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If fertility rates continue at expected levels, the world's population is likely to reach 10.1 billion in the next 90 years. Based on conservative estimates, the number of people in the world should pass 8 billion in 2023, 9 billion by 2041 and 10 billion at some point after 2081.

Ted Turner

Just take a moment to think about that. By 2100, we could have nearly 50% more people on this planet than we did at the beginning of the century, competing for the same food, water, space and attention.

This is thought provoking, as many of us have grown up taught not to think too much of the problems wrought by an expanding population - that we will always have enough food to eat, water to drink, security, etc. However, is there an upper limit from a climate / environmental / humanistic stand point? In every other population on earth there exists these swings of population.

I recently saw a documentary about the redevelopment of a section of Africa where there was a civil war, and almost totally erased the presence of Lions & HIppos. Consequently the catfish population skyrocketed, and they have almost driven out other species, having a ripple effect on the environment.

Humans inhabit the same envionment, and besides the social ramifications, there are other reasons to consider how we're managing the resources that we have at our disposal.

From Information is Beautiful. Larger circles indicate popular supplements. Y-axis indicates clinical evidence of evidence. Higher is better.

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When you hear some marketers talk about Apple, you hear about emotive benefits associated with the brand: the cool design aesthetic, the imagery in the advertising, and the sense of community evoked by seeing people you respect with Apple products. This glosses over the product's most important trait: functionality. Using an Apple product feels so natural, so intuitive, so transparent, that sometimes, even people paid to know what makes products great completely miss the cause of their addiction to Apple products. It's the natural, intuitive transparency of the technology. The superlative product experience comes from an unusual combination of human and technical understanding, and it creates the foundation of all the other positive aspects of the brand.

More about:  Database Marketing  Design Apple  Marketing Direct mail postcards Aesthetic

Here are a few examples of site issues that Google says might be slowing down your site:

• High Priority: Enable Keep-Alive and leverage browser caching.
• Medium Priority: Combine images into CSS sprites and minimize redirects.
• Low Priority: Minify JavaScript and remove query strings from static resources.

Visit google's expirimental speed tool to test your site:

http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/

So, to the results. The summary points are:

1. Prices ending in .99 no longer have any advantage in consumer value perception, and do not lead to higher sales.
2. The optimal penny value varies by country. In the United States, it is .01.

This is from the Inon.com pricing behavior study and shows an interesting result in our over-use of the "$0.99" price point. Consumers have been saturated with the ninety nine cent idea, and are reaching out for price points that make sense - and have almost the same value, but seem more cognitively approachable.

Does this mean that a bit of reason has set in? More likely just plain old cynicism - most now distrust loud marketing hype... but it sets an interesting stage for retailers now to find their newest price point. Maybe retailers will now benefit from making an extra 2 cents on each and every barcode they scan through the check out lane.

In this day and age, when information flows freely and data capture requires the advanced skills of copy and paste, there’s no excuse not to use a CRM for your business. Price isn’t an issue – there are free and low cost systems out there that offer 80%-90% of the functionality of the top end systems. Here are a few options and some of the tradeoffs:

Salesforce.com. Salesforce is the 800 pound gorilla in the world of CRM, and for good reason. It offers an incredible amount of power, but that power comes at a price. Salesforce isn’t cheap (as much as $150/user/month), and it’s a bear to set up well. Out of the box, it’s okay, but it requires extensive configuration and expertise to make it sing. If you do set it up well, however, you will find that Salesforce can make a huge improvement in your business profitability.

I have to totally agree with Chris Penn on his recommendation that businesses of all sizes use a CRM - but not just for one aspect of the business. When you are considering a tool like Salesforce or Zoho CRM or Sugar CRM, think about the breadth of the tool. If you just adopt a software tool for a limited number of users in one department the usefulness of the tool is mitigated. As important as having a CRM is giving access to everyone in your corporate sphere. This may even mean considering ways to share a limited access version of your CRM for your partners and customers. Some information is meant to be shared - and it will hurt your brand if you implement yet another data silo.