Friday, September 11, 2009
Family time eroding as Internet use soars
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NEW YORK - Whether it's around the dinner table or just in front of the TV, U.S. families say they are spending less time together.
The decline in family time coincides with a rise in Internet use and the popularity of social networks, though a new study stopped just short of assigning blame.
The Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California is reporting this week that 28 percent of Americans it interviewed last year said they have been spending less time with members of their households. That's nearly triple the 11 percent who said that in 2006.
These people did not report spending less time with their friends, however.
Michael Gilbert, a senior fellow at the center, said people report spending less time with family members just as social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are booming, along with the importance people place on them.
Five-year-old Facebook's active user base, for example, has surged to more than 200 million active users, up from 100 million last August.
Meanwhile, more people say they are worried about how much time kids and teenagers spend online. In 2000, when the center began its annual surveys on Americans and the Internet, only 11 percent of respondents said that family members under 18 were spending too much time online. By 2008, that grew to 28 percent.
"Most people think of the Internet and (our) digital future as boundless, and I do too," Gilbert said.
But, he added, "it can't be a good thing that families are spending less face-to-face time together. Ultimately it leads to less cohesive and less communicative families."
In the first half of the decade, people reported spending an average of 26 hours per month with their families. By 2008, however, that shared time had dropped by more than 30 percent, to about 18 hours.
The advent of new technologies has, in some ways, always changed the way family members interact.
Cell phones make it easier for parents to keep track of where their children are, while giving kids the kind of privacy they wouldn't have had in the days of landlines.
Television has cut into dinner time, and as TV sets became cheaper, they also multiplied, so that kids and parents no longer have to congregate in the living room to watch it.
But Gilbert said the Internet is so engrossing, and demands so much more attention than other technologies, that it can disrupt personal boundaries in ways other technologies wouldn't have.
"It's not like television, where you can sit around with your family and watch," he said. The Internet, he noted, is mostly one-on-one.
Likely because they can afford more Web-connected gadgets, higher-income families reported greater loss of family time than those who make less money. And more women than men said they felt ignored by a family member using the Internet.
The center's latest survey was a random poll of 2,030 people ages 12 and up was conducted April 9 to June 30, 2008, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer
Labels: family time, hot trends, internet use, trends newsletter
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Crisis spurs spike in 'suburban survivalists'
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SAN DIEGO - Six months ago, Jim Wiseman didn't even have a spare nutrition bar in his kitchen cabinet.
Now, the 54-year-old businessman and father of five has a backup generator, a water filter, a grain mill and a 4-foot-tall pile of emergency food tucked in his home in the expensive San Diego suburb of La Jolla.
Wiseman isn't alone. Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hardcore survivalists.
These people snapping up everything from water purification tablets to thermal blankets shatter the survivalist stereotype: they are mostly urban professionals with mortgages, SUVs, solid jobs and a twinge of embarrassment about their newfound hobby.
From teachers to real estate agents, these budding emergency gurus say the dismal economy has made them prepare for financial collapse as if it were an oncoming Category 5 hurricane. They worry about rampant inflation, runs on banks, bare grocery shelves and widespread power failures that could make taps run dry.
For Wiseman, a fire protection contractor, that's meant spending roughly $20,000 since September on survival gear - and trying to persuade others to do the same.
"The UPS guy drops things off and he sees my 4-by-8-by-6-foot pile of food and I say 'What are you doing to prepare, buddy?'" he said. "Because there won't be a thing left on any shelf of any supermarket in the country if people's confidence wavers."
The surge in interest in emergency stockpiling has been a bonanza for camping supply companies and military surplus vendors, some of whom report sales spikes of up to 50 percent.
These companies usually cater to people preparing for earthquakes or hurricanes, but informal customer surveys now indicate the bump is from first-time shoppers who cite financial, not natural, disaster as their primary concern, they say.
Top sellers include 55-gallon water jugs, waterproof containers, freeze-dried foods, water filters, water purification tablets, glow sticks, lamp oil, thermal blankets, dust masks, first-aid kits and inexpensive tents.
Joe Branin, owner of the online emergency supply store Living Fresh, said he's seen a 700 percent increase in orders for water purification tablets in the past month and a similar increase in orders for sterile water pouches.
He is shipping meals ready to eat and food bars by the case to residential addresses nationwide.
"You're hearing from the people you will always hear from, who will build their own bunkers and stuff," he said. "But then you're hearing from people who usually wouldn't think about this, but now it's in their heads: 'What if something comes to the worst?'"
Online interest in survivalism has increased too. The niche Web site SurvivalBlog.com has seen its page views triple in the past 14 months to nearly 137,000 unique visitors a week. Jim Rawles, a self-described survivalist who runs the site, calls the newcomers "11th hour believers." He charges $100 an hour for phone consulting on emergency preparedness and says that business also has tripled.
"There's so many people who are concerned about the economy that there's a huge interest in preparedness, and it pretty much crosses all lines, social, economic, political and religious," he said. "There's a steep learning curve going on right now."
Art Markman, a cognitive psychologist, said he's not surprised by the reaction to the nation's financial woes - even though it may seem irrational. In an increasingly global and automated society, most people are dependent on strangers and systems they don't understand - and the human brain isn't programmed to work that way.
"We have no real causal understanding of the way our world works at all," said Markman, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin. "When times are good, you trust that things are working, but when times are bad you realize you don't have a clue what you would do if the supermarket didn't have goods on the shelves and that if the banks disappear, you have no idea where your money is."
Those preparing for the worst echo those thoughts and say learning to be self sufficient makes them feel more in control amid mounting uncertainty - even if it seems crazy to their friends and families.
Chris Macera, a 29-year-old IT systems administrator, said he started buying extra food to take advantage of sales after he lost his job and he was rehired elsewhere for $30,000 less.
But Macera, who works in suburban Orange County, said that over several months his mentality began to shift from saving money to preparing for possible financial mayhem. He is motivated, too, by memories of the government paralysis that followed Hurricane Katrina.
He now buys 15 pounds of meat at a time and freezes it, and buys wheat in 50-pound bags, mills it into flour and uses it to bake bread. He checks survivalist Web sites for advice at least once a day and listens to survival podcasts.
"You kind of have to sift through the people with their hats on a little bit too tight," said Macera, who said his colleagues tease him about the grain mill. "But I see a lot of things (on the Web) and they're real common sense-type things."
"I don't want to be a slave to anybody," he said. "The more systems you're dependent on, the more likely things are going to go bad for you."
That's a philosophy shared by Vincent Springer, a newcomer to emergency preparedness from the Chicago area.
Springer, a high school social studies teacher, says he's most worried about energy shortages and an economic breakdown that could paralyze the just-in-time supply chain that grocery stores rely on.
In the past few months, Springer has stockpiled enough freeze-dried food for three months and bought 72-hour emergency supply kits for himself, his wife and two young children. The 39-year-old is also teaching himself to can food.
"I'm not looking for a retreat in northern Idaho or any of that stuff, but I think there's more people like me out there and I think those numbers are growing," he said.
By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer
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Monday, September 7, 2009
Cinema comes to Riyadh for first time in decades
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - For the first time in three decades, Saudis in the nation's capital did something that most Westerners take for granted - they went to the movies. But it wasn't exactly date night. No women were allowed.
Saturday's screening of the Saudi film, "Menahi," brought a taste of the moviegoing experience to Riyadh more than 30 years after the government began shutting down theaters - a move driven by religious conservatives who view cultural activities such as movie screenings and concerts with concern because they could lead to mixing of the sexes and violate Islamic values.
Men and children, including girls up to 10, were allowed to attend Saturday's show at a government-run cultural center. Young male organizers of the event manned a checkpoint on the road leading to the gated center so no women could reach the theater.
And in a sign of the challenges that face every small step toward reform, a group of conservative men gathered outside the entrance to the center to try to discourage the moviegoers from going in. People largely ignored them, savoring the chance to munch popcorn and enjoy the cinema.
"It was just beautiful to see people look so animated and happy," said Misfir al-Sibai, a 21-year-old Saudi businessman who attended the screening. "That was the best part of the evening."
Despite the exclusion of half of Riyadh's population, the decision to show the film, produced by a company owned by royal tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, was a daring step. It followed a trend in opening up the kingdom, culturally and in other ways, that began when King Abdullah came to power in 2005.
That has angered conservatives, who have issued edicts against such cultural events. One of them, Youssef al-Ahmed, has even accused Alwaleed and another Saudi businessman of being as dangerous as drug dealers because the TV channels they own broadcast movies.
Inside the center on Saturday, the atmosphere was lively as the moviegoers bought popcorn and posed for pictures with the film's cast.
Two Saudi men tried - but failed - to disrupt the evening. One of them stood up after evening prayers at the mosque attached to the cultural center and urged worshippers not to take the few steps to the theater, said al-Sibai.
Shortly after the film began, the viewers could hear another man shout that they should refrain from spending their money on such decadent pursuits, said al-Sibai. He was led away by security.
Al-Sibai said the disturbances didn't dampen people's mood, and the film - a comedy about a Bedouin who has a difficult time adapting to life in Dubai - was shown in its entirety to an almost full house.
Saudi movie directors and aficionados have tried to revive cinema in Saudi Arabia in the past few years, encouraged by the more open environment in the kingdom.
There has been an upsurge in Saudi-produced movies, some of which have taken part in international film festivals. The kingdom held its first Saudi film festival last year in the city of Dammam. The event was attended by the information minister in a clear sign of official approval.
Alwaleed, a nephew of King Abdullah and the world's 13th-richest person as ranked by Forbes magazine, has been outspoken about the need for movie theaters, saying in February he is certain that one day there will be cinemas in Saudi Arabia.
Although there are no theaters in the country, Saudis can watch movies at home on television. Some hold informal screenings in their living rooms or travel to nearby Bahrain to catch the latest releases. There are also numerous video stores that stock the latest films after kisses and other such scenes have been cut. Several Saudi newspapers even have a weekly movie page.
"Menahi" was shown to a mixed audience in the more open western seaport city of Jiddah and the resort of Taif a few months ago. According to a statement by Rotana, which produced "Menahi," 25,000 viewers watched the movie, including 9,000 women.
Ibrahim Badi, Rotana spokesman, said the company could not get permission from authorities for women to attend in more conservative Riyadh.
Publicity for the film in Riyadh was discreet, apparently out of fear opponents would gather en masse to stop the screening. A couple of newspapers reported the coming event Saturday and listed the few places where tickets could be bought. Three more shows are expected in the coming days.
Talal Saleh, a 25-year-old who attended the screening, said it's better to keep women away at the beginning.
"This is a conservative society that's not used to mixing," said Saleh. "Change should happen gradually."
By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer
Labels: Alwaleed, cinema, hot trends, Menahi, riyadh, saudi arabia, trends newsletter
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Friday, September 4, 2009
Americans spend $34B for alternative medicine
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ATLANTA - Americans spend more than a 10th of their out-of-pocket health care dollars on alternative medicine, according to the first national estimate of such spending in more than a decade.
Chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists and herbal remedies are commanding significant consumer dollars as people seek high-touch care in a high-tech society, the report released Thursday by the government shows.
Altogether, consumers spent an estimated $34 billion on those and other alternative remedies in 2007, the report found.
"We are talking about a very wide range of health practices that range from promising and sensible to potentially harmful," said Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the federal agency that leads research in this field.
More research into which therapies work is critically needed, because the spending on them is "substantial," she said.
The data, gathered in 2007 mostly before the recession was evident, don't clearly reflect whether the economy played a role in spending on these therapies. But Briggs noted there has been "speculation that as the number of uninsured grows, there may be increased utilization of some of these approaches, which tend to be relatively inexpensive."
Nearly half of those who use alternative medicine say they cannot afford conventional care, according to government data published in a separate report.
Some consumer advocates say people are wasting money on some products that rigorous studies have shown don't work. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, who leads Public Citizen's health research, has long criticized the government for what he considers lax regulation of prescription drugs and mainstream medicine. Yet, he also sees problems with the widespread use of dietary supplements.
"People think they are cleared" by the Food and Drug Administration, he said, when in fact they do not need proof of safety or effectiveness to go on the market.
"Mainly, they're ineffective," he said.
The report is based on a 2007 survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of more than 23,000 adults nationwide. An earlier report from this survey, released in December, found that more than one-third of adults use alternative medicine.
That includes a wide range of services from meditation and yoga to herbal supplements, such as echinacea and ginseng. Vitamins and minerals are not included in this report but will be addressed in a future one.
Pain was the main reason people tried massage, chiropractic care and other alternative therapies. Among supplement users, most popular were glucosamine for joint pain and fish oil to cut the risk of heart disease.
The new survey results focus on how often Americans use these things, and how much they pay for them. The numbers show that alternative medicine accounts for more than 11 percent of out-of-pocket spending on health care in the United States.
The study found that about 44 cents out of every dollar spent on alternative medicine was for products like fish oil, glucosamine and echinacea. Spending on these products was nearly $15 billion, or about a third of what Americans spend out-of-pocket for prescription drugs.
"I personally am pretty conservative about supplement use," Briggs said. She believes that research her center has sponsored has affected consumer use. After widely publicized studies showed the ineffectiveness of echinacea for colds and St. John's wort for major depression, their use fell; fish oil use has risen following some research suggesting it might help lower risk of heart problems.
The survey shows about 35 cents of each alternative therapy dollar was for visits to acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists and other practitioners. That totals nearly $12 billion, or about one-quarter of what Americans spend on visits to mainstream physicians.
"Some of the useful things chiropractors are doing amounts to physical therapy," Wolfe said. "Medicine is beginning to realize how important physical therapy is."
The last government estimate for out-of-pocket spending on alternative medicine came from a 1997 survey. That research suggested $27 billion was being spent.
The new report concludes that 38 million adults visited alternative medicine practitioners in 2007. They paid less than $50 per visit on average, but many paid $75 or more for services such as acupuncture, homeopathy and hypnosis therapy.
The average annual spending per person to see practitioners was about $122, and the average spending on products was $177.
A whopping $3 billion was spent on homeopathy, a form of treatment that uses highly diluted drugs made from natural ingredients and based on a theory unverified by mainstream science.
Private insurance paid for about 43 percent of all alternative medicine in 2007, public insurance paid for 31 percent and patients paid for the rest, according to a separate government report.
Dianne Shaw, a media relations worker at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, sees value in at least one form of alternative medicine - acupuncture. She says acupuncture helped her recover from a stroke-like facial nerve paralysis that standard drugs didn't remedy. During an exam, one of her doctors commented on her progress, and she revealed that she was getting acupuncture.
"They said, 'Well I'm glad it worked,'" Shaw said.
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE and MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writers
Labels: alternative medicine, hot trends, trends newsletter
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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
al-Qaida Is Morphing
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DRAA BEN KHEDDA, Algeria - Deep in the Sahara Desert, along the remote southern borders of Algeria, lies an immense no man's land where militants roam.
It is here that terrorists linked with al-Qaida traffic everything from weapons and drugs to illegal migrants. They have planted at least a half-dozen cells in Europe, according to French, Italian and Belgian intelligence. Last week, they announced on the Internet that they had killed a British hostage in Mali, and are still holding a Swiss hostage.
The al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaida is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaida's brand name and some corporate know-how.
"The relationship with the al-Qaida mother company works like in a multinational," says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks. "There's a strong ideological link, but the local subsidiary operates on its own."
Another Western intelligence official compares AQIM to a local fast food franchise, "only for terrorism."
A picture of AQIM and its ties with al-Qaida emerges from accounts by its victims, interviews with some of the dozens of intelligence officials following its activities and data pieced together by Western diplomats in Algeria.
It shows that the battle against radical Islam in Algeria has become crucial — and not only for North Africa. Intelligence officials throughout Europe are convinced that AQIM wants to expand in their region.
A senior counterterrorism official in France, who was not authorized to talk on the record, told The Associated Press that his services work "daily, constantly" with Algerian security to contain this threat. He says at least six AQIM-related cells, dormant or getting ready for action, have been dismantled across Europe in recent years.
Last month, the Spanish judiciary announced it had caught 12 Algerians from a suspected support cell. And last week, Italian authorities issued arrest warrants for two Tunisians, two Moroccans and an Algerian suspected of plotting attacks on a church and a subway line.
"For now, we've been good," the French official says. "But we've basically been lucky."
___
Four years ago, the Algerian terrorists — then known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat — were running out of steam.
Born in an insurgency in 1992, the group took part in a near-civil war the next decade that killed about 200,000 people. But its fighters had lost popular support after killing Muslim civilians. Many leaders had turned themselves in during government amnesties, and the group was weak from internal feuds.
So its new emir or leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel, reached out to the superstar of international jihad: Al-Qaida.
His emissaries met with Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, or close associates of his in countries like Sudan, Lebanon or Yemen, the Western intelligence officials told the AP.
Al-Qaida said it couldn't give its brand away to an unreliable group: Even by jihad standards, Algerian militants had a reputation for excess violence. But after a year of talks and tests, al-Zawahri issued a statement recognizing the "blessed union" on Sept. 11, 2006.
AQIM tried to focus more on Western targets in Algeria or tourists and Jews in Morocco. It also imported al-Qaida techniques, such as fine-tuned remote-controlled roadside bombs and suicide bombers.
In an apparent reference to al-Qaida's attacks on the U.S. on 9/11, AQIM carried out its first suicide bombings on April 11, 2007. On Dec. 11 that year, it killed 37 people — including 17 United Nations staffers — in an attack that devastated the U.N.'s Algerian headquarters.
The key technology input seems to be public relations. Several times a month, AQIM now uses global jihadist forums on the Internet to issue political statements and videos of bombings or ambushes.
The Algerian group appears to raise its own money rather than get any from al-Qaida, according to Bruguiere and others.
"I don't think there are many ties to headquarters other than ideological," said Bruguiere, the European Union coordinator of the Terrorism Finance Tracking Program run jointly with the U.S. Treasury Department and CIA.
The group pays its dues back to "headquarters" by trying to expand a new front for jihad in North Africa that could also serve as a forward base to hit Europe. Terrorists from Algeria or of Algerian descent have already been implicated in several devastating attacks, including the 2004 Madrid train bombings and a series of blasts in the Paris metro in the 1990s.
The Western and North African intelligence officials said expansion is under way, to a limited extent, in Tunisia and Libya.
And Moroccan security said police dismantle at least a half-dozen suspected terrorist cells on average each year. The Interior Ministry recently ordered 267 local bank branches to close because they were too vulnerable to holdups that could fund militants.
The Pentagon's new Africa Command is also striving to prevent the Algerian group's expansion south into the desert. U.S. troops or Special Forces help the weak military in Saharan states increase patrolling and cross-border cooperation.
The need is pressing. The British and Swiss hostages were among four European tourists and two senior U.N. envoys kidnapped this winter near the Mali and Niger borders. The Swiss hostage is still being held, but the others have since been released. Likely kidnapped by local gunmen, they were transferred to AQIM, which asked for a huge ransom and the release of a radical Islamist preacher held in Britain.
But the bulk of the militants' activities remain in densely populated northern Algeria, where nearly every day they traffic goods, plunder drivers at fake road blocks, kidnap, and extort money from small businessmen in exchange for safety.
"They're not al-Qaida, they're just a mafia," said Majid Benhamiche, who regularly dons his military uniform to join the army in raids against terrorist camps across the Kabylie mountains.
Benhamiche never drives without a Kalashnikov, and carries a pistol at all times. He is part of a village militia armed by the Algerian Defense Ministry. His isolated family house has been turned into a fortress-like compound with high walls and at least three armed family members on guard.
"It's a war out there, and we don't even know who we're fighting," he said. "But we're not frightened. We're well-armed."
In this deeply macho society, Benhamiche has even taught his wife to use a Kalashnikov in case militants mount the raid they have been expecting every night for more than a decade. "She's a pretty good shot," he said.
___
Algerian authorities describe the militants as on the run. In a rare interview with the AP during the presidential election in April, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said "the armed elements are currently being cornered."
Authorities have indeed dismantled several large cells this year. Important local "emirs," or militant leaders, have turned themselves in, and several former high-profile leaders — known as "repentants" in Algeria — are calling on militants to stop fighting. Algerian authorities believe there are 500-800 active fighters left, a mere fraction of what there used to be.
These die-hards "are hard to catch because they're taking refuge in remote mountains and forests," Zerhouni told the AP.
Still, violence is persistent. Data obtained by the AP from Western diplomats in Algeria shows 85 significant bombings in 2008. Some 639 people died that year because of terrorism-related violence: 409 suspected militants, 158 security force members and 72 civilians.
This year, there were 64 bombings from January to April alone, with deaths of 19 civilians and 61 security force members. The data also shows 167 suspected militants killed amid police sweeps, army raids and aerial bombardments.
Construction entrepreneur Mohammed remembers his terror in February, when he and his son returned late from a construction site, unarmed. They saw five gunmen blocking the road and waiting for them, said Mohammed, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of retaliation.
"They told me, 'You know who we are,'" the businessman recalls, still visibly shaken. "I answered, 'Yes, you are the mujahedeen.'" Mohammed describes the men as young, clean-shaven and wearing nice sport shoes. "They could have been anybody."
The gunmen brought Mohammed and his son to the edge of the forest near their local base. Then they released him so he could collect a ransom for his child.
The kidnapping occurred within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of a police and army barracks. The AQIM fighters told Mohammed not to contact police, but he said he did anyway. They offered no assistance. An emergency law passed in the 1990s forbids discussing security matters, and officials declined to comment on any aspect of this article.
The militants asked Mohammed for euro40 million ($55 million). The father negotiated it down to 2 million dinars, about euro20,000, or $28,000. Though considerable, Mohammed said this is only about half the going rate for ransoms among the 39 people he knows or has heard of as being recently kidnapped in his region.
Mohammed retrieved his son safely and thought the terrorists would kill him after taking the money.
"But they didn't even behead me. What kind of al-Qaida is this?" he asked, speaking with a blank voice and a shadow of fear in his eyes, convinced AQIM will come back to get him sooner or later.
Mohammed said the kidnappers left him with a warning for police: They planned to attack its headquarters in the nearby town of Les Ouacifs. Some 30 militants did indeed attack on March 26, spraying the station with bullets for a half-hour and injuring four officers.
"They're afraid of no one," Mohammed said.
Algeria has ramped up its security. These days, the capital is surrounded by rings of police and army checkpoints. With 100,000 military police, 80,000 government-funded militia members and 150,000 police, the Defense and Interior ministries are by far the biggest employers in this nation of 35 million people — except possibly for the regular army, whose numbers are kept secret.
Together, the two ministries spent 656 billion dinars ($9.1 billion), according to Algeria's 2008 budget. That was more than a quarter of the state's functioning budget, more than the education, justice and industry ministries combined.
For now, Algeria can pay for this vast security apparatus because it is one of the world's largest oil and natural gas exporters. But in the global economic downturn, the burden is getting heavier.
In the meantime, poverty is rampant, unemployment is widespread, development falls far short and 70 percent of the population is under 30. The resulting tinderbox continues to stoke militancy that spreads far beyond Algeria's borders, especially with the help of al-Qaida.
Security is indeed killing or arresting militants in droves, said a Western intelligence official. "But the problem is, the groups can recruit just as fast within the desperate and angry youth."
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer
Labels: al-Qaida, AQIM, hot trends, Islamic Maghreb, trends newsletter
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Thursday, August 27, 2009
'Smart grid' - power lines move into digital age
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WASHINGTON - Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet.
More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation's electricity distribution system, an aging spider web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age.
The "smart grid" has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House and among members of Congress. President Barack Obama says it's essential to boost development of wind and solar power, get people to use less energy and to tackle climate change.
What smart grid visionaries see coming are home thermostats and appliances that adjust automatically depending on the cost of power; where a water heater may get juice from a neighbor's rooftop solar panel; and where on a scorching hot day a plug-in hybrid electric car charges one minute and the next sends electricity back to the grid to help head off a brownout.
It is where utilities get instant feedback on a transformer outage, shift easily among energy sources, integrating wind and solar energy with electricity from coal-burning power plants, and go into homes and businesses to automatically adjust power use based on prearranged agreements.
"It's the marriage of information technology and automation technology with the existing electricity network. This is the energy Internet," said Bob Gilligan, vice president for transmission at GE Energy, which is aggressively pursuing smart grid development.
"There are going to be applications 10 years from now that you and I have no idea that we're going to want or need or think are essential to our lives."
Hundreds of technology companies and almost every major electric utility company see smart grid as the future. That interest got a boost with the availability of $4.5 billion in federal economic recovery money for smart grid technology.
But smart grid won't be cheap; cost estimates run as high as $75 billion. Who's going to pay the bill? Will consumers get the payback they are promised? Might "smart meters" be too intrusive? Could an end-to-end computerization of the grid increase the risk of cyberattacks?
Today's grid is seen by many as little different from one envisioned by Edison 127 years ago.
The hundreds of thousands of miles of power lines that crisscross the country have been compared to a river flowing down a hill: an inefficient one-way movement of electrons from power plant to consumer. There is little way to provide any feedback of information to the power company running the system or those buying the electricity.
"The heart of a smart grid is to make the grid more flexible, to more easily control the flow of electrons, and make it more efficient and reliable," said Greg Scheu, head of the power production division at ABB North America, a leading grid technology provider.
"The meter is only the beginning," said Alex Huang, director of a grid technology center at North Carolina State University. He said that instead of power flowing from a small number of power plants, the smart grid can usher in a system of distributed energy so electricity "will flow from homes and businesses into the grid, neighborhoods will use local power and not just power flowing from a single source."
There are glimpses of what the future grid might look like.
On the University of Colorado campus in Boulder, the chancellor's home has been turned into a smart grid showhouse as part of a citywide $100 million demonstration project spearheaded by Xcel Energy. The home has a laptop-controlled electricity management system that integrates a rooftop solar panel with grid-supplied power and tracks energy use as well as equipment to charge a plug-in hybrid electric car.
Florida Power & Light is planning to provide smart meters covering 1 million homes and businesses in the Miami area over the next two years in a $200 million project. Smart meters are being distributed by utilities from California to Delaware's Delmarva Peninsula.
"We've got about 70 (smart grid) pilots all over the country right now," said Mike Oldak, an expert on smart grid at the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned power companies.
Center Point Energy, which serves 2.2 million customers in the metropolitan Houston area, expects to spend $1 billion over the next five years on smart grid. Residential customers are seeing an additional $3.24 a month on their electric bills, but Center Point says that should be more than offset by energy savings.
An Energy Department study projects energy savings of 5 percent to 15 percent from smart grid.
"This pays for itself through efficiency and demand reduction and if you don't look at it from that perspective you won't get your money back," said Thomas Standish, group president for regulated operations at Center Power Energy.
The cost and payback have some state regulators worried.
"We need to demonstrate to folks that there's a benefit here before we ask them to pay for this stuff," says Frederick Butler, chairman of New Jersey's utility commission and president of NARUC, the national group that represents these state agencies.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said the current grid stands in the way of increasing the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar that "will need a system that can dispatch power here, there and everywhere on a very quick basis."
But Chu and others also worry about security. "If you want to create mischief one very good way to create a great deal of mischief is to actually bring down a smart grid system. This system has to be incredibly secure."
And there is the issue of intrusion.
"Is the average consumer willing to pay the upfront costs of a new system and then respond appropriately to price signals? Or will people view a utility's ability to reach inside a home to turn down a thermostat as Orwellian?" Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said at a recent hearing on smart grid.
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
Labels: grid technology, hot trends, smart grid, trends newsletter
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Wednesday, January 14, 2009
How to make 2009 your richest year EVER!
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Power Vegetables In A Drink |
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Hi,
Did you know that online spending is predicted to INCREASE by 14% this year?
So despite what you're hearing about the current economy, this is still an EXCELLENT time to start or grow your Internet business!
And I've arranged to get you some FREE help doing it...
You've probably heard of Derek Gehl, right?
He's the Internet marketing guru that's made over $100 MILLION in online sales as head of the Internet Marketing Center.
Derek's been hard at work, researching and identifying the BIGGEST online trends for 2009, and coming up with strategies that ANYONE can use to take advantage of these trends to make more money online this year than ever.
And now he's turned all of his research, predictions, and strategies into a two-hour online presentation … and he's given me permission to give you unrestricted access to the whole thing for FREE!
But I know first-hand that, due to the time-sensitive nature of this information, Derek's only going to make it available for a short time, so if you want to find out how to not just survive in 2009, but actually THRIVE, you need to check it our right away:
http://www.internetmarketing.com/2009-goals/789606
Best wishes for 2009,
Ave Ramel
Did you know that online spending is predicted to INCREASE by 14% this year?
So despite what you're hearing about the current economy, this is still an EXCELLENT time to start or grow your Internet business!
And I've arranged to get you some FREE help doing it...
You've probably heard of Derek Gehl, right?
He's the Internet marketing guru that's made over $100 MILLION in online sales as head of the Internet Marketing Center.
Derek's been hard at work, researching and identifying the BIGGEST online trends for 2009, and coming up with strategies that ANYONE can use to take advantage of these trends to make more money online this year than ever.
And now he's turned all of his research, predictions, and strategies into a two-hour online presentation … and he's given me permission to give you unrestricted access to the whole thing for FREE!
But I know first-hand that, due to the time-sensitive nature of this information, Derek's only going to make it available for a short time, so if you want to find out how to not just survive in 2009, but actually THRIVE, you need to check it our right away:
http://www.internetmarketing.com/2009-goals/789606
Best wishes for 2009,
Ave Ramel
Labels: hot trends, hot trends 2009, internet marketing, online trends 2009
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Monday, January 12, 2009
How To Profit From Five Emerging Online Trends In 2009
|
Power Vegetables In A Drink |
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What say we kick off 2009 on a positive, hopeful note?!
Thing is, right now, we're being so heavily bombarded by facts and figures pointing out how bleak this year is expected to be, that we're overlooking the GOOD things that are projected to happen in 2009.
Case in point?
According to eMarketer reports, this year, online sales in the US alone will jump from $136.8 BILLION to $142.4 BILLION (that's an INCREASE of nearly $6 BILLION in online spending).
Or how about this statistic: Nielsen Consumer Insight reports that in 2009, consumers will spend 17% MORE time on eCommerce websites every DAY!
That's a whole lot MORE people shopping online, and spending a whole lot MORE time doing it!
So there's no doubt in my mind that there will be plenty of opportunities for you to earn a good income online during 2009, no matter whether you've already got a website up, or you're just getting started ...... but you're going to need to be pretty savvy about how you spend your time, energy, and resources.
To help you not just survive 2009, but actually THRIVE, I've rolled up my sleeves and gone to work, researching the biggest emerging trends in online business for this year.
I'll show you FIVE of the trends that I think are MOST significant for your business... then show you what you need to do with your website to capitalize on all five of these trends.
You can watch the details here.
Emerging Trend #1:
Consumers Are Increasingly Turning To The Internet As A Way To Save Money
You know all those people I just told you about who are coming online to shop? Well, according to this survey, 80% of them say they're now shopping online to save money.
And further, 95% of these people report that they're motivated to buy by offers of free shipping, and 83% are motivated to buy by special prices.Clearly, 2009 will be the year of the deal!
So if you currently offer special discounts on your site, get them up front and center, so your visitors can find them instantly. Do NOT wait for them to dig around your site and possibly stumble across them.
And if you offer free shipping, don't hide that fact away on your order form. Shout it from the rooftops! It could well be the detail that pushes your visitors into making that crucial buying decision.
BUT ...Before you put all of your eggs in the "special deal" basket, there's one other related trend you should know about ...
This same survey reports that 88% of people are shopping online in order to save time, and 83% say that they do it because it's less hassle than hitting the malls.
So not only are your visitors coming to your site trying to save money, they're also looking for ease and convenience.
So make sure you're giving it to them, by offering the best customer shopping experience possible.As we'll all soon discover, it's the websites that offer a combination of pricing and IMPECCABLE customer service that will continue to thrive this year.
Emerging Trend #2:
Consumers Are Making More And More REPEAT Purchases Based On Automated Recommendations.
This recent 2008 Razorfish Consumer Experience report shows that a whopping 65% of online buyers made additional purchases from a website based on automated recommendations the site gave them.
That's 6 out of 10 of your customers buying MORE, based purely on your suggestions for other products they might like.Sounds like the perfect job for email marketing, right?!
I strongly believe that the people who thrive in 2009 will be those who spend a LOT of time using email marketing to nurture the relationships they have with their customers and subscribers.
But to be really effective in building these relationships -- and in recommending the products people will be MOST interested in -- you're going to need to be smart about your list.
Gone are the days when having a BIG list was your main goal! It's time to think "quality" rather than "quantity."
If you build a huge list filled with people who couldn't care less what you're offering them, then all your email efforts will be wasted.
It's far better to have a smaller list of highly qualified subscribers.
The other thing to pay attention to as you focus on your email efforts in 2009 is the kinds of emails you're sending out.
I'm finding that shorter, more concise promotional messages are far more effective than long, drawn-out emails that bombard the reader with information.
Finally, the savvy email marketer will spend a lot of time TESTING in 2009.
Currently only about 40% of marketers do any testing at all, which is practically criminal, because those who do test are twice as likely to get email marketing conversion rates of 3% or MORE!
So make sure you test different kinds of offers, different subject lines, different times of day and week for mailing, etc., to make sure you're really capitalizing on your email.
Emerging Trend #3:
Shoppers Are Making More Purchases Based on Recommendations Received Through Social Media Sites.
Here's a surprising statistic: 49% of Web users now make a purchase based on a recommendation they received through a social media site (like Facebook, MySpace, and so on).
Okay, maybe that's not so surprising, but you know what is? Apparently only 25% of online retailers created a Facebook page this year!
Despite its clear success rate, marketers have generally been slow to make the leap to social networking.
So if you haven't tested the social media waters, NOW is the time to get started!
Social networking is the perfect way to develop your online presence, and continue to cultivate lasting relationships with your potential customers. It's also, as the statistics show, a great way to start generating extra income!
I recently wrote an article that explains the basics of getting started with social networking. You can read it here.
But before you run off and start building your social networking profiles and pages, you should know that other forms of social media sites will also be crucial tools for your business in 2009.
Take the social bookmarking sites, for instance (like Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon).
Currently, 52% of people are using these sites as they search for information online, and a full 81% of users read the links marked as "most popular" or "most emailed."
So what does this mean for you? Another key strategy for you in 2009 will be to create lots of content, and get it to appear on these sites.
You're going to want to write articles that are relevant and useful... and that your readers will want to pass along to their friends, family, and colleagues, and recommend on the social bookmarking sites.
In doing so, you'll continue to raise your online profile, establish yourself as an expert in your field, and build those all-important relationships with your potential customers.
Emerging Trend #4:
A Typical Internet User Is Spending 20% MORE Time Each Day Reading Blogs.
Nielsen Consumer Insight reported in December that people are now spending 20% more time EACH DAY reading blogs.
Do YOU have a blog yet? Do you add new posts to it on a regular basis?
If you haven't started a blog yet -- or if you haven't been giving yours the attention that it deserves -- TODAY is the day you should start!
As with social media, blogging is GREAT for establishing your reputation online, for building relationships with your market, for creating new content for your site, and can even help you get a TOP ranking in the search engines (which in turn can generate up to 7 TIMES more sales).
And you don't need to be a "natural-born writer" to create your own blog, nor do you need to be a technical wizard!
There are plenty of places where you can even get FREE blogs to get yourself started...... and as for the actual writing, a blog is all about showing YOUR personality, and sharing your opinions and ideas.
So don't sweat it if you're not a word nerd. Just write from the heart, and your readers will love it!
Emerging Trend #5:
Web Surfers Are Spending 46% MORE Time Watching Online Videos.
Finally, a trend that will continue to have a HUGE impact on Internet marketers everywhere -- and really change the way we sell online -- is the growing popularity of online video.
Check this out: 94% of Internet users now watch online video with some level of frequency, and people now spend a whopping 46% MORE time each DAY watching videos, compared to last year!
So if you haven't dipped your toe into the online video world, you'd better get cracking!
Video, like blogging, has multiple benefits for your business:You can use video in your salescopy in order to more effectively sell your product... you can use it for SEO purposes and traffic generation (Google LOVES video!)... to create informative or educational videos for your niche... and to spread the word about your business.
And you don't need to have a lot of complicated equipment or technical expertise to produce your own quality videos.
If you'd like to learn how to create your own simple videos, and get them up on sites like YouTube, check out this brief "how-to" article I wrote a while ago. It explains all of the basics for you, and gives you a few other resources to give you extra help.
There's no denying that 2009 is going to present some challenges for ALL of us, but you don't have to hide your head in the sand and wait for the recession to blow over!
You can still make serious money online despite the economic downturn, just as long as you focus your efforts on a few key areas, like those I've described.
To give you even MORE help, I've identified a number of other important online trends for 2009, and made some predictions about how to take advantage of them, and put it all into a free two-hour video presentation for you to watch.
And when you watch the video, you'll also discover why 2009 is actually a GOOD time to START a new Internet business, and I'll explain -- in detail -- how you can do it in just FIVE DAYS!
You can watch the details here.
To your success,
Derek Gehl
Thing is, right now, we're being so heavily bombarded by facts and figures pointing out how bleak this year is expected to be, that we're overlooking the GOOD things that are projected to happen in 2009.
Case in point?
According to eMarketer reports, this year, online sales in the US alone will jump from $136.8 BILLION to $142.4 BILLION (that's an INCREASE of nearly $6 BILLION in online spending).
Or how about this statistic: Nielsen Consumer Insight reports that in 2009, consumers will spend 17% MORE time on eCommerce websites every DAY!
That's a whole lot MORE people shopping online, and spending a whole lot MORE time doing it!
So there's no doubt in my mind that there will be plenty of opportunities for you to earn a good income online during 2009, no matter whether you've already got a website up, or you're just getting started ...... but you're going to need to be pretty savvy about how you spend your time, energy, and resources.
To help you not just survive 2009, but actually THRIVE, I've rolled up my sleeves and gone to work, researching the biggest emerging trends in online business for this year.
I'll show you FIVE of the trends that I think are MOST significant for your business... then show you what you need to do with your website to capitalize on all five of these trends.
You can watch the details here.
Emerging Trend #1:
Consumers Are Increasingly Turning To The Internet As A Way To Save Money
You know all those people I just told you about who are coming online to shop? Well, according to this survey, 80% of them say they're now shopping online to save money.
And further, 95% of these people report that they're motivated to buy by offers of free shipping, and 83% are motivated to buy by special prices.Clearly, 2009 will be the year of the deal!
So if you currently offer special discounts on your site, get them up front and center, so your visitors can find them instantly. Do NOT wait for them to dig around your site and possibly stumble across them.
And if you offer free shipping, don't hide that fact away on your order form. Shout it from the rooftops! It could well be the detail that pushes your visitors into making that crucial buying decision.
BUT ...Before you put all of your eggs in the "special deal" basket, there's one other related trend you should know about ...
This same survey reports that 88% of people are shopping online in order to save time, and 83% say that they do it because it's less hassle than hitting the malls.
So not only are your visitors coming to your site trying to save money, they're also looking for ease and convenience.
So make sure you're giving it to them, by offering the best customer shopping experience possible.As we'll all soon discover, it's the websites that offer a combination of pricing and IMPECCABLE customer service that will continue to thrive this year.
Emerging Trend #2:
Consumers Are Making More And More REPEAT Purchases Based On Automated Recommendations.
This recent 2008 Razorfish Consumer Experience report shows that a whopping 65% of online buyers made additional purchases from a website based on automated recommendations the site gave them.
That's 6 out of 10 of your customers buying MORE, based purely on your suggestions for other products they might like.Sounds like the perfect job for email marketing, right?!
I strongly believe that the people who thrive in 2009 will be those who spend a LOT of time using email marketing to nurture the relationships they have with their customers and subscribers.
But to be really effective in building these relationships -- and in recommending the products people will be MOST interested in -- you're going to need to be smart about your list.
Gone are the days when having a BIG list was your main goal! It's time to think "quality" rather than "quantity."
If you build a huge list filled with people who couldn't care less what you're offering them, then all your email efforts will be wasted.
It's far better to have a smaller list of highly qualified subscribers.
The other thing to pay attention to as you focus on your email efforts in 2009 is the kinds of emails you're sending out.
I'm finding that shorter, more concise promotional messages are far more effective than long, drawn-out emails that bombard the reader with information.
Finally, the savvy email marketer will spend a lot of time TESTING in 2009.
Currently only about 40% of marketers do any testing at all, which is practically criminal, because those who do test are twice as likely to get email marketing conversion rates of 3% or MORE!
So make sure you test different kinds of offers, different subject lines, different times of day and week for mailing, etc., to make sure you're really capitalizing on your email.
Emerging Trend #3:
Shoppers Are Making More Purchases Based on Recommendations Received Through Social Media Sites.
Here's a surprising statistic: 49% of Web users now make a purchase based on a recommendation they received through a social media site (like Facebook, MySpace, and so on).
Okay, maybe that's not so surprising, but you know what is? Apparently only 25% of online retailers created a Facebook page this year!
Despite its clear success rate, marketers have generally been slow to make the leap to social networking.
So if you haven't tested the social media waters, NOW is the time to get started!
Social networking is the perfect way to develop your online presence, and continue to cultivate lasting relationships with your potential customers. It's also, as the statistics show, a great way to start generating extra income!
I recently wrote an article that explains the basics of getting started with social networking. You can read it here.
But before you run off and start building your social networking profiles and pages, you should know that other forms of social media sites will also be crucial tools for your business in 2009.
Take the social bookmarking sites, for instance (like Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon).
Currently, 52% of people are using these sites as they search for information online, and a full 81% of users read the links marked as "most popular" or "most emailed."
So what does this mean for you? Another key strategy for you in 2009 will be to create lots of content, and get it to appear on these sites.
You're going to want to write articles that are relevant and useful... and that your readers will want to pass along to their friends, family, and colleagues, and recommend on the social bookmarking sites.
In doing so, you'll continue to raise your online profile, establish yourself as an expert in your field, and build those all-important relationships with your potential customers.
Emerging Trend #4:
A Typical Internet User Is Spending 20% MORE Time Each Day Reading Blogs.
Nielsen Consumer Insight reported in December that people are now spending 20% more time EACH DAY reading blogs.
Do YOU have a blog yet? Do you add new posts to it on a regular basis?
If you haven't started a blog yet -- or if you haven't been giving yours the attention that it deserves -- TODAY is the day you should start!
As with social media, blogging is GREAT for establishing your reputation online, for building relationships with your market, for creating new content for your site, and can even help you get a TOP ranking in the search engines (which in turn can generate up to 7 TIMES more sales).
And you don't need to be a "natural-born writer" to create your own blog, nor do you need to be a technical wizard!
There are plenty of places where you can even get FREE blogs to get yourself started...... and as for the actual writing, a blog is all about showing YOUR personality, and sharing your opinions and ideas.
So don't sweat it if you're not a word nerd. Just write from the heart, and your readers will love it!
Emerging Trend #5:
Web Surfers Are Spending 46% MORE Time Watching Online Videos.
Finally, a trend that will continue to have a HUGE impact on Internet marketers everywhere -- and really change the way we sell online -- is the growing popularity of online video.
Check this out: 94% of Internet users now watch online video with some level of frequency, and people now spend a whopping 46% MORE time each DAY watching videos, compared to last year!
So if you haven't dipped your toe into the online video world, you'd better get cracking!
Video, like blogging, has multiple benefits for your business:You can use video in your salescopy in order to more effectively sell your product... you can use it for SEO purposes and traffic generation (Google LOVES video!)... to create informative or educational videos for your niche... and to spread the word about your business.
And you don't need to have a lot of complicated equipment or technical expertise to produce your own quality videos.
If you'd like to learn how to create your own simple videos, and get them up on sites like YouTube, check out this brief "how-to" article I wrote a while ago. It explains all of the basics for you, and gives you a few other resources to give you extra help.
There's no denying that 2009 is going to present some challenges for ALL of us, but you don't have to hide your head in the sand and wait for the recession to blow over!
You can still make serious money online despite the economic downturn, just as long as you focus your efforts on a few key areas, like those I've described.
To give you even MORE help, I've identified a number of other important online trends for 2009, and made some predictions about how to take advantage of them, and put it all into a free two-hour video presentation for you to watch.
And when you watch the video, you'll also discover why 2009 is actually a GOOD time to START a new Internet business, and I'll explain -- in detail -- how you can do it in just FIVE DAYS!
You can watch the details here.
To your success,
Derek Gehl
Labels: hot trends, hot trends 2009, internet marketing, online marketing
Search The Web
Proceed now to Global Warming News | Famous Entrepreneurs | Home Shopping Online
Business Marketing by Aredconsult
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Business Marketing by Aredconsult
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