Ruth La Ferla of The New York Times knows how to make an impression on the impressionable. During the round of parties preceding the New York Fashion Week, Stephen Knoll, a hair stylist, gave my satchel- size Yves Saint Laurent Muse bag the once-over. "Handsome," he murmured. Then he focused on my Marni coat, with its spray of plastic flowers. "Gorgeous," he pronounced. I neglected to tell him that both were rentals, …
Bubbles Preceed The Bath
USA Today's tech guru, Kevin Maney, is soft on Web 2.0. The tech industry is frothing. It is spewing companies and Web doohickeys and blog amalgamizers and Internet contraptions like video social-networking wiki cooking sites. Money is flying into ventures that most people east of Palo Alto, Calif., would find incomprehensible. Web 2.0 is a broad term for a new generation of websites that are more interactive and …
Make Your Play. The Whole World’s Waiting.
Tired of your ad world occupation? Here are some other ventures to consider. 1. Build cheap Wi-Fi networks for Brazilian resorts. 2. Become a biodiesel producer in Argentina. 3. Create an ad network for India's mobile content developers. 4. Launch an exclusive social network for Russian millionaires. 5. Open an American-style restaurant in one of China's fast-growing cities. If you're looking for a punchline, there …
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Rising Gas Prices Precipitate Executive Delusions
General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner, in a foolish moment, told USA Today $4.00/gallon gas will not lead to fewer auto sales. Despite the speculation about how high prices could run after the cutoff this week of BP's Alaskan crude, Wagoner says he thinks vehicle sales are unlikely to nose-dive. "We have actually been a little surprised how the market has held up through ... $3-plus gas that we've had here over the past …
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Show ‘Em The Money
USA TODAY: Blogs. 99-cent music downloads. Podcasts. Phoning home via the Internet. Online social networking. It's the golden age of the Internet. But you wouldn't know it if you've just been watching Internet stocks. Outside of Google and a few other choice names, it's hard to find an Internet company that gets investors' juices flowing — let alone gets them to pull out their wallets. From a technological …
Bet The House On It
USA Today: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a financial marketplace dealing in the value of everything from interest rates and foreign currencies to pork bellies, has committed to offer trading next year in a category many consumers take personally: U.S. home prices. Housing-price futures, based on the median home price in each of 10 U.S. cities, aren't being tailored for individual homeowners. But they may provide …
Slip Slidin’ Away
Cynical-C points to this story in Variety. "We had the option to buy Netflix for $50 million and we didn't do it. They were losing money. They came around a few times," Blockbuster's CEO, John Antioco, recalls. Instead, in 2000, Blockbuster inked a 20-year exclusive video-on-demand pactpact with Enron as the energy conglomconglom launched into telecom. Blockbuster canned the pact after nine months. Netflix is now …
Blowing Bubbles While The Peninsula Burns
With all the deals being made in internet land these days, it's only right that a blog called "Bubble 2.0" would float. Bubble 2.0? The signs are all around us. First a mainstream business publication quotes Howard Rheingold. Then Esther Dyson starts making investments. Before you know it, there's a new Vespa store in downtown Austin. Is it Internet 2.0? Maybe. Is it Bubble 2.0? Only time will tell. But along the …
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