An automotive masterpiece designed to change our perception of perfection, here’s the outrageous ‘ultra-luxury hypercar’ Lykan Hypersport 2013 from Beirut-based W Motors, the first Arab coach-builder of high performance luxury sports cars based in the Middle East, which will make its impressive sales debut at the Qatar Auto Show starting January 29th in Doha.
W Motors' Lykan Hypersport was unveiled at the Qatar Motor Show in January 28, 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)
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Labeled as the most exclusive, luxurious and technologically advanced Hypercar in the world that boasts never-seen-before cutting-edge technologies inside and out, the Arab’s first sports car Lykan Hypersport 2013 is limited to just 7 cars, and is aimed for the ultra-elite clientele of the Middle East, Far East, Africa and Eastern European markets.
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The Lykan Hypersports can accelerate from 0 to 100 kph in just 2.8 seconds and reaches a maximum speed of 390 kph with the help of its mid-rear positioned 750 horsepower engine, notably comes equipped with diamond-encrusted LED lights, gold-plated hood, and gold-stitched interior leather, which will guarantee that the passengers travel in style.
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Notably, the proud owners of this $3.4 million Lykan that comes with 24-hour concierge service will also be awarded with a Special Edition Cyrus Klepcys Watch, worth over $200,000 and limited to just 7 units.
Designed, developed and built by the legends of the automotive industry, including the Magna Steyr Italia, RUF Automobile, Studiotorino, Viotti, ID4MOTION in a time period of 6-years, the Lykan Hypersport 2013 is actually the brainchild of Beirut-born car designer Ralph Debbas, who is the lead investor, chairman and CEO of W Motors, and has track record of designing several concepts for such luxury automakers like Land Rover and Aston Martin, before starting W Motors in 2006.
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The other technicalheadlights of this wild, angular machine includes a reverse door opening system, a state-of-the-art 3D Virtual Holographic Display with Tactile Interaction, an innovative ID4Motion Interactive Dashboard.
Lykan Hypersport dashboard includes a holographic display with interactive motion gesture ignition (Click Image To Enlarge)
Lykan Hypersport 3D Virtual Holographic Display with Tactile Interaction, innovative ID4Motion Interactive Dashboard (Click Image To Enlarge)
COMMENTARY: The advanced technology incorporated into the Lykan Hypersport supercar like the 3D Virtual Holographic Display with Tactile Interaction and innovative ID4Motion Interactive Dashboard and the other luxury imbellishments, especially the diamonds and rubies in the LED lighting could be worth the $3.4 million price tag. The fact that only 7 of these cars will be produced for delivery in September 2014 establishes the Lykan Hypersport as one of the rarest supercars of its pedigree on the market today.
W Motors guarantees that the Lykan Hypersport can generate 750 horsepower and claims that their supercar can go at a top speed of 395 KM or 245 MPH and clock 0 to 100 KP/H in 2.8 seconds (62 MPH in 2.8 seconds) is pretty darn impressive. That's in the same league as the new Ferrari LaFerrari ($1 million) and Bugatti Veyron ($2.4 million), two cars that really impress yours truly, but I could never afford.
I don't have the complete technical specifications or was able to view a video of a test drive of a production Lykan Hypersport, so it's hard to really get too excited about one of the most expensive cars in the world. Rumors that up to 100 very rich individuals from the Middle East have expressed an interest in buying a Lykan Hypersport is impressive, but they are just rumors. Money speaks louder than words.
Courtesy of an article dated January 24, 2013 appearing in BornRich.com
Commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield reports that rents for retail spaces on Causeway Bay rose 34.9 percent year-over-year, to $2,630 per sq. ft. In contrast, rents on Fifth Avenue rose only 11.1 percent, to $2,500 per sq. ft. That growth rate was below the average for the U.S. retail market overall, which posted a 16.3 percent year-over-year increase in rents.
Fifth Avenue remains the most expensive retail street in the Americas, however. It’s followed by Times Square, with average rents of $2,100 per sq. ft.; Madison Avenue, with average rents of $1,100 per sq. ft. and East 57th Street, with average rents of $1,100 per sq. ft. Rounding out the list is Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles; North Michigan Avenue in Chicago; Union Square in San Francisco; Iguatemi Shopping in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Post Street in San Francisco and Bloor Street in Toronto.
Meanwhile, commercial real estate services CBRE reports that U.S. cities that will see the greatest growth in retail rents over the next two years will include Denver, Colo.; Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tenn.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; New York and San Francisco. CBRE researchers estimate that retail rents stateside are currently 14 percent below their pre-recession level and won’t reach their previous highs for another five years.
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Hong Kong's Causeway Bay
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong Island is a heavily built-up area of Hong Kong, located on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, and covering parts of Wan Chai and Eastern districts. The Chinese name is also Romanized as Tung Lo Wan as in Tung Lo Wan Road. The rent in the shopping areas of Causeway Bay is ranked as being one of the most expensive in the world, near that of London's Sloane Street and New York's Fifth Avenue.
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New York City's Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of Manhattan Island in New York City, New York. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among the most expensive shopping streets in the world. Fifth Avenue, and adjoining streets, are home to Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Bergman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Cartier's, Tiffany & Company, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Barney's of New York, and FAO Schwarz, just to name a few. For several years starting in the mid-1990s, the shopping district between 49th and 57th Streets was ranked as having the world's most expensive retail spaces on a cost per square foot basis. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Fifth Avenue as being the most expensive street in the world. Some of the most coveted real estate on Fifth Avenue are the penthouses perched atop the buildings.
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COMMENTARY: For my money, New York City's Fifth Avenue cannot be beat. I had the distinction of spending four days in Mid-Town during a business trip to The Big Apple, and stayed at a boutique hotel at the corner of 45th Street and 6th Avenue. Just down the block was the Museum of Modern Art, Fifth Avenue and the world famous Rockefeller Center was right across the street. I remember taking a leisurely stroll on Fifth Avenue and witnessing first-hand some of the best department stores and boutiques. I am not a shopper, but was very impressed.
I have not been to Hong Kong for a very long time, but it is definitely one of the greatest cities of the World. A lot has changed and Causeway Bay is one of those areas that has been developed into one of the top retailing areas of Hong Kong, with prices to match.
If the start-up world had fairy tales, Jennifer (Jenny) Fleiss and Jennifer (Jenn) Hyman would be the main characters. Once upon a time, the Harvard Business School classmates—Fleiss from the finance world and Hyman from sales and marketing—met casually for lunch every week to brainstorm entrepreneurial ventures.
Rent The Runway co-founders Jennifer (Jenny) Fleiss and Jennifer (Jenn) Hyman
The idea that stuck came over Thanksgiving break, when Hyman’s sister, Becky, wanted something gorgeous to wear to an upcoming wedding, but didn’t want to drop an obscene amount of money on a dress she’d only wear once. From that moment on, Fleiss and Hyman had their concept: Rent the Runway, a “Netflix for dresses” that allowed women to rent designer gowns for a fraction of the retail price.
Now, just over three years later, Fleiss and Hyman oversee the rapidly growing, 125-person, multi-million dollar enterprise with a cultish following of customers who get their own Cinderella experience—a new, gorgeous dress for every special occasion.
We got to chat with the incredible duo to hear more about how they turned an “I have nothing to wear” dilemma into an opportunity that looks like it’s headed for happily ever after. Read on for the story of how they got started, and the advice they’d give to every aspiring entrepreneur.
Why was Rent the Runway the right idea—and what made you move forward with it?
Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway Co-Founder and CEO
JH: Actually, I never said, “oh this is a brilliant idea, this is going to be a billion dollar company, we have to do this.” My reaction was: I had an idea, I thought it was interesting, Jenny thought it was interesting, we thought it was fun, and we thought, let’s figure out if this is a great idea.
JF: When Jenn came to me with this idea, we decided to do it as a course credit. But we also decided to spend the rest of the year figuring out if this was something we could do full time, instead of getting a job. We gave ourselves a fixed deadline—by the time we graduated, we’d see if this would actually work. And if it didn’t, we had other jobs that we were going to accept.
You didn’t write a business plan—you just got started! Why?
Jennifer Fleiss, Rent the Runway Co-Founder and President
JH: I think people waste so much time strategizing about what they should do, rather than just going and doing something, making mistakes, and then pivoting. The goal of a start-up should be: Launch as many things as possible, fail as quickly as possible, and then figure out how to move forward from there.
JF: We started by purchasing dresses at retail in our own sizes—we figured if the concept didn’t work, at least we’d have a great wardrobe! We just went to different undergraduate campus and started renting dresses to women.
We went to Harvard on a weekend we knew they had an event. Then we went to Yale, and we rented the dresses, but didn’t let women try them on. For the third trial, we sent a PDF out to students that said “call us if you want to rent this dress.” So, each time we were iterating a little bit closer to what our actual concept was—an internet dress rental site—to prove that it was really going to work.
Obviously, it did work! After you saw that the customers loved it, what was the reaction you got from designers and investors?
JH: The designers were initially skeptical—this is something that’s never been done before. But honestly, I appreciated their skepticism, because it made us dig deeper and figure out what we really wanted our brand to be, and who we wanted to market to and target.
JF: It was tough to prove to the investors that this concept was really going to work. It’s really hard for the 60-year-old men we were pitching to understand the emotional connection that women have with fashion. So we would take them to the trials, or we would take videos, and we would show them the experience that women were having—and that was huge.
JH: They loved our approach of just learning by doing, and running different experiments and seeing what traction we got—could we send something through the mail? Would a girl ruin a dress if she wore it to a party? I think we were able to eliminate investor skepticism by actually going out and doing stuff.
Here's the Rent The Runway website homepage:
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The following video provides an excellent review of Rent A Runway's website, the services the company provides, designer brands, styles, sizes, colors, etc.
What’s been your biggest challenge along the way?
JF: One is technology—Jenn and I came to Rent the Runway with no technology background. The other is around the fashion industry. We started a fashion technology company with no fashion or technology experience!
What’s been most surprising about the experience of growing your company to what it is today?
JH: That we’ve been able to do it! We were two women without any experience in leading companies. I had led teams before, but nothing like this. I don’t even think I dreamed as big for myself as this company already is, in just the first few years. It’s surprising when you don’t put blockades in front of yourself, and you just allow yourself to run, how far you can go.
JF: Literally every day I walk in the office, and it’s amazing to see all of these people working towards the same mission and goal!
Also, the reception that consumers have had from the product. We get photos, and hand-written thank-you notes, and gifts sent to the office from people who say “thank you, you’ve changed my life!” People feel like they’re getting this awesome Cinderella experience. In a small way, we feel like we’re changing people’s lives in a great and really fun way.
What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who’d like to follow in your footsteps?
JF: I’d say—go for it! But I mean that in a couple of ways. One, do it—there are not as many risks as you feel like there are. People think it’s this scary thing that’s going to make or break your career, and it’s not. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll get another job, and you’ll definitely learn more than you ever would otherwise.
But also, go for it in the sense that you need to test the concept out, and you need to be brutally honest with yourself if it’s not working. Going for it means don’t just sit there with your ideas—figure out a way to see if it’s going to work.
JH: Number one is to figure out how you are going to assess whether you have a good idea or not. So, go do something, learn from it, and be able to have an unbiased view as to whether your idea works.
Also, be very aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are, not just what your skills are. How successful you’re going to be as an entrepreneur is really a story of how compelling a leader you are.
Finally—you know we had to ask. What’s your favorite Rent the Runway dress you’ve ever worn?
JF: You know, it’s not only the dress—it’s also the memory associated with the dress. I actually wore a really great Catherine Malandrino dress when I was about eight months pregnant, and it looked awesome! It’s not a maternity dress, but it just happened to work and fit and fall really well. So that’s a great example of something I needed to wear for one day, but wouldn’t necessarily want to buy.
JH: That is a ridiculously hard question! I think my favorite dress is this incredibly sophisticated Nina Ricci sheath that I wore to the most important presentation I’ve ever delivered in my life. I felt more confident wearing that dress than I’ve ever felt before, and I think that I nailed the presentation because of it—I give 100% credit to the dress!
COMMENTARY: Rent the Runway’s slogan might as well be: Friends don’t let friends wear H&M to the most important events in their lives. The company solves the perennial “closet full of clothes and yet nothing to wear” problem that most women face, by allowing them to rent designer clothes for a big event for about 10% of the price.
It’s clearly a problem women have. The question– like most rental businesses like Zipcar– is how many women want to rent clothes as the solution.
So far, there’s at least one million active users, spanning a wide demographic of women, from 15 years old to 45, says Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway CEO and cofounder. She says.
“That was a surprise. Initially we thought it would be only young women in their 20s.”
There’s a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes in this business. A warehouse in New York dry cleans, repairs and re-rents thousands of designer pieces. An algorithm helps women pick age-appropriate, body-appropriate pieces. A social layer allows them get advice from a small circle of trusted friends and family.
The company had raised $16 million to date from Highland Capital and Bain Capital, bringing the total amount raised so far to more than $30 million. And, surprisingly given the costs to a business like this, the company was profitable before this round.
Hyman says the money will be used to build out its underlying technology, physical distribution hubs all over the country, a sophisticated inventory management system and the micro-social network aspect of the site. Kleiner’s Aileen Lee will join the board.
I like Rent The Runway's business concept very much, but my main concern as a renter would be renting something via the internet and making sure that the garment fits properly when I receive it. When you are renting or purchasing apparel online and on short notice, the worst thing that could happen is to receive the garment, but it doesn't fit well.
I do like that Rent The Runway is getting on the "celebrity bandwagon," by renting some of the designer dresses worn by celebrities at various events like the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and so forth. When you are renting designer dresses to a market consisting predominantly of Millennials (18-34 year olds), connecting a particular designer dress with a celebrity is very important.
I reviewed Rent The Runway's pages on both Twitter and Facebook, and its my opinion that they need to do more in the social media area. Rent The Runway only has 25,730 followers, but only follows back 419. What the hell is that? They should be using Twitter more smartly by following back everybody, and using Twitter to get immediate feedback on events where designer dresses are worn. This could tip them off to which designers and dresses are "hot." They are doing a bit better job on Facebook where they have 88,000 fans, but if they should have ten times more fans and followers on both Facebook and Twitter.
Rent The Runway should seriously consider developing their own iPhone and Android app. Most Millennials are highly mobile and use their smartphones and tablets to log into their social networks and surf the Internet. An app will allow Rent The Runway to "glue" right into every fan or follower, and they could provide them with real-time posts of events, new designers, new dresses, promotions, polls, and so forth. App users should also be able to rent a garment right through the app, no matter where they are, 24/7, 365 days a year.
Rent The Runway claims to be profitable, but there is always the danger of copycats, especially from the designers themselves or major garmet makers eager to capitalize on a growing trend and new market opportunity. I can easily see this happening.
Courtesy of an article dated February 29, 2012 appearing in The Daily Museand an article dated May 23, 2011 appearing in TechCrunch
The rich are getting richer at a pace that leaves everyone behind. And in the long run, that threatens our democracy.
You might not know it, with all the progress we've made as a society in the past 100 years (our first black president, for instance), but America is still an incredibly unequal place. The gaps between classes, sexes, and races are--in many ways--actually getting worse, and the gap between the rich and the poor is larger than at any time in the last 75 years.
This graphic illustrates just a few of the quantifiable ways that our society manifests these various inequalities.
Taken from information provided by The Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, the graphic--by Kristy Tillman for Objects in Repeat--explains 15 different facts about American inequality that might tweak your worldview a little. For instance, did you know that the average CEO's pay is 1,039 times more generous than that of the average worker?
And it's not as if we've always lived that way. Forty years ago, CEOs were only being paid 39 times that of the average worker. Some companies these days are tying CEO pay to the pay of the least compensated employee at the same company. Clearly not that many.
Or look at the results of a study done in Chicago and Boston in 2001 and 2002: Job applicants with "black" sounding names were far less likely to be called in for job interviews (this was back when there were jobs to interview for):
Looking for a job? Consider changing your name to Kristen or Carrie on your resume. That wouldn't help your insurance situation, though. Children of minorities are far more likely to live without health insurance:
What else? Women also make less than men (though this is improving!) and jobs with higher pay have a smaller percentage of women working at them. Minorities are far more likely to drop out of school, and immigrants are far less likely to receive an education. And though GDP has risen, wages have remained stagnant (except for those CEOs), which has contributed to the top 10% of the wealthiest Americans controlling nearly three-quarters of all the money in America.
Taken individually, there are potential statistical and cultural reasons to explain away each of these stats. Arranged in this order, it's hard not to realize we need to do better to give everyone a little bit more of an even playing field.
COMMENTARY: Nothing about this infographic shocks me. Not everyone is meant to be rich. Capitalism does not work for everybody. When you become rich, for some reason people forget where they came from. The attitude seems to be, "I got mine, so go get yours." That's the problem with trickle down economics. There is really no trickle down.
CEO's that did a shitty job, still draw huge bonuses. It is a rare case where this is not true. Even those banks that were bailed out by the Federal government, paid themselves fat bonsuses. They are the ones that got us into this fine economic mess.
Where are the jobs for minorities and older Americans. Race has a lot to do with it. If you are a minority, namely black or hispanic, you already have two strikes against you. If you are over 50 years of age, nobody wants to hire you. If you are out of work, many employer's won't even interview view. What's with that shit? Even employment ads say, "only employed need apply". There is no such thing as racial equality. I looked at the unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and they are frightening.
What I have never been able to figure out is why all developed countries, and even many developing nations, that universal healthcare for their people, yet the U.S. believes that this is a bad thing. It's not a right. I don't want to dwelve too deeply into politics, but is it possible that some individuals, don't care if you die due to lack of healthcare? I am really disturbed by this. It goes beyond cruelty.
I actually looked into America's healthcare system in a previous blog post titled, "An Unabashed Look At The U.S. Health Care System, 'The Greatest Health Care System In The World', Damn Gummit". It gets worst, did you know how much the pharmaceutical industry paid politician's to protect their interests through their Washington, D.C. lobbyists? I didn't think you did. Check this. Do you know what the top health care industry CEO's in America make? You will be shocked when you read this.
In the U.S. we have our priorities backwards. We spend more on national defense than we spend on educating our children, feeding the poor and aged and providing decent healthcare for all American's. Every state is attacking their public school systems. Teachers are being laidoff in mass. How can America maintain its competitive edge if our kids are not adequately educated? My country is fighting three wars, if you count Libya. 175,000 troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our military seem to be everywhere, and yet, most of those countries don't want us there. How many countries have 15 super carrier's? Stealth bombers and fighter jets? Intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads? Who are we kidding. Nobody wants to really fight us, or they would've by now.
The 400 richest famlies in America now control 50% of the net worth of America. 3% of the wealthiest Americans control 90% of the wealth in America.
The New World Order, Ruling Class or Illuminati, as it is commonly referred IS real. They go back to the Middle Ages. They have been associated with the occult even belief in Lucifer or The Devil. They are at the top of the food chain and control EVERYTHING. Everybody thinks that the Big Corporations, Politicians and Military Industrial Complex are the rulers, but they are just merely the tools to concentrate power at the top.
The Politicians are controlled by the Illuminati through their financial support, favors and even bribery. Washington lobby groups dominate Washington, D.C. The Big Corporations, through their global business activities provide the capital to acquire and control the vast majority of global worth. The Top 137 corporations control 40% of the world's wealth.
The Politicians and The Big Corporations both report to the Military Industrial Complex which is where the "muscle" of the Illuminati resides. The Illuminati are the equivalent of the Boss of Bosses or top Don of a Sicilian family. The Military Industrial Complex are equivalent to the Bosses of La Familia or Mafia. The various branches of the military are the Under Bosses, and then there are the soldiers.
The Military Industrial Complex consists of the U.S. military and heads of the CIA, NSA and FBI and "The Greys." YES, extra-terrestrials are involved indirectly, and they take great pleasure in watching over everything. They are the ultimate beneficiaries. They have unlimited power, and their technology is millions of years ahead of us, and they could destroy the Earth if they wanted, but they need us, so they don't care if there is a power struggle for supremacy among us humans.
Image of a Grey Alien, circa 1955
The Greys are a dying species of extra-terrestrials who travelled to Earth and colonized it thousands of years ago, and through genetic experimentations of human DNA developed Modern Man. Trust me, it was not Divine intervention like it says in the Holy Bible.
In the 1950's, The Greys entered into a secret pact with the Eisenhower administration. According to that Pact, the U.S. government would provide The Greys with access to a certain number of humans so they could conduct DNA experiments to replicate their species by combining both Grey and Human DNA. In exchange, The Greys were to provide us with certain advanced technologies.
A few unscrupulous Illuminati individuals within the U.S. government saw an opportunity to exploit the alien technology to consolidate power, wealth and control over the masses on Earth. The Greys really don't care. We are their form of entertainment. In fact, they love harvesting our souls. They get off in capturing the soul as it leaves the human body upon death, and use it like an aphrodisiac. In effect, they get off on US.
The Big Corporations controls the Corporate Media and Global Banking. It is the job of the Corporate Media to spread disinformation and propaganda that has divided the masses. I am sure that you will agree that this has worked perfectly.
Global Banking provides the financial resources so that the Big Corporations can successfully carry out their evil commercial activities throughout the world and create more wealth for the Illuminati.
The Politicans control the Government and Courts. The Government creates the laws and regulations to control the masses. The Courts are the enforcers for the politicians. They punish the masses if they don't stay in line.
Below is a simplified organizational chart showing the Ruling Class or Illuminati at the top with the other organizations and entities just described below them:
The Illuminati has the following pecking order or power rank which is illustrated in the graphic below:
British Monarchy a.k.a." The Royals" which is headed by Her Highness Queen Elizabeth II.
Israel who control most of the banking industry and Wall Street.
Welf Relations.
The Freemasonry a.k.a. The Masons.
Catholic Church.
The Illuminati or Ruling Class
I know some "British Subjects" are going to scream blasphemy for mentioning Queen Elizabeth at the head of the Illuminati, but the decision was an obvious one. The Illuminati needed natural succession at the top, and The Royals fit that description perfectly. They are of royal blood, respected worldwide and there is logical order of succession. Next in line in order of succession is Prince Charles. Even President Barack Obama and the First Lady bow to Queen Elizabeth.
Israel is next in line in the Illuminati pecking order. They are the business leaders, power brokers and bankers of the world. They also control the media (from newspapers to the Internet). Facebook is a front for the CIA, FBI and NSA. I warned you about this in a previous blog post. Do you notice that every American presidential candidate goes before the prominent Jewish Organizations like the National Jewish Democratic Council to make sure the next president will support Israel? That's not a coincidence.
Next is the Welf Relations which stems from the House of Welf. The House of Welf (historically rendered in English, Guelf or Guelph) is a European dynasty that has included many German and British monarchs from the 11th to 20th century. The original House of Welf Family Tree is below:
In its modern context, Welf Relations now includes the hundreds of descendants of the House of Welf who live today. They consider their membership in the Illuminati a blood right.
The Freemasonry are next in the pecking order. Freemasonry is a fraternal organization that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. You can recognize a Freemason by the symbol of a square and compass and letter "G" in the middle. Some say the "G" stands for God or Guild. Some say its the symbol for the human penis.
Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million. Very few Freemasons are in the Illuminati, but the top guys probably are. The fraternity is administratively organized into independent Grand Lodges, each of which governs its own jurisdiction. There are over a quarter of a million under the jurisdiction of the United Grand Lodge of England and just under two million in the United States.
The heads of the Roman Catholic Church is the last in the pecking order of the Illuminati. This includes Pope Benedict XVI and the College of Cardinals. The Cardinals are princes of the Church appointed by the Pope, who are ordained senior bishops. As a whole, the College of Cardinals advises the Pope, and those cardinals under the age of 80 at the death of a Pope elect his successor. There are now a total of 193 Cardinals, of whom 112 are aged under 80. Of the voting-age cardinals, 64 were appointed by Pope John Paul II, and 28 by Pope Benedict XVI.
BTW, the Roman Catholic Church, was duped by The Greys. Jesus was never born of a Virgin Mary and he never rose from the dead. He was "invented" by those evil Greys, and the rest is history. The Roman Catholic Church provides the people something the Illuminati cannot or won't: HOPE. It's perfect, the Greys get a great kick out of it. But, the Church is now worried that they maybe exposed and be out of the religion business. I mentioned this to you in a previous blog post when The scientists from Vatican met with the scientists from NASA and 20 or so top-level scientists because they want to know if ET is for real. Ha, ha, ha. I got a kick out of that one. Naturally, they've been given assurances that ET does not exist.
The Royals and The Committee of 300 make the important decisions for the Illuminati. They represent the wealthiest, most powerful and influential individuals in the World, not necessarily the most well known or even wealthy. None of them would ever admit they are a member of The Committee of 300 or Illuminati. The Committe of 300 include a Who's Who of Americans, British and Europeans. Famous Americans who are members of The Comittee of 300 include Senator John Kerry, Senator Joe Lieberman, former Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Al Gore (consolation prize for losing the Presidency to that idiot son George W Bush), investor Warren Buffet, former President Bill Clinton, Former President George H.W. Bush, Microsoft executives Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, The Rockefeller's, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner and others. Political affiliations do not matter within the Illuminati. Everybody is pals, some of them even swop their wives to seal a deal, then they laugh and do high-fives afterwards.
The ultimate goal of the Illuminati is to own everything, and judging from the concentration of wealth among developed nations throughout the world, it's working. Eventually they will have total control of the working class. Their ultimate plan is to keep the poor as poor as possible, eliminate the middle class, and increase their numbers at the top so they own quite literally everything.
I know what you are thinking: The Illuminati does not exist and this is all bullshit. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I may even be a member of the Illuminati, and you would never know it, because I would never admit it.
In its Duramen series, Bonsoir Paris puts a surreal twist on a traditional form of displaying art.
A frame, whether literal or metaphorical, bounds something in and gives it structure. But what if the frame is loosey-goosey, hanging on the wall like goopy molasses? Doesn’t that subvert the whole idea of the thing? Yes, and that’s exactly the idea behind Bonsoir Paris’s Duramen (“Heartwood”) series, a set of hand-carved wooden “frames” (no CNC-milling here) that appear to be in the process of melting into puddles on the floor.
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The French multimedia agency, headed by Remy Clémente and Morgan Maccari, worked with a sculptor (Adrien Coroller), cabinetmakers (Kwantiq), and a fellow designer (Jules Cairon) to create frames that, in their words, have been “so strongly mistreated they have become unrecognizable.” The duo experimented with various kinds of wood, including oak, fir, wenge, pear, and linden, ascribing a different character to every species. “Each one of them has its own way to melt,” Maccari tells Co.Design. He elaborates on the process:
The sketches have been done a first time to explain our intentions; in a second time, the drawings were reworked according to the sculptor’s advice and remarks. For example, some technical specifications about the different woods helped us to know what type of shapes we could get, which finish we could have. So the woodworkers and us were on the same wavelength.
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The sculptures are mind-bending displays that blend craftsmanship with a surreal sensibility, and, in the words of Clémente and Maccari, they walk the “razor’s edge [of] two opposites, that of the deformed and that of the elegant, instinctive and thoughtful.”
COMMENTARY: Hmmm, just love chocolate.
Courtesy of an article dated December 21, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design
Background: Created by Danish design studio UiWE, the Pollee portable urinal for women is a star-shaped toilet system that looks a bit like a giant toy pinwheel and accommodates four girls at a time. Instead of the classic urinal, which is designed to be stood in front of, Pollee urinals are long and thin so that they can be easily straddled. Girls just do a semi-squat and go.
Why It's Unique: Pollee urinals don't takeup much room and are very easy to setup almost anywhere they are needed. Girls can’t pee standing up, and the Pollee provides a great option to a regular toilet seat. Finally, a portable urinal that is not debasing to women.
Vertebrae Vertical Bathroom
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Location: Various
Background: Occupying a mere 4.3 square feet, this "Swiss Army Knife Bathroom" takes space conservation to a whole new level, packing a toilet, sink, cistern, two storage units and two shower heads into one compact system.
Why It's Unique: Named for its resemblance to the spinal cord, the bathroom's modules all connect to a central axis. Everything feeds from the top of the structure, which attaches to the ceiling. Users have the option of directing the waste pipes downward through a hole in the floor, or into the wall through a hole at the back of the toilet. To enable shower drainage, the Vertebrae must be installed in a sealed wet room with adequate slope to the floor, according to the brochure. "Real estate is priceless in the bathroom," says Judith Balis, an interior designer with experience constructing restrooms.
Space Bathroom
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Location: International Space Station
Background: With no gravity to ensure that water stays in the toilet bowl or to force waste down, NASA was forced to build pumps and harness airflow to create an effective and hygienic bathroom for astronauts.
Why It's Unique: Because the entire system relies on air, creating a tight seal between the user and the toilet bowl is essential. Foot straps and pivoting bars anchor the astronauts to the ground, and an intricate network of tubes, pipes and ducts handles the waste. Far removed from water treatment plants, the ISS must treat waste on its own and actually converts a large percentage into potable water. A hose-suction option is also available in lieu of the main toilet bowl.
Bulletproof Bathroom
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Location: Beijing, China
Background: The 15-ton, $100,000 public bathroom in Zhong GuanVillage Plaza may be the safest in the world.
Why It's Unique: Immune even to TNT explosives detonated from within, this bunker of a bathroom is part of a string of anti-terrorism products debuted in China after 9/11. For the Chinese, the bathroom isn't much of a draw. Originally, usage instructions posted outside were in only English and French, but even after adding a Chinese translation in 2006, the toilet remains unpopular.
Background: Here to rescue Mother Nature from full bladders everywhere is AANDEBOOM, a Dutch design studio that has invented either the world’s cleverest or the world’s grossest makeshift restroom. P-Tree is a rotation molded recycled plastic receptacle that straps onto a tree trunk, transforming your resident oak into the backdrop for a public (very public) urinal.
Why It's Unique: P-Tree urinals can be installed virtually anywhere there is a tree. The P-Tree costs very little, and can be installed in a jiffy, anywhere you need them. They are great for public parks and recreational facilities, outdoor festivals, almost anywhere you can imagine.
Aquarium Bathroom
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Location: Akashi, Japan
Background: Like many beach-side bathrooms, the Mumin Papa Cafe is decorated with deep-sea creatures. But the live three-wall aquarium enveloping the stall one-ups standard wallpaper by a large margin.
Why It's Unique: The underwater restroom cost $270,000 to build and is ladies-only, except for the giant sea turtle swimming around. The surrounding aquarium was designed to mimic the feeling of relieving yourself while swimming in the ocean.
South Pole Urinal
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Location: Antarctica
Background: This urinal was constructed just 350 meters from the geographic South Pole, and drifts 10 meters closer to the pole every year. Now that's an impressive piece of plumbing.
Why It's Unique: Chris Curtis, the photographer of this picture, says that this urinal "marks an elusive destination and goal that was not able to even be reached until the early 1900s and carries with it the suffering and the loss of life of several explorers; and one that is at a place that is not only off the beaten path but literally 'miles from nowhere' ... in fact, no other urinal in the world or even space can compete with the efforts and loss of life that went into [this fixture's] eventual permanence at the South Pole. What it may lack in beauty it more than makes up for in dignity." Hear, hear.
Disappearing Bathroom
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Location: Various
Background: This modern bathroom conceals a washbasin, toilet and shower tray beneath folding wooden shelves and benches, enabling a sleek transformation from bathroom to multipurpose room.
Why It's Unique: Though the designers say the wooden coverups add elegance, Balis says they're simply unnecessary. "You can put the most beautiful shade of lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. You're really not fooling anyone." Purportedly, the bathroom could be installed on one wall of a larger room (such as a living room) or in a very small space so as to enable a more flexible house design process without sacrificing sophistication.
Arctic Outhouse
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Location: McMurdo Station, Central West Antarctica
Background: In a place where humans attempt to make no environmental impact, waste must be handled carefully.
Why It's Unique: Normally, people in Antarctica walk around with bottles for collecting urine, and then empty the day's contents into a bigger drum called a "U drum." Outhouses are for solid waste only, and contain a five-gallon plastic bucket lined with a plastic bag. After the bucket's been filled, it's sealed, placed on a pallet, and shipped off. Arctic outhouses are said to be mostly aroma-free, and the sturdily built units make for a temporary respite from cold and wind.
Ebb Bathroom
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Location: Various
Background: Taking "streamlined" to a whole new level, these combined-function Ebb designs make for a modern, almost futuristic bathroom.
Why It's Unique: Balis calls the Ebb bathroom "fabulous, both visually and functionally." The main building material for the fixtures in this bathroom, which was designed by UsTogether, a British and Irish group, is LG HI-MACS, a natural acrylic stone made out of aluminum hydroxide. The material improves impact strength, heat and scratch resistance, visual homogeneity, and thermoplastic moldability over mainstay bathroom materials such as marble, granite and glass.
Dolce and Gabbana's Gold Room
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Location: Milan, Italy
Background: Part of an A-list restaurant simply named "Gold," this opulent bathroom has been host to several stars such as Giselle, Kylie Minogue and Paris Hilton.
Why It's Unique: "It's the little luxuries we allow ourselves that probably come into play in the bathroom more than anywhere else," Balis says. Indeed, the bathroom is luxurious, with golden bamboo lining the walls, giant mirrors and marble counters; Dolce and Gabbana stays true to its high-end name. The clincher is the constant loop of Goldfinger playing inside every golden stall on plasma screens.
Bar 89
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Location: New York City
Background: The bar's bathroom doors use liquid crystals to selectively turn opaque when the customer enters and closes the stall.
Why It's Unique: The crystal innovation in this stall is called Privacy Glass, which harnesses light diffusion in order to create privacy while still allowing light to enter. The sheet of liquid crystal is sandwiched between two normal panes of glass, and the molecular array of the crystals is naturally random enough to disperse light, creating privacy. But when voltage is applied to the sheet, the crystals arrange themselves into a neat parallel formation that permits the passage of light, making the bathroom door transparent.
UriLift Public Pop-Up Toilet
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Location: Various
Background: A bold move to hamper alcohol-induced nighttime public urination, the semi-permanent Urilift Pop-Up Urinal emerges at 10 pm and disappears at 3 am, coinciding with prime bar-hopping hours.
Why It's Unique: These misdemeanor-fighting urinals cost $70,000 each; the unit consists of three adjoining 6-foot-tall stalls. The urinals connect to main water lines in order to flush away waste, and pipes lead directly into the underground sewage system. The alcoves lack much privacy (there are no doors), but users don't seem to take issue with that triviality. The toilets recede into the ground during the day in order to avoid obstructing traffic, and police are pleased with the installments so far, noting a reduction in arrests, fines and aggressive behavior following the installation.
See-Through Toilet
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Location: Basel, Switzerland
Background: This one-way glass stall looks like a mirror to an outsider, but completely transparent to an insider, leading to a nerve-wracking bathroom experience.
Why It's Unique: The bathroom was designed by artist Monica Bonvicini, who enjoys delving into public versus private life in her exhibitions. This piece is entitled "Don't Miss a Sec," and was inspired by her viewers' reluctance to use the bathroom during art shows, fearing they might miss out on something important. One-way mirrors work their magic by having one side painted with a very thin reflective coating, then strategically adjusting lighting. For the outside to look like a mirror, it must be very bright so that the mirror's surface has plenty to reflect. The inside must be kept dark so that light can't pass through the glass. If the placement of light is switched, however, the walls become windows and your business becomes everyone's business.
COMMENTARY: That's what I call some rather unqiue and outrageous bathrooms and public restrooms. If you know of any other unique restrooms or bathrooms post a comment. The saddest is that Arctic Outhouse, and the kinkiest is definitely that See-Through Public Restroom.
Courtesy of an article appearing in the January 2012 issue of Popular Mechanics
The cult darling of Belgian fashion brings weirdo decadence to Paris, a city overrun by precious traditionalism.
Avant-garde Belgian fashion house Maison Martin Margiela has given a très-cool makeover to a fussy, luxury hotel in Paris, the high Holy Land of fussy, luxury hotels. Maison des Centraliens reopened to the public in May with a slick interior that turns this ornate, Second Empire townhouse (and former home of a Viennese princess) into a monument to the headscrewy Belgian surrealism for which Maison Martin Margiela earned its fashion-world star.
The place is a study in optical illusion. It’s got chairs and tables that appear to suspend in mid-air and trompe l’oeil wall coverings done up in the Hausmannian style that make closed doors seem like they're open. Laser in on the photos, and you’ll be hard-pressed to figure out whether you’re looking at new wallpaper or molding that the architect, Jules Pellechet, dreamed up some 150 years ago. There's a corridor covered floor to ceiling in what looks like tin foil and a mirrored, diamond-shaped parallelepiped said to reference 2001: A Space Odyssey. The dominant color scheme: clinical white.
This sort of high-minded impishness is weird stuff in a city that decorates its top hotels with canopy beds and Louis Quatorze tapestries. But there’s a business reason for it. Maison Martin Margiela -- which no longer operates under the aegis of its fearless, but elusive, leader, Martin Margiela -- rumbled to the fore of the fashion scene more than two decades ago with brainy, deconstructivist design often billed as a rebuke to the era’s penchant for opulent clothing. It has since become a cult darling of the taste-making elite, counting, among its loyal fans, everyone from Jay-Z to Thom Yorke.
Which means that in the rarefied world of fancy hotels, where exclusivity is everything, Maison des Centraliens has one thing the Ritzes and Le Meurices don't have: It’s cool. Says Bernadette Chevallier, who helped oversee the rebranding:
The hotels whose openings have lately been in the news, or soon will be, are all top grade luxury hotels embodying quite a traditional idea of luxury, even conventional in some cases. It’s a choice that has its merits but the Maison des Centraliens, by contrast, puts the focus on discretion and an offbeat take on luxury hotel standards. …[I]ts values revolve around light-heartedness, humour and a laid-back attitude. … Rather than a traditional luxury hotel, we are positioned as a prestigious boutique hotel that combines five-star amenities and services with an unconventional vision of the upmarket hotel business.
Even rarer: It’s relatively affordable. Rooms start at 203 Euros. A comparably sized room in a four-star hotel in Paris can cost twice that.
COMMENTARY: The Maison des Centraliens (La Maison Champs Elysees) hotel is so typical of old style classic French hotels. I love what Maison Martin Margieladid in redesigning the interior of the hotel. The white is a bit too much for my eyes, but I could definitely enjoy a stay there.
The Maison des Centraliens is a 5-star hotel and has 57 rooms and suites, offering the ultimate in comfort, exemplary service and attention to detail. The hotel is ideally located off of the Champs Elysee. It has a garden view on the quiet rue Jean Goujon, in the heart of Paris. Amenities include Free Mini bar, Free WiFi, Free video films, and Apple Mac mini in all rooms. Rates start at 500 Euros per night. Check out the video:
I love that gold leaf being applied to the walls. Below is a video of the grand opening of the hotel.
It's definitely a must see if I am ever in Paris and have the spare cash to afford such luxury. It takes $1.41 Euros to the U.S. dollar, so that is going to be an expensive hotel bill, not including food, wine and tips. I love wine, so I could definitely go crazy there.
I’m writing from the air, descending into the heart of The Great Tech War of 2012: San Francisco. During my last trip here, a few weeks ago, I got a taste of what this battle is all about. My client was a once high-flying tech pioneer now struggling with the erosive power of commoditization. It used to take generations for your core business to devolve from the high-margin cutting edge to a low-price commodity. Now it can take just a few years. What you once sold for enviable profits someone else might offer for free any day now. View my webcast on this topic here.
My recent post about Netflix sparked a heated debate on various newsgroup message boards, and illustrates the dilemma well. There are three ways to price your service: cost, competition, value. When you have no competition your price can soar to just under the value you deliver. Netflix enjoyed those days when it was the only movie-streaming business that worked well. But as soon as direct competition enters, things change. You have to lower your price to resemble the competition’s and often, as in Netflix’s case, start paying suppliers more.
So how can you fight the commoditization? How do you remain extraordinary and profitable in a fast-moving world? There are at least eight ways to do it.
Bring back the dead: My wife’s birthday was this weekend and I’m under strict orders not to buy her any more gadgets. But when I saw an old turntable and a collection of vinyl records, I could not resist. Vinyl is making a comeback. Record companies are reissuing albums on the huge black disks and even releasing new albums in the old format. Music fans are turning back to vinyl for nostalgia, because it offers better sound quality, and for the fantastic artwork you just can’t replicate on an iPod. With clever marketing, what is old can become new. What new (or old) reason can you give customers to rediscover your out-of-date product or service?
Create new occasions: Walk into your kitchen. Open your refrigerator. Do you see a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda? Arm & Hammer was competing with the ultimate commodity. One type of baking soda is as indistinguishable from another as salt or sand. But the company pulled itself out of a low-price, commodity battle where everyone is the same by creating new uses and occasions for its baking soda. What new uses can you create for your product/service?
Become the ingredient: Another strategy that has worked well for Arm & Hammer is to borrow other people’s roads into your home. Today you find Arm & Hammer in toothpaste (whiter teeth!), detergent (cleaner clothes!), and deodorant (fresher smell…!). The beauty of becoming an ingredient is that customers become less price sensitive. They are willing to pay a higher price for your ingredient because it represents only a small portion of their total cost. Whose road can you borrow by becoming an ingredient in their product/service?
Move the action:U-Haul is not in the truck rental business. Best Buy is not really an electronics retailer. At least not when judged by profits. U-Haul gets you into their store with the promise of low-cost truck rental. Then they sell you high-margin boxes and packing tape. Best Buy lures you in with competitively priced TVs, and profits by selling you service plans you are unlikely to fully use. To where can you move your profits?
Shift the basis of competition: Our 5-year-old Mac just died. The PC in my home office has better specs than most Macs and it cost just $700 from Costco, but we’ll probably end up spending three times that for another Mac. Why? We like the design. The Mac is the only computer you can proudly place in your living room. In commodity games everyone competes on the same basis (performance) so you can distinguish yourself by choosing a completely different dimension (design). On what basis are your competitors competing? How can you compete on something entirely different?
Attach a business: Thomson Travel in the U.K. sells cheap airline tickets and tours. It can afford to because it does not depend on these sales for profits. It makes its profits by funneling its customers into Thomson Travel Charter Airlines airplanes. What related high-margin business can you attach to your lower-margin core?
Rapid-fire innovation: Trying to simply run faster than your competition is not a strategy I usually recommend, but if you really are swifter, it can work. When Lee Pillsbury was part of the top team leading Marriott hotels, they conducted a massive study to identify the most important factors that drive a business traveler’s hotel decisions--speed of room service, the risk of the hotel giving away your room if you check in late, speed of checkout, etc. They then filled a pipeline of strategies to address each factor and unleashed a stream of innovations on the competition--30-minute room-service guarantee, late check-in guarantee, etc. By the time the competition could copy one innovation, Marriott was already pulling the trigger on the next. Do this long and fast enough and eventually the competition will give in. What are your next 10 innovations?
Change the basis of pricing: Xerox grew to dominate the copying business not just by offering great technology, but because at a time when the competition was pricing per machine, Xerox was offering a service priced per copy. Redbox is doing the same in the supposedly now-dead DVD market: pricing per day rather than per rental. Fill in the blanks: “My competition charges $_____ per ______” (e.g., $3 per rental)." Then replace the blanks with something different.
Economists may tell you that every industry will eventually mature into a low-margin, commodity environment. But don’t believe them. If you are willing to resist the pull of consensus, and have the courage to be extraordinary, you can continue to thrive profitably.
COMMENTARY: Commoditization is a very real threat to every organization and it is comparatively straight forward to identify the early warning signs, which include:
Increasing competition.
Prevalence of me-too products and services.
A belief that all suppliers are fundamentally the same.
The decreasing desire on the customer’s part to look at new options or features.
An increasing preference for customers to select on the basis of price and little else.
A reluctance for customers to pay for anything they consider unnecessary.
Increasing pressures on margins.
Strong brands might help to insulate the organization from some of the worst impacts of commodization, but as we have seen in the past with organizations such as IBM, HP, Xerox, even the strongest and most dominant organizations come under threat from time to time. Even for those organizations which operate within a safe sector, such as energy for example, commoditization is still an issue they have to address, especially in terms of their non-core activities.
At its extreme, commoditization leaves the leaders of corporations with a very simple and stark choice: do we allow ourselves to become commoditized and hence do our best to survive, or do we do our best to avoid it? Of course for some, the former may be the only choice open to them andfor many it will probably be a mix of both. Naturally, there is a strategic choice involved as some organizations can be considered to be driving commoditization. In doing so they are gaining first mover advantage. Take easy Everything, which has a range of companies under its umbrella which are initiating a wave of commoditization in a number of sectors, most notably easyJet, but also cinemas, car hire, cruise liners and hotel accommodation.
As the zone of commoditization continues to expand, organizations must do everything they can to ensure they can compete without either destroying the value they offer to their customers or going out of business because their underlying costs are just too high to compete with the leaner more efficient companies which are emerging from India, China, South America and Asia.These companies are able to lower their prices without destroying their business.
Cost is one of the biggest drivers of commodization. The company with the lowest production costs, assuming quality being about the same among competitors, has generated first-mover advantages for itself by simply competing on price. If its competitors cannot compete on the basis of price, they are in danger of going out of business.
The Internet has been a powerful force driving commodization. Consumers can no surf the Net and compare features and prices. Shoppers can scan bar codes or QR codes to locate the lowest price and store that carries the same item or comparable items. They can even obtain product reviews right on their smartphone.
In my opinion, business sectors that are already in commodization or ripe for commodization include cellular phones, desktop computers, tablets, mobile apps, software, digital cameras, portable music players, HD televisions, and digital music. The highend smartphone, sector is particularly susceptible as more competitors enter the market, and companies match feature-for-feature. The Apple iPhone is already feeling pricing pressures, as iOS loses lost its market share dominance to Android-based smartphones. The iPad is also under attack as Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Samsung and others enter the tablet market.
Courtesy of an article dated November 14, 2011 reporting in Fast Company
We are often asked what role social networking plays in the lives of Affluent Americans—are they on Facebook? Twitter? If so, how much time do Affluents spend on these sites? Generally speaking, those who ask are skeptical—surely the Affluent, they figure, are too busy or too old-school to spend much time with online social networks. Our data suggest that Affluents have been socially networking with gusto for several years, and that this is one of many areas where popular notions of Affluent lives are shaped by stereotypes and misconceptions.
Our 2011 survey reveals that fully 60% of Affluents report having visited Facebook in the past 30 days, spending an average of 4.9 hours a week on the site.Our September 2011 Affluent Barometer further reveals that 60% of Affluent Facebook users report visiting the site about once per day or more.
Twitter reaches many fewer Affluents—about 10% in a given month—but for longer periods of time, with the average Twitter users spending over 6 hours a week on the site.
Among younger Affluents, the enthusiasm for online social networking is even more pronounced. Among Affluent Millennials (those aged 18-29), 84% used Facebook in the past 30 days, averaging 7.5 hours per week. One-in-four Affluent Millennials use Twitter, for an average of more than 8 hours per week.
Among adults aged 18+ living in households with at least $100,000 in annual household income.
Of course, Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only names in the social networking world. More than half of Affluents visit YouTube each month. Fourteen percent visit LinkedIn. And there are significant segments of Affluents using photo-sharing sites, dating sites, class reunion sites, and so on.
It is hard to overstate how fully social media becomes intertwined into the lives of some of its users. Among Affluents, 32% agree “I usually check e-mail or Facebook within 30 minutes of waking up in the morning”—a figure that rises to 50% among Affluent Millennials. And in an era where anyone can create and disseminate content, the lines continue to blur between social and traditional media for the Affluent. Many Facebook users have told us it is increasingly becoming a source for information and links to stories from mainstream media. And on Twitter, only about 5% tweet in a given week (15% among Affluent Millennials), with the rest being consumers of content, rather than producers.
Of course, it is important to put online social networking in context with offline social networking. Nearly two-thirds of Affluents do some online social networking in a given week using traditional social media websites (Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn and Twitter), but 92% also do “offline” social networking by telephone, and 86% also do so with actual in-person, face-to-face conversations.
A similar story about the prevalence of offline social networking also emerges across generations. Affluent Seniors—the 5.2 million Affluents 65 or older—may lag in their Facebook usage, but they are far more likely to engage in a variety of “offline” social, political, civic and non-profit activities. Affluent Seniors are, for example, more likely to vote, belong to a golf or country club, and serve on a charitable board of directors. And while seniors may lag in their number of LinkedIn contacts, they are more likely to have a variety of business relationships, such as a relationship with a financial advisor.
When we’re asked if the Affluent are “into” social networking, our answer is a clear “yes.” The desire to “socially network” is not as young as Mark Zuckerberg—it is in fact as old as humanity itself. So it should come as no surprise that new ways of connecting appeal to a population that is almost-universally online (our survey finds that 98% of Affluents are online). But those in advertising and media must realize that the dynamics of social networking are deceptively complex, including a mix of online and offline activities that differ substantially across generational and other segments.
COMMENTARY: Very interesting statistics regarding social networking among affluents making $100,000+ per year. Once you hit 65 years of age, the sight and fingers go. No more time to social network online.
Courtesy of an article dated November 16, 2011 appearing in MediaPost Publications Engage:Affluent
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