Eleven years ago, I watched Steve Jobs unveil the iPod at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. The following week, I made …
iTunes
Back-to-School Bonuses: Free Gift Card Promotions Are in Season
Retailers and manufacturers often prefer to give consumers a little something extra rather than simply offering items at lower prices. When that something extra comes in the form of a gift card that must be used in a separate purchase, the strategy ensures that the shopper must return as a customer. So what seems like a bonus for …
Spotify is Growing — But Why Isn’t It Growing Faster?
Spotify has frequently been hailed at as the savior of the moribund music industry. Sooner or later, the pundits argue, a streaming music service that gives users unlimited access to virtually every piece of recorded music in the …
Scan This! Target Encourages Shoppers to Scan Items with Smartphones Nationwide
Some shoppers have felt the need to stealthily scan items in stores with their smartphones. They’d rather not be accused of “showrooming,” the practice in which one scopes out merchandise in a brick-and-mortar store, only to …
Pandora’s Sour Tune: No Profit For a Year, Tumbling Stock
Streaming music service Pandora lost almost one-quarter of its stock market value Wednesday after telling investors that it doesn’t expect to make money for at least another year. Pandora’s struggles illustrate the difficulty …
FTC: That $1.99 Smartphone App Won’t Cure Your Acne
Entrepreneurial techies have been selling thousands of smartphone apps that claim to treat acne for 99¢ and $1.99 a pop (excuse the pun). Now, however, a Federal Trade Commission investigation reveals that (shocker!) the claims—that weird colored lights emitted from one’s smartphone could eliminate pimples—have no scientific basis. …
Is Pay Per Channel Cable TV Inevitable?
Most consumers like the idea of pay per channel cable TV, in which the customer would select a la carte the channels he actually watches, rather than pay for a bundled service with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of channels that are …
After Testing It For A Month, I’m Sold on Spotify
“You’ve got to see this,” a friend said to me in June. “It’s a new music service that lets you listen to anything you want from anywhere. And it’s cloud-based, so the music doesn’t take up any space on your hard drive.” He played …
Can You Buy Stuff Online Without a Credit Card?
Last week, Apple introduced OS X Lion, the newest version of its Mac operating system. Among the usual tech buzz about features, innovations and glitches was Apple’s striking choice to make OS X Lion available only via the Mac …
Currency & Irrational Consumer Behavior: Coins Are Almost As Good as Real Money
The brilliant thing about money is that it’s entirely interchangeable. A hundred pennies equals a dollar, and 40 quarters has the same value as a $10 bill. So why would people be willing to give away nearly 10% of the value of one kind of money just to have it swapped into another form of cash?
$1,400 for Smurfberries!?! Why You Should Think Twice Before Handing an iPhone Over to an 8-Year-Old
Parents want their children to become comfortable with technology. But in the course of amusing themselves with apps and games, kids can unknowingly (or perhaps knowingly) pile up huge bills on their parent’s credit cards.
Essential Must-Avoid Gift List
Most gift lists focus on what to buy. Just as important, however, is avoiding gifts that are useless or annoying, or that, worst of all, will wind up featured on some Worst Gift You Ever Received discussion.