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TAKE NOTE
INSTANT REVIEWS
Retailers across the country are learning quickly that providing a customer comment and review section to their Internet sites can help promote their products, increase sales and bring in new customers.
User-generated reviews are a natural outgrowth of how consumers use Web sites to research products before buying. In April, a report from eVOC Insights and RelevantView shows more than 85 percent of consumers use the Web to research big-ticket purchaces.
PowerReviews, a California-based provider of this online service to retailers, reports 40 clients with live review sections online now with 20 more set to go by the end of the year.
iNDIVIDUAL iN-FLIGHT MOVIES
At last report, more than 70 percent of 2007 model U.S. automobiles offer iPod connections, and now airlines are getting into the act.
Apple Computer Inc. announced in November a deal with six airlines to allow passengers to watch videos stored on the devices from seat-back monitors. Passengers also will be able to charge their iPods in flight while they are watching videos. The new service is expect to be availble mid-year.
STILL LIVING ON THE EDGE
They may be in their 80s, but 12 revolutionaries in California are still setting their own terms. A dozen old friends in Davis, CA, have created Glacier Circle, the country’s first self-planned housing development for the elderly.
The residents conceived and designed the communal living idea themselves. In fact, they found and bought land together, hired an architect together, took out insurance together and lobbied for a zoning change together.
The result is eight individual townhouses grouped around an inner courtyard. Coming soon will be a common house with a living room, a large kitchen and a dining room for communal dinners.
With millions of Baby Boomers moving toward retirement, gerontologists and developers are looking to communal housing for the elderly with growing interest, building on this generation's mythology that already includes communes and college dormitories.
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