November 1,
2005 Written
by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews
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Digital Signage Growing Due To Flexibility, Efficiency
Digital signage—those
increasingly ubiquitous television and plasma-screen displays in
shops, train stations, banks and other public spaces—is giving
companies the ability to change messages quickly and target them
more effectively than traditional ads.
While digital
signage is a relatively new market it is expanding rapidly. Research
and consulting company Frost & Sullivan estimates that companies
spent about $148.9 million on displays, software maintenance and
related costs, in 2004. They project that total reaching $490 million
by 2011.
Digital signage
is appealing for a variety of reasons:
- The centralized
control ensures that all promotional campaigns are guaranteed
to start at the same time.
- Materials
can be created and distributed faster than through usual means.
- Each digital
display carries multiple advertisements, usually six although
some carry more.
- Companies
can distribute new ads in minutes, whereas usual billboards take
days.
The market for
digital signs is expanding into diners, health clubs, arcades, bowling
alleys as well as retailers...particularly clothing or home improvement
stores. More digital media means greater barter opportunities in
the marketplace as well.
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Exchange Owners...
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General
Electric — World’s Largest Landlord
Famous for light-bulbs
and jet engines, GE has quietly built one of the most profitable
empires of office buildings, shopping centers, and apartment houses
around the globe.
Last year the
business, GE Commercial Finance Real Estate, earned more than $1
billion on its 7,500 properties, part of a portfolio valued at $29
billion. (This was seven times the profits of one of GE’s
largest public rivals, developer Sam Zell’s Equity Office
Properties Trust in Chicago, which has $25 billion in properties.)
GE has generated
returns of more than 25% in each of the past 12 years, and their
real estate business now accounts for 7% of GE’s bottom line.
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Competitiveness
Study Shows Scandinavia Beats Out U.S.
Scandinavian
countries, with Finland in the lead, have some of the world’s
most competitive economies despite high taxes and extensive social
security systems.
In the study,
now into its 26th year, the Geneva-based World Economic Forum put
the United States in second in its annual competitiveness league.
Four other Scandinavian
nations—Sweden at third; Denmark, fourth; Iceland, seventh;
and Norway, ninth—were in the top 10 in a table issued with
the forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2005. Others in
the top 10 were Taiwan, fifth; Singapore, sixth; Switzerland, eight;
and Australia, tenth.
The U.S. enjoyed
overall technological supremacy and had a “powerful culture
of innovation,” the report said. It ranked low on contracts
and law, “with particular concerns on the part of the business
community about the government’s ability to maintain arm’s-length
relationships with the private sector.”
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Clear
Channel Ad Strategy Not Working
Last year Clear
Channel Communications said it would run fewer advertisements on
its radio stations, in an effort to win more listeners and increase
prices for the remaining inventory. But the firm’s third quarter
profits declined 21%, a clear sign that the much-trumpeted strategy
to revive its radio and entertainment divisions has yet to pan out.
Revenue at Clear
Channel’s entertainment unit, which includes its big live-concert
operations, rose about 1% to $983.5 million. The outdoor division,
which is preparing for a 10% initial public offering, increased
revenue 11% to $668 million, in large part due to rising outdoor-advertising
rates.
Overall, revenue
rose 1.1% to $2.68 billion, from $2.65 billion a year earlier. Operating
expenses climbed 3.7% to $2.01 billion from $1.94 billion. Clear
Channel reported net income of $205.5 million or 38-cents a share
compared with $261.2 million, or 44-cents a share last year.
Every
barter company in the world is listed on our web site,
click through to our Global List
of Barter Companies.
BigVine
Makes Strategic Merger With High-Profile Portal AllBusiness.com
Online
barter company BigVine has propitiously taken advantage of an opportunity
presented, merging with one of the highest profile small-business
portals in yberspace—AllBusiness.com.
It's a move that should pay big dividends down the road.
AllBusiness was founded in 1998 and provides business solutions
to the small business sector. NBCi purchased AllBusiness last February
for $225 million in stock. But, because AllBusiness was not yet
profitable, the company's losses were a drain on NBCi's earnings...which
affected its stock price.
It's assumed the spin-off of AllBusiness should allow NBCi to reach
profitability faster. NBCi's stock is trading around $5 a share,
down from its high of $106 in January.
The new stand-alone company, AllBusiness.com, will see BigVine's
barter technology becoming the barter exchange platform which will
reach a prospecting database of more than 1 million small businesses
with 750,000 e-mail subscribers.
The merger is a coup for Bippy Siegel, BigVine's 36-year-old CEO.
He will become the CEO of the new company, headquartered in San
Francisco. And the former BigVine shareholders should be elated
with the transaction, including venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers, American Express, and buyout specialists Kohlberg
Kravis Roberts & Co. Aggregately they will own 51%, with NBCi
owning the other 49%. (General Electric holds a 39.3% interest in
NBCi.)
Reportedly, NBCi will also put another $15-$20 million into AllBusiness,
which will include on-air promotional time on NBC-TV and CNBC (NBC's
cable outlet). This additional investment by NBCi matches the amount
of money which has already been invested in the building of BigVine.
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Here
& There...
- Stephen S.
Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, says most Fed chairmen
have been blindsided early on in their tenure and Ben Bernanke,
he suspects, will meet a similar fate. (Alan Greenspan faced a
stock market crash two months after he took over in August 1987.)
Roach contends that
the U.S. economy faces a far greater threat than inflation,
namely, record account deficits (running at an annual rate of
close to $800 billion in the first half of 2005) with the rest
of the world.
Foreign confidence could well be Bernanke’s biggest challenge
when he takes over in January.
-
According to PKF
Hospitality Research, for U.S. hotels the average ratio is 0.8
staffers per guest.
-
Nationwide mortgage
debt has ballooned by about 70% since 1999 to nearly $8 trillion
as lenders have relaxed credit standards. It’s estimated
that a record $1 trillion in outstanding adjustable-rate mortgages
could face payment increases in a year, up from $83 billion
this year.
-
The federal goverment
will pocket $116 million from the sale of stock options it received
for an emergency loan package to the former America West Airlines
after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
That’s in addition
to the interest and principal payments it will collect on the
$429-million loan package the airline received as it struggled
with a drop in travel after the attacks. The money comes after
the carrier and US Airways recently merged under the US Airways
name.
-
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-
Bill Gross, managing
director at investment firm Pimco which oversees close to $500
billion in fixed-income assets, says the housing markets will
cool, prices will fall, regulators will tighten lending requirement,
and speculators will flee. That will cause consumer spending
to be negatively affected and ultimately the economy.
Gross is blunt, “Let
me state categorically that the above sequence is barely questionable,
almost inevitable, 99% unavoidable, and in modern parlance—a
slam dunk.”
-
Want to become a
Wal-Mart vendor? Stand in line...last year about 10,000 new
suppliers applied to become Wal-Mart vendors. Only 200, or 2%,
were ultimately accepted.
-
According to two
University of Illinois accounting professors, the Sarbanes-Oxley
legislation, passed in 2002, is costing companies an enormous
120 million hours plus another 12 million hours by outside auditors—the
equivalent of 66,000 people working for one year on nothing
else. Estimated aggregate cost is about $15 billion per year.
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