Tata Group and Xander team up for retail expansion

The Tata Group announced that it had tied up with private equity investor Xander, to develop its real estate properties for retail ventures. India's second largest business company, The Tata group has teamed up with Xander to facilitate fast growth. The agreement between the two companies states that Trent, which is Tata's retail division, will hold the rights to anchor tenancy and will manage it's portfolio with Xander. The company released a statement that stated, “The arrangement will be of considerable help to the company in its growth plans in the retail sector, including in the current formats like Westside, Landmark and Star India Bazaar.”

Apple sells its 100th million iPod

Apple announced that it had sold its 100 millionth iPod. The company has achieved this in 6 years which has made it the fastest selling music player ever. So, will sales slow down of this amazing product in the foreseeable future? Well, ease of use has been the key to it's success, but if the company starts to sell DRM-free songs form the iTunes catalog, it will surely make it more complicated.

"Removing the DRM from iTunes makes for a much better consumer experience," he reasoned. Since it was elegant ease of use -- in other words, a good consumer experience -- that made iPods so popular, smoothing the DRM wrinkle with iTunes is likely to increase the public respect for Apple and digital music players.

"This will go a long way to determining if iPod has hit its peak or whether it's going to continue to be the No. 1 portable music device," said Chapell. "I think that, from a consumer perspective, the most important thing is that they can obtain the music they want in a way that's easy. iTunes, for the most part, enabled that.

Living large

I love reading and subscribing to home decorating and real estate magazines. There is just something so uplifting about being able to dream about the kind of house you want to have one day, the places you want to live in, ideas for vacation homes etc. One of the magazines that I recently read was Dream Homes magazine, which focuses only on million dollar homes across the world. The magazine has some of the most beautiful houses showcased and has a lot of resources on how to locate your dream home, whether it is in Greece or Mexico or Italy or anywhere else in the world. There are details on each city, such as real estate agents and offices, local attractions, nightlife, restaurants, historic locations and prices.

More female Internet users than male

Did you know that there are more women Internet users than men in the US? According to research done by eMarketer, there are an estimated 97.2 million female Internet users or 51.7% of the total online users. This figure is estimated to increase to 109.7 million or 51.9% of total online users in 2011. Besides eMarketer, several other firms such as Arbitron and Edison Media Research and Media Metric have also conducted research on this aspect and the majority of results find that women are the maximum users online.

Not only do females make up the majority of Internet users, but more of the female population goes online. This year, an estimated 66.2% of US females ages 3 and older will use the Internet at least once a month, compared with 64.2% of males, according to eMarketer. By 2011, 72.1% of females are expected to go online, vs. 69.3% of males.

eMarketer Senior Analyst Debra Aho Williamson thinks that current trends will shape future Internet demographics and usage. "For girls who have grown up with technology," says Ms. Williamson, "there is no significant gender gap in Internet usage, and the rise of activities that are particularly appealing to young females, such as social networking, will result in even greater usage."

Google launches voice activated search

Google announced that it had launched Google Voice Local Search, a directory assistance service that uses speech recognition on telephones so that people can search for local firms. The system is being used on an experimental basis as yet. To use the system, consumers can call 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone to access the voice-activated service. The system provides a great way to find local information, such as that what you find on Google Maps, and can be accessed from anywhere with just a telephone. Consumers are also connected to their requested numbers directly free of charge.

Google's experimental entry into voice-based mobile search establishes a clear competitive landscape, which will likely mean a further decline in call volumes and revenues for traditional mobile directory assistance, Greg Sterling, a principal analyst with Sterling Market Intelligence, told TechNewsWorld.

"This would allow Google to put its Internet ad business onto mobile phones," said Sterling. "It also signifies they want to have a viable voice in this space, which is going to be popular area in the future."

Because Google handles billions of queries already, the move into the directory assistance space is a natural progression. However, it has to make up some distance in this field, Sterling warned.

Laugh of the day

Is it hot or what?

It's not spring any more, summer is here already. The temperatures have gone up to around 36-40C or 96.8-104F in the past week and with the high humidity, it has been feeling like 48C or 118F.....ugh, it's killing. Especially the humidity, which just saps all the energy out from you. I'm not looking forward to moving in this weather, but what comes after this, the monsoon, will be much more chaotic.

A good time to invest in silver

Silver has always been relegated to being beneath gold, although if you had invested in both gold and silver last year, you would have made a larger profit on the silver rather than the gold. Surprising, right? Well, silver has never been as valuable as gold but it has maintained a steady increase as opposed to gold's up and down prices. Silver jewelry is a good way to get into investing in it, if you'd rather not have just a business transaction. I have a bit of silver jewelry which is really great to use while travelling, so one doesn't have to worry about it too much as one would have to do with gold or diamonds. But if you were to make an investment in silver, you could do it via Monex Deposit company which has been in the business for a long time and will not only provide you with the top rated quality but will also store it for you in an independent bank or depository. So whether you are interested in buying silver bars or ingots or coins or bullion, MDC is the place that will answer all your questions.

US Postal Office withdraws its surface rate for books

The US Postal Service is withdrawing for individual customers its service of shipping goods internationally on cargo ships. The service will be withdrawn by mid-May. Surface deliveries have been crucial to the survival of smaller booksellers and those who sell to international markets, as the prices are around a third of air freight rates. Larger companies such as Amazon.com will not be affected as it qualifies for bulk discounts due its high volumes.

In announcing the changes last month, the post office said demand for international air-mail delivery was increasing at the expense of sea-borne services, which account for just 2.7 percent of foreign deliveries. “As a result, efficient international surface delivery networks have diminished and costs have dramatically increased,” the Postal Service said.

This is indeed a sad change. We shipped all our books back home to India, when we moved from Providence, RI in 2004 using this surface delivery rate. We had 10 boxes of books all of which we shipped by surface, which reached us three months later.

Reserve your parking space

UK drivers will be happy with this new business idea reported by Springwise, one of the greatest sources for new stuff from across the globe. Peasy.com has come up with an idea to let drivers connect with each other and reserve a parking spot for them before even leaving home. It's a great way for residents of high traffic areas to monetize their unused parking space by adding themselves to the Peasy network. How it works is that owners of parking spaces register with Peasy with all the details regarding their parking space, such as the available times, rental periods for daily or weekly basis and the price. Drivers looking for parking, search and reserve spaces online. At the time of renting, only the street address is given, but once the transaction is complete, the full address is revealed.

Any off-street parking spaces can be rented out: driveways, garages and secure allocated spaces. Peasy estimates most people will earn GBP 10-30 a week, for an extra stream of income of GBP 500-1,500 per year. In prime locations, spaces can go for as much as GBP 3,000 per year. Listing a parking space is free, and Peasy takes a commission fee of 12% for each rental transaction.

In the US, a similar concept called SpotScout was to launch but has been delayed. The company will be starting out in Boston, New York and San Francisco quite soon and already has a huge database of people wanting to use the service.

Sunday surfing!!

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Ads in subway tunnels

Residents of San Francisco, Boston, London and a few other cities might already be familiar with this phenomenon. The tunnel walls of the subway are one of the newest forms of advertising. Canada's SideTrack and New York's Submedia are some of the companies who are focusing on advertising on subway tunnel walls and some of the biggest brands like Microsoft, Target, Coca-Cola, Rebook and Honda are advertising on them.

SideTrack installed the system on San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system last month as a trial. How it works is that a long series of still photographs are installed in a subway tunnel which are illuminated by rapidly flashing spotlights as the trains go by, resulting in a movie like effect. Campaigns are 15 seconds long.

Michael Swistun, CEO of SideTrack, explained that his company's technology is designed to present riders with a 24- or 30-frame-per-second "movie," depending on the speed of the train.

The technology requires that trains pass the ads going at least 25 miles per hour. If they're going slower, the lights stay off and the tunnels stay dark.

Submedia has project pending in Paris, Prague, Singapore and India currently. Here is the Submedia India site.

Masterseek: a new global search engine

As part of my research work, I use a lot of search engines to find companies that do a specific type of work in a limited field. Currently, I'm looking for branding and marketing companies that focus on finance services (earlier it was the telecom sector) on the consumer side. I found masterseek a global search engine that gives free access to company profiles in 75 countries, which seems to work on a similar manner like Hoovers. The site looks brand new and does not have all the company details filled in as yet. The concept is great and giving information for free is always a winning solution but unless they quickly add the information, there are going to be lots of unhappy visitors. One aspect I really did like was being able to search for companies in a specific country.

Use of self checkout lanes increasing

Saving time is the number one factor the average consumer tries out self checkout lanes. This from an extremely in depth article by Joyce Smith in The Kansas City Star on self checkout lanes, which is a must read for all marketers and retailers. The concept has been around for quite some time now, but has had only limited success, at specific stores where the customers are attuned to trying out new technology. While the actual process is simple enough, consumers, especially women hesitate using it because it looks complicated and also as it could be embarrassing if you held up the line while trying to figure it out. The concept of self check is not just limited to retail stores, you can now buy movie tickets, check out library books, rent movies, check in at hotels, pick up tickets at the airport, all without any help from a customer service person.

Americans spent more than $110 billion at self-checkout lanes in 2005, up nearly 35 percent from 2004, according to the IHL Consulting Group, a retail and hospitality consulting company based in Franklin, Tenn.

Experts estimate that anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of the daily transaction volume and 15 percent to 35 percent of the daily dollar volume of some retail stores is being handled by self-checkout machines. In its 2006 survey, IHL found that 94 percent of respondents will use self-checkout, even if they don’t necessarily like it.

Bloggerwave makes its debut

The newest kid on the get paid to blog platforms is Bloggerwave, which is absolutely brand spanking new. It's actually so new that there are just a couple of advertisers on board as yet. The format is great, bloggers sign up with them and register their blogs, select opportunities to write up on and get paid by them. Yes, there are lots of other sites doing this already, I know, but Bloggerwave seems to be taking in all the inputs from earlier editions and coming up with an improved version. Bloggerwave will be using statistics from Alexa, Technorati, Google Page Rank etc to judge how a blog is rated and paid. It definitely the right time to be a blogger, for sure!

Redoing the home

How often do you change the look of your home? I love to change things around every few months (I am a Gemini after all) but lately have not got around to doing anything and had got quite bored with the set up. What has made the change is that our window air conditioner packed up last week, so we had to shift to the other bedroom which we usually keep reserved for guests. Somehow just by moving to the next room, it feels like we are on vacation. It's just interesting to see how much on our perceptions we live by and rely on.

So what is social media all about?

I am quite intrigued with social networking and interaction sites. The entire concept is so engaging and if correctly done, pulls you in effortlessly. Social networking is just one facet of social media, but it has caught the attention of marketers and is being used to promote products in an unobtrusive way. I found the Internet Marketing Blog which has some good reading material on subjects such as search engine optimization, viral marketing and social media, and I find the blog to be rather interesting considering that I am more into the research side of things and not so much of a marketer. Maybe, that's exactly why it appeals to me. The articles are well thought out, written well and are a good mix of general issues and more complex ones. I'll definitely be going back for updates.

Menswear brand Raymond expand store base

At the launch of its 350th store, Raymond announced that it would increase it's stores to 950 by 2010 with an investment of approximately Rs 5 million per store. Stores are to be of an average size of 2,500 sq ft. Park Avenue, ColorPlus, Manzini and Parx are some of Raymond's famous brands which will all be available at these new stores. At present the company has over 1 million sq ft of space, a substantial part of it being in tier II and tier III towns, ahead of other retailers who are rushing to set up stores.

Reebok's social networking initiative

Reebok has launched its new social networking and interactive website Run Easy to directly interact with consumers of its RunEasy campaign. Reebok hopes to convey that running is not just for serious marathoners and is a casual sport that can be taken up at different levels. Consumers can now connect with others, upload photo's of themselves running, listen to music to run to and find running trails using Google Maps.

The “Run Easy” campaign and interactive site were debuted during a press walk from Reebok’s Sports Club in New York through Central Park. MTV VJ and former Miss SA Susie Castillo, Atlanta Falcon’s football player DeAngleo Hall and Reebok’s chief marketing officer Uli Becker led the walk to demonstrate the casual nature of walking and talking. “Everybody has different potential and the Reebok brand is about getting the individual to live to their specific potential,” Mr. Becker said.

It automatically detects where you are and pulls up a map in the browse runs section. Unfortunately, it did not find any trails here in the city, but it was nice to look them up for Providence,RI where we used to live and had been on most of the trails it pulled up for the city.

Hitch a ride to the airport

This is a great idea that I read about on Springwise and I think a lot of people would agree with me. Hitchsters.com is a new company that has been launched by Terry Crawford and his wife Gloria, that combines social networking with a ride matching site, to come up with ways to share taxi's to the airport. Using Hitchster, you can connect with others who are travelling on the same flight and are from the same area, to save money and share a cab. There is also an option to specify a male of female co-rider. All that is required is your first name, cell phone number, cell phone service provider and an email address. Hitchster connects passengers using its database and makes a match.

The company has a few rules: customers must be over the age of eighteen and the first person to get dropped off pays 60% of the fare and tolls to make sure the second rider doesn’t get stiffed for the tip. Hitchsters suggests rock paper scissors to minimize arguments over who gets out first. Customers who stand up other riders risk being banned from the system. Currently, Hitchsters is in beta in New York, and scheduled to launch soon in Brooklyn and Boston. The service is free, but the Crawfords hope to generate revenue by attracting advertisers to the site.