This is my baby…Facebook!

Here’s a trivia question to pull out at your next cocktail party, “Which website generates the most traffic?”  Unless you’re chatting with a social media fiend, your friend will most likely guess Google.  Wrong.  Facebook not only generates more traffic than Google, but accounts for 50% of the mobile internet traffic in the UK.  If you’re unsure of the effect social media has on your business, Erik Qualman will convince you with his mind-blowing video.  Of all the astounding facts Qualman shares in the video and on his website these are our favorites:

• If Facebook was a country it would be the 3^rd largest nation in the World.  Hmm wonder what the national anthem would be?
• How long have you been reading this blog, 1 minute?  Well, in the past 1 minute 60 people joined LinkedIn.
• There must be a lot of smart shoppers out there because Groupon will reach $1 billion in sales in less time than any company before it.
• Don’t even try to read everything on Wikipedia.  If Wikipedia was a book it would take you 123 years to read the whole thing.
• Looking for baby names?  In Egypt newborns have been named “Facebook.”
• If you’re not worried about monitoring what social media users say about your business, you might be in big trouble.  90% of people trust their peers for recommendations (compared to 14% of people who trust paid advertising.)
• You may have seen in commercials that 1 out of 5 relationships begins online, but Facebook is blamed for 1 out of 5 divorces.

If you haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon yet, it’s past time to join the 93% of marketers using it.  Qualman will convince you that social media is a tool that can make or break your business.  So update that Facebook page, tweet at your followers, and maybe be the first to name your child LinkedIn!

24/7 Wall St. Predicts 10 Brands You Won’t See in 2013

Growing up I remember visiting Blockbuster to stock up on videos every weekend.  Just today I drove by the former Blockbuster building, now vacant and boarded up.  24/7 Wall St. correctly forecasted the demise of Blockbuster two years ago in their annual list of 10 brands they expect to disappear.

Every year 24/7 Wall St. predicts well-known brands they believe will not survive the coming 18 months.  These predictions are based on: an increased cost of production, a decrease in sales and significant losses, the brand’s parent company admitting to a possible closing, bankruptcy, loss of customers, dwindling market share, and the sale of a company.

Last week 24/7 Wall St. announced their list of the 10 brands to disappear in 2012:

1. Sony Pictures –Formidable competition from Apple, Nintendo and Microsoft face Sony Pictures and revenue has recently dropped 15%.  24/7 Wall St. predicts Sony Pictures will sell its assets and cease to exist by the end of 2012. 
2. A & W – A&W, founded in 1919, may soon no longer be a fast food option.  Parent company Yum! Brands, also the owner of KFC, has had the company on sale since January.  The 322 outlets in the US cannot compete with huge fast food chains like McDonalds. 
3. Saab – Formerly owned by GM, Saab’s difficulties lie in being too middle ground.  The cars cannot compete with the prices of inexpensive brands, the design of high-end sports cars, and the variety offered by large car brands.  The outlook for Saab is dim with the new owner, Spyker, running out of money and less than 50, 000 cars a year sold.  
4. American Apparel – This clothing brand, which reached revenue of $545 million dollars in 2008, reported a first quarter net sales of $116.1 million dollars this year.  Lack of financing is a major problem for American Apparel, which cannot compete with large, well-funded clothing stores. 
5. Sears – Last quarter Sears Holdings, the parent company of Sears and Kmart, reported a whopping net loss of $170 million.  24/7 Wall Street predicts Sears Holdings will merge Sears and K Mart and keep the Kmart brand, which earns more. 
6. Sony Ericcson – Sony Ericcson, once one of the best earning handset producers, cannot compete with the increasingly popular smart phones.  Since 2008 Sony Ericcson’s sales have fallen by 54 million units.
7. Kellogg’s Corn Pops – The crispy and sweet cereal’s sales have fallen 18% over the past year due, much in part, to an increase in health awareness and private label cereal sales.  Not only is Kellogg’s having trouble selling Corn Pops, but also a spike in the price of corn has made them more expensive to produce.  Kellogg’s Corn Pops may be one box you won’t find in the cereal aisle in 2013.
8. MySpace – Who doesn’t have a Facebook page?  A better question might be who does have a MySpace page anymore?  With the MySpace brand dying out parent company News Corp has had the website for sale since February and alluded that they may close MySpace if they do not have a buyer.
9. Nokia – 24/7 Wall St. declares, “Nokia is dead. Shareholders are just waiting for an undertaker.”    Although Nokia still had a market share of 25% last quarter, its market share in the same quarter last year was almost 31%.  Nearly everyone expects a larger company will take over Nokia in the near future.  The most likely buyers of Nokia are HTC, Microsoft, Samsung and LG Electronics.
   
10. Soap Opera Digest – This once popular newsstand regular now has a small annual circulation of 500,000.  With the cancellation of many popular soaps and the excess of fan information online, by 2013 you are not likely to see Soap Opera Digest while waiting in line at the grocery store. 

Are you disappointed or surprised to see any of the above 10 companies on the list of brands to disappear in 2012?  24/7 Wall St. has misjudged some brands such as Kia and BP, which are still very visible and alive.  Over the next 18 months keep an eye on these names and see if they disappear or survive.

Apple eases app restrictions

The court system recently decided that jailbreaking your smartphone is legal. While Apple stood the most to lose in such a case, the iPhone producer never brought tried to prosecute anyone who had jailbroken their phone. Jailbreaking voids the warranty, but a quick restore factory settings tends to erase the damage.

This week, Apple Inc announced easing restrictions for building iPhone and iPad applications, a move that should allow for the use of third-party tools such as Adobe Systems’ Flash software.

Shares of Adobe surged over 12 percent at mid-afternoon on Nasdaq on Thursday, after Apple announced the changes.

Apple’s about-face follows a high-profile spat with Adobe last spring that saw Steve Jobs sharply criticize Flash technology.

Apple had been criticized by developers for what they called onerous restrictions on building apps. Apple had effectively banned developers from using the popular Flash software and other technology to build apps for iOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.

Gleacher & Co analyst Brian Marshall said Apple was feeling huge pressure from app developers.

“What spurred this on was the uproar from the growing iOS developer base,” Marshall said. “People liked using Flash, and now they’ll be able to use a bunch of different technologies.”

Private Sector trying to keep employment up

U.S. employment fell for a third straight month in August, but the drop was far less than expected and private hiring surprised on the upside, easing pressure on the Federal Reserve to prop up economic growth.

Nonfarm payrolls declined 54,000, the Labor Department said on Friday, helping to assuage fears of a double-dip recession. Financial markets had looked for a drop of 100,000 jobs.

However, the data will likely do little to take the political heat off President Barack Obama over his handling of the economy or improve the Democratic Party’s chances in November’s mid-term congressional elections.

“It is inconsistent with fears that a sharp slowdown in the economy is under way. This report, together with other recent data, will convince the Fed to refrain from launching a new asset purchase program at this month’s meeting,” said Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital in New York.

The fall in payrolls last month was largely a result of 114,000 temporary census workers being laid off.

Wait, you mean those census jobs that everyone was so excited about were only temporary?

Private employment, considered a better gauge of labor market health, increased 67,000 after a revised 107,000 gain in July. Markets had expected a rise of only 41,000 in August.

In addition, the government revised payrolls for June and July to show 123,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.

Intel will buy Infineon wireless for $1.4 billion

Intel will buy German chipmaker Infineon’s wireless unit for $1.4 billion, enabling the U.S. chipmaker to boost its presence in the smartphone market The transaction should close in the first quarter of 2011. The mobile unit will remain as a standalone business.

This is the second major deal for Intel within two weeks after the company announced its $7.7 billion offer for McAfee Inc on Aug 19, its largest acquisition, bolstering the appeal of its chips as it tries to expand further into the mobile market.

Intel’s Atom mobile chips took the low-cost, no-frills netbook market by storm but are rarely found in smartphones where other chipmakers dominate.

“Infineon would make Intel an instant heavyweight (in the mobile space) and buy them three, four years in R&D,” IDC analyst Flint Pulskamp has said.

Analysts caution that while an acquisition such as Infineon’s mobile chip unit is a step in the right direction it will take time to produce results.

Rivals based on UK-listed ARM’s chip design continue to grab market share.

Infineon shares fell 1.4 percent to 4.54 euros in Frankfurt, widening losses they posted on Friday after Intel warned its third-quarter revenue would fall short of its own expectations due to weak consumer demand on personal computers.

Intel shares closed largely flat at Friday’s market close in New York at $18.37.

And, more good news: their logos look pretty similar, so no need to really change much.

Boeing Dreamliner delayed

Boeing has pushed back delivery of its first 787 Dreamliner by several weeks. The decision is no surprise, but is also the latest in a series of embarrassing glitches that have disrupted production of the hotly anticipated aircraft.

The postponement for the carbon-composite airplane, already more than two years behind schedule, is attributed to a delay in the availability of a Rolls-Royce engine needed for the final phases of flight testing. ”The plane is a show-me plane at this point and I think everyone knows that,” said Alex Hamilton, managing director with boutique investment bank EarlyBirdCapital. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The U.S. planemaker now expects to deliver the first carbon-composite plane to Japan’s All Nippon Airways by the middle of the first quarter of 2011.

Boeing said in July its delivery schedule might slip from the fourth quarter of 2010. The company blamed “instrument configuration” and inspection work.

Shares of Boeing, a Dow industrials component, were down 1.5 percent at $60.40 in premarket trade.

Boeing has taken 847 orders for the Dreamliner, which lists for $150 million to $205.5 million depending on the model, making it the company’s best selling airplane at this stage in development. Boeing gets paid for its commercial planes at delivery.

The delay comes four weeks after the Rolls’ engine, a Trent 1000, blew up at a test site in Derby, central England, forcing the company to temporarily close the facility.

“The delivery date revision follows an assessment of the availability of an engine needed for the final phases of flight test this fall,” Boeing said in a statement late Thursday night. “Flight testing across the test fleet continues as planned.”

Boeing added it was working with the British engine maker to ensure engines were made available as soon as possible but that the delay would not affect its financial outlook.

Home sales hit 15 year low

Economic recovery seems to have halted.

As the National Association of Realtors issued the report, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans warned that the risk of a double-dip recession was higher than six months ago although he did not think output would contract, describing the recovery as ongoing but modest.

Existing home sales dropped a record 27.2 percent from June to an annual rate of 3.83 million units, the lowest since May 1995. June’s sales pace was revised down to a 5.26 million-unit pace from a previously reported 5.37 million.

U.S. stocks .SPX added to losses on the report, while prices for safe-haven government debt extended gains. The U.S. dollar fell against the yen and euro.

The housing market has been mired in weakness following the end of a homebuyer tax credit in April, which pulled forward sales and building activity.

The surprisingly weak home sales data added to signs that the economy was rapidly losing strength, even though the drop may have been exaggerated by the end of a popular housing tax credit. Stubbornly high unemployment has burdened recovery from the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression.

Almost three-quarters of Americans are very concerned about unemployment and more people now disapprove of President Barack Obama than approve of him, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Tuesday.

In grim news for Democrats ahead of November’s midterm elections, 72 percent of people said they were very worried about joblessness and 67 percent were very concerned at government spending.

With congressional elections a little more than two months away, the poll showed 92 percent of those surveyed were very concerned or somewhat concerned about joblessness.

The U.S. unemployment rate has been hovering near 10 percent all year, registering 9.5 percent in June and July.

Obama’s disapproval rating was 52 percent, overtaking his approval rating for the first time in an Ipsos poll. Only 45 percent of people said they approved of the president’s performance.

That number, coupled with a hearty 62 percent who think the country is going in the wrong direction, could spell trouble for Democrats, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

Dipping into the 401(k)

Withdrawals from 401(k) retirement saving plans saw their biggest spike in at least five years, Fidelity Investments said on Friday, in the latest sign of hardship amid a dismal economy.

Fidelity reported that 62,000 people made hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) workplace plans during the second quarter. That’s up from 45,000 participants during the prior quarter, a 37% increase. That means that 2.2% of Fidelity participants took a hardship withdrawal in the second quarter, compared to 2% in the same period last year.

That means that 2.2% of Fidelity customers took a hardship withdrawal in the second quarter, compared to 2% in the same period last year.

Fidelity also said that 11% of participants took out loans from their 401(k) over the past 12 months, an increase of two percentage points from the prior year. The average loan amount was $8,650 at the end of the second quarter.

Fidelity said the top reasons people took loans and made withdrawals were to prevent foreclosure or eviction, pay for college, or purchase a home.

“The current economy has forced some workers to borrow from their 401(k) accounts in order to pay for critical living expenses, ultimately jeopardizing their future retirement,” said James MacDonald, president of workplace investing for Fidelity Investments.

GM to list on NYSE, TSX

Now that GM is turning a profit, it plans a triumphant return to the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange after its initial public offering.

The IPO, intended to repay a portion of the automaker’s government bailout, has been dubbed “Project Dawn,” said the source, who declined to be named because preparations for the IPO remain private.

Before its 2009 bankruptcy, GM shares traded on the New York Stock exchange, and its return had been widely expected as the automaker begins to distance itself from its government-led restructuring and attracts private investors. Adding a stock listing in Toronto would underscore the role that the governments of Canada and Ontario played as junior partners to the U.S. Treasury in keeping GM from liquidation in bankruptcy.

The number of shares to be sold by the U.S. government, the governments of Canada and Ontario, the United Auto Workers union healthcare trust and other shareholders has not been determined. GM is not expected to issue new common stock in the IPO but plans to sell about $3 billion in mandatory convertible securities that convert into shares in the future

Oil prices at $76

(Reuters) – Oil hovered near $76 a barrel on Thursday after a three-day price slide as robust euro zone growth data were largely eclipsed by lacklustre macroeconomic data that reinforced doubts on the global fuel demand outlook.

Early in the session, prices rallied after news that euro zone gross domestic product (GDP) grew at its fastest pace in more than three years in the second quarter, boosted by strong performances in Germany and France.

But mixed macroeconomic data out of top oil consumer the United States later doused positive sentiment.

By 10:52 a.m. EDT, U.S. crude prices for September were down 15 cents at $75.59 a barrel after rising more than $1.

ICE Brent crude was down 26 cents at $75.26.

“The whole week has been about poor economic data and today’s releases show that the U.S. consumer is still on the mend,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, commodity strategist at BNP Paribas.

“Retail sales disappointed and if consumer confidence in August managed to come in a notch above expectations…it still remains below the June reading.”

U.S. retail sales rebounded in July but showed hints of lingering economic softness while consumer sentiment appeared to have stabilized in August following a sharp drop the previous month.

But earlier strong European data on Friday has helped set a floor beneath prices at least temporarily, analysts said.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said demand for oil would continue to grow slowly in 2011, when world economic expansion is projected to be slightly lower than this year’s, leaving the current supply overhang intact.

STILL CAUTIOUS

Front-month crude was on course for a nearly 6 percent fall for the week, and analysts expected it to stay below the $80 a barrel benchmark.

Oil prices were in a $70-$80 a barrel range, where they have mostly traded since June, barring a brief foray above $80 in August.

“The market is very much in ’08 mode when it was doubting aspects of the recovery. There is an element of suspicion about whether it’s sustainable,” said Barclays Capital oil analyst Amrita Sen.

In the previous session, the number of people filing new jobless claims in the United States unexpectedly rose to its highest level in close to six months, a fresh signal of sluggish economic recovery.

Stocks of oil products in the U.S. including gasoline rose last week even at the height of the summer driving season, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.