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April 1, 2008
This is odd. Were you aware that EasyJet does not own its brand?
From Wikipedia: “unlike most other airlines. Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder and largest individual shareholder of EasyJet, has sole ownership of the ‘easy’ brand and licenses it to the airline (as well as to all other easyGroup businesses). For most ‘easy’ businesses, the […]
March 21, 2008
Saturday, April 22, is World Water Day, “an international day of observance and action to draw attention to the plight of those without access to safe drinking water.” This year’s theme, Sanitation!
NPR of course has been all up in the hizzat this week about it with Science Froday host Ira Flatow quite literally, maybe, peeing […]
March 20, 2008
Recently, Portfolio magazine looked at the potential spending for this year’s presidential election and settled on a probable figure of $1 billion. That, Portfolio rightly noted, is a serious bargain.
Porfolio’s reasoning is that, comparatively, $1 billion buys a lot more than, say, Microsoft’s $500 million to promote Vista. One gets you written into the history […]
Factoid, Research & stats, That's Crazy Talk!, Trends - Add your Comment »
March 4, 2008
Are you one out of 1,000? The one of 1,000 that can smell sound? It is a psychological phenomenon called synesthesia, in which an individual can smell a sound or hear a color. Most of these people are not aware they are synesthetes: they think the way they experience the world is normal. This accoriding […]
February 26, 2008
In order of estimated number of speakers
Language
Estimated speakers
1
Chinese (Mandarin)
1,070,000,000
2
English
508,000,000
3
Hindustani
497,000,000
4
Spanish
392,000,000
5
Russian
277,000,000
6
Arabic
246,000,000
7
Bengali
211,000,000
8
Portugese
191,000,000
9
Malay-Indonesian
159,000,000
10
French
129,000,000
Based upon a 1998 survey. There are also three other languages that are spoken by more than 100 million people each: German (128 million), Japanese (126 million), and Urdu (105 million).
Source: Opusfourfour.com
To read more fun word and language factoids, and get some ideas for brand or product […]
February 19, 2008
This is an oldie, but a goodie and sort of contradicts our Smart Tip of the week, where we suggest that you should boil down your PowerPoint slides to as few words as possible. But, hey, we like to hear all sides of an argument and challenge our own Smart Tips.
This article from the New […]
February 11, 2008
“It costs six to thirty times more to get a new customer than it does to service and maintain the satisfaction and loyalty of an existing customer. Companies struggle to cut costs without realizing that customer attrition might be the single largest cost they have. Keeping customers happy has the same bottom line effect as […]
February 4, 2008
Business cards (extremely important) are presented after the bow or handshake. Present your card with its Japanese side facing your colleague. Handle the cards you receive carefully - don’t put them in your pocket or write on them.
Source: getcustoms.com
January 28, 2008
Young men are the most frequent online video viewers, but US Internet users of all ages are getting into the act.
That is the main finding of BurstMedia’s “Online Insights” report, conducted in December 2007.
70% of users surveyed had viewed online video content. A majority of all age segments had watched online videos, including more than […]
January 21, 2008
Advertisers are paying up to $2.7 million for a 30-second spot this year, up from $2.6 million in 2007.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
