Prairie Tumbleweed Farm: Joke becomes successful web business
November 28, 2007
Tumbleweeds…See them rolling along , Pledging their love with a song
Here on the Range I belong , Drifting along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds …
Your fortune might be just out the back door. Linda Katz did not start out to be an entrepreneur of an online money making business selling tumbleweeds. No, Katz was simply attempting to learn how to create a website. In order to build a website, the website should have a purpose. Katz, who lives in Kansas, took a look around the prairie landscape and all the tumbling tumbleweeds and jokingly decided to make up a company called the Prairie Tumbleweed Farm.
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Rockefeller Center Christmas tree gets greener
November 27, 2007
The 76 year old traditional Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is about get greener.
This year, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree will be adorned in 30,000 energy-saving multicolored light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In addition, the Rockefeller Center office complex is sporting a new 365-panel solar energy array that will generate electricity on the roof of one of the complex’s buildings.
The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is found in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. This year, the Christmas tree is scheduled to have its lights turned on November 28th. The first Christmas tree erected at Rockefeller Center happened in 1931, during the depression, by construction workers at the site of the office complex.
According to CNN, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is hoping the famous Christmas tree will inspire others to go green.
“Now they will see an example of green leadership which may inspire them to make greener choices in their own lives,” said Bloomberg.
Stupid.com: Stupidest Holiday Gifts for 2007
November 27, 2007
Not that you have ever received a stupid gift, or ever wanted to give a stupid gift, but the fact that Stupid.com has a list of The Stupidest Holiday Gifts for 2007 does seem to take a mistletoe twig and poke fun at the generally absurd out of control commercialization of Christmas.
Who really spends money on mass-produced products that sell at Stupid.com? Stupid.com’s states that shoppers spent nearly $1 million dollars on bizarre gifts at Stupid.com’s offbeat website. Obviously, there is quite the market for stupid gifts.
At the time of Stupid.com’s press release announcing the top ten stupid gifts this year, the list included:
- Mistletoe To Go
- The Hillary Nutcracker
- Slingshot Monkey
- Larry Craig Action Figure
- Uncle Oinker’s Gummy Bacon Candy
- Inflatable Moosehead
- Electronic Yodeling Pickle
- Poo-lar Bear Candy
- Get Off the Phone Excuse Machine
- USB Dancer
According to Stupid.com’s founder Gary Apple,
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Shopocalypse: What Would Jesus Buy? movie trailer
November 24, 2007
“Reverend Billy is seriously hilarious.” — Variety
Last year, Americans shoppers spent $455 billion dollars during the holidays. Consumer credit debt is now $2.4 trillion dollars. 26 million Americans are addicted to shopping.
In What Would Jesus Buy?, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir travel the country preaching the coming Shopocalypse resulting from the escalating commercialization of Christmas, gluttonous levels of consumption and the fires of eternal debt. During the journey to save shoppers from the clutches of retail giants, there are corporate exorcisms and retail interventions and a reminder that some might appear to be losing their way in the true meaning of Christmas.
Buy Handmade Pledge: Christmas craft revolution
November 24, 2007
Did you notice stores were stocking shelves with Christmas merchandise weeks before Thanksgiving? Did you refuse to think about Christmas shopping until the day after Thanksgiving, and when you did think about Christmas shopping, did you stay home on Black Friday and avoid the stampede to get through the mall doors first? Are you in the group of people who long for a simple, stress free, less commercial, more thoughtful, more meaningful Christmas?
Buy Handmade has launched a campaign for those who would like to make a pledge to buy handmade gifts from independent artists and artisans this Christmas shopping holiday season and those making the pledge ask others to give handmade gifts in return. To date, almost 7,300 people have taken the handmade pledge. Buy Handmade lists several reasons why buying handmade goods make better presents.
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Etsy: Handmade gifts
November 24, 2007
Homemade. Handmade. Made in America. Are you a crafter? When you create something, do your friends and family members ask if you can make one for them? Or have you wistfully contemplated the idea of turning a hobby into a money-making venture?
Are you a shopper who has tired of boring and potentially dangerous mass-produced products? Looking for the original and unique item, either for yourself or as a gift? This Christmas season there is a renewed interest in American-made products and one-of-a-kind handmade gifts crafted by individual artists and artisans.
Etsy, an online marketplace of handmade items, might just be the perfect place for crafters looking to sell their products and shoppers interested in one-of-a-kind merchandise.
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Kiva.org: Micro loans offer hope of prosperity
November 24, 2007
During a recent make a difference and help change the world theme show on Oprah, Kiva.org founders Matt and Jessica Flannery were featured guests. From the time of launching Kiva.org, Kiva.org’s founders stated that $10 million dollars in loans have been made through the organization, with 99.7 percent of the money loaned repaid.
A simple idea to help the working poor obtain a small loan to start a business that can change the economic life of the small business owner and the lives of family members who depend on them.
Using the internet, anyone can make a small business loan (as little as $25 dollars) to someone living on the other side of the world. There are no boundaries to lending a helping hand to someone who just needs a chance. Where a larger lending institution might not be interested in making the kind of small loans available through Kiva.org, Kiva is designed to fill the needed void of making these micro-loans available. In the process, every day people are helping each other reach the potential of greater economic security.
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Holiday Survival Kit: Smart holiday shopping tips
November 24, 2007
Holiday Headquarters at the National Retail Federation (NRF) offers shopping tips for the holiday shopper that include top ten tips for buying gift cards, shopping on a budget, safe shopping tips and the top ten shopping tips. Some of the top ten tips when purchasing a gift card include asking if the gift card has an expiration date or dormancy fees. Also, there are differences between a gift card from a store and a gift card from a bank. All gift cards are not the same.
According to the NRF’s Top 10 Tips for Smart Holiday Shopping, a few of the top ten shopping tips might surprise the average consumer, such as:
Shop after 6:00 p.m. the evening before a sale is advertised to begin. Many retailers program the registers the night before, so the sale may already come up in the register even if they have not signed the selling floor yet. Ask the associate in advance for any possible upcoming sales, especially on big ticket items.
Cyber Monday: Christmas shopping online
November 24, 2007
For decades, Black Friday has been the official first day of the Christmas shopping season. Blurry-eyed from tryptophan, dedicated shoppers leave the comfort and warmth of their bed and home to brave the predawn cold in hope of arriving close enough to the front of the line to take advantage of doorbuster deals of extemely limited in quantity merchandise.
Dedicated to saving money, but not willing to give up sleep or sanity to accomplish your thrifty goals? Not to worry. There is Cyber Monday.
Cyber Monday is the online shopping version of Black Friday. According to Shop.com, last year almost 64 percent of retailers saw significant growth on Cyber Monday and approximately a third of online retailers said that their Cyber Monday sales were up more than 30 percent from the previous year.
Cyber Monday is likely to continue to be a popular choice for shoppers looking for the best Christmas sales and deals this holiday season. This year, consumers shopping online can expect to find offers of free shipping, as well as early shopper discounts and first time buyer discounts. Shopping online offers several additional advantages to heading out to the local mall. Online a consumer has access to comparison shopping search engines and customer reviews of products they are interested in buying before they make an actual purchase. With the ridiculous cost of a gallon of gas, the ability to shop without leaving your computer screen can be substantial savings in itself.
However, consumers do not need to wait until Cyber Monday to take advantage of online shopping deals.
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World Hello Day
November 18, 2007
Hello.
November 21st is World Hello Day. World Hello Day is a day designated to recognize the promotion of peace through communication. The way to celebrate World Hello Day is to greet ten different people during the day. All you need to do is say hello.
World Hello Day started after the conflict between Egypt and Israel in 1973. From then on World Hello Day has been a day in which people try to show world leaders that differences should be settled with communication instead of conflict.
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