online storefronts and the brick & mortar stores

target recently moved to overcome amazons pricing power. all of us have stood in a store, phone in hand. we check the store price, then we visit our preferred online retailers. lower price wins. and usually the lower price is online.

consider now that these storefront retailers are vital to online retailers. we go to the store to see if the product meets our needs, provides the services we think it should, and lives up to our expectations.

most of us prefer to try or to see before we buy. as long as this is the case we will go to the store. imagine what happens to the online retailer as stores fail.

we will order. they will ship. we will do as we would in the store. examine. evaluate. accept or reject. when we accept the online retailers takes revenue and we get what we want. when we reject, our return becomes their liability as the product returns to unsold or unsaleable inventory.

without the stores available to showcase the products, online purchase returns will increase. the online retailers will have permanently increased costs. amazon, blue nile, zappos, and the like benefit from the brick and mortar store providing consumers with a look before they buy. we don't usually buy what we can't check out first.

from marketingcharts.com

to all you advertising wonks

look at this infographic on ad agency names. find yours. or grow yours large enough to bne put on this chart. or start your own. found at designtaxi.com

you wish pluto was still a planet

you're still angry at astronomists with nothing better to do. they meet. they destroy your beloved solar system mnemonic. and rip the "p" right off the end.

get back at them with this (while parting with thousands of dollars). because it's about the love of our distant system brother, man.

see the trees are the forest

let's redirect our minds away from the urban centers. look to and then go to nature. because in going there your immunity will improve, your blood pressure will, lower, your creativity will increase, and your brain will get away from it all.

so says this article at outside magazine.

here's a look at "tsukin-jigoku". read the article.

Original Content: Connectedness

As I look round and of myself look down to the glow of the colors coming up from this phone, I write of things much said.

Remember your world before smartphones. This was a time with more eye contact. A time with longer attention spans. Decades ago we had to read The Hobbit.

Now, if you agree even a bit with this, then take another step back in time. Remember when your cell phone was just a phone it was a tool much like the phone on your wall. You increased your tethers to your personal community.

And now the student loan reps could reach you all the time. Each of us lost "I wasn't at home as an excuse". Though some will jump and say answering machines and voicemail took that away. In our lives, many of us may say those messages always fell to the black hole of inattention and unwritten messages.

Now those of us who can. Remember the lone, black, rotary phone on the wall. Ringing alone in the house on Maple Street. Unloved when we were gone. And ignored when we were home. Can we, you and I, reclaim those days?

There is value in time for thought. I move too fast, decide to rashly, avoid circumspection.

Real connections take time. Now we convince ourselves we are connected. Because we respond continually, send out words instantly, and forever answer something.

Don't get me wrong, I am part of the game and the problem. I just turn off my phone and my computer a lot.

cities wasting the most time on twitter

before you look at this chart, guess which major city was resposible for the most tweets June 2012. but since you won't do that just look.

from semiocast.com (link @ right)

from Andrew Pipers book and reprinted at Slate an answer to a question you may not have considered: is e-reading actually reading?

prisoners favorite music

consider NPR in Britain. this NPR acronym is different than the American NPR.

we don't suggest that music is somehow a gateway or a cause to effect. the themes for this favorite artist may sometime coincide with the listener's lives. at nme.com

websites that spy on your blog

today's featured uglystat.com. a website valuation service. type in your blog or site. then see their algorithm crank out a value. then try and find a buyer. best of luck. if you have 1 billyun or more there are some great deals available. maybe not ll things have a price.

in a very short time

many of us have a very short view of our futures. we may not see much beyond tomorrow. and some of us don't look beyond today.

we suggest the key to our future success. all of us cultivate the same skills mastered by those that shaped much of what we have today.

the world needs visionary people. there is much that can happen in our moments of dedicated imagining. picture yourself in 1 year, 5 years, 50 years if you think you have that many.

those things you see in that personal vision are the images of what will be. choose something that bothers you. think on a way to solve the problem. combine existing tech and principles. this imaginary chimera you create is your answer. how much time do you have to give us the next wheel, light bulb, integrated processor, antigrav machine, transporter? this survey sets your deadline