Business Opportunities Weblog

MonroeNews.com:

When Johnny Koch looked at his family’s property, he didn’t see a stand of pine trees, he saw a gold mine.

Knowing that some people love cutting down their own Christmas trees, Johnny decided to cash in. He put up a sign at his home and waited for the traffic. At the time, he was in the third grade.

“He convinced his dad to sell the pines,” said his mother, Brenda Koch (pronounced “Cook”). “We told him he was crazy.”

Crazy like a money-making fox. More and more people started stopping by and gladly paid Johnny $20 to cut down their own trees from the family back yard. That year he made $500.

This year Johnny is raking it in with his latest idea: Christmas wreaths. “I wanted to make money off that, too,” he said. “I know I can do it.” And he has.

His uncle makes wreaths and happened to have an extra machine, so Johnny gladly took it. He runs his little business in the garage. He clips the trees in the yard and stores the trimmings in a large box. He collects pine cones and spray paints them silver and gold. Nearby are piles of ribbons and ornaments and holly he and his mother use to decorate the final product.

So far he’s sold 65 wreaths at $10 a piece. Whenever he can, Johnny sits in a shack in a field at the corner of Ida West and Jackman Rds. where he’ll do business with customers who pull over after seeing the homemade sign that reads “Koch’s wreaths.”

Next he wants to grow flowers to sell, like mums in the fall. Although he’s made some pretty good money over the years, Johnny has put away a lot for college where he wants to pursue the field of agriculture. And when he grows up he says he wants to be a “farmer-slash-businessman.”

Photo by Mary Powers.

Springwise:

It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it—pick up dog waste, that is. Rather than struggle with plastic bags, dog owners now have a tidier and greener alternative: the Skooperbox.

Skooperboxes are small, pop-open boxes made from 100 percent recycled materials. Complete with lid and a scraper, each Skooperbox makes it quick and tidy to clean up Fido’s mess. The boxes are available in two sizes and are completely biodegradable in less than a month—as opposed to plastic bags, which are thought to take at least 100 years to degrade.

Skooperbox’s founders explain: “We at Skooperbox are ordinary pet owners who were dissatisfied with the choices available to us to clean our pet waste. We also knew plenty of good people who did not pick up because of lack of a good product. Picking up the warm squishy mess is gross enough, but when the bag breaks or if you find a hole in the bag while you’re picking up, it can really ruin your walk.”

You can say that again! California-based Skooperbox was founded in 2005 but spent more than a year perfecting its products, which are now available in retailers throughout North America as well as online. One to bring to the rest of the scooping world?

Photo by Skooperbox.

SeattlePI:

Q: I am a young photographer trying to start my own business. I have so much gear that I still need to buy, and I am overwhelmed by my startup marketing costs. I am concerned that if I don’t show more revenue or more of a profit within the next few years that I will be seen as a failure in the business world. Right now I’m working 70-hour weeks.

A: Here’s a fun quote to think about. Andy Warhol once said, “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

As an emerging photographer, artist and businesswoman, the perspective you bring to your work each day, I believe, influences outcomes. Through your lens today, you see more problems than possibility. From my lens, I see a hard-working business owner who may be too focused on tasks that don’t produce a positive return on each invested hour.

For freelance entrepreneurs like you, the secret to developing a sustainable, lucrative business is not just working more hours. The trick is developing revenue- producing assets within your business that can produce income in addition to your portrait work.

As a brainstorming exercise, I’d like you to think creatively of all the ways you might be able to earn income but not physically have to be there to do the work every time. These initiatives can include generating royalties from Internet photo sales or developing a series of salable photography-based products, posters and greeting cards like Anne Geddes’ well-known baby photos.

Read more.

Photo by kikashi.

ReadWriteWeb:

Along the lines of Million Dollar Homepage in the “that’ll never work… will it?” category, 2007 saw the successful launch of Wants For Sale. The innovative project by New York artist Justin Gignac and his girlfriend Christine might just be my favorite idea of the year.

The premise is simple: Justin and Christine paint pictures of things they want and then sell them for the exact price of the item. The things they’re after range from $12.70 for an order of buffalo wings to $1,056.07 for a single month’s rent check. My favorite: $1 million for “financial security.”

The Wants For Sale project has done surprisingly well since it debuted earlier this year. The couple has so far collected a Nintendo Wii, some Xbox games, a fancy sushi dinner at trendy New York hot spot Nobu, some clothes, a gym membership, and a handful of food items, among other things. They’re still waiting for someone to fund the iPhone they covet.

The idea is innovative, and one that is likely to only work once. But of course it wouldn’t have worked at all if Justin and Christine didn’t have the primo illustration skills that they possess (they also do commissioned paintings of things other people want).

Wants for Sale was so successful that it even gave birth to a spin-off project, Needs for Sale, which is the same basic premise, but with all proceeds going to charity. Between the two sites, the artists have raised over $2800 for various charitable causes this year.

Photo by Wants For Sale.

Reuters:

Anyone with dreams of being a talk radio star — ranting about sports and politics, chatting with callers, sharing recipes or car-buying tips — can play host on their own show, right on the Web.

BlogTalkRadio, Talkshoe and Skypecasts are among the Web sites that have become popular for would-be radio jocks, and all it takes is a computer and a telephone.

“You can create a show within five minutes and be on the air within 15 minutes,” said Alan Levy, the CEO of BlogTalkRadio, a site he started shortly after his father fell ill with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2006.

With BlogTalkRadio, hosts use a telephone and computer to create live, call-in shows. Unlimited participants can join, and the service is free because it’s advertising-supported. After airing, the shows are archived and become available as podcasts for other listeners.

So far, nearly 46,000 shows have been created — with subjects ranging from entertainment to politics to sports and lifestyle. Actor Brad Pitt, politician John Kerry, baseball player David Wright and author Jodi Picoult are among those who have been interviewed.

Read more.

Photo by images.tmcnet.

Forbes:

They say fortune favors the bold–but it also favors the fictional. The characters that make up this year’s edition of the Forbes Fictional 15, our annual listing of fiction’s richest, boast an aggregate net worth of $137 billion. That’s enough to give $20 to every (real) person on the planet.

Flapping into the top slot on this year’s list is the first non-mammal to rank as fiction’s richest: Scrooge McDuck. Soaring gold prices mean the penny-pinching poultry’s hoard of coins and bullion is now worth more than you can shake a tail feather at.

To qualify for the Fictional 15, Forbes require that candidates be an authored fictional creation, a rule that excludes mythological and folkloric characters. They must star in a specific narrative work or series of works. And they must be known, both within their fictional universe and by their audience, for being rich.

All told, six billionaires fell off the list, including Atlantic City real estate magnate Mr. Monopoly, who lost everything in the subprime mortgage crash. Archaeologist Lara Croft is missing and presumed dead after her plane disappeared above the Congolese jungle. And narco-capitalist Tony Montana, aka Scarface, was finally confirmed dead by a joint CIA/FBI task force.

Read more.

Photo by Forbes.

SmallBusiness.com:

When mornings break in New Orleans, a fleet of polished black trucks with tinted windows and shiny chrome wheels roar down city streets. Inside are workers in crisp black uniforms, ready to spill into the French Quarter and start their shift.

It’s a day in the life of garbage men. Not just any garbage men. These sharply dressed employees work for Sidney Torres, an entrepreneur who took an unusually stylish approach when he launched SDT Waste & Debris Services in 2005.

Others in the trash business might stick to gritty. But Torres went glam, not only dressing up his trucks and sweepers but also producing glitzy television commercials that include the jazzy, celebratory culture of the Big Easy. “Whether you’re the garbage man or a rock star, it’s about standing out from the rest,” says Torres, who credits the fashionable touch with driving revenues at SDT to an estimated $25 million this year.

A creative strategy can often give entrepreneurs an edge over the competition. Whether it’s thinking in opposites, like Torres did, or challenging assumptions, an innovative approach can land deals and hook customers.

Creativity doesn’t cost anything, but it can reap huge rewards.

Read more.

Photo by SDT Waste & Debris Services.

Mashable.com:

I wasn’t sure this was real, at first. I did a bit of snooping around, and dug around on the Sams Club website, and it is indeed true. They are, in fact, offering SEM services for folks wanting to advertise on Google.

Specifically with the AdSense program, WalMart wants to help unsuspecting newbie wares sellers on the internet with their advertising program. Your Sam’s branded advertisement can be yours for the low low price of $100 a month. And watch for falling prices! That could come down even more!

Seriously, though, I’m racking my brain here in an attempt to figure out the angle on this. Sam’s and WalMart are fairly decent in the search engine advertising department, theoretically.

Photo by Sams Club.

McKinsey Quarterly:

Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. Through our work and research, we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years.

1. Distributing co-creation. The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries.

2. Using consumers as innovators. Consumers also co-create with companies; the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for instance, could be viewed as a service or product created by its distributed customers.

3. Tapping into a world of talent. As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence.

4. Extracting more value from interactions. Companies have been automating or offshoring an increasing proportion of their production and manufacturing (transformational) activities and their clerical or simple rule-based (transactional) activities.

Read more.

Photo by MSDesigns.

Mashable.com:

Sometimes we just need that extra kick in the rear to get our act together and achieve our goals. The nine tools profiled here are some of the best online goal trackers out there. All of them are free, and they all include motivational tools to keep you going.

* LifeTango - what really sets Life Tango apart is their goal brainstorming tool. It can help you figure out your goals in different areas of your life, including finance, education, travel, family and more.

* eLifeList - allows you to connect a photo or video to your goals, as well as split them into multiple sublists. You can also add friends and create a profile with a blog and links.

* Goalmigo - lets you set goals, track your progress and share your goals with friends (a good support system can make it easier to achieve your goals). They also have groups you can join with others who have similar goals.

* SuperViva - Create your life list of big and small goals. You can also explore the lists of others for inspiration, and visit the forums to talk with others who are reaching for their goals. They also have a blog and articles to help inspire you.

* AimsVille - Create your “aims”, track your progress, and share your experiences with others. You can browse the most popular goals that others have to get started, or just put in your own.

* Move Mountains - Move Mountains is free online coaching that helps you reach your goal. You can set whether you want to be coached on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, and can set either recurring goals (run a mile every day), larger goals (save $5000), or short one-time goals (wash the car).

* 43 Things - Keep track of your life list and the 43 things that you want to do in life. Get inspired by what others are doing, share your progress with those around you.

* GoalsTogether - View the goals that others have, join a goal, or create a new goal. You’ll have the support of a network of people who see life like you do.

* MyProgress.com - A set of powerful personal progress management tools that automatically observes and analyzes all the essential aspects of your life.

Photo by MSDesigns.

Skelliewag.org:

When it comes to new projects (for me, a new blog or a website), you could say that I’m commitment phobic. For a long time I was more interested in the ideas behind a new project than the execution, leading to a long trail of half-finished projects — and some that never made it out of my notebook.

1. What are my end goals with the project? If you don’t know where you want the journey to end, you can’t do anything except wander around in circles.

2. What will I have to do to reach those goals? Like any strong structure, worthy goals tend to have more than one foundation.

3. Do I have enough ideas and inspiration? Ideas are the fuel behind any new project. While two or three good ideas can be enough to get you excited, a successful project requires a lot of good ideas over an extended period of time.

4. Do I have enough time? This is one question which seems to be a recurring theme in most of our lives.

5. Will it impact on my other projects? An offshoot of the previous question, and the final one you need to consider. A new project often requires you to sacrifice some part of your old project — unless you take time from elsewhere.

Photo by Hetemeel.

Huffington Post:

If you are reading this, the good news is that you have a brain inside your head. And you have probably read about the emerging brain fitness movement: frequent articles in the media, an ongoing PBS special, more and more products and games.

Newsweek’s Sharon Begley recently wrote that “With the nation’s 78 million baby boomers approaching the age of those dreaded “where did I leave my keys?” moments, it’s no wonder the market for computer-based brain training has shot up from essentially zero in 2005 to $80 million this year, according to the consulting firm SharpBrains.”

There is a lot we can do without spending a dime. Based on dozens of interviews with scientists and recent research findings, let’s take a look at some of the habits of Highly Effective Brains:

1. Learn what is the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”

2. Take care of your nutrition.

3. Remember that the brain is part of the body.

4. Practice positive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mindset and you look forward to every new day in a constructive way.

5. Thrive on Learning and Mental Challenges.

For five more habits, go here.

Photo by mcvey files.

ReadWriteWeb:

ReadWriteWeb asked their readers to name their favorite Mobile web app. There were apps that clearly stood out, with multiple mentions.

1. Gmail Java app for mobile phone. Java-based version of Gmail for mobile, which features IMAP sync, attachment viewing. Phrases that were associated with Gmail for mobile by our readers included: “just works”, “simplicity”, “functional”, “useful”, “a joy to use”.

2. Google Maps for Mobile. This too is a Java app, which Google released in December 2006. There is also a full-featured version, including GPS Integration, which can be used on Windows Mobile PocketPCs and smartphones. According to our readers, utility is the key factor for this app.

3. Opera Mini. Not strictly speaking a web app, but still it’s something a lot of people want to download to use as their mobile web browser. Also the recent 4.0 release impressed a few of our commenters. The new features in Opera Mini 4 include quicker scrolling, auto-sizing and faster page rendering. It seems to be the mobile web browser of choice for our readers - odd though that Safari on iPhone got no mentions?!

4. Fring. A free mobile VoIP software, that lets you connect to all your IM services and talk for free when connected to 3G or Wi-Fi.

5. Shozu. Enables you to send your videos and photos from your phone to the Web - e.g. your Flickr account, YouTube, Facebook.

Photo by ReadWriteWeb.

Fortune Small Business:

Jann Yogman is counting down to New Year’s Eve - but his numbers are going up.

Last year, the entrepreneur’s New York City startup, New Year’s Nation, hosted 5,000 guests at a national New Year’s Eve bash in five U.S. cities, all connected by streaming video on giant plasma screens. This year, he’s expecting 8,000 people in eight cities. His sales line: “Eight cities. Four time zones. One outrageous party.”

New Year’s Nation spends its entire year planning for just one night. With the help of a fleet of consultants, Yogman - for now the company’s sole employee - works full-time on the marketing and logistics of a live-broadcast, nationwide event.

New Year’s Nation’s selling point is its use of streaming media to unite partiers in disparate locations, allowing geographically separated friends and lovers to celebrate together, at least virtually.

Read more.

Photo by NYN.

Fast Company:

Brenda Dietrich. Dietrich and her team of math geeks are changing the way IBM works. In the hands of talented mathematicians, data creates an invaluable advantage. Elaborate algorithms reveal a company’s inefficiencies and opportunities–unseen bottlenecks in the supply chain or customers’ hidden buying patterns. “It’s a great time,” Dietrich says, “to be a computational mathematician.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former Mr. Universe is flexing his muscle as governor, incentivizing business to solve climate change. One such move is the Global Warming Solutions Act, requiring companies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 25%. “We get a lot more done when we create a great partnership to tackle problems,” states Governor Schwarzenegger.

Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar’s network funds both nonprofits and for-profits. No matter, as long as they do good. Omidyar Network’s model, which has invested $60 million in nonprofits and $45 million in for-profits, has been emulated by a new class of billionaire social investors. Omidyar’s self-proclaimed mission is, “to help more people connect and work on issues they care about, not the issues I care about.”

Jimbo Wales. The creator of Wikipedia is now taking on Google. He envisions large numbers of real live people — the kind of fervent volunteers that edit Wikipedia — intervening to improve on the machine-generated search engine results that we’re used to. Wales is also emphasizing Wikia’s openness, “It needs to be neutral, and there needs to be an accountable, transparent, public dialogue about how it’s created.”

Michael Jager. Jager’s company, JDK, defies tidy definition. It is not a pure design firm or management consultancy or ad agency so much as it is a combination of the three. This all-in approach extends to clients as well, “It’s amazing how many times the process we use gets people in the same room who have never met or only know each other from e-mail,” Jager says.

For 11 more innovative people, go here.

Photo by spekulator.

Mashable:

2007 was a heck of a year here at Mashable. Throughout the year there were some standout stories based on any number of criteria. This list is a sampling of the stories that shaped the year behind us.

* Barack Obama’s MySpace Ambitions - February 2007 and Obama is looking to social networking to help his political ambitions and… wait a minute… a full 21 months before the 2008 Presidential election? Wow, forward thinking much?

* Adobe Photoshop Online - “So Adobe made a huge revelation today, saying it plans to launch a web-based version of Photoshop within six months.

* On YouTube, YouChoose Obama - It’s amazing how much politics shaped this year online, and this is another example of it. Even more coverage of Obama in the very early days of the campaign, it seemed like he was everywhere at this point.

* EMI First Label to Go Without DRM? - From April 1st of this year, you almost had to think it was an April’s Fool joke, little did we know this the beginning of a snowball of DRM-free music and changes in the industry as a whole.

* My Soul, and 10 Other Things that Google Owns - Adam gives us a crash course in just how much Google has penetrated our lives. It seems you can’t do anything online any more without the Big G being involved in some way, shape, or form.

* June 29th - You kinda have to mention the whole day since it was when the iPhone was unleashed on the world. We continued with news, but it did almost turn into “All iPhone all the time day”, but you had to admit, was, and is, one heck of a sexy device.

* Radiohead to Let Fans Pick the Price for New Album - Oh those crazy kids in Radiohead with their idea of letting consumers decide what to pay! Who knew other people would listen to them?

Read more.

Photo by stroinski.

Rhonda Abrams At Gannett News Service:

I love the beginning of a new year. Not for the champagne-filled revelry of New Year’s Eve, but for the chance for a fresh start for my business and my life.

I’m optimistic for 2008, even though it’s likely to be an unsettled time for the American economy, but there will be not only challenges but opportunities ahead for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

So here’s my list of new year’s resolutions for entrepreneurial companies for 2008:

• Evaluate what you did right.
• Treat your employees right.
• Get your financial information organized.
• Increase your efforts with best customers.
• Market, market, market.
• Diversify your income stream.

Read more.

Photo by 1195.

Esquire:

1. Breaking Down the Firewall. Internet censorship is the book burning of the modern age, denying as much as a third of the world’s population access to news and information. But a new brand of activists — or “hacktivists” — are using their computer expertise to help people stranded in Web-censored countries abroad (and corporate offices and military bases at home) jump the firewall.

2. Electronic Skin. As fast and small as our electronics and computers are today, there is one major drawback. They are hard and rigid and fragile. Completely the opposite of what Stéphanie Lacour is making: bendable, stretchable circuits that will one day be used to make electronic skin and malleable computers.

3. The Pollution Magnet. Eighty-two thousand people die from cancer in Bangladesh every year, many due to arsenic poisoning. But building upon her discovery of a way to get rust nanoparticles to bind to arsenic, Vicki Colvin has invented a new, astonishingly easy way to clean the water supply: Sauté a teaspoon of rust in a mixture of oil and lye, which breaks down the rust into nano-sized pieces. Retrieve the rust particles with a household magnet. Then immerse the rust-covered magnet into a pot of contaminated water. Pull out the arsenic. The system is up to a hundred times more efficient than existing methods, and requires no electricity or manufacturing infrastructure, so even the poorest of villagers can use it.

4. Machines That Fix Themselves. There will come a time when computers and robots don’t need humans to program them. For mechanical engineer Hod Lipson, that time is now. And it all starts with his four-legged starfish robot.

5. Burying Our CO2. Kurt Zenz House isn’t the first scientist to suggest sequestering carbon dioxide in the ocean. But he is the first to come up with a solution that might actually work. The key is depth. Whereas other plans to sequester carbon in the ocean were plagued by fears that the CO2 would escape, House advocates going much deeper — at least three thousand meters, or two miles below sea level into the seabed. At that depth, House hypothesizes that the extreme water pressure and low temperature will turn the carbon into a liquid denser than the surrounding water, forming a layer that will prevent it from rising back up into the ocean.

6. The Next Plastic. Plastic has changed little since its heyday in the 1960s. It’s still ubiquitous, oil based, and dirty as hell for the environment. Chemist Geoffrey Coates in his lab at Cornell University has been reinventing plastic. Making it environmentally friendly and biodegradable — with orange peels. The key is limonene, a citrusy-smelling chemical compound made from orange rinds that when oxidized and mixed with carbon dioxide and a catalyst can be turned into a solid plastic.

Photo by rhodes.

Rhonda Abrams At Gannett News Service:

Every year, at the end of December, I have a tradition: I clean the stuff off my desk and clean out my files.

Yes, I know - if I were a better (or at least more organized) person, I’d clear off my desk more than just once a year. But I never have the time. There’s always something else I’d rather be doing.

But during the last couple of weeks of the year, when the phones are silent, employees are gone on holiday, and I’m finally through with family functions, it’s the perfect time to escape to some peace and quiet in the office and clean up.

I wear comfy clothes - jeans preferably. Go to the office. Play some lively music and start cleaning.

Why don’t you join me? First, let’s get our equipment ready:.

Read more.

Photo by eriksens.

thats fit:

Winter is known as cold season - and it’s not just because the temperatures are dropping. Your chances of catching a cold this season are high — but according to Everyday Health, you can reduce your chances of picking up one if you follow these steps:

Avoid touching your face with your hands. Cold viruses can easily enter your body through the eyes and nose.

Speaking of hands, wash them. Frequently.

Avoid people who are sick, if possible.

Keep your surroundings clean. Cold viruses can live for up to three hours on the phone reciever or stair railing, so make sure you are wiping those down with disinfectant if a sick person has used them.

Take echinacea at the first sign of sickness.

Get vitamin C too — try drinking orange juice every day, for instance.

Photo by Cowlitz County.

Webworker Daily:

Nobody wants to court disaster. And yet, even power computer users often fall into the apathy trap, failing to take simple steps to secure their devices and networks. In this post, I gather up six tips that can get you off to a good, secure start in 2008.

1. Get a USB Thumb Drive for Backups. Prices have fallen on USB thumb drives to the point where you can get lots of capacity for very little money.

2. Use a VPN in Public. A VPN keeps your communications and data secure from hackers and other threats.

3. Use the “S” with GMail. If you use https://mail.google.com when you go into GMail, you’ll ensure that your session is protected by SSL security—the most widely deployed security protocol there is.

4. Run and Regularly Update a Security Suite. Security suites now include most of the key software tools you need to run to stay safe from everything from malware to phishers.

5. Be Sure Your Home Wi-Fi Network is Secure. Even if you’ve already set up security on your home Wi-Fi network, which many people haven’t, you should still check to make sure you are using the latest protocols.

6. Clean Up and Tune Up Your Computer—Free. Why not start 2008 with a cleaned up hard drive, all malware removed, a pristine registry and a healthy computer?

Photo by Aphrodite.

MSNBC:

At 85, Bob Galvin was recently sidelined by eye surgery. Although he’ll now require custom-made glasses, the former chief of Motorola still expects — as he does every year — to hit the ski slopes this winter in Vail, Colo.

It also won’t keep him from “calling the shots” at the pair of research and development ventures he launched in recent years, each seeking to revolutionize part of the nation’s aging infrastructure — from revamping the power grid to wiping out big-city gridlock.

Eighty-four year old Phyllis Apple agrees. The CEO of the Apple Organization, a North Miami Beach, Fla.-based public-relations firm, Apple says she’s in great health and has plenty of time for golf and needlepoint on the weekends — despite working full time. “I have everything I want,” she says. “Why should I retire?”

Galvin and Apple, like the other members of Inc.com’s 8 Over 80 list, are in good company among a small but growing number of unstoppable octogenarians (and older) who are spending their twilight years presiding over new and old ventures alike, rather than hitting the shuffle board courts or joining the bridge club.

If this eclectic group had an honorary chairman, it would be Jack Weil, the 106-year-old CEO of Rockmount Ranch Wear, a Denver, Colorado-based apparel firm.

Read more.

Photo by Paul Trantow.

TrendHunter:

Want to attend a mass without the discomfort of leaving your home (or computer)? St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto broadcasts a feed on TV and YouTube.

What makes this interesting isn’t the idea of religion on television, but rather, that a local parish is broadcasting to its own community.

The project was coordinated by the National Catholic Broadcasting Council who notes, “It is becoming increasingly apparent that television is where people of every culture and condition gather to be informed and where the rival values of our society compete for our allegiance.”

Photo by Canadian Daily Mass.

Advertising Age:

1. WORKING RETIRED. Three out of four baby boomers say they have no intention of seeking a traditional retirement.

2. SUN HATERS. Look for new interest in sun-safe clothing and permanent sunscreen. And look for more litigation and regulation as the movement gets hotter.

3. NEGLECTED DADS. In the late ’70s, the average dad in a two-parent home spent about a third as much time with his kids as the average mom. By the late ’90s, that number had jumped to 65% on weekdays, and 87% on weekends.

4. THIRTY-WINKERS. The average American now sleeps fewer than seven hours a night, which is about a 25% drop from a century ago. For the moment, it’s big business for the sleeping-pill people and the caffeine people. But we need to tackle its huge repercussions for our safety, productivity and civility.

5. WEB TO WEDDING. Almost 3 million adults say they turned online dates into a long-term relationship or marriage. From DateAGolfer.com to Positive Singles (a site for singles with STDs), singles now have unprecedented tools for finding the one they want.

For 5 more trends, go here.

Photo by Ben McLeod.

Wired:

Credit crunch? Recession risk? You’d never know it, judging by the frenzy of startup activity. In fact, it’s a pretty good time to start a company. Generous payouts from Web 1.0 IPOs and more-recent acquisitions have given rise to a new generation of angel investors and venture capitalists.

Unlike 1999 — many of the new crop of startups have real promise. Here are 5 pre-IPO, pre-acquisition companies worth watching in 2008.

23andMe
There’s a lot you could buy with $1,000, but for that price 23andMe offers something never before sold to the masses: your DNA. Are you predisposed to prostate cancer? Glaucoma? Heart disease? As the science of genomics continues to improve, 23andMe should be able to provide ever-better information. In 2008, it will also provide social networking between customers who share traits ranging from ethnic origins to disease profiles.

AdMob
When AdMob launched in 2005, its prospects did not look bright. As a startup mobile-advertising network, it would have to compete with Google, and how feasible is that? But AdMob has defied the odds. While Google is just four months into testing a mobile version of its advertising network, AdMob has already served 12 billion ad impressions to mobile users. As more consumers buy web-enabled mobile phones, the prospects for mobile advertising can only improve.

BitTorrent
As a peer-to-peer, or P2P, download protocol, BitTorrent was perfect for illegal file sharing. But in late 2007, the parent company of that protocol — also called BitTorrent — unveiled a potentially disruptive new use for its P2P technology: a platform that software providers and media companies can use to help customers download high-resolution files faster (and legally). By reducing distribution hurdles, BitTorrent will make online video and software sales increasingly viable in 2008 and will challenge the notion that the idiot box is the primary way to get your CSI fix.

Fon
You pay for internet access at home, so why must you pay for it again at the coffee shop, the airport and the hotel? That frustration spawned Spanish Wi-Fi startup Fon. It’s a simple idea: Give and you shall receive. “Foneros” first agree to share their home wireless connections with other Fon customers using a special router, which splits the signal into public and private streams. In exchange, they get the privilege of using any of the network’s wireless signals anywhere in the world for free.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn, a career-oriented social networking site, found 16 million users, yet until recently has been eclipsed by much larger, livelier competitors. Now, a much-needed upgrade has the 4-year-old startup looking pretty good after all. A new developer platform aims to bring LinkedIn networks to the web at large, starting with Business Week’s website, which will show your connections to any companies mentioned in news articles you’re reading. LinkedIn still emphasizes utility over frivolity, and that’s just the way we like it. Instead of virtual hugs and stripper name generators, expect the site to add “modules” that gather news and events from your industry. The dull-but-useful strategy seems to be working: LinkedIn projects revenues of nearly $100 million in 2008 — not too shabby compared to much larger Facebook’s estimated $150 million for 2007.

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Photo by erkinsahin.