), which stores user names and passwords for various sites. When the user revisits that site, the sign-on provided by the system "unlocks" the user name and password for that site, rather than the user having to remember both of these keys for different sites.
20. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) - An XML-based language for describing a particular kind of document called an envelope that can in turn be used to hold other documents, computer services calls, or error messages. SOAP-based systems prevalent in financial and eCommerce services, either in a messaging mode or as a vehicle for performing remote procedure calls (XML-RPCs).
21. Universal Business Language (UBL) - A standard produced by OASIS-XML that defines a large set of common business terms and their relationships, making it easier to model these in a way that will have the least degree of discrepancy between different organizations' data model.
22. Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - An XML-based document that specifies the services that are available on a given Web services provider, including how these services are invoked and what the applications expect as parameters. WSDL is used most commonly with SOAP-based systems, especially when SOAP is used as an XML-RPC.
23. XML Business Reporting Language (XBRL) - An XML-based specification designed to simplify corporate accounting and financial reporting. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the governments of England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia and New Zealand all either accept (in some cases even require) or are developing pilot programs to explore XBRL as part of their regulatory mechanisms.
24. XML-RPC - A remote procedure call is a request from one computer in a network to another computer to perform a certain action and (generally) return a response once that operation is completed. XML-RPCs use XML messages in order to contain the instructions to perform these actions and get responses, with SOAP/WSDL- based XML-RPCs being the most common XML-RPC types. Note that Web architects are moving away from RPCs toward messaging systems because RPCs tend to make for fragile applications that have too many interdependencies.
25. XML - A language for marking up document and data structures in a human readable and easily computer understood format. It is used heavily in e-commerce, describing everything from orchestration systems to SOAP messages to business objects to the Web pages that provide a human interface for these documents.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/22/tech-starter-kit-ent-tech-cx_db_1022ecommerceglossary.html
Friday, October 10, 2008
The World's Billionaires
| Rank | Name | Citizenship | Age | Net Worth ($bil) | Residence |
| 1 | Warren Buffett | United States | 77 | 62.0 | United States |
| 2 | Carlos Slim Helu & family | Mexico | 68 | 60.0 | Mexico |
| 3 | William Gates III | United States | 52 | 58.0 | United States |
| 4 | Lakshmi Mittal | India | 57 | 45.0 | United Kingdom |
| 5 | Mukesh Ambani | India | 50 | 43.0 | India |
| 6 | Anil Ambani | India | 48 | 42.0 | India |
| 7 | Ingvar Kamprad & family | Sweden | 81 | 31.0 | Switzerland |
| 8 | KP Singh | India | 76 | 30.0 | India |
| 9 | Oleg Deripaska | Russia | 40 | 28.0 | Russia |
| 10 | Karl Albrecht | Germany | 88 | 27.0 | Germany |
| 11 | Li Ka-shing | Hong Kong | 79 | 26.5 | Hong Kong |
| 12 | Sheldon Adelson | United States | 74 | 26.0 | United States |
| 13 | Bernard Arnault | France | 59 | 25.5 | France |
| 14 | Lawrence Ellison | United States | 63 | 25.0 | United States |
| 15 | Roman Abramovich | Russia | 41 | 23.5 | Russia |
| 16 | Theo Albrecht | Germany | 85 | 23.0 | Germany |
| 17 | Liliane Bettencourt | France | 85 | 22.9 | France |
| 18 | Alexei Mordashov | Russia | 42 | 21.2 | Russia |
| 19 | Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud | Saudi Arabia | 51 | 21.0 | Saudi Arabia |
| 20 | Mikhail Fridman | Russia | 43 | 20.8 | Russia |
| 21 | Vladimir Lisin | Russia | 51 | 20.3 | Russia |
| 22 | Amancio Ortega | Spain | 72 | 20.2 | Spain |
| 23 | Raymond, Thomas & Walter Kwok | Hong Kong | NA | 19.9 | Hong Kong |
| 24 | Mikhail Prokhorov | Russia | 42 | 19.5 | Russia |
| 25 | Vladimir Potanin | Russia | 47 | 19.3 | Russia |
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html
Friday, August 1, 2008
The Best States For Business
1. Virginia
2. Utah
3. Washington
4. North Carolina
5. Georgia
6. Colorado
7. Idaho
8. Florida
9. Texas
10. Nebraska
http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/30/virginia-georgia-utah-biz-cz_kb_0731beststates.html
2. Utah
3. Washington
4. North Carolina
5. Georgia
6. Colorado
7. Idaho
8. Florida
9. Texas
10. Nebraska
http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/30/virginia-georgia-utah-biz-cz_kb_0731beststates.html
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Best Countries for Business
| R | Name | GDP Growth (%) | GDP / Capita ($) | Trade Balance ($bil) | Pop (mil) | Un Emp (%) |
| 1 | Denmark | 1.7 | 37,400 | 4.7 | 5.5 | 3.5 |
| 2 | Ireland | 5.3 | 45,600 | -12.6 | 4.2 | 5.0 |
| 3 | Finland | 4.4 | 35,500 | 11.2 | 5.2 | 6.9 |
| 4 | United States | 2.2 | 46,000 | -747.1 | 303.8 | 4.6 |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 2.9 | 35,300 | -111.0 | 60.9 | 5.4 |
| 6 | Sweden | 3.4 | 36,900 | 30.2 | 9.0 | 4.5 |
| 7 | Canada | 2.7 | 38,200 | 28.5 | 33.2 | 5.9 |
| 8 | Singapore | 7.5 | 48,900 | 41.4 | 4.6 | 1.7 |
| 9 | Hong Kong | 5.8 | 42,000 | 19.9 | 7.0 | 4.2 |
| 10 | Estonia | 7.3 | 21,800 | -3.1 | 1.3 | 5.2 |
| 10 | Switzerland | 2.6 | 39,800 | 67.9 | 7.6 | 3.1 |
| 12 | New Zealand | 3.0 | 27,300 | -10.0 | 4.2 | 3.5 |
| 13 | Australia | 4.0 | 37,500 | -51.0 | 20.6 | 4.4 |
| 14 | Netherlands | 3.5 | 38,600 | 59.3 | 16.6 | 4.1 |
| 15 | Norway | 4.9 | 55,600 | 55.8 | 4.6 | 2.4 |
| 16 | Israel | 5.1 | 28,800 | 5.9 | 7.1 | 7.6 |
| 17 | Iceland | 1.8 | 39,400 | -3.4 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
| 18 | Belgium | 2.7 | 36,500 | 11.0 | 10.4 | 7.6 |
| 19 | Chile | 5.2 | 14,400 | 8.2 | 16.5 | 7.0 |
| 20 | Portugal | 1.9 | 21,800 | -18.5 | 10.7 | 8.0 |
| 21 | Germany | 2.6 | 34,400 | 185.1 | 82.4 | 8.4 |
| 22 | Luxembourg | 5.0 | 80,800 | 11.3 | 0.5 | 4.4 |
| 23 | Austria | 3.3 | 39,000 | 12.6 | 8.2 | 4.3 |
| 24 | Japan | 1.9 | 33,800 | 195.9 | 127.3 | 4.0 |
| 25 | France | 1.8 | 33,800 | -35.9 | 64.1 | 8.0 |
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/6/biz_bizcountries08_Best-Countries-for-Business_Rank.html
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Best of the Best Places to Live 2008
1: Plymouth, MinnesotaPopulation: 70,100
Median home price: $288,950
Average property tax (2006): $4,526
Pros: Reasonable home prices; good schools; quick drive the nation's biggest mall
Cons: Very cold winters
2. Fort Collins, ColoradoPopulation: 129,400
Median home price: $207,739
Average property tax (2006): $1,675
Pros: Bike lanes; Old Town historic district; brand-new cancer center
Cons: Overcrowded schools
3. Naperville, IllinoisPopulation: 142,900
Median home price: $369,000
Average property tax (2006): $6,402
Pros: Close to Chicago; public library ranked the best in the nation among small cities; walkable downtown area
Cons: High property taxes
4. Irvine, CaliforniaPopulation: 193,900
Median home price: $650,000
Average property tax (2006): $5,053
Pros: School district has won national recognition; more than 16,000 acres of green space
Cons: Very pricey homes
5. Franklin Township, New JerseyPopulation: 59,100
Median home price: $319,000
Average property tax (2006): $7,648
Pros: Plenty of jobs in the area; Princeton and Rutgers Universities nearby
Cons: High property taxes
6. Norman, OklahomaPopulation: 102,800
Median home price: $133,500
Average property tax (2006): $1,095
Pros: University of Oklahoma; affordable housing
Cons: Gotta love that football -- schools close for games against rival University of Texas
7. Round Rock, TexasPopulation: 92,300
Median home price: $193,931
Average property tax (2006): $3,854
Pros: Affordable housing; excellent schools; minor league baseball team
Cons: Can you take the heat?
8. Columbia/Ellicott City, MarylandPopulation: 97,500
Median home price: $355,000
Average property taxes (2006): $3,208
Pros: Historic Main Street lined with antique shops and teahouses; 950-acre nature preserve; three lakes
Cons: Traffic can be a headache
9. Overland Park, KansasPopulation: 166,700
Median home price: $233,887
Average property taxes (2006): $3,345
Pros: Lots of green space; schools among best in nation
Cons: Flat terrain and grid layout don't provide much visual drama
10. Fishers, IndianaPopulation: 61,800
Median home price: $200,830
Average property taxes (2006): $2,218
Pros: Strong economy; low home prices; good schools
Cons: A walkable downtown is still in the planning stages
http://www.walletpop.com/mortgages/best-places-to-live
http://www.walletpop.com/specials/best-of-the-best
Sunday, April 20, 2008
World's 20 Most Innovative Companies
The world is awaiting the arrival of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which, manufactured with 50% composites, promises to be lighter weight and use 20% less fuel than conventional commercial aircraft. The globally sourced project has been plagued by delays, however, which have begun to overshadow excitement over the plane’s groundbreaking technology.
No. 19: Reliance Industries
The Indian petrochemicals giant made it onto our list this year thanks to fans of its aggressive growth. But its ambitious plans to reach into grocery retailing, which is dominated in India by small shopkeepers who’ve rebelled against corporate entrants, have faltered.
CEO Richard Wagoner Jr. is making design a top priority in his efforts to jump-start GM’s struggling business, giving stylists a first crack at new models before engineers. Add in new hybrid-electric SUVs, along with plans for the ultrahigh-mileage Volt in 2010, and it’s clear GM is trying to shake its stodgy image.
No. 17: Walt Disney
Disney is Hollywood’s leader with online offerings. It was first to ship its TV shows online. These days it’s filling the Web with social networks for kids that let them become avatar “fairies” or join communities of pirate-playing gamesters. Digital revenues will jump this year by 25%, to $1 billion.
At a time when most carmakers are worrying about high gas prices, sales of fuel-efficient Hondas are growing. Next up, the automaker will introduce gas-sipping clean diesels, small affordable hybrids and, in 2010, a private jet that’s 30% more fuel efficient than rival offerings.
No. 15: Hewlett-Packard
The 69-year-old info tech company’s Innovation Program Office helps it to absorb the startup vibes from recent acquisitions. The new service “CloudPrint,” developed in a matter of months and inspired by the iPhone, helps users send documents to printers from their mobile devices.
No. 14: BMW
While other carmakers talk about hybrids and electric motors, this German maker of sports sedans has concentrated on getting the most out of existing technology. As a result, the latest BMWs and Minis challenge the Toyota Prius for gas mileage and low emissions.
Twenty-eight million thumbs on 14 million devices say RIM still dominates the wireless e-mail market. The makers of the ubiquitous BlackBerry are now reaching into the vast consumer market, putting it on a collision course with iPhone maker Apple.
With over 3,000 scientists at IBM Research, Big Blue has been the leading U.S. patent winner for 15 years in a row. Now the new head of research, John Kelly III, plans on making bigger and bolder bets. One example: trying to invent the next-generation transistor.
No. 11: Amazon.com
Now far more than an e-tailer of physical goods, Amazon.com has added the ability to download videos and MP3s. And it's selling the very Web services it uses for its own operations to hundreds of startups, which employ the back-office tech programs to run their own companies.
The Finnish handset maker employs anthropologists who study mobile-phone users in emerging markets. Their insights have made Nokia the leader in India and China. As it pushes beyond hardware into Web services, it’s tapping outsiders to create games and offer feedback.
Now that its electronics business is healthy and Blu-ray is the new DVD standard, Sony's priority is online content. Its PlayStation 3 video game consoles will soon feature Home, a 3D social networking and gaming world, and PlayStation Network, an expanded channel for music and videos.
The world’s largest consumer-products maker has out-hustled rivals in new product launches through more spending on design and willingness to turn to outsiders for ideas. But P&G is just as creative in finding new markets: It's now pushing to sell its products in overlooked neighborhood stores in developing regions.
The video gamemaker is new to our top 25 after its wildly popular Wii console tapped an entirely new gaming audience. It recently launched a Wii fitness game that makes staying in shape a family affair. New service WiiWare will soon offer indie programmers a low-cost way to deliver games online.
No. 6: Tata Group
The Mumbai-based conglomerate jumps onto our list for the first time, fueled by its paradigm-busting $2,500 “Nano” car for the masses. The car, from its Tata Motors unit, is the world’s cheapest, thanks partly to a distribution model that sells the auto in kits to entrepreneurs who assemble them for buyers.
No. 5: Microsoft
Often mocked for following rather than leading, the software giant tapped its vast research arm to launch Surface, a new touch-screen computer that moves a step closer to the Holy Grail of natural user interfaces. To catch up with Google, it continues to pour research funds into perfecting search algorithms.
CEO Jeff Immelt is so encouraged by GE’s “ecoimagination” initiative that he’s raising the revenue target for green projects from $20 billion to $25 billion by 2010. This year, the industrial giant tapped Dartmouth prof Vijay Govindarajan to be its own in-house “chief innovation consultant.”
No. 3: Toyota Motor
Determined to retain its mantle as the hybrid leader among carmakers, the Japanese company plans to roll out a more fuel-efficient Prius in 2009. It’s also trying to match rival GM’s promise to deliver a plug-in gas-and-electric car using lithium ion batteries. Toyota is targeting 1 million hybrid sales annually by the early 2010s.
The search giant, which last year hiked R&D spending 72%, took on Microsoft in its own backyard with a concerted push into online office software. This year Google will try to expand beyond search ads into banner and video ads with its $3.2 billion acquisition of display-ad firm DoubleClick.
Our repeat winner has rocked the wireless handset world with the iPhone, spurring rivals to imitate the touch-screen design. After just nine months on sale, it’s already No. 3 in the global smartphone market. Meanwhile some 150 million iPods have been sold since 2001.
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/04/0417_mostinnovative/index_01.htm
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Popular & Busiest Locations
1. McDonald'sThe Busiest Location Is: Karlsplatz, Munich, Germany
Fun Facts: The U.S. has the most McDonald's with 12,804 restaurants. Germany is in fifth place with 1,091 restaurants. More than 1/3 of all French fries sold in the United States are by McDonald's.
2. Dairy QueenThe Busiest Location Is: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Fun Facts: Their busiest store generates $2.8 million in sales a year.
3. Outback SteakhouseThe Busiest Location Is: Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, Nev.
Fun Facts: The average size of an Outback Steakhouse is 6,000 square feet, featuring a dining room and an island bar. It seats approximately 200 guests. Outback was established in March 1988 and is now a member of OSI Partners Inc. Other members include Cheeseburger in Paradise, Carrabbas, and Bonefish Grill.
4. Domino's
The Busiest Location Is: Outside Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Fun Facts: As of 2006, Domino's Pizza operates in five countries, with over 600 stores and approximately 14,000 employees. Domino's makes more than 60 million pizzas a year.
5. 7-ElevenThe Busiest Location Is: Samutprakarn, Thailand
Fun Facts: There are over 7,500 7-Eleven stores in North America and 33,700 globally. 7-Eleven's birthday is on July 11 (7-11), and the stores used to operate from 7 a.m. to 11.p.m.
6. Applebee'sThe Busiest Location Is: 42nd St. between 7th & 8th Avenue, New York
Fun Facts: There are Applebee's operating in 49 states, one U.S. territory and 16 countries. Applebee's has 1,900 restaurants total and is the largest dining restaurant concept in the world.
7. Nordstrom
The Busiest Location Is: Southcoast Plaza, Costa Mesa, Calif.
Fun Facts: Nordstrom currently has 157 stores in the U.S., located in 28 states. Of those 157 stores, 103 are full-line retailers, 50 are Nordstrom Racks, and the rest are miscellaneous stores. The first Nordstrom was opened in 1901, as a shoe store.
8. Red Lobster
The Busiest Location Is: Times Square, New York
Fun Facts: The Times Square Red Lobster generates approximately $10 million in sales each year. The first Red Lobster opened in 1968.
9. Barnes & Noble
The Busiest Location Is: Union Square, New York
Fun Facts: Barnes & Noble, primarily a bookstore, is also the second-largest coffee house in the U.S. The first Barnes & Noble was created in 1873, by Charles M. Barnes, and based out of his home.
10. Whole Foods
The Busiest Location Is: Columbus Circle, New York
Fun Facts: Whole Foods currently has over 54,000 employees and has more than 270 locations in North America and the United Kingdom. The first Whole Foods opened in Austin, Tex. in 1980, and was staffed with only 19 employees.
http://money.aol.com/special/worlds-busiest-store-in-a-chain
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Global Companies 2000
| Rank | Company | Country | Industry | Sales ($bil) | Profits ($bil) | Assets ($bil) | Market Value ($bil) |
| 1 | HSBC Holdings | United Kingdom | Banking | 146.50 | 19.13 | 2,348.98 | 180.81 |
| 2 | General Electric | United States | Conglomerates | 172.74 | 22.21 | 795.34 | 330.93 |
| 3 | Bank of America | United States | Banking | 119.19 | 14.98 | 1,715.75 | 176.53 |
| 4 | JPMorgan Chase | United States | Banking | 116.35 | 15.37 | 1,562.15 | 136.88 |
| 5 | ExxonMobil | United States | Oil & Gas Operations | 358.60 | 40.61 | 242.08 | 465.51 |
| 6 | Royal Dutch Shell | Netherlands | Oil & Gas Operations | 355.78 | 31.33 | 266.22 | 221.09 |
| 7 | BP | United Kingdom | Oil & Gas Operations | 281.03 | 20.60 | 236.08 | 204.94 |
| 8 | Toyota Motor | Japan | Consumer Durables | 203.80 | 13.99 | 276.38 | 175.08 |
| 9 | ING Group | Netherlands | Insurance | 197.93 | 12.65 | 1,932.15 | 75.78 |
| 10 | Berkshire Hathaway | United States | Diversified Financials | 118.25 | 13.21 | 273.16 | 216.65 |
| 10 | Royal Bank of Scotland | United Kingdom | Banking | 108.45 | 14.62 | 3,807.51 | 76.64 |
| 12 | AT&T | United States | Telecommunications Services | 118.93 | 11.95 | 275.64 | 210.22 |
| 13 | BNP Paribas | France | Banking | 116.16 | 10.71 | 2,494.41 | 81.90 |
| 14 | Allianz | Germany | Insurance | 139.12 | 10.90 | 1,547.48 | 80.30 |
| 15 | Total | France | Oil & Gas Operations | 199.74 | 19.24 | 165.75 | 181.80 |
| 16 | Wal-Mart Stores | United States | Retailing | 378.80 | 12.73 | 163.38 | 198.60 |
| 17 | Chevron | United States | Oil & Gas Operations | 203.97 | 18.69 | 148.79 | 179.97 |
| 18 | American Intl Group | United States | Insurance | 110.06 | 6.20 | 1,060.51 | 118.20 |
| 19 | Gazprom | Russia | Oil & Gas Operations | 81.76 | 23.30 | 201.72 | 306.79 |
| 20 | AXA Group | France | Insurance | 151.70 | 7.75 | 1,064.67 | 70.33 |
| 21 | Banco Santander | Spain | Banking | 72.26 | 10.02 | 1,332.72 | 113.27 |
| 22 | ConocoPhillips | United States | Oil & Gas Operations | 171.50 | 11.89 | 177.76 | 129.15 |
| 23 | Goldman Sachs Group | United States | Diversified Financials | 87.97 | 11.60 | 1,119.80 | 67.16 |
| 24 | Citigroup | United States | Banking | 159.23 | 3.62 | 2,187.63 | 123.44 |
| 25 | Barclays | United Kingdom | Banking | 79.70 | 8.76 | 2,432.34 | 62.43 |
| 26 | EDF Group | France | Utilities | 81.60 | 7.69 | 271.66 | 170.81 |
| 27 | E.ON | Germany | Utilities | 94.04 | 9.86 | 200.84 | 126.22 |
| 28 | ENI | Italy | Oil & Gas Operations | 119.27 | 13.70 | 128.15 | 127.38 |
| 29 | Petrobras-Petróleo Brasil | Brazil | Oil & Gas Operations | 87.52 | 11.04 | 129.98 | 236.67 |
| 30 | PetroChina | China | Oil & Gas Operations | 88.24 | 18.21 | 111.70 | 546.14 |
| 31 | Procter & Gamble | United States | Household & Personal Products | 79.74 | 11.13 | 144.40 | 203.67 |
| 32 | Deutsche Bank | Germany | Diversified Financials | 95.50 | 7.45 | 1,485.58 | 56.27 |
| 33 | UniCredit Group | Italy | Banking | 63.67 | 7.19 | 1,077.21 | 77.46 |
| 34 | Telefónica | Spain | Telecommunications Services | 82.40 | 13.00 | 143.13 | 138.42 |
| 35 | Mitsubishi UFJ Financial | Japan | Banking | 49.49 | 7.50 | 1,591.56 | 98.14 |
| 36 | Volkswagen Group | Germany | Consumer Durables | 149.00 | 5.64 | 210.88 | 90.23 |
| 37 | IBM | United States | Software & Services | 98.79 | 10.42 | 120.43 | 157.62 |
| 38 | ArcelorMittal | Luxembourg | Materials | 105.22 | 10.37 | 133.65 | 108.82 |
| 38 | Daimler | Germany | Consumer Durables | 145.11 | 5.82 | 199.77 | 85.16 |
| 40 | BBVA-Banco Bilbao Vizcaya | Spain | Banking | 54.34 | 8.94 | 733.14 | 78.29 |
| 41 | Wells Fargo | United States | Banking | 53.59 | 8.06 | 575.44 | 96.37 |
| 42 | ICBC | China | Banking | 37.48 | 6.31 | 961.65 | 289.57 |
| 43 | Credit Suisse Group | Switzerland | Diversified Financials | 83.72 | 7.53 | 1,194.75 | 50.85 |
| 44 | HBOS | United Kingdom | Banking | 100.32 | 8.10 | 1,336.17 | 44.84 |
| 45 | Crédit Agricole | France | Banking | 101.59 | 6.49 | 1,662.60 | 45.73 |
| 45 | Nestlé | Switzerland | Food Drink & Tobacco | 94.76 | 9.38 | 99.06 | 188.11 |
| 47 | Fortis | Netherlands | Diversified Financials | 121.19 | 5.46 | 1,020.98 | 49.04 |
| 48 | Verizon Communications | United States | Telecommunications Services | 93.47 | 5.65 | 186.96 | 104.27 |
| 49 | France Telecom | France | Telecommunications Services | 77.31 | 9.20 | 137.09 | 87.89 |
| 50 | Siemens | Germany | Conglomerates | 103.20 | 5.42 | 126.72 | 118.47 |
| 50 | Wachovia | United States | Banking | 55.53 | 6.31 | 782.90 | 60.69 |
| 52 | Sinopec-China Petroleum | China | Oil & Gas Operations | 133.79 | 6.90 | 77.44 | 186.38 |
| 53 | Hewlett-Packard | United States | Technology Hardware & Equip | 107.67 | 7.85 | 88.57 | 122.04 |
| 54 | Lloyds TSB Group | United Kingdom | Banking | 58.74 | 6.53 | 701.08 | 50.95 |
| 55 | Royal Bank of Canada | Canada | Banking | 43.57 | 5.77 | 629.96 | 64.41 |
| 56 | Bank of China | China | Banking | 31.13 | 5.49 | 679.57 | 171.45 |
| 57 | Pfizer | United States | Drugs & Biotechnology | 48.42 | 8.14 | 115.27 | 152.17 |
| 58 | Johnson & Johnson | United States | Drugs & Biotechnology | 61.10 | 10.58 | 80.95 | 175.51 |
| 59 | Samsung Electronics | South Korea | Semiconductors | 92.26 | 8.56 | 87.49 | 87.84 |
| 60 | StatoilHydro | Norway | Oil & Gas Operations | 89.00 | 7.52 | 89.16 | 98.36 |
| 61 | Generali Group | Italy | Insurance | 102.16 | 3.17 | 486.43 | 60.79 |
| 62 | CCB-China Construction Bank | China | Banking | 29.16 | 5.93 | 697.44 | 126.55 |
| 63 | Microsoft | United States | Software & Services | 57.90 | 16.96 | 67.34 | 253.15 |
| 64 | Suez Group | France | Utilities | 64.96 | 5.37 | 114.89 | 83.56 |
| 65 | Zurich Financial Services | Switzerland | Insurance | 55.05 | 5.63 | 387.67 | 45.76 |
| 66 | Nippon Telegraph & Tel | Japan | Telecommunications Services | 91.57 | 4.06 | 149.71 | 60.27 |
| 67 | Sanofi-aventis | France | Drugs & Biotechnology | 40.95 | 7.68 | 104.98 | 101.17 |
| 68 | Honda Motor | Japan | Consumer Durables | 94.35 | 5.04 | 101.82 | 56.82 |
| 69 | Nokia | Finland | Technology Hardware & Equip | 74.54 | 10.52 | 52.62 | 145.66 |
| 70 | Munich Re | Germany | Insurance | 67.57 | 5.63 | 306.03 | 37.34 |
| 71 | Mizuho Financial | Japan | Banking | 32.52 | 5.28 | 1,272.17 | 48.80 |
| 72 | Novartis | Switzerland | Drugs & Biotechnology | 40.22 | 12.62 | 71.89 | 111.62 |
| 73 | MetLife | United States | Insurance | 53.01 | 4.32 | 558.56 | 41.32 |
| 74 | Roche Holding | Switzerland | Drugs & Biotechnology | 40.65 | 8.60 | 67.72 | 169.32 |
| 75 | Morgan Stanley | United States | Diversified Financials | 85.33 | 2.56 | 1,045.41 | 46.53 |
| 76 | Vale | Brazil | Materials | 33.23 | 10.26 | 74.70 | 161.39 |
| 77 | Rio Tinto | United Kingdom/Australia | Materials | 29.70 | 7.31 | 100.81 | 165.48 |
| 78 | China Mobile | Hong Kong/China | Telecommunications Services | 37.06 | 8.29 | 62.44 | 308.59 |
| 79 | GlaxoSmithKline | United Kingdom | Drugs & Biotechnology | 45.07 | 10.35 | 57.16 | 120.05 |
| 80 | BASF | Germany | Chemicals | 84.60 | 5.93 | 67.33 | 60.96 |
| 81 | RWE Group | Germany | Utilities | 56.17 | 3.64 | 119.50 | 68.19 |
| 82 | Sumitomo Mitsui Financial | Japan | Banking | 33.04 | 3.76 | 850.75 | 56.10 |
| 83 | BHP Billiton | Australia/United Kingdom | Materials | 39.50 | 13.42 | 53.36 | 190.62 |
| 84 | Time Warner | United States | Media | 46.48 | 4.39 | 133.83 | 55.83 |
| 85 | Banco Bradesco | Brazil | Banking | 36.12 | 4.11 | 192.65 | 59.80 |
| 85 | KBC Group | Belgium | Banking | 35.22 | 4.66 | 517.98 | 43.66 |
| 87 | Dexia | Belgium | Banking | 140.78 | 3.47 | 889.98 | 28.04 |
| 88 | Altria Group | United States | Food Drink & Tobacco | 38.05 | 9.16 | 57.21 | 154.20 |
| 89 | National Australia Bank | Australia | Banking | 38.88 | 4.06 | 499.44 | 43.95 |
| 90 | Cisco Systems | United States | Technology Hardware & Equip | 37.68 | 8.07 | 55.30 | 145.39 |
| 91 | Manulife Financial | Canada | Insurance | 33.08 | 4.01 | 178.58 | 59.18 |
| 92 | Bank of Nova Scotia | Canada | Banking | 28.02 | 4.25 | 431.30 | 48.08 |
| 93 | Intel | United States | Semiconductors | 38.33 | 6.98 | 55.65 | 115.59 |
| 94 | Unilever | Netherlands/United Kingdom | Food Drink & Tobacco | 54.82 | 5.30 | 53.40 | 92.75 |
| 95 | Toronto-Dominion Bank | Canada | Banking | 26.51 | 4.20 | 443.56 | 48.38 |
| 96 | Nissan Motor | Japan | Consumer Durables | 89.09 | 3.92 | 104.20 | 37.90 |
| 97 | Lehman Bros Holdings | United States | Diversified Financials | 59.00 | 4.19 | 691.06 | 27.05 |
| 98 | Carrefour Group | France | Food Markets | 112.40 | 3.15 | 75.73 | 49.95 |
| 99 | Commonwealth Bank | Australia | Banking | 26.48 | 3.80 | 360.42 | 51.86 |
| 100 | Boeing | United States | Aerospace & Defense | 66.39 | 4.07 | 58.99 | 63.32 |
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/18/biz_2000global08_The-Global-2000_Rank.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)