We are looking for Field Marketers to get out and about with laptops provided by the company and get reviews from people that are local to Colorado. We are populating the site with consumer reviews before launch!

We are hiring 5 more people (we already have 10) to join the team!

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

• Natural Leaders
• People that know how to "read" a situation and make decisions based on their surroundings. IE: locations, demographics, and know how to assess a situation.
• Familiar with Grassroots Marketing & Word of Mouth Marketing
• Computer Savvy
• Punctual, Reliable, with a strong desire to succeed
• People who KNOW Denver, surround areas
• Must have car/Bike
• Self-Motivated

WHO WE ARE:
We are owned by a company out of Charleston, South Carolina. We are part of a big media conglomerate with Radio/TV/Newspapers all over the country. Our website is Colorado Biz Buzz.com (please surf and do a few reviews!)

We have over 600 employees in SC and we have 8 here in Denver. This position will go through September and pays $12/hour + incentives based on performance. We also pay $0.34 on the mile (only when a designated location you are sent to does not work out) we pay any extra travel you incur when we send you to a new location. You will also be reimbursed for parking cost for every hour that your work. If you work an 8 hour shift and have to plug a meter / or park in a paid parking lot- you get $1 per hour for every hour your work.

We are looking for full time/part time and people (based on performance) can travel into Fort Collins, Durango, Colorado Springs, Boulder, etc. to work for a few days on obtaining reviews for these regions of Colorado!

This is a FUN position as well as a challenging position! You are sent to festivals, parks, farmer's markets, pools, dog parks, malls, etc.

Please send cover letter along with your resume to ashley at coloradobizbuzz.com

"Attention Resident,

The Feds are mandating everyone broadcast in digital in just a few short months! DirecTV is 100% digital now. If you don't upgrade, all you will see is snow!"

And, to be blunt, their flier is at best remarkably deceptive and at worst? An outright lie.

It is true that we are transitioning to an all-digital broadcast system in early 2009 (with some exceptions for smaller, local, public service and rural channels) but no-one needs to "upgrade", which implies the outlay of a significant amount of money. Indeed, after rebates, most people with older TVs should be able to pick up a digital converter box from Circuit City, Best Buy or similar for about $40 one-time cost.

Most TVs don't need these boxes, though. To quote the gov't:

"If you have a digital television (a TV with a built-in digital tuner), you are already prepared for the DTV transition, and can enjoy the benefits of digital broadcasting today.... if you use a digital-to-analog converter box, you will still need to use an antenna to receive DTV signals. It is also important to know that if your television currently receives good quality reception on analog channels 2-51 with a broadcast antenna, it should be able to receive digital television signals, including high definition television (HDTV) signals, with the same broadcast antenna. You do not need to purchase a 'DTV antenna' or an 'HDTV antenna' to receive DTV or HDTV signals."

Certainly nothing explained in the flier I had taped to my door yesterday by a local DirecTV affiliate.

So what's the story, DirecTV? Looks to me like an affiliate of yours is really pushing the envelope, selling fear and misinformation. Is this a good, ethical way to drive business?

I don't think so.

Even in light of that disclaimer, however, when I was reading my morning allotment of RSS feeds I couldn't help cringe when someone who should know better posted that

    "WordPress today announced that it's just released it's newest version: WordPress 2.6."

Upon reflection I realized that this particular blogger frequently mistakes "its" for "it's" and while it could be a stylistic thing or an affectation, odds were better that the author simply doesn't know a simple rule to differentiate the two.

Here it is, Dave's rule for differentiating usage: "it's" is short for "it is".

That's it. Now, consider the same sentence with each occurrence of the contraction "it's" rewritten:

    "WordPress today announced that it is just released it is newest version: WordPress 2.6."

Doesn't make much sense. In fact, the first occurrence should be "it has", which can ostensibly be shortened to "it's" too, but the second is just wrong and should be "its".

My rewrite of this sentence, improving it a little bit:

    "WordPress today announced that it has just released its newest version: WordPress 2.6."

Actually, if I were going to blog about the new WordPress release, I would rephrase it to sidestep this issue entirely:

    "WordPress today announced the release of WordPress 2.6, the latest version of the popular blogging utility."

My point isn't to edit this sentence to death (or is it too late? :-) but to point out that while the blogosphere tends to be characterized by informal prose, basic spelling and grammatical errors still reflect poorly on the author.

And while I'm on this particular soapbox, I encourage you to learn the difference between ensure and insure. This is a nuance that most ad copy writers seem to miss entirely and not a week goes by that I don't see "insure" misused in print marketing collateral.

One more, since I'm on a roll! Your versus you're. Again, every time you see an apostrophe -- a contraction -- spell it out to ensure [not "insure"!] that you're [not "your"!] using it correctly. "You're" is "you are".

A good writing tip is to always read your prose out loud to see if it "sounds wrong". If you think there's something odd about the voice or tense, there probably is!

Finally, I'm not alone in my grammatical rant. Check out these five mistakes that make you look dumb from CopyBlogger, ten flagrant grammar errors from Jody Gilbert at CNet and how poor spelling and grammar can cost you from Elizabeth Charles.

Interestingly, I also asked the Twitter community how they would rewrite that particular sentence to make it grammatically correct and only one person, 11_15_Media, actually suggested something that was correct: "Today, Wordpress announces the release of its newest version, Wordpress 2.6." Nicely done.

It started with them buying me a cup of chai via my Ask Dave Taylor tech support site, and including this note:

Message:Hi Dave,
Love your site. It's got a lot of great Info that the everyday person can actually use!:). Check out our struggling new startup at http://www.oklandcomp.com. We have "Everyday items for everyday people at exceptional prices" and we want everyone to know it! ...
We'd love a plug! Enjoy your chai.

Thanks. Instead of buying me a chai, though, try this pitch again. Tell me what's unique and interesting about your business, how you got into it, how you're growing it and why my readers would care. :-) Oh, and don't tell me that you're struggling. Tell me that you're excited about your growth curve or something. :-)

Well actually Dave, my partner and I are very excited about the website. It is allowing us to work on something together that allows us to spend more time with our families doing something we all really enjoy. Hopefully some day allowing me to walk away from the cube farm! My dad operated his own business in our back yard so I guess I have the entrepreneurial spirit in me. So while the store may be "struggling" at this point, we're not hungry yet...yet.

It all started out as a couple of Ebay stores that went reasonably well and my partner being downsized from IBM. Ebay just became a big rat race with the only real winner being Ebay! Now almost completely disillutioned with Ebay, we know we can do better for our customer on price and overall shopping experience.

Passing all those savings onto our customers - and yes a bit more to us as well, feels a lot better than handing it to a multi national bohemoth who constantly wants more. They've just gone waaay to far to increase their insatiable greed at the expense of the buyers! However, I digress. I still plan to operate on Ebay more as a secondary venue to promote the store. The exposure with Ebay obviously cannot be overlooked.

And to be honest, more so than the money generated, I get as much or more enjoyment from being able to provide our quality products (and they really are top of the line) to our customers delivered to their door, sometimes cheaper than they can buy them at big box retail outlet. The responses back from our customers to date has been fantastic. Our slogan - everyday items for everyday people at exceptional prices really is what drives us. We're not big box, We're not distant shareholders. We're grassroots, back to the mom and pop taking advantage of technology of the day.

Seeing tangible results of our efforts, slow as they may be, is also an incredibly satisfying. slowly increasing traffic, watching Google analytics 10 times a day to see if it is better than yesterday, tweaking of google ads and incorporation of Amazon referrals. It's all pretty amazing in a geeky sort of way.

So now that we have an operational site up and running (yes, admitedly there is much, much left to do on that front) we are focusing now on spreading the word - weighing pay per click advertising, trying to get a newsletter going and "sucking up" for back links :-)

All sucking up aside, your site really has been one of the best resources I have found for succinct, to the point tips without printing hundreds of pages of a pdf to get a few good tips elsewhere. I only recently found your blog and think it's great! While reading your SEO, ad click and articles of the like I find myself bookmarking many of them to go back and re read as I work on that topic.

So do you really blog from a Starbucks? Cool! maybe someday I'll move my cube to Starbucks and sell HD multi directional Antennas, Foodsavers and laptop sleeves from the back corner table! HA!

Robert Collins

What the heck, guys? When are any of these project teams going to learn that compatibility is more important than slick new features and that one glitch like this will sour users on a technology for years to come?

This highlights a huge challenge for the evolution of software projects: improving features and compatibility while not breaking things.

Clearly, we're still working on that issue...

This afternoon he just emailed me to let me know that he's hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar in Chicago on July 30 and September 4, which is a cool opportunity for you to spend a day learning from an expert. It'll be a small class too: max of 50 people.

He describes it thusly:

• Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
• Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
• Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received -- for a fraction of what they paid
• Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
• Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)
• Learn from Andy Sernovitz, the guy who literally wrote the book on word of mouth marketing

If I were based in Chicago, I'd definitely attend, but since I'm not, maybe you would be interested in going instead? You can learn more at events.gaspedal.com.

Oh! Andy's extending for a $250 discount for readers of my weblog, which is a nice additional perk. Just use discount code weloveintuitive when you register.

Blogworld's call for speakers has passed, but the new event, the Thin Air Summit, just opened its doors for speaker proposals and I invite you to consider proposing a talk of your own (or a panel!) on a topic of interest to New Media and Web 2.0 folk. The conference will occur over the weekend of November 7-9, 2008 at the facilities of the Art Institute of Colorado.

Specifically:

"The format of The Thin Air Summit is a combination of panels and educational sessions. For the education sessions there are three tracks, text - e.g. blogging, online books and the like, audio - e.g. audio podcasts, podsafe music and video - e.g. video podcasts, live streaming video. These sessions will provide practical information relevant to creating better content in that particular medium. The panels will bring all three tracks together and be focused on new media topics that are relevant to all - both the practical, such as monetization, and the philosophical, such as What is New Media and Why is it Important.

Interested in speaking? Please check out our Call for Speakers.

In the newspaper biz, they call that "tombstoning" and today there's an awesome example of this very thing in online edition of the local paper:

Who would have thought that was what the Regents of the University of Colorado, Boulder had in mind when they opted to discuss the possibility of giving freshmen bicycles, though given the Bacchanalian nature of college nowadays, that's probably spot on.

Okay, okay, here's a slightly expanded view:

Of course you're now thinking "Holy cow! Every article in The Daily Camera is about sex!" given the new article of strippers versus golfers (is that going to be a bad made-for-tv movie soon?) and you'd be wrong, sorry to say, but not... entirely wrong.

Keep an eye out in your own newspaper for more examples of funny tombstoning. I bet you'll be surprised how often you encounter something amusing like this.

Disclaimer: I write a weekly column for the Daily Camera, so it's not like I don't like the newspaper and their editorial team... :-)

Is there a ethical way to ask bloggers to write about your business?

I've spent some time thinking about this question because my first response was a knee-jerk answer of "any way you ask someone to help you promote your business is ethical". But that's not true. Witness the waves of spam we receive every day from people who are following just that dictum.

On the other end of the spectrum, clearly if you never actually promote your business and just wait for those blogger-types to stumble across it and write about it is folly too. If you don't promote your business, chances are you don't have one after a while.

So the truth must lie somewhere in the middle, and there are indeed ethical and socially acceptable ways you can promote your business with bloggers.

I can then examine my inbox to see some examples, and one leaps out immediately: sending a press release or media announcement is rarely, if ever, a good solution. I would estimate that I read the headlines of less than 10% of the press releases I get, and less than 2% of them engage me enough -- or are targeted enough -- that I'll read a paragraph or two into the release itself. (remember too that I have years of experience sifting through press releases from my former life as a magazine editor)

Really, the best way to engage a blogger and let them know about your business is for you to participate in the discussion on their blog then, once you've established yourself as a commentator, open up a private channel of communication with them via email and begin to introduce your business.

I'm reminded of a Godfather type of scene, where I'd be whispering with some sort of American-Italian accent, "you gotta pay your respects before you can get the attention of the Don. Move too fast and, well, there's gunna be trouble..."

But then again, there are likely many other ways to approach bloggers effectively to promote your business too. Dear reader, perhaps you can share one or two of your best practices in this regard?

Q: Another online credit reporting site? What's new?

Credit fatigue is understandable - it seems that you hear about the importance of credit everywhere you turn. But the truth is that credit, and subsequently your credit score, is the single most important financial indicator used by lenders, and in today's economy it's more relevant than ever.

The great thing about it is that you can actually control your credit score - you can protect and improve it with just some basic knowledge and tools. The problem is that consumers just haven't had access to the right kind of tools before.

Credit Karma helps consumers monitor, improve and leverage their credit. We are the only service that allows people to pull their credit score as often as they need for free. We have also built simulators and tools that help them understand how specific actions such as opening or closing a line of credit will affect their score. And finally, we bring them preferred pricing offers based on the strength of their score that they can also rate as a community. Most importantly, we never share consumers' information.

Q: I think there's a lot of confusion in the consumer space vis-à-vis credit scores. Federal law requires that credit reporting agencies make your report available to you every 12 months or any time you have a credit app denied. Why Credit Karma?

We absolutely agree that there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace. That's why we're in this business: to help consumers better understand their credit and how to leverage it for their advantage.

Between the federal mandate, pay-for-score services, and identity theft protection companies, consumers are bombarded with messages about the importance of credit scores. The good thing is that consumers are now hyper-aware and realize they need to know their score. The challenge is that consumers should be obtaining their score about once a month in order to catch any changes caused by missed bill payments, an incident of identity theft or similar...and they couldn't do that before Credit Karma.

Not only do we let them access their score as often as they'd like for free, but we also provide simulators and information to help them understand the best way to improve their score and even predict what it will be as a result of a specific behavior. Finally, we help them obtain preferred pricing on products they desire as a result of that score. It's a completely free and transparent way for consumers to better manage and leverage their credit.

Q: What's your background in finance and banking and what attracted you to credit scores?

I've been in the industry for a number of years. I've worked for credit card companies, led marketing teams at both Upromise and E-LOAN, and even launched my own online marketing analytics firm before founding Credit Karma. All of this has given me a deep understanding of how credit works and how lenders use credit data to make lending decisions.

My inspiration stems from my experience at both Upromise and E-LOAN, two companies with a pro-consumer mission that aimed to transform an industry and help consumers in the process. I realized then that consumers had only the most basic awareness of their credit score and that the opportunity existed to build a business on helping them learn more and be better informed credit customers. Everything we do at Credit Karma - even the way in which we make money - is done with a consumer's best interests in mind.

Q: Credit scores rarely take into account life stories. How are you going to help people manage their credit score and, ideally, improve it so they have greater access to financing and mortgage options?

Our first step is to help people access it and then to help them understand what it means by sharing information resources and comparing their score to others in their age, geographic or similar groups. Just this first step is important because it often inspires them to try and improve it.

We help them improve their score through simulators that can instruct personal behavior. For example, if you're late on a major credit card, we can help you predict what your score will be by taking care of that outstanding balance. Or perhaps you'd benefit by taking out another revolving line of credit. The point is to give you tangible things that will make a difference so you can begin to adjust your behavior. For most people, there is a number they need to reach so it's easy for them to create a plan and stick to it.

Q: How does Credit Karma make money? And is there a tension and potential conflict between offering up "pro-consumer" advice and information while simultaneously possibly helping people dig themselves deeper with credit card offers?

Our business model relies on giving consumers good offers through our advertisers. We need to provide them with relevant, real and compelling pricing offers. There is no tension in this model because we take our pro-consumer bent seriously. We do not accept advertising or work with companies that take advantage of consumers. You will never see ads from payday lending companies or others who perpetuate debt and poor credit. And because we allow users to rate offers and help us fine-tune our offering for other consumers similar to them, we can isolate only those offers that are actually useful and relevant. It's a highly efficient process both for our users and for the advertisers.

Q: What is the return rate for web customers?

The return rates vary, and really depend on whether a consumer is getting ready to make a credit-based purchase. We have visitors that check almost every day and those who check once every couple of months. On average, we see about 3 visits per month per active user.

We recommend that consumers check their score about once a month. Our empirical data shows that a score changes about once every 30 days, which makes sense because it mirrors most billing cycles. We encourage users to check once a month so that they can determine if they accidentally missed a bill or even if there is unauthorized activity on their credit file.

Q: Are there privacy concerns? Are you exposing consumer credit scores to sponsors, how do consumers with high credit scores get access to the offers?

We never share information with sponsors or advertisers. We take our pledge to consumers seriously and have built in redundant layers of security and policies to ensure that their information remains private. You'll see that much of the feedback from consumers about Credit Karma attests to this. All of our pricing offers are one-way offers based on credit score ranges, not actual scores or individuals. A sponsor never knows who is receiving the offer and has no way to contact that person directly. We make sure that ultimate control always resides with the consumer.

What do you think, reader? Is there a compelling case for Credit Karma in the online credit and personal finance space?

There are companies that have a significant online presence, of course, like Sears, but I think it's safe to say that unlike consumer electronics purchasing habits, major appliances (the industry calls the category "majapp", by the way) are still purchased based on in-store discussions with salespeople and hands-on experience.

The list of top Majapp retailers:

1. Sears, with $8.3 billion in major appliance sales in 2007 (a drop of 7.3% from their 2006 sales)
2. Lowe's, with $4.3 billion in majapp sales (an increase of 3.1% over their 2006 sales)
3. Home Depot, with $3.8 billion in sales (an increase in 2.3% from 2006 sales)
4. Best Buy, with $1.9 billion in sales (an impressive increase of 8.3% over 2006 sales. Best Buy is really becoming a powerhouse in both majapp and consumer electronics sales!)
5. Wal*Mart, with $713 million in sales (an increase of 5.1% over 2006)
6. P.C. Richard & Son, with $602 million in sales (a drop of 4.1% from 2006 sales)
7. hhgregg, with $486 million in sales (a staggering increase of 36.6% over 2006 sales)
8. BrandsMart, with $269 million in sales (a decrease of 2.7% from 2006 sales)
9. Conn's, with $224 million in sales (a 3.0% decrease over 2006 sales)
10. Costco Wholesale, with $211 million in sales (an increase of 0.9% over 2006 sales figures)

Somehow, in 2008 I expect to see some sort of company like "Appliances Online" or even Amazon show up on the top 25 list (after all, Grants Appliance is on the list with only $77 million in annual major appliance sales)...

Is it possible that major appliances will always be purchased primarily through a physical storefront, perhaps simply due to the complexity of delivery and installation? What do you think?

More than anything it really strikes me that the company is so deeply organized into silos, departments and divisions that it's possible that even were Yahoo to learn how to integrate things together and cross-promote it might never be successful at creating a single, unified company at this point in its history.

Greg explains on his blog that Yahoo OS is a cool way to open up parts of the Yahoo network to third parties, just as its Search Monkey is opening up search to third parties too, through plug-ins that affect search results. That's a step in teh right direction, but maybe not: Given the company already has dozens upon dozens of properties, does it really need to open things up to hundreds of additional properties like Blogger, Facebook and Twitter?

The challenge is that Yahoo has become too diverse a company. I mean, here's just a short list of some of the more popular properties under the Yahoo umbrella, as gleaned from the 2007 Annual Report:

• Flickr - photo sharing and management
• HotJobs - classified jobs site
• Geocities - entry-level user home pages and profiles
• del.icio.us - shared bookmark and online site discovery tool
• Musicmatch - music discovery and industry news
• Yahoo! Travel - fly to nice places, etc
• Yahoo Shopping - huge aggregation of Yahoo Store-based online shops
• Yahoo Personals - one of the top dating and personals sites
• Yahoo Finance - investor and research information
• Yahoo Maps - online mapping service
• Rivals.com - college sports team information
• Zimbra - business emial service
• Kelkoo - Yahoo Shopping for overseas
• Yahoo Mail - popular web-based email service
• Yahoo Messenger - one of the most popular instant messenger services

I am well aware that one of the greatest problems in a large company is that, well, it's a large company. The logistical challenges of integrating a wide variety of quasi-unaffiliated departments is vast, and with constant acquisitions, it's even worse. This can be solved by strong management from the top, a strong, coherent, single unified direction. What Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) famously and aptly described as "putting all your wood behind one arrowhead".

One of the greatest problems I see with Yahoo is the recently ended tenure of Terry Semel, who did his very best to turn Yahoo, an Internet property, into Yahoo Hollywood, a new generation media company built around what I can only imagine was the inspiration of the org charts of companies like Warner Brothers and Paramount. Not good. Film companies have a small number of large bets and only need a few to be home runs, but a film company with hundreds, or thousands of tiny properties? No go.

Now that Terry's out and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is back running the company, and now that they've survived the Microsoft blitzkrieg and are trying to weather Carl Icahn's newest attack, the question remains: can Yahoo consolidate, find a single vision to unify its widely diverse offerings, and become a strong competitor in an ever-changing marketplace?

We'll have to wait and see.

Since we are in the Internet age, I decided that I'd dig around and see if I could find a site where I could ideally watch live video coverage of the Euro 2008 games, or, worst case, watch video replays or even highlights of the best action in specific matches.

After digging and digging, I have come to the conclusion that it's just not there. In fact, not only is there no live Euro 2008 coverage online, there are a lot of companies taking advantage of the curiosity of football fans to sell things in what might not be an entirely ethical manner.

I mean, it's no surprise to search Google for something like Watch European Soccer Championship, click on an advert, and end up at a "landing page" selling some doubtless-illegal unauthorized satellite program capture device like this one, but what is surprising is when companies like ESPN (a Disney (NYSE:DIS) company, in case you're not keeping track) resorts to misdirection as a sales tool.

What do I mean? Check this out...

Sounds like what I want, right? Clicking through from this Google AdWords ad, however, and you end up here:

And now you can see the misdirection. This isn't free live video of Euro 2008, it's an offer to have free streaming if you already pay for their channel on your existing broadcast service or have a specific Internet high speed access provider.

Even that wouldn't be a complete show-stopper if they had a "click here and sign up for our on-line only access pass, only $4.99/month". I'd click, I'd sign up, I'd pay. But there isn't an option for that, and so, like doubtless many other football (sorry, soccer) fans worldwide, I am left unable to watch even the highlights on my computer.

And yet... with the Summer Olympics coming in less than two months, I am really surprised how little major sporting events are utilizing Internet video capabilities, if at all.

One simple idea: A virtual video control room, where you could let viewers choose their favorite camera angle or commentator, or - and this has historically been the Achilles heel of the Olympics coverage in the United States - turn off the commentators entirely. Tell me that wouldn't be a cool thing to try out.

Would I pay for this service? You bet. Wouldn't you?

And yet, it's 2008 and I still can't even pay to watch Euro 2008 matches on my computer.

#1: Best Buy, with 917 stores, sales increased 11.1% 2006 to 2007.

No surprise here. Best Buy has done a masterful job of marketing, retailing and store design. There really is no competition for them at this point in terms of stand-alone companies that have good selection, good brands and good employees.

#2: Wal-Mart, with 3414 stores and 22.7% increase in sales.

Think about that. Wal-Mart is already a huge retail presence, the 1600 pound gorilla and the single largest retail company in the United States. Between 2006 and 2007 their retail sales increased almost 23%. That's incredible. If there's one store that is a threat to the existing hegemony of CE retail, it's Wal-Mart, a company that generally tends to crush any niche it sets its sights on anyway (for example, groceries).

#3: Circuit City, with 684 stores and a 5.9% decrease in sales.

It's that decrease that tells you all you need to know about why Circuit City is not a healthy company and why firms like Blockbuster are circling for the kill (and assets). I've written about this before: The Logic of Blockbuster buying Circuit City.

#4: Dell, with 1 store and approximately even sales 2006 to 2007.

Honestly, I never put two and two together and realized that Dell Computer would be one of the top five CE retailers in the United States. But sales in 2007 were $7.088 billion which is a whole lotta laptops!

#5: Target, with 1591 stores and a 23.8% increase in sales.

Just as Wal-Mart represents a huge threat to the world of retail CE, so does Target, with its more upscale, fashionable positioning in the marketplace and well-designed electronics area. I know that I often find myself their when I want small CE devices and add-ons.

#6: Costco Wholesale, with 389 stores and a 28.6% increase in sales.

Holy cow, that's almost a 30% increase in CE sales from 2006. Yet it's no surprise: as consumer electronics continue to devolve into commodities that a company whose entire focus is on cheap commodity sales should rise to prominence. This also really makes you wonder how much people care about selection, because Costco might have good prices, but their selection and variety stinks. But, with $4.9 billion in CE sales, apparently people don't really care that much.

#7: Gamestop, with 4008 stores and an increase of 32.3% in sales.

Yep, Gamestop. That dorky video game retail outlet in the Mall has an impressive 4000+ outlets and clearly can thank Nintendo for the Wii and Sony for the Playstation-3 for contributing to their superb results in 2007.

#8: Apple Retail Stores, with 177 stores and a 40.5% increase in sales.

It wasn't too many years ago that Apple opened its first retail store in Palo Alto, California, and industry analysts said it'd fail. I mean, people want choices and selection, not a uni-vendor store. Right? Wrong. Very wrong. What's most impressive is that Apple has achieved an aggregate $4.079 billion in sales with only 177 stores. That's a staggering per-store revenue.

#9: RadioShack, with 4447 stores and a decrease of 10.8% in sales.

Visiting a RadioShack is always somehow like traveling back in time to the CE world of the 80s where unknown gizmos and slick salespeople were what counted, not the shiny techno world of Best Buy / Apple. RadioShack is unquestionably on a long, slow burn and are finding it increasingly difficult to remain relevant in the twenty-first century.

#10: Sears, with 1765 stores and a sales increase of 1.9%.

Another die-hard, Sears is perhaps the greatest competitor to Wal-Mart in terms of the demographic and socio-economic customer base. When was the last time you bought something at Sears, though?

And, just for completeness, here are #11-20: Sam's Club, Amazon.com, CompUSA (now defunct), Fry's Electronics, Newegg.com, Office Depot, Staples, Army-Air Force Exchange, Toys R Us and Micro Center.

What I find most interesting about this list is how few online retailers are in the top ten, but how most of the next grouping, #11-20, are almost all online retailers. It's a testament to the kinesthetic importance of retail outlets in the world of consumer electronics too: people can buy their CE from an online outlet -- as I did my Sony HDTV, when I bought it from Amazon.com -- but they still want to touch it first, to see it and reassure themselves that it's worth the investment.

I imagine that 2008 or, perhaps, 2009, will see RadioShack and Sears off the top ten, replaced by Amazon.com and, perhaps, Fry's Electronics. And sales overall? Up, up, up: 2006 total aggregate CE sales were $114.5 billion and 2007 sales were $125.3 billion. That's a big upward trend and even with a weaker economy I see no reason not to expect continued growth as HDDVD is phased out, Blu-Ray becomes more popular and the cut-off of analog-only TV approaches ever closer.

What do you think, dear reader?

How important is this revenue? The Times reports that up to 70% of movie revenue comes from DVD sales, depending on the release and the quality of the disk packaging. You just know that movies like Iron Man and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are going to enjoy terrific DVD sales when released.

Following in the footsteps of many successful graphic novel adaptations for the big screen (think Sin City, a film I intensely disliked, 300, a film I thought was great fun, and even the latest dark, brooding Batman films based more on the oevre of graphic novels than the goofy mythos of "The Batman") Warner is releasing Watchmen based on the complicated but highly popular graphic novel series of the same name.

But what's so darn interesting is that they are simultaneously going to also be releasing a second Watchmen movie directly to video for retail release just five days after the film opens (e.g. after opening weekend), entitled Tales of the Black Freighter. As the NYT explains, "Tales" will "follow a side Watchmen storyline about a shipwreck".

Unfamiliar with the Watchmen series? Here's the synopsis of the movie, as reported on IMDB: "When an ex-superhero has been murdered, a vigilante named Rorshach begins an investigation into the murder, which begins to lead to a much more terrifying conclusion. And also uncovers a plot to discredit and murder various heroes. Rorschach discovers a far wider ranging conspiracy involving his colleagues' past which could completely change the course of history."

Check out the photo on the right: that's a scene from the Watchmen movie wherein actor Jesse Reid is actually sitting and reading, you guessed it, Tales of the Black Freighter. I'm reminded of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, wherein the secondary characters are frequently seen reading Banzai comic books which, by coincidence, I also have on my shelf.

Nonetheless, kudos to Warner for risking a few million on the production of this secondary film and testing the waters to see if long, complicated stories can be spread across both a theatrical release and a commercial DVD made available simultaneously.

The next step they should consider is offering some sort of coupon, discount or rebate so that people who see the theatrical Watchmen movie can get a price break (or extra goodies) if they also purchase Tales of the Black Freighter. Now that would be an awesome experiment!

By the way, if I can be a bit catty, Warner also complains in the Times piece about soft DVD sales of Will Smith's latest movie, I Am Legend without bothering to mention that it just wasn't that good a movie and that once you got over the scary vampire aspect, not a very interesting storyline either. This is consistent with MPAA strategy, as far as I can remember, where it complains about sales -- usually in the context of "how much they've lost to file sharing" -- without ever acknowledging that perhaps the quality of the product is suffering. This also factors into the industry complaints of poor sales with Blu-Ray releases: how many films are on the shelf that are worth $25+ per disk, when the DVD is often less than half that price and looks pretty darn good on modern players anyway?

I applaud Warner for trying something new and am excited to see how the market receives this experimental dual-release of Watchmen and Tales of the Black Freighter.