ImaginativePRO Blog

LIVINGSOCIAL TO CUT STAFF, GROUPON CEO FEELS THE HEAT, DAILY DEALS MARKET COMPETITION INCREASES, MARKET LOOKS BLEAK

Throwing more cold water on what was once a white-hot daily deal space, LivingSocial is reportedly ready to cut about 10% of its workforce, or as many 400 jobs.

The Washington Business Journal reports.

“For the 5-year-old social commerce company, the long-rumored layoffs reflect a struggle to stabilize itself financially after a frenzied headcount expansion in 2011.” 

Mashable writes. 

“The layoff shouldn’t come as much of a surprise following Amazon’s third-quarter earnings report, which blamed its $169 million loss on its stake in LivingSocial.  Amazon invested $175 million in the daily deal site two years ago.”

According to CNet. 

“The daily deals world is awash in financial woes, and LivingSocial is no exception.  After a net loss of $566 million in the third quarter, the company is now reportedly about to cut jobs.”

As Forbes notes,

“The news comes on a day when the company’s chief rival, Groupon, is reportedly holding a board meeting to discuss whether or not the struggling company should replace co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason.”

Connecting the dots, Business Insider recalls:

“Earlier this month, Groupon eliminated 648 jobs prior to announcing quarterly revenues that missed expectations.”

LivingSocial, which has raised more than $800 million in funding, entered 2012 with a staff of roughly 5,000, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Regarding LivingSocial, The Washington Post writes:

“It has not yet turned a profit and has since pulled out of some international markets and has sought to diversify its business by selling vacation getaways and everyday consumer goods, with mixed results.”

COMMENTARY:   At Groupon, daily deals are fading. That’s the message the company sent many investors this week when it reported a decline in gross billings, or the total value of goods and services bought on its site, between the first and second quarters of this year.

While demand for online coupons may be cooling off, competition is rising, according to new data from Yipit. The deals industry researcher found that Groupon’s market share in North America shrank to 53 percent in the second quarter, down from 56 percent in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, LivingSocial grew its share to 22 percent, up from 20 percent.

Click Image To Enlarge

Travelzoo grew to 3 percent of the market, Yipit said. AmazonLocal, a partnership between LivingSocial and Amazon.com, kept its 2 percent share of the daily deal business.

While it’s not the first time Groupon has given up market share, Unaiz Kabani, product manager for New York-based Yipit said. 

“This was the first sizable shift backwards in well over a year.” 

In North America, Groupon’s gross billings from daily deals fell 2 percent in the period, Kabani estimated, while LivingSocial grew 15 percent.

Paul Taaffe, a spokesman for Groupon, and Brendan Lewis, a spokesman for LivingSocial, declined to comment.

Like Groupon, LivingSocial is looking to expand beyond daily deals. Last month, the Washington-based company LivingSocial Shop, an e-commerce store for discounted furniture, clothing and other goods. The site mirrors Groupon Goods, a shopping site started last year that accounted for most of Groupon’s sales growth in North America in the second quarter.

Little Andy Mason To Remain As CEO

On Thursday, November 29, Groupon's board of directors met in a regularly scheduled meeting. The board's official agenda included items related to strategy planning for upcoming quarters, but directors were also discussed whether CEO Andrew Mason should be replaced, a person briefed on the matter has said.   The board of directors voted and the answer was a resounding YES said Paul Taaffe a spokesman for the company.

"The Board and the management team are focused on the performance of the company and they are all working together with heads down to achieve Groupon's objectives."

The discussion among board members came amid fractures among Groupon's three co-founders—Mr. Mason, Eric Lefkofksy and Brad Keywell—who all sit on the board, people briefed on the matter have said.

Mr. Lefkofsky and other board members have recently grown increasingly frustrated with Groupon's stock performance and have tried to push Mr. Mason to be more vocal in defending the business, these people have said. Groupon's stock has plunged around 80% since its initial public offering last November, as growth has slowed.

Groupon's share prices since its IPO in November 2011 (Click Image To Enlarge)

At a New York conference on Wednesday, little Andy Mason said he remains the best person to steer Groupon.

"If I ever thought I wasn't the right guy for the job, I'd be the first person to fire myself."

Groupon is in a classic Catch-22 situation:   If they had voted to fire Andy Mason, Groupon's stock could drop even more.  By keeping him, the stock dropped 0.35 or 7.71%.   Same result.  

If you ask me, Little Andy Mason is a dirt bag for cashing out a significant amount of his Groupon stock during the IPO.  He also sold a lot of shares in the secondary market prior to the IP.   He clearly doesn't understand how to develop a predictable and sustainable business model that can generate revenues AND profits.  In fact, many social media experts and analysts believe that Groupon's businesss model is deeply flawed.  A real money-loser if there ever was.  

He has also failed miserably in pivoting the company so that it can generate revenues and profits.  Since inception, Groupon has lost money.  To date, its total accumulated losses since 2008 total $685 million.

Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN) Annual Income Statements - Years Ending December 31 (2008 through 2011) - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

Groupon Inc (NASDAQ.GRPN) Quarerly Income Statements - Q3 2011 through Q3 2012 - Google Finance (Clic Image To Enlarge)

Courtesy of an article dated November 29, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Around The Net and an article dated August 15, 2012 appearing in Bloomberg and an article dated November 29, 2012 appearing in The Wall Street Journal

THE WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS 2012, THE TREE ARRIVES, DECORATING THE TREE AND WHITE HOUSE, AND FIRST LADY MICHELLE AND FIRST DOG BO

The White House Christmas Tree 2012 arrives at The White House by horse drawn carriage (Click Image To Enlarge) 

On Friday, November 23, 2012, The White House Christmas Tree arrives by horse drawn carriage. The First Lady Michelle Obama is presented with the White House Christmas Tree, which will be displayed in the Blue Room of the White House, a tradition ince 1966.   The White House Christmas tree is a 19-foot Fraser fir and was grown and harvested by Peak Farms in Jefferson, N.C., which is owned by Rusty and Beau Estes.

 

First Lady Michele Obama talks about the spirit of Christmas 2012 and how hundreds of volunteers participated in decorating The White House so that it sparkles during the Christmas holidays.

 

Time-lapse video of The White House Christmas Tree for 2012 being decorated.

 

First Lady Michelle Obama welcomes military families, including Gold Star and Blue Star parents, spouses and children, to the White House for the first viewing of the 2012 holiday decorations.

 

In this video, Bo the First Dog and Obama family pet inspects the White House decorations and Christmas Tree, including a paper mache statue of himself.

 

COMMENTARY:    I hope you enjoyed The White House Christmas Tree 2012. 

PHYSICIST SAYS U.S. HAD SECRET PLANS TO NUKE THE MOON DURING HEIGHT OF COLD WAR IN ORDER TO INTIMIDATE THE SOVIET UNION

The U.S. may have had secret plans to detonate an atomic bomb on the moon at the height of the Cold War (Click Image To Enlarge) 

A story that surfaced over a decade ago is making the rounds again this week, as some media outlets are reporting that the U.S. considered detonating an atomic bomb on the moon in an effort to intimidate the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

On Sunday, the Daily Mail revived the story, citing a 12-year-old interview with physicist Leonard Reiffel, formerly of the U.S. military-backed Armour Research Foundation and later a deputy director of NASA. Celebrated astronomer Carl Sagan also was said to have been involved with the secret project, which reportedly was known as "A Study of Lunar Research Flights" or "Project A119." Sagan died in 1996.

 

In the interview, Reiffel reportedly said the plan had been to launch a rocket that would deliver a small nuclear device to the moon's surface, where it would detonate.

Reiffel, now 85, is believed to be the only official to have publicly confirmed his association with the project. However, a 190-page document called "A Study of Lunar Research Flights, Volume I" dated June 19, 1959 is available online through the Information for the Defense Community database. The document, available in PDF format, is credited to Reiffel and bears the heading of Air Force Special Weapons Center and the Air Research and Development Command based at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

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The abstract reads:

Nuclear detonations in the vicinity of the moon are considered in this report along with scientific information which might be obtained from such explosions. The military aspect is aided by investigation of space environment, detection of nuclear device testing, and capability of weapons in space. A study was conducted of various theories of the moon's structure and origin, and a description of the probable nature of the lunar surface is given. The areas discussed in some detail are optical lunar studies, seismic observations, lunar surface and magnetic fields, plasma and magneti3 field effects, and organic matter on the moon.

Reiffel spoke to several publications about the project in 2000. His statements then coincided with a then-new Sagan biography, which suggested that the celebrity scientist might have breached security by revealing the classified project in an application for an academic fellowship, the Associated Press reported at the time.

Military officials abandoned the idea, Reiffel said, in part because of the danger it posed to people on Earth if the mission failed. Scientists also were concerned about contaminating the moon with radioactive material.

In an interview with The Observer, also in 2000, Reiffel said he did not know why the plans were scrapped but was glad that they were."Thankfully, the thinking changed. I am horrified that such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered," he said.

In a new interview with The Huffington Post, Richard Rhodes, a Pulitzer-prize-winning author and an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said he was unfamiliar with Project A119. If there had been a plan to send a nuclear missile to the moon in the 1950s, he said, it would have been hard-pressed to advance past the study stage. The first Soviet craft crash-landed on the moon in 1959, followed three years later by the American craft Ranger 4, reports National Geographic.

"I doubt we had any rockets that would have had the power to leave earth's orbit and hit the moon," Rhodes said. "It takes a lot of power to take things out of earth's gravitational pull, much more than to just put something in orbit."

If there had been a secret plan, the show of U.S. technological prowess would have been meant as a counter to Sputnik, Rhodes added.

Though nuking the moon sounds far-fetched, Rhodes said some of the projects that grew out of Cold War tensions were far from funny.

"One of the craziest things we ever did was develop and deploy nuclear tipped anti-aircraft missiles, plane to plane. That's always seemed like insanity," he said. Once miniaturized nuclear weapons were created, "as all the services wanted their share--so they had to think of some use for these things, and their uses were marginally insane," at least by today's risk-reward standards, he said.

When asked about the project, the U.S. Air Force declined to comment, the Associated Press reported in 2000.

COMMENTARY:    What a crazy, idiotic idea to bomb the Moon, just to demonstrate our machismo and flex our nuclear muscles just to intimidate the U.S.S.R.   Growing up during the height of the Cold War, I can clearly remember the air raid warning alarms and nuclear bomb safety tests that the schools used to conduct.  The teachers would get the students in their classes to crawl under their desks and pretend there was a nuclear bomb attack.  These tests would've done absolutely zero to protect us in the event of a real nuclear attac.  

The whole idea of arming ourselves with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the World 100 times over on the theory that our enemies would never use their nukes is pure lunacy.  If you ask me, all of this is done just to keep the Military Industrial Complex in business making weapons of mass destruction and the latest in tech weaponry.     

Courtesy of an article dated November 28, 2012 appearing in The Huffington Post and an article dated November 28, 2012 appearing in CNN.com

IBM'S BLACK FRIDAY REPORT: FACEBOOK AND TWITTER REFERRED ONLY 0.68% AND 0.00% RESPECTIVELY OF BLACK FRIDAY TRAFFIC

IBM’s Black Friday report says Twitter delivered 0 percent of referral traffic and Facebook sent just 0.68 percent. As a whole, all major social networks sent just 0.34 percent of all online sales on Black Friday, down 35 percent from 2011.

Twitter and Facebook usually aren’t the last click before an ecommerce buy, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t inspire or influence the purchase. Yet IBM’s Black Friday report says Twitter delivered 0 percent of referral traffic and Facebook sent just 0.68 percent. To lure advertisers and ecommerce integrations, they have to show its not Google driving every sale.

IBM BLACK FRIDAY REPORT 2012 from turk5555

 

Last year IBM said Twitter generated 0.02 percent of traffic, but now the microblogging platform supposedly drove no measurable amount of traffic. If you factored in downstream visits and conversions, that percentage might not be huge, but I doubt it’s zero. As a whole IBM says social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube generated 0.34 percent of all online sales on Black Friday, down 35 percent from 2011. The lack of sales attribution, especially for paid ads, is a problem for the entire industry.

[One major caveat: IBM did not readily disclose the methodology for this study, so numbers should be taken with heavy salt, and this article isn't trying to say Twitter doesn't drive referral traffic or influence purchases. Twitter's role in demand generation is very important, but the issue is tracking this to show businesses they get a return on their ads and effort spent on the social network.]

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These last few months, Facebook has been making a major push to get credited for downstream purchases. It’s rolled out both a self-serve User ID matching system and cookie-dropping ads.These let advertisers tell if someone who bought something on their site saw an ad for them on Facebook in the previous weeks or months – not just if an ad click-through led straight to the shopping cart.

However, these don’t tally purchases inspired by owned (Page posts) or earned (word of mouth) media on Facebook. Those are huge. Facebook tells me the top 25 most talked about Pages this week were all retailers. Walmart, Toys’R'Us, and Macy’s had the most PTAT (Likes/comments/shares). User mentions of the word “shopping” spiked 586 percent last week, and many of those probably cited where people were shopping.

That’s a ton of viral marketing that could be driving downstream conversions but isn’t being counted. Facebook may need to extend these attribution systems so ecommerce sites can tell whether a buyer is one of their fans, saw a particular post promoting what they bought, or saw a link to the product that was shared by a friend.

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Twitter seems to be way behind on this. I haven’t heard of any downstream conversion attribution systems connected to Twitter accounts or ads. Sure, ecommerce sites can tell if someone clicked straight to their site from one of their Promoted Tweets. But what if minutes, hours, or days later they remember the ad or account, search for it on Google, and end up making a purchase?

Twitter has confirmed with me that it doesn’t have any downstream conversion tracking right now, which means it isn’t getting the credit it deserves. I think correcting that will be a big focus for Twitter in 2013.

It’s critical that these social networks beef up their attribution systems because advertisers only want to plop down their dollars where they can see clear return on investment. If you spend $50,000 on Twitter ads, but all your holiday sales come from Google, you might shift that budget to search ads.

Alternatively, if Facebook and Twitter really push their attribution systems, they could claim credit for driving purchases they only lightly influenced, or for delivering buyers that didn’t even notice they saw an ad for what they bought. That might not be the most honest business tactic, but right now search engines are scoring touchdowns without giving credit to who threw the ball.

COMMENTARY:    I also find IBM's Black Friday Report 2012 hard to swallow for the same reasons the report was criticized above.  With internet consumers spending more time online and on social networks, it's difficult to fathom that they are not clicking links on Facebook updates or Twitter Tweets that ultimately result in a sale.  The benefits to the advertisers from earned media cannot be under-emphasized.  It's free advertising, so any sales from clickthroughs are "cream." However, for fan and follower engagement, you cannot beat Facebook and Twitter for spreading brand messages via free content.      

If you are Apple, IBM's Black Friday Report 2012 has some good news for you.

"The iPad generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10 percent of online shopping. This was followed by iPhone at 8.7 percent and Android 5.5 percent. The iPad dominated tablet traffic at 88.3 percent followed by the Barnes & Noble Nook at 3.1 percent, Amazon Kindle at 2.4 percent and the Samsung Galaxy at 1.8 percent."

Apple's devices have a 65% chunk of the mobile Web browsing market share, with Android-based mobile devices accounting for just 20%. This indicates that, while Android remains a popular choice, Android users aren't using their devices to browse the web as much as iOS users.

The report was compiled as part of IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative by the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark. It found that US shoppers took advantage of early promotions driving a 17.4 percent increase in online sales during Thanksgiving Day which set the stage for 20.7 percent growth on Black Friday.

The biggest surge, according to IBM, came from consumers using mobile devices, with sales reaching 16.3 percent led by the iPad.

IBM's Digital Analytics Benchmark compiled the data using a cloud-based analytics platform that tracks more than a million e-commerce transactions per day and analyzes terabytes of raw data from 500 retailers across the US.

The popularity of the iPad and iPhone was confirmed last week by a report from Nielsen which found that 48 percent of children aged between 6-12 wanted an iPad for Christmas - more than any other tablet, smartphone, computer or video game device.

More good news for Apple:  Nielsen also found that 6 percent of children wanted the new iPad Mini, 36 percent wanted the iPod Touch and 33 percent wanted the latest iPhone.

IBM's Black Friday 2012 report also showed a decline of social referrals for online shopping. In 2011, social sites accounted for 0.92 percent of site traffic and 0.53 percent of sales which this year fell to 0.81 percent for traffic referral and 0.34% sales.

IBM has produced the infographic below to represent its findings:

IBM Holiday Benchmark Infographic BF2012 

Courtesy of an article dated November 26, 2012 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated November 27, 2012 appearing in Mobile&Apps

KICKSTARTER HYPE RAISED $800K FOR THE BRYDGE IPAD KEYBOARD, BUT POOR PRODUCT DESIGN RESULTED IN A CRUMMY PROUCT

The Brydge is a Bluetooth keyboard/speaker that transforms the iPad into a Macbook-ish creation (Click Image To Enlarge)

THE BRYDGE IS AN IPAD KEYBOARD THAT REMINDS US IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT MAKE GREAT PRODUCTS.

Kickstarter is a place of big ideas by small teams. Big companies get bogged down by logistics and profitability, while passionate, agile talent can make the streamlined products customers want. That’s the tacit premise behind every hardware campaign on Kickstarter.

You shove the iPad into two rubber hooks, which hold it tight through friction (Click Image To Enlarge)

You’ll cringe a bit ever time your iPad docks, but they appear to be perfectly safe to use (Click Image To Enlarge)

From the side, it almost looks like you have a small Macbook (Click Image To Enlarge) 

The Brydge was a perfect example of this. Now shipping to early pre-orders, the Brydge was a massively successful ($797,979) Kickstarter-backed Bluetooth keyboard that ostensibly turned the iPad into a Macbook. As the product description read:

"Brydge’s aluminum body is machined and anodized so that it matches the look and feel of the iPad precisely. When paired together Brydge and your iPad appear to be two parts of the same device, blending style and functionality seamlessly. Unlike other products made of painted plastic in an effort to look similar to the iPad, Brydge does not fake it. Not only does it look good, but when held in your hands you can feel the quality craftsmanship Apple lovers demand."

The resulting device is like a clunky netbook (remember those?). The problem is that the keyboard looks the part, but it doesn’t feel the part. Every bit of its texture and responsiveness screams knockoff (Click Image To Enlarge)

And I’m not crazy about the fact that a rubber tab is pressed hard against switches and my camera lens, either (Click Image To Enlarge)

I’ve tested out a review unit, and my only real critique--beyond the impossibility of pairing the Bluetooth speakers--is that the Brydge is exactly like every other Apple-stylized product I’ve ever tested. It looks great in product photos, but as soon as you actually touch it in person, you realize all the little things are wrong.

• The anodized aluminum has an uninviting, ever-so-scratchy texture. 
• The keys have a strange amount of give, their plastic lacks suppleness and their edges are sharp. 
• Unlike a real laptop, the Brydge base is lighter than your iPad screen, meaning it constantly teeters on tipping over.

In other words, the Brydge is in the same boat as just about every third-party product (many backed by mega corporations) that’s attempted to match Apple’s build quality blow for blow. It’s absolutely the sort of premium accessory you’d imagine seeing on the shelves at Best Buy: It’s mediocre.

So the Brydge is no scandal, and it’s no messiah, either--though it certainly seems a touch expensive for its quality at ~$200.

For Kickstarter, unrefined and/or overpromised goods are a real problem. Not so long ago, amidst a wave of bad press from outlets like NPR, Kickstarter enacted some new policies to remind “backers” that this was an investment (risk-oriented) site, and that products may differ from sales pitches.

Product renders and simulations were banned, since anyone can draw a flying car. And a risks section was added to each listing, requiring project leads to explain problems that could arise in producing their good. These changes certainly protect consumers--err, investors--but I’m not sure they solve the larger problem: Is Kickstarter a venue that encourages good designs to become great ones, or great designs to be scaled into incredible manufactured products?

The Kickstarter premise is all about big ideas by the little guy--it’s about rolling the dice to back the basement inventors and coffee shop designers, handing a pile of cash to the Thomas Edisons and Jony Ives who haven’t been discovered yet. But while the best ideas may be born from inspiration, they mature through perspiration. And Kickstarter, as inspiring as it may be as a platform, isn’t designed at its core to encourage refinement.

COMMENTARY:   The review of the The Brydge keyboard for the iPad says it all, "Buyer Beware."  Better yet, be wary of all the hype and propaganda that you read about the slick looking products craving for crowdfunds on Kickstarter, Crowdcube, and other crowdfunding sites.  

The inventors of the Brydge keyboard obviously never built a final prototype and failed to conduct adequate test marketing that would've identified the product deficiencies identified above.   The one that gets me is that the keyboard "keels over" when the iPad is attached.  That's pretty tacky.  

The lessons to be learned from all of this:  If you are a Kickstarter contributor make sure that the inventors have an actual working prototype and indicate that they have tested the product so that it fully satisifies the claims being made.      

Courtesy of an article ated November 28, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Design

 

HEWLETT-PACKARD TAKES HUGE PUBLIC RELATIONS HIT, WRITES-OFF $8.8 BILLION FROM AUTONOMY ACQUISITION

 

Meg Whitman’s Hewlett-Packard tried to put the debacle of its Autonomy acquisition behind it last week by taking an $8.8 billion write-off, charging that previous management had been misled by cooked books and other nefarious deeds on the part of the UK-based software automation company. The claims have turned into yet another public relations spectacle for the Palo Alto-based company as Autonomy founder and former CEO Mike Lynch fights back with fire and feist, and pundits again point fingers at HP’s management, board and outside advisers for ineptitude.

Meanwhile, a class action suit filed in San Francisco yesterday “alleged that HP had issued false and misleading statements on its financial performance and prospects between August 2011, when the $11 billion Autonomy deal was announced, and November 20 this year,” when the write down was made public, as Chris Nuttall reports in the Financial Times.

The write-off of Autonomy and class action lawsuits hit HP's stock hard today:

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) Share Price Between November 28, 2011 and November 27, 2012 - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

The civil action was not unexpected, and more lawsuits may follow.  Labaton Sucharow partner Dominic Auld tells Nuttall while disclosing that his firm is considering action of its own.

“It’s hard to imagine that this deal goes so far south so quickly without somebody having culpability.”

Whitman, now HP president and CEO but only a yea-voting member of the HP board at the time of the acquisition, effectively blames her predecessor, Leo Apotheker, and the former chief strategy officer, Shane Robison, for the bad deal. 

ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall told Reuters’ Poornima Gupta and Nicola Leske when the write-off was announced.

"To put it bluntly ... this story has been an unmitigated train wreck, and it seems every time management speaks to the Street, there is new negative incremental information forthcoming." 

The Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” columnist, Rolfe Winkler, offers a scathing appraisal of the situation this morning, pointing out in his lede that

“More than two people from Hewlett-Packard were responsible for the disastrous Autonomy acquisition, never mind what chief executive Meg Whitman says.”

He names names, from current CFO Cathie Lesjak to current board chairman Raymond J. Lane. But although investors might like to see “more heads roll,” that may not be a prudent response.

Winkler concludes.

“The sad reality may be that the company is in such bad shape that it can't afford more turnover at the top. Until it can, investors should stay away from the shares, no matter how cheap they appear.”

And as Reuters’ Nadia Damouni and Nicola Leske pointed out last week,

“15 different financial, legal and accounting firms were involved in the transaction -- and none raised a flag about what HP said Tuesday was a major accounting fraud.”

Meanwhile, Lynch, who in 1991 played a hunch that the “theories of the then-little-known 18th-century Presbyterian minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes could be used to search and understand unstructured data,” as Wendy M. Grossman relates in The Guardian, has been vigorously pushing back against HP’s charges.

The New York Times’ Quentin Hardy writes.

“Lynch has been unusually candid and vocal in defending himself and the company he built, rather than hiding out behind a phalanx of lawyers as might be expected.  He says he was blindsided by a long-prepared public relations onslaught by HP, little of which had to do with the substance of its claims about Autonomy.”

Lynch is not limiting himself to denying the accusations. Among his charges in an interview with Business Insider’s Julie Bort:

"HP executives engineered the ouster of Apotheker and appointment of Whitman because they feared Apotheker's plan to spin off the hardware business in favor of software, which caused Whitman to abandon the software strategy, which left Autonomy and Lynch in the lurch."

And to top it off,

“HP's convoluted bureaucracy created situations where its own salespeople couldn't sell Autonomy.”

If all these convolutions have you scratching your head, Reuters’ “Breakingviews” columnist, Quentin Webb, delves into such accounting procedures as “Vendor Specific Objective Evidence” (VSOE), which allows companies “to book upfront payments in full if they establish a predictable pricing framework,” in a “Guide for the Perplexed” piece. 

Webb writes, pointing out. 

“As things stand, HP’s accusations are hard to judge that it still has to prove its claim that it was duped by fraud which could not be detected before acquisition.”

The market makes its own judgments, of course.

Richard Waters and Chris Nuttall wrote in the Financial Times Friday evening.

“As HP’s reputation as the company that cannot shoot straight has grown to almost legendary proportions, its stock price has collapsed.”  

It was up 2.4% yesterday to $12.74, but was trading in the $50 range as recently as April 2010.   At the end of trading on November 27, 2012, HPQ shares ended at 12.36, down 0.38 or 2.98%, then dropped an additional 0.03 or 0.24% in after-hours trading.

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COMMENTARY:   Coming off the biggest quarterly loss in Hewlett-Packard's history, CEO Meg Whitman braced investors for even more trouble ahead as she methodically tries to fix a wide range of longstanding problems. Those challenges will be compounded by a feeble economy that Whitman expects to weaken even more during the next year.

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) Annual Revenues, Gross Profits and After-Tax Income FY Ending October 31, 2009 through FY Ending October 31, 2012 - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) Quarterly Revenues, Gross Profits and After-Tax Income - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012, Whitman delivered the disappointing forecast at a meeting that the ailing Silicon Valley pioneer held for analysts and investors. The gathering gave Whitman the opportunity to persuade Wall Street that she has come up with a compelling strategy for turning around HP one year after being named CEO.

The EDS charge is the main reason that HP lost $8.9 billion during its most recent quarter, which ended in October 31.   In early October, some analysts are worried HP would absorb another charge on an $11 billion acquisition of software maker Autonomy, which hasn't lived up to expectations since the deal closed last year.  This finally came to pass today.  

HP bought EDS while it was being run by Mark Hurd, who resigned in 2010 after the company's board raised questions about his expense reports. The company agreed to buy Autonomy during the reign of Leo Apotheker, who lasted less than a year as CEO before being replaced by Whitman.

Hewlett-Packard Merry-Go-Round in the last seven years includes CEO's Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd, Leo Apotheker and now Meg Whitman (Click Image To Enlarge)

Whitman said. 

"There are no silver bullets to solve our challenges.  We will solve our challenges through consistency of leadership, focus, good blocking and tackling and, most importantly, great products and services delivered in the way that customers want to buy them."

HP said the internal and economic turmoil will cause its earnings to fall by more than 10 percent next year, a decline that hadn't been anticipated by analysts who follow one of the world's largest — and most dysfunctional — technology companies.

Investors evidently didn't like what they heard.  HP's stock plunged 13 percent after Whitman's presentation, shoving the company's shares to their lowest level in nearly a decade.

HP's troubles stem from a combination of managerial malaise, high-priced acquisitions that haven't paid off and an inability to offset the damage done to its personal computer and printer divisions by the rising popularity of smartphones and tablet computers.

Click Image To Enlarge

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Whitman maintained that she inherited a bloated, poorly managed company that hasn't been innovating quickly enough in any of its divisions, which span from PCs and printers to software and data storage.

In a recurring theme during her tenure, Whitman said that she will instill the discipline, focus and accountability needed to rehabilitate HP, but she reiterated that the recovery will take several years to complete.

It could be 2015 before Hewlett-Packard Co.'s revenue growth begins to accelerate again, according to Whitman. By 2016, she envisions HP's revenue increasing as the same pace as the U.S. economy's overall growth, with earnings rising at a faster clip.

Whitman said.

"It is going to take longer to right this ship than any of us would like." 

Investors are worried HP's woes will allow its competitors — a long list that includes such technology powerhouse as Apple Inc., IBM Corp. and Oracle Corp. — to race even further ahead. In that scenario, HP is constantly scrambling to catch up with new technology trends, leaving the company in a state of perpetual disarray.

Whitman, who won acclaim during a successful decade-long stint running eBay Inc., is confident HP can recapture the drive and creativity that established the company as an industry leader through most of its 73-year history.

She hopes to orchestrate the same kind of turnaround that has revitalized IBM after a long stretch of decay brought on by the shift from mainframe computers to personal computers in the 1980s and 1990s. IBM managed to transform itself into a company focused on providing technology services and software, a transformation that HP is struggling to duplicate.

HP Turnaround Initiatives

Whitman mentioned the following initiatives to turnaround HP:

• Reduce Staff - In her shake-up of HP, Whitman has already reshuffled management and started to eliminate 29,000 jobs through employee buyouts, attrition and layoffs. She's trying to trim the company's annual expenses by more than $3 billion.
• Performance-Based Compensation Programs - She assured analysts Wednesday that she is imposing more internal controls to align employees' paychecks with their performance. 
• Utilize New Technologies - She said she is also requiring the company to subscribe to technology services offered by smaller companies such as Salesforce.com Inc. and Workday Inc. to automate many of HP's customer management and personnel systems.
• Reducing Product Lines and Inventories - HP also is reducing the number of different printers that it makes. It is also rolling out a new line of personal computers and tablets running on Windows 8, an overhaul of Microsoft Corp.'s operating system that's designed to appeal to consumers and companies that want more mobile devices with touch-control display screens.
• Introduce New HP Smartphone - Whtman wants HP to design another smartphone, something it did two years ago after buying Palm Inc. only to scrap the device after a few months on the market. HP's return to the smartphone business isn't planned for next year, though.
• Cloud Computing Products - Whitman also is lacing big bets on "cloud computing" — a term that refers to the increasingly popular trend of storing software applications in remote data centers that are accessed over the Internet instead of installing programs on individual machines.
• Big Data Products - HP also is angling for a bigger piece of the "Big Data" market, a field devoted to helping companies and government agencies navigate through the torrent of information cascading through Internet-connected devices.

The Payoff

But the payoff from those initiatives won't come in HP's fiscal 2013, which starts Nov. 1.

The company, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., expects its earnings for fiscal 2013 to range from $3.40 to $3.60 per share, after stripping out charges for layoffs and other accounting measures unrelated to its ongoing business. The projection translates to an 11 percent to 16 percent drop from the adjusted earnings of $4.06 per share that HP expects to deliver in its current fiscal year.

HP Shares Tumble

Whitman's forecast for next year caught investors off guard because analysts, on average, had predicted HP's adjusted earnings would be $4.17 per share.

HP shares shed $2.22 to close Wednesday at $14.91. The stock price has fallen by 35 percent since Whitman became CEO last September.

 

Courtesy of an article dated November 27, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Marketing Daily Top Of The News

TESLA MOTORS MODEL S SEDAN IS NAMED MOTOR TREND'S '2013 CAR OF THE YEAR' AND 'AUTOMOBILE OF THE YEAR' BY AUTOMOBILE

Tesla’s Model S has been named 2013 Car of the Year by Motor Trend and 2013 Automobile of the Year byAutomobile, striking a strategic blow for electric vehicles.

Automobile writer David Zenlea said:

“We weren’t expecting much from the Tesla other than some interesting dinner conversation as we considered “real” candidates like the Subaru BRZ and the Porsche Boxster. In fact, the Tesla blew them, and us, away.”

Click Image To Enlarge

Motor Trend Editor-at-Large Angus MacKenzie, meanwhile, said,

“At its core, the Tesla Model S is simply a damned good car you happen to plug in to refuel.”

In its headline, the magazine called the Model S:

“Proof Positive that America Can Still Make (Great) Things.”

Tesla's Model S receives the Motor Trend Car of the Year Award (Click Image To Enlarge)

Both publications are owned by Source Interlink Media, but say they made the decision independently of one another. When a Facebook commenter at Automobile‘s page questioned the timing and sameness of the respective magazines’ “…of the Year” award choices, anAutomobile staffer responded thus:

“I can’t say much about the magazines that aren’t owned by Source Interlink Companies, but we found out about Motor Trend Magazine’s choice, maybe, minutes before you guys did–no consultation, two completely different tests. I wouldn’t necessarily call it collusion–it’s just a really, really good car.”

COMMENTARY:   In the evening at an event in New York City Monday, November 12, 2012, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that his company's Model S sedan has been named Motor Trend's Car of the Year. The all-electric sedan, which I reviewed for Slate earlier this year, was a unanimous choice, beating out the Porsche 911, the new Ford Fusion, and the Honda Accord, among others, said Motor Trend Editor in Chief Ed Loh. This is the first time in the award's 64-year history that it has gone to a car without an internal combustion engine. Loh said the award was based on the car's overall excellence, not simply the fact that it's electric. He pointed out that it's the fastest American-built sedan on the market, posting 0-60 times as low as 3.9 seconds. Add in its handling, ultra-quiet motor, and the fact that it requires no fuel, and Loh said it was an easy pick for the honor.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk was typically unrestrained at the news, predicting people will look back on it as "a point at which the gears of history moved." He said.

"I hope other car companies will in fact copy us and pursue their own electric car programs with greater vigor as a result of this award."

Tesla's own next moves involve developing a more affordable model than the luxurious Model S, which starts at a hefty $57,400 for the base model before a $7,500 federal tax credit.

Congratulations to Elon Musk and the entire Tesla Motors team for creating a truly game-changing all-electric automobile that is not only beautiful, fast, and incorporates the best technology innovations on the market today, but an all-electric vehicle that delivers on all counts.

Courtesy of an article dated November 26, 2012 appearing in TechnologyTell

HOLIDAY SHOPPING GOES DIGITAL: SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS, DAILY DEALS, PHOTOSHARING SITES AND EMAIL DRIVING ONLINE SALES

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Online shopping will break more records in 2012. E-commerce is quickly catching up to brick-and-mortar shopping and the importance of digital marketing has never been more important for retailers. The infographic below shows online shopping predictions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Thanksgiving Day Weekend Shopping

• 226 million consumers visited stores and shopped online, up from 212 million in 2012.
• The average shopper spent $398.62
• In 2011 52.4 billion was spent, an increase of 16% from 2010 when 45 billion was spent shopping.

Black Friday

• Shoppers made 9.8% of their online purchases from mobile devices, up from 3.2% in 2010.
• Mobile traffic increased 14.3% in 2011 compared to 5.6% in 2010.
• Paid search increased 128%, making Black Friday 2011 the most ever spent on paid search.
• From 2010 to 2011 Black Friday sales were up 24.3%
• Online and Offline sales grew 39.3% at 11.4 billion, with 17.37% of shoppers visiting retailers' sites.

Cyber Monday

• From 2010 to 2011, Cyber Monday sales were up 33%.
• 10.8% used a mobile device to visit a retailer's site on Cyber Monday, up from 3.9% in 2010.
• Cyber Monday 2011 was the heaviest online shopping day in history at 1.25 billion in sales.
• Half of the dollars spent online at U.S. websites originated from work computers.
• 2011 Mobile sales were up reaching 6.6% on Cyber Monday vs. 2.3% in 2010.
• Social discussions leading up to Cyber Monday increased 115% YoY.

2012 Online and Mobile Shopping Predictions

• 16% of consumers will shop on mobile devices in 2012, up from 13% in 2011.
• Web shoppers who plan to visit stores will drop from 48% to 46%.
• The average consumer who shops online will make 6% of their holiday purchases from a mobile phone. 62% online and 32% in stores.

Click Image To Enlarge

COMMENTARY:   After a year of technical innovations, most notably the emergence and rapid adoption of smartphone and tablet technology, the shopper-seller relationship has changed dramatically. In this article, Rakuten, one of the world’s top 3 E-commerce and Internet service companies by revenue, who recently acquired eBook company Kobo and Play.com in the UK, announces its industry predictions for 2012.

In the year ahead, cutting edge mobile devices, worldwide broadband penetration and innovative social shopping services will continue to open up global markets, providing huge growth opportunities for merchants large and small, and giving consumers unparalleled levels of choice.

The predictions cover the entire E-commerce market and discuss 6 key trends for 2012, including:

1. Tablet-commerce and Mobile-commerce retail therapy
2. Bricks and mortar in the cloud
3. Shopping with your social network
4. Borderless shopping communities
5. Flexible, local shipping models
6. Online shopping gets personal

In a year where international retail markets floundered E-commerce displayed resilient growth, with reports out from research house ComScore at the end of 2011 citing double digit growth in the US festive period.

Over the last 12 months the E-commerce sector has rallied against challenging economic conditions and driven innovation in business and shopping models, thanks in part to the unabated rise of the e-marketplace entrepreneur. At Rakuten alone in 2011 we attracted over one thousand new sellers and grew the total value of the marketplace to over $13 billion.

A flurry of technical innovations, most notably the emergence and rapid adoption of Smartphone and Tablet technology, has transformed the shopper seller relationship. Fuelled by mobile technology, E-commerce growth shows no sign of abating. JP Morgan estimates that global E-commerce revenue will hit $963 billion next year.

Rakuten considers six key trends which will fuel E-commerce growth in 2012:

1. T-Commerce and M-Commerce retail therapy – In 2011 web enabled mobile devices transformed E-commerce, opening up a new 24/7 channel to the consumer and creating innovative new ways to engage them, from QR codes to location based offers. In 2012 m-commerce will continue to gather momentum, but it is T-commerce that’s particularly exciting. The rich functionality of the tablet shifts the traditionally transactional and bargain hunting online experience into a virtual store experience, making the web an almost tactile experience. For example, Rakuten’s BuyTV in the US and Rakuten SuperTV in Japan bring video reviews to enrich the tablet shopping experience. Better still, mobile commerce is not exclusively for big brands with big budgets. Better still, mobile commerce is not exclusively for big brands with big budgets. Thanks to affiliate services and marketplaces like Rakuten, merchants large and small can harness the mobile channel without incurring heavy infrastructure costs. Gartner estimates that by 2013, smart mobile web devices will overtake the total number of PC’s in use, exceeding 1.8 billion. With 1.8 billion consumers just a click away this too big an opportunity for retailers to miss. 
2. Bricks and mortar in the cloud – The boundaries between online and offline worlds are becoming increasingly blurred, as retailers fuse their digital and real-world offerings. Barcode scanning services such as ShopSavvy help users find the best deal, by allowing them to scan the barcode and search for better offers online. However, the challenge with these applications is they fail to reward the store whose display instigated the purchase. To avoid cannibalising the high-street we believe a new system must emerge in 2012 that rewards offline and online ecosystems.
3. Shopping with your social network– Getting a second opinion before committing to a purchase is nothing new, but now rather than taking a friend shopping you can take your entire social network with you. Retailers are becoming increasingly aware of the power of “the fan” and social will form an integral part of the E-commerce evolution in 2012. Data released in July by Hitwise indicated that 1 Facebook fan was equal to 20 additional visits to a retail website in the course of a year. Retailers are now using social not just for brand awareness, but for product development and customer service too. Rakuten’s ShopTogether feature lets all merchants capitalise on social service by enabling Rakuten marketplace users to invite friends to view products and live chat whilst looking at the product page.
4. Borderless shopping communities – 2012 will see the rise of the local global e-marketplace. In 2012, international marketplace models will provide sellers of all sizes around the world with the opportunity to expand their operations internationally, without the cost intensive outlay traditionally associated with establishing local delivery models, storage facilities etc. Sellers will be able to dabble in international shopping communities and dedicate resources based on real world demand. This will open up opportunities with burgeoning markets, such as China, India and Brazil. In late 2011 Rakuten surveyed international interest in shopping globally online and the results revealed that consumers are open to borderless shopping. Brazil is leading the global e-shopping charge with 81 per cent of consumers keen to shop in different markets online, followed by Indonesia (77%), Thailand (74%), China (69%) and Spain (66%).
5. Flexible, Local shipping models -According to a report by Forrester in January 2011, shipping issues were one of the most common reasons for cart abandonment in Europe. It’s true that the internet has created a global marketplace, but local market shopping preferences must be taken into account. In Indonesia for example, locals are reluctant to pay online, to combat this Rakuten set up a shipping model, of local bike couriers, who collected payment on arrival. In 2012, flexible shopping models will be vital for growth, as evidenced by the growing popularity of the click & collect phenomenon, which accounted for 10.4% of all E-commerce sales in the UK this Christmas according to the IMRG.
6. Online shopping gets personal – The old adage “Information is power” takes on new impetus in 2012 as retailers seek to capture the fickle attention spans of information savvy internet shoppers. Gone are the days, when retailers tracked consumer behaviour based on loyalty points. Today’s online retailers can acquire huge volumes of data on both their potential and existing customers based on user browsing habits alone. In 2012 data exchange between retailers and social networks will begin to provide solid business models for social platforms and offer new insights into the psyche of the shopper. What matters most to retailers however is how their marketing teams translate this wealth of data into meaningful and timely communications with customers. The web generation is already jaded from a surfeit of push advertising, to truly engage consumers in 2012 and beyond, retailers must learn how to harness user specific data to provide timely, personalized and relevant communications.

Commenting on the E-commerce industry in 2012, Adam Stewart, Marketing Director, Rakuten’s Play.com said: “In 2011 we barely scraped the surface of what’s possible with online retail. We are on the cusp of creating an experience-rich, 24/7 international shopping community. In the year ahead, cutting edge mobile devices, worldwide mobile and broadband penetration and innovative social shopping services will open up global markets, providing huge growth opportunities for merchants large and small and unparalleled consumer choice.”

eMarketer's "Online Holiday Shopping Forecast and Trends" webinar held on September 20, 2012 provides the latest digital shopping forecast and trends.   Some of the highlights of the webinar are as follows:  

• Online sales during the month of November and December 2012 will hit $54.5 billion, up 16.8% from the same period in 2011.
• Online sales for the year ending 2012 will reach $224 billion, up 15.4% from 2011.
• Four new trends will fuel online sales growth in 2012:
  • Daily deals - Includes offerings from discount offerings from major retailers and offerings from daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial.  
    • Daily deals are often used by retailers to reduce their inventories by offering discounts of 30% to 50%.  
    • Retailers use daily deals to catch the attention of consumers.   
    • Daily deals provide retailers with permission to offer daily deals.  
    • Popular daiy deals often lead to powerful word-of-mouth on social networks.
  • Smartphone and tablet online shopping.
    • Smartphones are used to satisfy immediate shopping needs.  Smartphones offer a convenient way to quickly compare prices and check for product reviews.  46% of consumers using a smartphone to conduct product and retailer research resulted in an instore purhase.
    • Mobile device purchases could comprise up to 20% of total online sales for the year 2012
    • Tablets are the preferred mobile device for making online holiday purhases. For the year 2011, 48.6% of total mobile devices purchases were made using tablets, while smartphones were only used 14.4% of the time.
    • Tablet shoppers outspent smartphone and traditional onine shoppers.  Tablet consumers spent $129 during Back Friday, compared to only $91 for smartphone shoppers.  Tablet shoppers spent $123 compared to only $80 for smartphone shoppers during the year 2011. 
    • Use of comparison-shopping mobile apps is exploding.  55% of consumers use their smartphones to compare prices. 
    • Tablet are stretching the online shopping day beyond regular business hours.
  • Photosharing sites.
    • Pinterest (30%) has emerged as a serious contendor to Facebook (54%) in driving consumers to apparel sites.
  • Email and search.
    • Email is the preferred vehicle for online consumers to receive holiday promotions.  Direct mail came in second, while Facebook ranked third.
    • Emails will included more sophisticated "triggered" emails that allow consumers to make their purchase by clicking a BUY button right on the email.
    • Google shopping cart makes its debut during the 2012 Christmas shopping season.
  • Early and Late Christmas Shopping. 
    • Consumers will do more shopping earlier and later during the 2012 Christmas shopping season.

eMarketer Webinar: Online Holiday Shopping Forecast and Trends from eMarketer

I have a feeling that many consumers will be doing their shopping earlier during the 2012 shopping season because of the possibility of the White House and Congress unable to agree on a Fiscal year 2012 budget and forcing the U.S. economy to go over the Fiscal Cliff as Christmas approaches.  My logic:  They will buy now instead of later while they have the money, especially if we do go over the fiscal cliff, the Bush tax cuts finally end at the end of 2012, and everybody's tax rates go up beginning in 2013.  

UPDATE:  U.S. retail sales hit $59.1 billion during the Thanksgiving weekend, up 13% from the same four-day period last year, according to NRF, with 28% of the weekend's shoppers hitting stores on Thanksgiving night.  NRF CEO Matthew Shay said. 

“I think the only way to describe the Thanksgiving openings is to call it a huge win.  [Shopping] has really become an extension of the day’s festivities.”

Courtesy of an article dated November 24, 2012 appearing in Social Media Today and an article dated December 1, 2012 appearing in Digital Strategy Consulting and an article dated September 20, 2012 appearing in eMarketer

IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING, WOULD YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND IF YOU COULD SEE YOUR CITY BURIED UNDER CO2 EMISSIONS?

Just how much CO2 does New York City emit in a year? (Click Image To Enlarge) 

IN 2010, NYC ADDED 54 MILLION METRIC TONS OF CO2 TO THE ATMOSPHERE. THIS VIDEO SHOWS IT AS A BIG, BLUE BALL PIT

Last week, thousands in New York and millions at home watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual, multi-hour affair that fills the streets of Manhattan with characters like Pikachu and Snoopy in the form of massive, inflatable balloons. This video is a little bit like that--except instead of cartoon characters, the objects filling the streets of NYC are huge blue spheres, and instead of making kids smile, they’re intended to visualize the massive amount of carbon dioxide the city pumps into the atmosphere every day. Snoopy, you might want to hold your breath.

 

The clip is based on a piece of data that showed up in a report published by the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability last year: In 2010, New York City added 54 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. At a moment when our national debt is in the trillions, the number of people in poverty around the world is in the billions, and when we’re all getting, like, a million emails every day, it’s easy to let a number like that pass by without much interrogation. So to give New Yorkers a better sense of the scale of that atmospheric pollution, the emissions-centric graphics outfit Carbon Visuals rendered it as something that’s perfectly easy to understand: a bunch of massive, aquamarine balls.

The most surprising thing, though, may be the source. Instead of gas-guzzling automobiles, 75% of NYC’s emissions come from buildings (Click Image To Enlarge)

In 2010, it totalled 54 million metric tons--shown here as a pile of 33-foot blue bubbles, each with a volume of one ton (Click Image To Enlarge)

At standard pressure, assuming a temperature of 59 degrees, a metric ton of CO2 gas would fill a sphere with a diameter of 33 feet--about half the size of the biggest floats in the Macy’s parade--with a new bubble popping up every 0.6 seconds or so. The video shows what that output would look like if all those emissions emanated from a single point on the island.

It adds up quick. Here’s what Manhattan looks like with all 54 million tons accumulating in one spot (Click Image To Enlarge)

Unsurprisingly, they add up fast! In just an hour, the unruly pile is already about half the height of the Empire State Building. After a day, the pile tops the building’s apex, engulfing dozens of city blocks. And after a year, well, things look pretty bad. The pile of blue spheres is now something more like a mountain, its peak among the clouds and its summit spanning from the Financial District all the way up to the southern border of Central Park.

It looks bad--but it’s only part of the picture. New Yorkers are still three times more efficient than the average American, in terms of emissions per capita (Click Image To Enlarge)

It’s a terrifying picture--but not necessarily the whole one. For one thing, emissions don’t pile up quite so cleanly; the problem is as big as the video shows it to be but not nearly as localized. But more important to keep in mind, as some observers like WYNC’s Robert Krulwich have pointed out, is that cities actually fare way better than suburbs in terms of CO2 emissions per capita. Even the New Yorkers floundering here in their carbon dioxide ball pit are roughly three times more efficient than your average automobile-dependent American. But the idea that cars are the big problem is a bit off the mark, too--75% of New York City’s emissions in 2010 came from buildings, not vehicles.

It’s a mountain of pollution that stretches from the Financial District up to Central Park, its peak among the clouds (Click Image To Enlarge)

That means, to hit its ambitious target of a 30% reduction in emissions by 2017, the city will need to focus not only on smarter transportation but smarter living and working spaces in general. And it also means we probably won’t have to put the parade on the carbon-cutting chopping block anytime soon.

Still, the steadily growing blue ball pit is an effective way to show just how much pollution we’re pumping into the atmosphere every second (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:   That's what I call an AWESOME way to visually show the unseen -- the tons of carbon emissions from fossil fuels released into the atmosphere by transportation vehicles of all types, manufacturers and electricity generating plants into a large metropolitan city like New York City.   It makes things crystal clear.  

If you were to do the same thing in some of America's major cities, perhaps even in your hometown, you would have a great way to compare the extent of carbon emissions in different parts of the country.  Individuals could actually see just how much CO2 is affecting their city or part of the country.   Then, and only then, would individuals who don't believe that greenhouse gases create global warming, would change their minds.  Look forward to your comments.   

Courtesy of an article date November 26, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Design

BIA/KELSEY: U.S. SOCIAL MEDIA ADS WILL DOUBLE TO $9.26 BIL IN 2016 FROM $4.6 BIL IN 2012, NATIVE SOCIAL TO HIT $3.85 BIL IN 2016

According to a report set for release today from BIA/Kelsey, spending on paid social media advertising will increase from $4.6 billion in 2012 to $9.2 billion in 2016.  

Particularly interesting is the researcher's prediction that "native" ads running on social media sites—contextual promotions that are baked into sites either via news feeds (e.g., Promoted Tweets) or in a more customized fashion—will total $1.53 billion this year while growing to $3.85 billion in 2016.

Click Image To Enlarge

During that time, BIA/Kelsey prognosticates, social display ads will grow slightly slower, lifting from $3 billion to $5.4 billion. It's the first time the 25-year-old company has broken out social native versus social display spend.

By 2016, BIA/Kelsey predicts, local social will nearly triple to $2.95 billion compared to $1.1 billion in 2012.  BIA/Kelsey also reports that national social media will nearly double to $6.26 billion compared to $3.47 billion in 2012.  

Click Image To Enlarge

Desktop-based social ads will account for $4 billion this year, while reaching $7.7 billion in 2016, BIA/Kelsey projects. Mobile-based social ads will total just over a half-billion dollars this year before reaching $1.47 billion in 2016.

In other words, expect the temperature of the already-heated debate about whether social ads work to increase. And expect platforms and vendors to scramble for the dollars. Possible beneficiaries include the obvious in Facebook and Twitter, but also could entail emerging social platforms like Tumblr, Pinterest, Foursquare and Reddit.

Meanwhile, per BIA/Kelsey, general local media spend will grow from $134.6 billion this year to $147.1 billion by 2016.

COMMENTARY:    It should be noted that in a blog post dated May 16, 2012, BIA/Kelsey forecasted that U.S. soial media advertising would reach $9.8 billion by 2016.  In their most recent report, BIA/Kelsey has reduced U.S. social media ads from $9.8 billion to $9.2 billion by 2016.  That's a 6% drop if you do the math.

Courtesy of an article dated November 26, 2012 appearing in AdWeek and BIA/Kelsey's press release of November 26, 2012