Archive for the ‘Random Blackouts’ Category
“What the Internet has done is given us a nation that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”
A quote from Bill Maloney, CEO of the American Society of Travel Agent about the increase in Travel Agent use and the decline of Internet based travel booking.
This change is seen after years of Expedia and Travelocity ruling the business.
The discussion is around the value add a travel agent brings to the table by their knowledge and training.
Unlike the internet that just gives you a price and no value (hidden costs, crazy changeovers, user mistakes, Etc)
The Internet does not need to be that way but I would argue all resellers have done up to this point is offer only price and no value.
..and let the consumer get away with it.
This is not just restricted to the Internet: Sam’s club, BJ’s and the other warehouse stores contribute to this situation.
Companies have responded with the “Brand” concept of offering cheap prices and no value. TDK, Philips, Memorex, Verbatim even Taiyo Yuden with it’s value line.
As soon as it’s branded ‘value’ you know you are in big trouble.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/08/12/travel.agent.comeback/index.html
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I'm learning to play the mandolin (hey I got have something to put on CDs! ;) ) mandolin
amazing stuff. Norwegian pop with classical instruments, love this song 'Ain't no thing'
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NEWS - (Taiyo Yuden)
-Taiyo Yuden Media is changing it's name to - JVC Advanced Media U.S.A. - effective immediately (as of 4/1/09).
At this time, no schedule is set for the transition to JVC named products.
All new sku's will be under the acquired JVC brand name, current sku's will transition in about 3-6 months.
This should bring no change to our normal day to day business selling Taiyo Yuden, just the name change to JVC. All media will continue to be manufactured in Japan to the same high quality standards by Taiyo Yuden (now JVC Advanced Media U.S.A ).
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Well it's been an interesting year and as we creep past the various holidays I'm left with a feeling of anticipation for the new year. Looking back in 2008 we saw changes in the global economic state of the likes never seen before. At first IT felt safe after all how much could be cut then had already? The credit freeze far out did the recession (not to be confused with).
The iPhone,
It's been a rough storm for Plasmon. Plasmon LTD failing to get funding and going into bankruptcy, a US private equity holding company purchased certain assets of the British company and continuing on.
Prodisc fighting for it's life (it looks very grime for the manufacturer of blank CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R discs). Can you Yahoo?
We saw the victory of Blu-ray format over HD-DVD bringing an end to the never ending format wars. Victory was short lived with the coming of the economic crisis and the up-converting DVD players which produce a better image then conventional DVD players and do not require a expensive upgrade. Up-converting DVD players are under $100 vs. $400 for a Blu-ray player and then the cost of discs. It will be a tough uphill struggle given the times.
Certainly the video on demand business in the United States is questionable given the weak network connections on the last mile of the Internet. YouTube grows in viral entertainment and yet there is a core of some really good stuff on the service. Maybe high definition is not everything. Solid state flash memory gives portability and a built in port that overcomes the costs of other forms of data storage. Consider the optical drive I'm so near and dear to. In order to play or read a CD one must have a drive. It takes up space and costs money. In order to record one must have special media to create a disc. It certainly can be done and is being done but a flashdrives and thumb drives offer a quicker interface not dependent on a disc format. Will it end there? Secure Digital and Micro Secure Digital format offer an even smaller format. Easily interfaced with smart phones, back to the iPhone and the Smart Phone generation. Where will cloud computing take us? will high definition even be required? WiMAX would certainly provide the next step in the "revolution".
Happy New Year!
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The grapevine has it that Ritek and Philips have finally come to an agreement on royalities. Wholesale pricing will go up along with other increases.
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