Ten Brands That Will Disappear In 2012 – 24/7 Wall St.

A&W All–American Food Restaurants. A&W Restaurants is owned by fast food holding company giant Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) which has had the firm for sale since January. There have been no buyers. The chain was founded in 1919. The size of company grew rapidly, and immediately after WWII 450 franchises were opened. The firm pioneered the “drive in” fast food format. A&W began to sell canned versions of its sodas in 1971 – the part of the business that will survive as a container beverage business which is now owned by Dr. Pepper/Snapple. The A&W Restaurant business is too small to be viable now. It had 322 outlets in the U.S and 317 outside the U.S at the end of last year.  All were operated by franchisees. By contrast, Yum!’s flagship KFC had 5,055 stories in the U.S. and 11,798 overseas. Two massive global fast food chains are even larger. Subway has 35,000 locations worldwide, and McDonald’s has nearly as many. A&W does not have the ability to market itself against these chains and at least a dozen other fast food operators like Burger King. And, A&W does not have the size to efficiently handle food purchase, logistics, and transportation cost compared to competitors many times as large.

via 24/7 Wall St. Ten Brands That Will Disappear In 2012 – 24/7 Wall St..

 

The Long Tail

In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. It got good reviews but, only a modest success, it was soon forgotten. Then, a decade later, a strange thing happened. Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation. Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again.

Random House rushed out a new edition to keep up with demand. Booksellers began to promote it next to their Into Thin Air displays, and sales rose further. A revised paperback edition, which came out in January, spent 14 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. That same month, IFC Films released a docudrama of the story to critical acclaim. Now Touching the Void outsells Into Thin Air more than two to one.

via Wired 12.10: The Long Tail.

 

How to ruin your reputation in one email thread: The Ocean Marketing story

When a customer emailed Ocean Marketing to ask for a status update on a product, it began what is arguably the worst example of customer service ever.

For decades, we have all heard the expression that there is no such thing as bad press. This is wrong. Perhaps that may have been true 20 years ago, but things are different now. The internet can be a cruel mistress, and thanks to the whims of a socially connected world, even a little faux pas can turn a minor issue into a major one. Occasionally things that are taken out of context or misconstrued can become a defining factor for an individual or a group, usually unfairly. This is not one of those times.

It’s hard to misinterpret a company’s representative telling a customer to “put on your big boy hat and wait it out,” before threatening to sell the customer’s item on Ebay. But that is exactly what happened when a customer named Dave emailed Ocean Marketing to ascertain the status of an order he had placed several months earlier for a peripheral that works with gaming controllers, called The Avenger.

via How to ruin your reputation in one email thread: The Ocean Marketing story.

 

Louis C.K. tops $1 million sales of $5 Beacon comedy special – Dec. 22, 2011

Comedian Louis C.K. was annoyed that he never saw a royalty check from sales of his standup specials through traditional outlets like DVD or iTunes. So he produced his own recent special, sold it online directly to fans for $5 — and made a cool million in just 10 days.

Louis C.K. announced the sales milestone on Wednesday nights episode of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”Louis C.K. began selling the special, filmed at New Yorks Beacon Theater, on December 10.

He put up a simple website that directed customers to “buy the thing” through eBays EBAY, Fortune 500 PayPal for $5.

A footnote explained that the file has “no regional restrictions, no crap. You can download this file, play it as much as you like, burn it to a DVD, whatever.”

via Louis C.K. tops $1 million sales of $5 Beacon comedy special – Dec. 22, 2011.

 

Think BIG – 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate Dips Below 4%

It’s been an epic ride down for mortgage rates over the last decade, and the 4% mark has finally been broken.  Below is a chart of Bankrate.com’s national average for the 30-year fixed mortgage rate.  As shown, the rate is now down to 3.92%.  No one can blame high interest rates for the weakness in housing, that’s for sure.

via Bespoke Investment Group – Think BIG – 30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate Dips Below 4%.

 

6 Ways To Give Family And Friends Financial Aid

The simplest way to subsidize others is by using the annual exclusion, which allows you to give $13,000 in cash or other assets each year to each of as many individuals as you want. Spouses can combine their annual exclusions to give $26,000 to any person tax-free. For example, a married couple with a child who is married and has two children could make a joint cash gift of $26,000 to the adult child, the child’s spouse and each grandchild – four people – providing the family with $104,000 a year.

via 6 Ways To Give Family And Friends Financial Aid – Forbes.

 

Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.3GHz dual-core Intel i5 – Apple Store (U.S.)

Apple is the way to go if you are thinking about Graphics Design.

Came across this interesting deal at Apple Store.

 

Originally released February 2011

13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 1280-by-800 resolution

4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM

320GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm

8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM

via Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.3GHz dual-core Intel i5 – Apple Store (U.S.).