I was checking out the blog of a certain Jason Calacanis today and I noticed a ThisNext widget. I hardly ever buy anything, so a recommendation site is not the best fit for me but I thought I would try it anyway. I might go back to it occasionally when I am vicariously enjoying the culture of consumption that is eating this world alive.
I used to work for a Fair Trade Coffee company. I think labeling is vitally important to that business because they had to effectively differentiate the product from all the conventional coffee on the shelf. Since part of the branding was environmental responsibility, packaging decisions had to preclude any of the wasteful, gimmicky stuff. When I worked there, they were opting for unlabeled bags from a large domestic manufacturer. They then had a local printer mass produce self adhesive labels in huge quantity and they contracted a workshop that employs mentally disabled people to put labels on bags on a weekly as needed basis.
Labelworldusa.com can make your Wine Label or other label in large quantity. If it makes more sense for you to print your own, they have solutions of various capacities for that as well. They have design services and they know about branding.
I like the idea of insert labels made with FDA approved food safe inks. They allow for more flexibility with your food packaging decisions.
The seven figure sales at Kimkins.com were due in no small part to the favorable coverage in Woman’s World Magazine. This publication has huge circulation, and the print versions will often sit in waiting rooms and salons enjoying months or years of repeated perusal. People seeking to expose the Kimkins fraud did not get very far in trying to convince Woman’s World to make any kind of reversal or apology. We personally received no answers to our questions last year and instead got a cease and desist order. In response to the letter, I made changes to the cover image that I was using to make it arguably transformative. There was no follow up from the magazine. I didn’t send any further correspondence to them. Many, many interested people did.
After a long wait, the magazine has finally apologized in detail, on their website. A print apology is also forthcoming. I thank them for it.
There are several third parties who are standing up and condemning the actions taken by Anonymous against scientology. Many of them point to the fact that they are giving scientologists the perfect opportunity to claim that they are experiencing religious persecution. I agree with this argument, and I would like to point out that many countries do not recognize scientology’s claim to be a religion, choosing instead to view scientology as a business enterprise.
In some respects, scientology is very much a multi-level marketing scheme. I was hesitant in writing that because I don’t want to give MLMs a bad name.
My site gets search traffic from a few people everyday who are curious about Walmart Prepaid Visa Cards. I assumed that this was because I was one of the few business bloggers that made a point of commenting on their launch last year. I also assumed that the product was popular. I was surprised to learn that when a firm surveyed 800 lower-income consumers, only 1% of them actually got these cards. These are people that go to Wal*Mart almost 5 times per month.
So, the cards aren’t explosively popular. The issuers are still happy with their bottom line, although there are worries that the government may make additional rules about terms and charges that will restrict the potential for profit. General Electric Co.’s GE Money subsidiary is the issuer of the Walmart card.
I assume that you are aware of the fact that the founder of Kimkins committed fraud by claiming to have had a dramatic weight loss. I noticed that you are continuing to update your affiliate site and I am wondering if you realize that you are exposing yourself to potential legal action by continuing to publish lies.
I would appreciate any response to this email and I must advise you that I would consider publishing the content on a blog.
Sincerely,
Martin
And, less than 20 minutes later (Know any people who get into trouble with impulsive behavior ?)
wouter van dyck to me 8:22 pm (23 minutes ago)
who are you and why should i justify myself to you?
i don’t now how you do your research but that blog isn’t updated in like 2 months
and as far is i now, i really don’t follow that, there has been no conviction or arrest so legal action against me?
please
wouter didn’t put his name at the bottom of the response. I don’t know if he had intended to reply anonymously.
Do you have a message that you would like to have printed on a tiny piece of paper and dropped onto the heads of drunken New Yorkers? Act fast this page that allows you to submit a New Years Message to be delivered in this unique fashion has a fast approaching deadline.
The Aptera has a certain appeal. It is an electric car that looks sleek and goes fast. It is competitively priced. I am not sure how the oil companies are going to kill it. It is interesting to note that the company thought outside the box when it came to dealing with present regulations. In the eyes of the DOT it is a motorcycle.
This early report comes from the folks at Mastercard. Growth in consumer spending from last year’s Christmas shopping season is a low 3.6%. While it is disappointing, it is not unexpected. Gas prices and economic pressures related to the housing market are major factors. I think another factor was the lack of cool stuff. I am a bit out of the loop, but I can’t think of an iconic must have toy for Christmas 2007. There was a largely failed attempt to get people worked up about a possible Wii shortage. There have to be more buyers than there are items for a shortage to exist.
“If you see one, buy it. Don’t assume that you can come back later and find one.”
On a brighter note, the same report says that online spending for the same period is up 22% from last year.
The Magic Chicken Diet has striking similarities to Kimkins and some key differences. The moderately priced lifetime membership model mirrors Kimkins to a T. A hike from an earlier amount to its present fee of just over $60 lags just behind a similar hike that occurred with Kimkins. There is an publicly available page where someone who is presumably now the webmaster of the site was asking for bids on site design. Here is one sentence from his description of the project:
I would like it to be a clone of www. kimkins.com with ability to change background color and easily edited on my end as a webmaster for editing, adding pictures .
I am not shocked by this. Web business, like every other kind of business involves attempting to replicate the success of others. One big difference here is that the founder and spokeswoman for this diet appears to be a genuine weight loss success story, with a progress slideshow and a first and last name. The question of whether this woman has a plan that involves healthy choices cannot be answered by the uninitiated. From the name, we have to assume that it involves chicken.
I do not know if this site has good information and support for weight loss. I do not know whether the owner is monetizing something with real value or just taking advantage of people. In any case, I would suggest that she change to a payment form that inspires more confidence. There are PayPal logos on the site, but the payment does not appear to be through PayPal. You fill in your credit card information on a very basic submit form.
