Integrating AI, Accelerating Success
Big Companies Hiring, Small Companies Aren’t, Gallup Finds:
“Despite the trope that ‘small businesses are the engines of job growth,’ larger companies seem to be doing the most hiring, according to new survey data.”
(Via Economix.)
Well, that’s a surprise. But this is a Gallup poll and not BLS statistics. If it bears out, this would indeed be remarkable.
Pretty Good for Government Work – NYTimes.com:
“So, again, Uncle Sam, thanks to you and your aides. Often you are wasteful, and sometimes you are bullying. On occasion, you are downright maddening. But in this extraordinary emergency, you came through — and the world would look far different now if you had not.”
(Via Politics : NPR.)
The Oracle of Omaha thanks the federal government for saving our bacon in 2008. The great political irony is the bailouts in these crisis moments are what started the Tea Party. I wonder if they knew how close they came to total economic annihilation? Ignorance is indeed expensive!
RIM CEO: Apple Is Wrong for Having an App for That:
”‘So you reject the appification of the Web?’ asked Summit host John Battelle. ‘Correct,’ Balsillie said, challenging Apple’s ‘there’s an app for that’ slogan for its iPhone App Store, which has more than 300,000 applications.
Balsillie’s comments were tinged with a note of bitterness in the wake of unprovoked attacks on RIM’s business by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. One month ago, Jobs appeared on Apple’s fourth-quarter earnings call to tout how Apple had passed RIM in smartphone sales for the quarter.”
(Via eWeek – RSS Feeds.)
Verizon to sell Galaxy Tab starting November 11th for $599.99 — Engadget:
“Well, we finally have a price on this thing! America’s largest carrier has announced plans to sell Samsung’s Galaxy Tab for… $599.99. The 3G, Android 2.2-based unit (which will be loaded with V CAST apps, of course) will hit retail on November 11th, and since it’s being sold at full price, a data plan (which starts at $20 per month for 1GB) is completely optional.”
(Via The Macalope.)
I thought I’d never write the following words: Apple is killing Samsung on price.
However, whether the results on Ben and on me are due to malevolence or the same unreliable reporting of result counts that appear to be prevalent in the other cases, the unreliability of the counts is striking. Until recently I had used counts of results reported as a rough measure of the significance of an individual or a piece of work, or at least of their popular visibility, which is not quite the same thing as significance. Obviously I cannot use the number of results returned as a measure of anything until I understand them further. Can I use Google Scholar, or any other Google site, and assume that results have been returned with an even hand, without fear or favor, and with care for their accuracy? I suspect not.
via Is Google Guilty Of Deliberate Query Sabotage?.
This is such a biting damnation of Google’s search result count it garnered a response in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately the response is more public relations than substantive explanation or even rebuttal. Restricting a search should always do just that, restrict the search. If the “estimate” goes up, these numbers are not even remotely accurate regardless of how many significant digits you care about. Trying to hide behind the word “estimate” is simply disingenuous when a more accurate term would be “guesstimate.” And Google has no plans to fix this bug since they don’t want to “spend the cycles on that aspect of [their] system.” It’s only their core business. Not very important stuff at all.
Why Big Companies Matter in Job Creation – NYTimes.com:
“The start-ups that make a outsized contribution to job generation are the ones that survive beyond five years, and begin to take off, heading toward and beyond the government-defined boundary of a small business (fewer than 500 employees).
You can read that and assume that big, older companies don’t play an important role in the job-creation game. That would be a mistake, economists say. The old-line companies may not create a lot of net new jobs in America, they say, but the big global corporations shape the environment that gives rise to entrepreneurial upstarts.”
Marco.org – A smartphone retrospective:
Great analogy between the iPhone vis-a-vis the smartphone market and the iPad today.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
Companies marketing to small businesses should also establish a presence on top social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook before pursuing more IT resource-intensive initiatives (such as creating a company-managed online community).
The main strategic reason this is good advice is because of what are called network effects. Chief among them is the desire of network participants to go where everyone else is. This gives you great bang for your marketing buck in terms of both time and money.
Coincidentally, I looked into creating my first Facebook company “Page” today for just this reason this evening. What I’m deciding is not just to have the Page but how to best spread the word on such sites as Facebook, control content, etc. It is not a no-brainer, you need to carefully consider how such a presence affects your image and brand as well as the impression it leaves with your target market. For example, what kinds of comments will be on your Facebook Page? “Hi babe! Long time no see!” is not exactly professional and would probably be counterproductive to what the Page is trying to accomplish.
So by all means get your company out there and be social! Just remember to wear a suit when you do.
One of the reasons I think Apple’s “Antennagate” saga with iPhone 4 reception is fueled more by the news cycle (and perhaps some schadenfreude) than an actual story.
AFT’s Burton agreed that those earning more than $200,000 would see their share of the overall tax burden decrease, admitting that “probably those earning between $40[thousand] and $100,000” would see their percentage of the tax burden rise.
via FactCheck.org: Unspinning the FairTax.
It still looks like the same old game to me.
