Value is a funny, very hard to predict thing.

What it is, how to measure it, how to demonstrate that you offer more of it than does your competitor is more voodoo than science.  But it is no less important because that is so. No matter how difficult to do, everyone in business must define a value proposition for their customers and then attempt to sell how they want to be perceived. To do that we see terms like “great value”, “no better value”, “high value”, etc. but have you ever stopped to wonder what that means to the consumer?...Read More

Comments (0)

In 2011, three very short years from now, the first of this nation’s 78 million baby boomers will begin to retire (assuming they will begin retiring at 65) and when they do the impact on U.S. housing will be immense. Statistics developed by Dowell Myers and Sung Ho Ryu of the University of Southern California show that buyers of housing exceed sellers in each age group up to 65-69 at which point they are equal. After that, 70 and above, the number of sellers dramatically exceeds the number of buyers by almost 10-to-1 among those 80 or older. So in 2011 we have the beginning of 78 million people retiring who, if the past is an indicator of the future, will not only not be buying new or more houses but will in fact be selling what they own. 

What will that likely mean to CE? Major changes, presuming the industry does nothing to reposition itse...Read More

Comments (2)

Carmaker touts plans for auto-based access, in sync with tech trend of mobile Internet use.

Talk about good news! 

The above headlines comes from an ...Read More

Comments (0)

“You take someone like Apple. They could spend $150 million to $200 million on a marketing campaign and not blink an eye. I sat there and watched someone propose a $20 million marketing campaign.  And we just vomited all over him.  Two days later, my CFO and I approved a $950 million research and development budget in about 15 minutes, but to spend $20 million on marketing.  We just don’t know how to do that.  It just drives us nuts.  But we’re going to have to get over it.”

Comments (0)

Quarterly Mac Sales Set New Record
Quarterly iPhone Sales Exceed One Million

 “Apple shipped 2,164,000 Macintosh computers, representing 34 percent growth over the year-ago quarter and exceeding the previous quarterly record for Mac shipments by 400,000. The Company sold 10,200,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 17 percent growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone sales were 1,119,000, bringing cumulative fiscal 2007 sales to 1,389,000....Read More

Comments (0)

Where are thousands of independent specialists? Are we abdicating this opportunity?

Dealers wishing to participate in the DTV set top box (STB) coupon program must apply for certification by contacting the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) by March 31, 2008. Yes, that’s right, March 31, 2008 -- less than 90-days from today. Although the analog signal cut-off date isn’t until February 2009, the real urgency is now.  After March 31, dealers who don’t get certified will not be able...Read More

Comments (1)

Phlebotomy, or if you prefer the more common term, bloodletting, was a treatment of preference for a wide range of afflictions, used by physicians from antiquity all the way through the late 19^th century.

Of course, we now scratch our modern heads and wonder how that ever could have been, but hindsight is always 20/20. Maybe it was like sloppy police work that jails someone, anyone, just to have a conviction. With diseases, they didn’t know what caused the problem, so what the heck, bleed ‘em until a better cure comes along that is too obvious to ignore.

Or maybe it’s like CE retail merchandising. Do as we’ve always done; open a store, put the product on the shelf and wait for someone to buy it  again, at least until something better comes along.

However there are signs that technology retailing is changing, one...Read More

Comments (2)

That’s what I love about technology: There’s always something better around the corner and with Augmented Reality (AR) you will be able to literally see what that is before you make the turn.

The Dec. 8-14 edition of The Economist includes its regular Technology Quarterly feature and within that a discussion of AR. Strip it all down, and what you learn is that AR is a form of virtual reality imposed on reality. While the article gives many examples of how this works, the accompanying visual is that of a driver looking out his windshield rather than at a GPS screen in his dash, seeing where he is driving with directions imposed on the actual streets as opposed to on a GPS map.

...Read More

Comments (0)

I recently leased a new Buick Enclave equipped with touchscreen radio and navigation including XM.

After driving it awhile I learned that certain XM and navigation functionality was disabled while the vehicle was in motion — specifically the ability to access different XM channel categories and/or stations beyond those in view when the vehicle started to move, as well as the ability to input a destination in navigation. However, the problem was solved with the addition of a product made by a small Florida aftermarket company, Coastal Electronic Technologies.

To those of you who might think me socially irresponsible due to the danger of driving while fiddling with the radio and navigation, ...Read More

Comments (0)

I was in line to rent a movie at Blockbuster this weekend and saw something that was very strange to me. A woman in line next to me rented a single DVD and when the clerk tried to hand it to her, she asked him to put it in a bag. She left just as I did, and once outside she removed the DVD from the bag, threw the bag in the trash, got in her car and drove away. In total the bag was in “use” less than 45 seconds, and she walked no more than 30 feet before throwing it away.

Driving home I thought how un ”green” she was until I mentally listed all my conspicuous consumption habits including using a V8 to drive less than one mile round trip ...Read More

Comments (0)

I got home a bit early today, around 3 p.m. and saw my neighbor’s 16-year-old son talking with a friend in front of his house.

Actually, he was doing business. You see, in his spare time Trevor installs all sorts of things on his friend’s vehicles, from car stereo head units, amps, speakers and subs to internal and external lighting, roll cages, crash bars and running boards. You name it, there is a good chance he’s done it. And it is business. We were talking about it this past weekend, and in the past year he has “billed” (my term as opposed to his) more than $20,000.

“So what?” you say. “It's only $20k” — business you wouldn’t have seen anyway. You’re probably right at least about that last part, but Trevor’s “business” is not small when you consider the hundreds of thous...Read More

Comments (0)

Comments (0)