The other side of social media

Facebook updates or twitter could be a gold mine for burglars, and web sites such as pleaserobme.com and www.robmenow.com focus on the fact that social media updates could be a to-do list for burglars and the same goes for geotagging.



As one victim, Israel Hyman, told USA Today:

"Most people wouldn't leave a recording on a home answering machine telling callers they're on vacation for a week, and most people wouldn't let mail or newspapers pile up while they were away. But users of social media think nothing of posting real-time vacation photos on Facebook showing themselves on beaches hundreds of miles from home, or sending out automatic e-mail messages that say, 'I'm out of the country for a week."o

The other side of social media

Thinking green

Designboom is covering Josselin Zaïgouche and his invention Swith me! light switch, designed to inflict pain to anyone trying to turn on the light. Maybe this could help you to think twice?o

Thinking green

Local commercials...

In a world of global retail supersharks roaming the earth it could be comforting to learn that there are small companies that still manage to create there own identities will small means. Beeing a Butt doesn´t have to be a bad thing as shown i the commercial below for Butt Drugs pharmacy of Corydon, Indiana.



Also watch the behind the scenes video showing why and how the clip was made by Rhett & Link.

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Local commercials...

This too shall pass

This viral video managed to go from 0 to 1,7 million views, thereby defining the term viral video. One can imagine that the sponsorship somehow will be profitable in the long run for State Farm...o

This too shall pass

Virtual goods for billions

According to BusinessWeek digital belongings on games and social networks is a fast growing market, also for people outside the common "shoot-out game teenager" category. Virtual worlds like Farmville, Pet Society, Resturant City and their counterparts are selling digital goods like aquarium fish or plum trees for 25c or a dollar, now expect to double in 2010, to $1.6 billion only in the U.S. Analyst Atul Bagga of the research firm ThinkEquity says women 35 and older, are the "sweet spot.

Startups like Zynga, owner of Farmville, are focused on harvesting this growing market and has 240 million users per month "while social network games created by CrowdStar and Electronic Arts' Playfish each have more than 50 million."

Only 1-4 % of the users of the games are shopping for virtual goods and this calls for solutions on how to handle micro payments and payment methods for youngsters not having a credit card. Kwedit is one of them selling software that enables players to get currency to go shopping virtual good, if they promise to pay later. They print out a check and goes to pay for it in a nearby 7-Eleven. If there is no pay, the credit is withdrawn.

Online retailers have also begun to use digital coins for use in online worlds as a promotion item.o

Virtual goods for billions

Which brand do you love?

Consumers from the world share their crushes.

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Which brand do you love?

Indoor spending

Those unplanned grocery purchases may not be so unplanned after all. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, shoppers often expect to buy a certain number of unplanned items, and most have a pretty good idea of how much they’ll spend on them.

Authors Karen M. Stilley, Jeffrey Inman (both University of Pittsburgh), and Kirk L. Wakefield (Baylor University) say that consumers have spending expectations for grocery shopping trips, called mental budgets, and those budgets typically leave room for unplanned purchases. The authors call this “in-store slack.” The researchers conducted a field study at several grocery stores in Texas. They asked shoppers what items they planned to purchase, how much they expected to spend on the planned items, and how much they expected to spend on the total trip. After shopping, participants provided their receipts and answered questions about themselves and the experience. More than three-fourths of the participants included room for unplanned purchases.

“Shoppers in the study indicated that they employ this strategy both because they anticipate ‘forgotten needs’ as well as because they realize that they will encounter ‘unplanned wants’—with some respondents even explicitly indicating that they expected to make impulse purchases,” the authors write. Consistent with prior studies, the shoppers were remarkably accurate when predicting how much they would spend. The average budget deviation (actual spending minus planned spending) was only $0.47.

How does in-store slack affect household budgets? The impact of in-store slack on budget deviation depended on how many aisles the shopper visited and the shoppers’ level of impulsiveness. “Less-impulsive individuals who shop most aisles tend to spend the money available from in-store slack, but don’t exceed their overall budgets. In contrast, in-store slack leads to overspending for highly impulsive individuals who shop most aisles,” the authors explain. “For the majority of consumers, having in-store slack appears to be a rational way to use the store to cue needs and preserve self-control,” the authors write. “Highly impulsive individuals may want to consider planning as many purchases in advance as possible.”

Karen M. Stilley, J. Jeffrey Inman, and Kirk Wakefield. “Planning to Make Unplanned Purchases? The Role of In-store Slack in Budget Deviation.” Journal of Consumer Research: August 2010.o

Indoor spending