Study Suggests Businesses Ready to Reverse Pay Actions

On August 20, 2009

Natgas Conundrum: Calming Volatility Fears in Push for Clean Energy Alternative

A hedge fund -- still undisclosed at this time -- made a hefty bet that natural gas prices will triple once Jack Frost starts nipping a few noses. The Financial Times reported an unnamed fund spent millions to take out call options on natural gas at $10 per million British thermal units in January and February. That's three times more than today's spot price, which for the first time in seven years, dipped below $3 per million British thermal units. Generally, BNET doesn't spend too much time writing or speculating about movements within the futures or equities markets. I bring it up because it illustrates the difficulty of selling the public and lawmakers on the benefits of shifting the country's power generation system away from coal...
On August 20, 2009

The Future of Working for Good.

As the economy shifts, and large corporations seek new avenues to retain financial standing and brand recognition, a new type of company is emerging. Author Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls these “vanguard companies,” and like IBM, Proctor and Gamble, and others, they not only focus on the business at hand, but also apply their resources [...]
On August 20, 2009

Personalization and Targeting for Email Deliverability

SmallBusinessNewz conducted a little Q&A on email marketing and deliverability issues with Jeremy Saibil, the Director of Deliverability at email marketing firm Campaigner.

SmallBusinessNewz: There have been a lot of email marketing deliverability studies and reports recently – why is it such a hot issue right now?

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On August 20, 2009

When Does Your Product Need to Die?

Business people conduct their own "death panels" everyday by asking, "Is this product past its prime? Should this service be diminished? What's in R&D that can re-eenergize our sagging sales?" But as a recent NYT article written by Harvard Business School professor Mary Tripsas points out, companies may be wise to figure out how to keep older products on life support rather than ushering them to a premature death. "Companies can proactively manage the innovation endgame. Continuing improvements to extend the life of technology, particularly given the attractive margins on the old, can be a wise business decision -- and not necessarily a reflection of narrow-mindedness." One way to do this, says her HBS colleague Daniel Snow, is to take...
On August 20, 2009

Apple Involved in Second No-Employee-Poach Mess

Apple has been attracting significant attention from regulators and the press for some of its actions: alleged product safety issue with iPods and iPhones and its relationship with Google, including having Eric Schmidt on the board, banning Google Voice from the iPhone app store, and engaging in an unofficial policy of not hiring people away from each other. Now Connie Guglielmo at Bloomberg has a story claiming that Palm's ex-CEO Ed Colligan rejected overtures from Steve Jobs to similarly implement a no-poach policy.
On August 20, 2009

For VCs, Investing Closer to Home may Hurt Performance

Among tech entrepreneurs, it's common knowledge that venture capitalists like to invest locally. Focusing on nearby startups makes it easier for VCs to monitor their portfolio firms, huddle with company founders and broker introductions to useful industry contacts, among other benefits. And that produces more successful businesses and, for investors, a bigger bang for the buck. But a recent study suggests that such geographic clustering may in fact have the opposite effect. Indeed, researchers from Harvard University and the New York Fed found that VCs get higher returns investing in startups in cities outside their home region. Examining more than 2,000 VC firms' results over roughly 30 years, they conclude that investments in areas where they have a branch office,...
On August 20, 2009

MySpace Makes Room for iLike

If LinkedIn is for professionals and Facebook is for friends, then MySpace is still the social network destination for teens/young adults to sing the praises of the rock bands that they love. To that end, MySpace announced Wednesday that it would build on that relationship by acquiring Seattle-based social music application makers iLike.
On August 20, 2009

How Long Until NBC Takes a Hard Look at Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show”?

Reading this latest report about the ratings of "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" vs. "Late Night with David Letterman" should have us all wondering how long it will be before NBC considers retooling "The Tonight Show."  Bill Carter at The New York Times reports today that not only are reruns of "Late Night" beating out new episodes of "The Tonight Show," but the gap widened considerably during the second week of Letterman's vacation -- from 7,000 to 280,000. (Let's assume, though I couldn't find data to support it, that Letterman's reruns last week included some really strong guests and that explains part of it.) Equally troubling is that ABC's "Nightline" -- the show that everyone thought would wither away...
On August 20, 2009

Low Hanging Fruit: Cherry Picker or Lettuce Picker?

shutterstock_cherry_pickingWhen you think of a cherry picker, do you conjure up images of someone who only picks the easiest or ripest fruit? Or does it perhaps have some artisanal connotation, waiting until only the proper time before action is taken?   Is that how you go about optimizing your web…

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