David Lidsky's Blog, page 4665

Seattle's Best Coffee Logo Is a Blend of the Bland

In the spirit of full disclosure, I confess that I drank my last cup of coffee 35 years ago. So I shouldn't care about the re-branding of a legacy Seattle coffee merchant. However, the new logo introduced last week by Seattle's Best Coffee deserves a branding taste test.

Seattle's Best is a subsidiary of Starbucks that offers, according to CEO Howard Schultz, a "more approachable taste profile for a mainstream market." Evidence of this is the fact that company executives plan to...

A Smartphone Payment App? For That There's MasterCard

Piqued by Visa's latest efforts at contactless payment goodness with an iPhone case, MasterCard really wants in on the same game. Only the card for "everything else" wants developers to actually write apps for it, leveraging proprietary tech.

MasterCard's announcement, made today, is less technologically advanced than Visa's system, but possibly more intriguing: Something akin to PayPal's trick last year, MasterCard is actually opening up its custom financial code to developers. With access...

Let's Get Physical: WeReward, Loopt, Others Push Users Into Real Stores

Ted Murphy looks at a soda can and sees an opportunity for people to make money. And not by returning the empties to collect a nickel. Instead, the CEO of IZEA sees people snapping photos of their beverages with their iPhones and collecting points through his new program WeRewards.

"You take a picture of yourself with the product, and you earn points," Murphy tells FastCompany.com. "It's almost like an instant coupon." But the points can add up to equal cold, hard cash.

He sees partners...

Meth, Porn, Guns, Graft at Agency Overseeing Gulf Oil Companies: Interior Department Report

The Minerals Management Service, the federal agency responsible for all offshore oil and gas regulation, has dined, partied, fired off shotguns, hunted, golfed, and shared Web porn -- and in a couple of cases even done cocaine and meth -- with employees of the very companies they're supposed to be regulating, according to a newly released Interior Department report.

The Department of Interior investigative report (PDF) describes transportation to college football games on offshore oil...

Embattled Facebook Turns Three: Worst. Birthday. Ever.

The Facebook platform turns three today. While that might seem young, the sight has grown like a company four or five times its age. In just one year the site's users have doubled, from 225 to 500 million--with many simply unaware of just how available their personal details are to the world. More than a growth spurt, Facebook's toddler years are starting to feel more like a midlife crisis.

It all started yesterday morning. As Facebook prepared to mark its milestone, Mark Zuckerberg was...

10 Most Creative Entertainers

For all it lacks in originality—what with the movie sequels and TV remakes and pop hits "sampling" their predecessors—the entertainment industry is profoundly creative. Look no further than the following 10 producers, creators, and composers, all of whom were recognized on our 2009 Most Creative People in Business list. Like all great entertainers, they've spent the past year doing what they do best: Making people watch, listen, ponder—and purchase.

Nendo's New Issey Miyake Store: Skewering Fashion

Ultra-thin, steel-rod displays are part menacing, part "prairie grass."

Last year,
we told you about Nendo's ultralight mobile display furniture for some
inexpensive(ish) Issey Miyake stores in Tokyo. Six months on, the
disgustingly talented Japanese design firm unveils a new concept:
Fashion on pins and needles.

The displays -- for a shop in Tokyo's ur-trendy Shibuya area -- are
designed to show off Miyake's Bilbao bag, an unstructured little
confection that doesn't hang so much as it...

Seattle's Best Coffee Logo is a Blend of the Bland

In the spirit of full disclosure, I confess that I drank my last cup of coffee 35 years ago. So I shouldn't care about the re-branding of a legacy Seattle coffee merchant. However, the new logo introduced last week by Seattle's Best Coffee deserves a branding taste test.

Seattle's Best is a subsidiary of Starbucks that offers, according to CEO Howard Schultz, a "more approachable taste profile for a mainstream market." Evidence of this is the fact that company executives plan to...

Infographic of the Day: America's Growing Heroin Problem

As smugglers grow more sophisticated, the drug is flooding into America.

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Heroin is, apparently, roaring back to life in America. Deadly, ultra-pure black tar heroin has flooded the U.S.--a $10 bag can kill a person immediately. And it's effects aren't limited to shooting galleries and street corners. A multi-million dollar trafficking ring was just busted in the wealthy enclave of the Hamptons, where a 21-year-old former cheerleader was caught distributing baggies branded to the target...

How to Invest In... India

Based in Bangalore, Sachin Maheshwari is a principal with Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). Founded in 1985, DFJ has backed such companies as Skype, Feedburner, Hotmail, and Baidu. DFJ India's investments have been in early and mid-stage companies in India's cleantech, IT, mobile, and consumer/media sectors. Maheshwari has an MBA from the Wharton Business School and has a background in wireless products and software.

When did venture capitalists start investing money in India?