http://blog.flurry.com/bid/92719/Christmas-2012-Shatters-More-Smart-Device-and-App-Download-Records
"On Christmas Day, activations soared to more than 17.4 million, a 332% increase over the December baseline. By comparison, Christmas Day 2011 held the previous single-day record, having reached 6.8 million device activations. Christmas 2012 is more than 2.5 times larger than Christmas 2011, which surpassed its own baseline by more than 300%."
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http://mobile.france24.com/en/20121211-french-bakery-old-yesterday-baguette
" The baguette, a prized symbol of French identity and considered sacred by French chefs, is usually considered spoilt the day after it has been baked, and generally thrown away. According to Le Parisien, even the sales assistant working in the shop joked that day-old bread is considered the "anti-Christ" in France, but that the shop was nonetheless proving popular in a city that is one of the worst-hit by the country's financial crisis."
"I suppose that this entire exercise was rendered a bit obsolete the moment Starbucks decided to join forces with Green Mountain behind the K-Cup format. It would be nice to imagine some consortium of high-end roasters getting behind the Bunn paper pod solution and doing the coffee part of that program right, but that seems unlikely, as does Peet's managing to promote some alternative to K-Cups. Unless Nestlé foments an unlikely success with its so far rather undercoffee-ed and poorly distributed Dolce Gusto system, it looks like a coffee future in which consumers with enough time for quality continue to brew their coffees in traditional ways while the no-time-now set brews their drip-style coffee from K-Cups and their espresso from Nespresso or competing capsules. Not a bad outcome, I suppose, given the quality of these two programs. At least quality prevailed in single-serve, unlike Starbucks' apparent triumph with VIA instant coffee, a success that only can be attributable to a combination of shrewd marketing and mass sensory hallucination." |
" "We don't think Whitman has two years to show substantial progress. With money burning holes in the pockets of private equity funds and HP's problems now more transparent to investors, we would not be surprised to see someone attempt to unlock value," Milunovich said."
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