Report: Teens’ interest in Facebook wanes | FastCasual.com

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FacebookInvestment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. has released its 26th semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” consumer insights project, which pointed to a sequential sign of spending moderation and tempered intent to spend across multiple categories and household income levels.

“Our fall 2013 survey results suggest teens are experiencing general spending fatigue across key categories, specifically fashion related items. The absence of a clear product catalyst is a key contributing factor to diminished spending proclivity. Intent to spend also moderated, despite over two-thirds of teens signaling confidence the economy is stable to improving,” Steph Wissink, co-director of research and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, said in a news release. “We are also observing trends that imply teens are browsing regularly on their mobile devices, shopping less frequently and engaging with brands ‘on demand’ on their own time. This dynamic alters the assumptions surrounding the square footage and retail inventory needed to service this target demographic. A period of rationalization may be needed.”

Some findings from the survey include:

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Think You Can Live Offline Without Being Tracked? Heres What It Takes | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

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Obey-LOTUS-ORNAMENT-Gold“Every time you upload a photograph to Facebook or put one on Twitter for that matter you are now ratting out anybody in that frame to any police agency in the world that’s looking for them,” digital privacy advocate Eben Moglen told BetaBeat last year during a rant against one of its reporters. “Some police agencies in the world are evil. That’s a pretty serious thing you’ve just done.”

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3 Food Tips to Help You Sleep Better | Eating Well

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Learn how to get a better night’s sleep with these 3 tips to beat insomnia.

Relaxation techniques, like deep breathing, getting into a “bedtime routine” of winding down, even journaling those stressful thoughts that keep your mind jumping. These tips can all help you sleep but as the associate nutrition editor at EatingWell Magazine and a registered dietitian, I’m also interested in how to use food to beat insomnia.

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How to Start a Killer Restaurant: 6 Tips | Inc.com

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Nearly half of all adults have worked in the restaurant industry at some point, and 46 percent of restaurant employees say they would like to own a restaurant someday.

Clearly many people dream of owning a restaurant.  No one dreams of owning a failed restaurant, though.

That’s why I asked Tyson Cole, one of the Food &Wine magazine’s 2005 Best New Chefs, 2011 James Beard Foundation Best Chef Southwest, and co-owner of the Japanese restaurants Uchi and Uchiko in Austin, Texas, for tips for would-be restaurateurs.

Just keep in mind Cole’s background is varied, extensive–and unusual.He quit one job after he was told he couldn’t make sushi because he was white; he was rehired two days later but told he had to work in the back where guests couldn’t see him. He was also fired for giving a guest a free dessert; he was rehired when the manager found out the guest was Denzel Washington.

Heres what he says, in his own words, about how to start a successful restaurant:

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green driving tips | greenercars.org

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Driving Green

Buying green is just the first step in reducing the environmental impacts of automobile use. Your choice of vehicle is most important, but how you drive and how well you maintain your car, van, or light truck will also make a difference.

  • Avoid \”jack rabbit\” starts and aggressive driving. Flooring the gas pedal not only wastes gas, it leads to drastically higher pollution rates. One second of high-powered driving can produce nearly the same volume of carbon monoxide emissions as a half hour of normal driving.
  • Think ahead. Try to anticipate stops and let your vehicle coast down as much as possible. Avoid the increased pollution, wasted gas, and wear on your brakes created by accelerating hard and braking hard.
  • Follow the speed limit! Driving 75 mph instead of 65 mph will lower your fuel economy by about 10 percent, and can dramatically increase tailpipe pollution in many vehicles.
  • When possible, plan your trips to avoid rush hour. Stop-and-go driving burns gas and increases emissions of smog-forming pollutants.
  • Combine trips. Warmed-up engines and catalysts generate much less air pollution, so combining several short trips into one can make a big difference.
  • Take a load off. Carrying around an extra 100 pounds reduces fuel economy by about 1 percent. Take a few moments to unload your cargo area.

Read More Tips.

Leveraging the Razorblade Business Model | getentrepreneurial.com

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Gillette sits as #18 on Forbes’ Most Powerful Brands list. How does a company that sells disposable razorblades for mere pennies on the dollar have a value of $16.8 billion dollars?

It’s because they leveraged what we now know as the razorblade model of business.

The business came about due to the creation of a disposable safety razor which coincidentally required the use of the blades made by whom? Gillette.

The basic principle of the razorblade model is to leverage a lower priced item (often labeled as a loss leader) in hopes that the customer comes back to your business which offers a premium component to said item. The lower-tiered item should, in theory, be valuable in its own sense but having access to the premium product increases its value and longevity, for the consumer.

These types of businesses have become commonplace.

Take a look at the printing industry which has a stronghold on printing supplies. Keurig, too, has a dominant share on the single cup brewing industry thanks to the inexpensive machine but premium priced K-cups.

The truth is that every business has an opportunity to uncover and leverage the razorblade model.

The following will provide a few tips (and examples) to do so.

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