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February 08, 2012

Amazon to open real-world store this year: report

Amazon doesn’t need any PR bumps, but let’s give it one anyway, shall we?

A_com_logo_RGBMy favourite Amazon story goes like this: one weeknight in 2010, I caught a late-night showing of The Social Network. Certainly, it was the year’s best movie, and so inspired was I that I came home and said, Hey, I oughtta read the book that was made from.

So sometime after midnight, well into the a.m., I placed an order for Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires.” Before the end of the next work day, it was at my door.

I’m not a paid Amazon advocate, just a fan of its convenience. So why, then, would a service as punctual as the web retailer actually open its own bricks-and-mortar store?

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Posted at 12:36 PM in Consumer news, Current affairs, Shopping | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 10, 2012

Woman caught selling fake Facebook shares in Wisc.

The Facebook IPO, unlike Facebook itself, isn’t for everyone.

Facebook_logoIt’s investing, it’s complicated and, more importantly, it’s not even here yet.

No, despite everyone knowing about the social network’s public offering, some aren’t aware bits of Facebook won’t actually be for sale until the spring.

That’s a dangerous combo, then, considering one woman’s recently been going around selling what she claims is Facebook stock.

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Posted at 12:03 PM in Consumer news, Current affairs | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

February 07, 2012

Walmart expanding big in Canada ... thanks to Target

Last spring was supposed to be Research In Motion’s grand hurrah into the tablet sector.

Rx4075_6bfi8bfj8efrrq8zfpni8tyfhxxxxxx8u9fi87fdk8atfxs3aw8tufhxxxxxxIn May, though it was a bit late to the party already, RIM was finally to unveil its PlayBook, not only the answer to the iPad but rejuvenation for a company that’s BlackBerry market share had started to wane.

Well, what happened? Ahead of the PlayBook’s Apr. 19 release date, Apple swooped in and rushed its iPad 2 to stores by Mar. 11 (Mar. 25 in Canada), completely undercutting the RIM tablet and stamping out any momentum it hoped to build up.

What’s the point? American retailer Target, as you know, is coming to Canada next year after much hullabaloo, so Walmart, of course, is hoping to go all iPad 2 on ‘em.

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Posted at 12:48 PM in Consumer news, Current affairs | | Comments (23) | TrackBack (0)

February 03, 2012

Are retailers paying for positive online reviews?

As someone who writes online, supplying text that hangs ever so precariously above a comments box, I get the perils of web reviews.

1280072_keyboardCertainly, I’m not the most popular man on the Internet (“Jason Buckland is an idiot,” I believe, read one succinct reply to a post here), but I’m not selling anything. Positive reviews are not a requisite of my job.

So it’s under that premise, then, that I feel for online retailers. In the anonymous realm of the Internet, where anyone with an IP address can rip anything or anyone freely without consequence, how you could ever hope for positive feedback is beyond me.

Unless you’re truly curing cancer with a product, or you’ve earned carte blanche like Apple, who could release an “Eff You, Customers” special edition iPad and still have people camp out, people are going to rip it, and they’re going to rip it hard.

But have some sellers actually resorted to paying customers for positive reviews?

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Posted at 10:54 AM in Buying behaviour, Current affairs | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 02, 2012

The $200 million Facebook paint job

A few years back, I did some painting for my father’s company. Actually, it must have been more than a decade ago, come to think of it, but I was awarded at least a reasonable wage: about $12 an hour.

205075_paint_bucketPops, I was underpaid.

Indeed, the story that’s making every California tradesmen weep today is that of David Choe, a painter who was hired by Facebook in 2005 to decorate its first headquarters in Palo Alto.

Okay, Choe isn’t just a painter – he’s a self-described bad boy graffiti artist – but his story is nauseating nonetheless. In exchange for decorating and painting Facebook’s office six-plus years ago, he was given the choice of cash or stock in the company.

Well, guess which one he took.

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Posted at 01:06 PM in Current affairs | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

February 01, 2012

Is your job application being swallowed up by tracking software?

Have you ever applied to a job online?

Stock-photo-15624810-resumeYou might have – some 800,000 Canadians were without job at last check – and found that it’s a mystifying enterprise. Seven, eight times out of ten, you’d have to guess, an applicant spends an hour on his application, uploading résumés, filling out blank fields and writing a custom cover letter, only to send it off and that be that.

You click send, you never hear again.

Time and time again this has either happened to you or someone you know, and there’s a reason: most every company worth its salt these days uses an applicant-tracking software, which automatically sifts applications based on keywords and formatting.

Here’s how to ensure your job application doesn’t get lost in the tracking “black hole.”

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Posted at 10:23 AM in Career, Current affairs, Workplace | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 31, 2012

Watch for the Valentine's Day scam that'll empty your wallet

We all know Valentine’s Day is a nonsense holiday, a venture in commercialism more egregious than even what Christmas has become by 2012.

910632_-suffering-Of course, it’s also a terrible punch in the gut for singles and widows each year, which is why this story is just that much nastier.

As if Valentine’s Day wasn’t rough enough, now the lonely have to watch out for scams designed to tug on both their heartstrings and purse strings.

And if you’re not careful, the prospect of romance might just leave you swindled this year.

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Posted at 12:28 PM in Consumer news, Current affairs, Scams | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

January 30, 2012

A look at Super Bowl ticket prices through the years

The worst-kept secret in sports may revolve around Super Bowl tickets, which advertise a face value but usually sell for two, three, four times that figure.

Stock-photo-18035464-tailgating-male-trying-to-sell-ticketsThis year, certainly, will be no different: tickets for Sunday’s game in Indianapolis technically cost between $800 to $1,200, but only a select number of fans get the chance to buy them for that.

Instead, provided you’re not a Colts season ticket holder, league sponsor or other VIP, your charge for going to the Super Bowl this year should came at an average clip somewhere between $2,800 and $3,623, according to new reports from StubHub and Ticket Exchange.

That’s a lot, but how does it stack up against prices from Super Bowl’s past?

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Posted at 12:26 PM in Consumer news, Current affairs, Sports | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

January 26, 2012

Facebook pays best in Silicon Valley: report

Employment at firms in Silicon Valley and other California locales are the stuff of legend.

Facebook_logoIf it’s not outrageous perks, like the lounge-style offices Google’s known for around the world, it’s an ultra secretive, privacy-obsessed business culture like the one that’s been reported at Apple.

But who pays the most?

We know that, for better or worse, California’s tech jobs are as coveted as they come, though which big name employers pay its employees best?

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Posted at 01:25 PM in Compensation, Current affairs | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Is it right to deny asylum seekers access to legal aid?

Mimicking a similar exodus from the Czech Republic a couple of years ago, Canada has been witnessing a sharp spike in applications for refugee status from Hungarian Roma families visiting Canada.

AdUntil recently, legal aid used to regularly approve funding of around $3,000 to Roma claimants to hire lawyers to argue their cases at the Immigration and Refugee Board.

But, according to one immigration lawyer, that’s no longer the case. And he thinks that’s more than unfair.

The issue of Roma asylum seekers has become contentious in recent years, particularly after Immigration Minister Jason Kenney chose to label many of the claims "bogus", leading to a threat of class action suit from various Roma asylum seekers.

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Posted at 01:01 PM in Current affairs, Immigration, Legal affairs | | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

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AUTHORS
Gordon PowersGordon Powers

A long-time fund company executive, Gordon Powers now heads up the Affinity Group, a financial services consulting firm. Gordon was a personal finance columnist for the Globe & Mail for many years, has taught retirement planning...

Jason BucklandJason Buckland

The modern-day MC Hammer of money, Jason can often be seen spending cash that isn’t his with the efficiency of a Wilt Chamberlain first date. After cutting his teeth as a reporter for the Toronto Sun, he joined the MSN Money team with...

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