Nice crowd
at second WWJ-GLITR Laptop Lunch gets social media tips
A crowd of about 60 got the word
on promoting their businesses with social media for the second in WWJ's
Laptop Lunch series at Mr. B's in Royal Oak. Brandon Chesnutt of Identity
Marketing and Public Relations told the crowd "How to Think Like
a Social Media Cowboy," given that today's social media are the
online equivalent of the Wild West. First, Chesnutt said, focus on strategy,
not technology. Figure out who you're trying to reach and what you're
trying to get them to do long before you post that first tweet on Twitter
or before you create that company fan site on Facebook. More.
Former
spam king pleads guilty He was once known as the
world's most notorious spammer, but Monday the West Bloomfield Township
man accused of sending millions of spam e-mails to create excitement
about Chinese stocks has pleaded guilty in a plea bargain. The government
says Alan Ralsky, who was once known as the "King of Spam,"
made $3 million in summer 2005 by trading in and out of Chinese stocks
on U.S. exchanges. Ralsky pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and money
laundering in federal court in Detroit. He was one of 11 people indicted
last year. A federal law bans use of misleading subject lines and the
sending of commercial e-mail messages that appear to be from friends.
Ralsky's plea deal says prosecutors probably will recommend a prison
sentence of 35 months to 43 months. More.
Bad
link in Leader and Innovator item We've been having trouble with our links
lately due to phantom HTML being put into GLITR by an e-mail program.
Still, that's no excuse for Patricia Nemeth, founding partner Nemeth
Burwell P.C. in Detroit, to lose her link, and thus part of her moment
in the sun, when she was named the Lawrence Technological University
Leader and Innovator of the week Tuesday in GLITR. So here's the correct
link, where you can find the leader every week: http://www.ltu.edu/leaders.
Online Tech
launches cost-effective SAN disaster recovery hosting In conjunction with upcoming
Dell seminars at its data centers, Ann Arbor-based Online Tech, Michigan's
largest managed data center operator, has launched a SAN Disaster Recovery
Package. Online Tech will host a secondary SAN at its secure SAS70 certified
data centers, including Internet connectivity, for $399 per month. At
the EqualLogic seminar this week, Dell will demonstrate SAN-to-SAN replication
between two Online Tech data centers. The EqualLogic SANs were set up
in less than one hour with the primary SAN replicating data, snapshots,
and restoration points to the secondary SAN for disaster recovery at
a separate data center. More.
Borders,
Astronomy magazine, Kennedy Space Center launch contest Oh, you knew your space geek narrator would
be all over this: In celebration
of the 40th Anniversary of man's first steps on the Moon, Ann Arbor-based
Borders has teamed with Astronomy magazine and Kennedy Space Center
Visitor Complex for the "Train Like an Astronaut" Sweepstakes.
From now through July 27, customers can visit www.borders.com/moon or
astronomy.com and enter for a chance to win a four-day trip to Kennedy
Space Center Visitor Complex located just east of Orlando, Fla. More.
TiE Detroit plans bigger, better convention in October
The Detroit chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs
is growing beyond its Asian Indian roots with a new meaning for its
acronym -- and with a bigger and better TieCon Midwest planned for this
October.
In an interview with the IT Report, TiE-Detroit
president Tel K. Ganesan said the organization is now marketing TiE
as "Talent, Innovation, Entrepreneurship."
And all of those attributes will be on display at
the second annual TiECon Midwest 2009 conference, set for Friday and
Saturday, Oct. 23 and 24 at the Ritz Carlton Dearborn.
"We believe TiECon will be the stimulus
package for Michigan this year," Ganesan said.
Ganesan said he got some advice to skip a second
straight TiECon given economic conditions, but that he believes it's
"more important than ever this year" to have a session inspiring
entrepreneurship.
The event will feature selection of the TiE 50 hottest
startup companies in the classifications of software, wireless, clean
tech, life sciences and media. There will also be a startup boot camp,
a business plan competition and a women entrepreneurs forum.
Besides keynotes, there will also be session tracks
in clean tech, health care, IT and emerging markets.
Registration is available at www.detroit.tie.org
and the event is also actively seeking sponsors.
Ganesan said last year's TiECon attracted a crowd
of 500, and the group is hoping to double that this year.
Note: For information on how you can sponsor content in the Blue Box, contact Jeff Lasser at (248) 455-7319 or
jeff.lasser@cbsradio.com
New online
company aims to help with prescription costs As more and more Americans
are struggling to cope with the rising cost of health care, a new Troy-based
online company is providing a method of saving on their prescription
drug costs, at no cost to consumers. Medtipster, at www.medtipster.com,
is a new search engine with a national database of generic drugs on
discount programs. By typing in their drug, dosage and zip code on medtipster.com,
consumers can search for pharmacies that carry the generic equivalent
of their medication at a discount, often for $4 or less. More.
Oakwood, foundation bring soldier in Iraq live video of birth
Thanks to the efforts of Oakwood
Hospital & Medical Center along with the Freedom Calls Foundation,
Lance Corporal Nicholas Jevahirian, a marine stationed in Al Asad, Iraq,
was able to witness and participate in the birth of his child from the
front lines on Monday. Iraq’s lack of a technology infrastructure
has made it difficult for servicemen and women to keep in contact with
their families, but Freedom Calls has an established a satellite communication
system they have been using to keep families like Lance Corporal Jevahirian
and his wife Chelsey, both of Taylor, in touch. More.
KVCC
course aims to build working wind turbine from scratch Designing a wind turbine,
fabricating its components, assembling the power-generating unit, and
making certain it produces electricity constitutes the mission of a
new course this fall at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.With no technical
prerequisites or prior knowledge of computer-aided drafting, machining,
welding or electrical technology needed, the eight-credit, multidisciplinary
offering with a lecture-lab format will be open to 20 enrollees on a
first-come, first-served basis. More.
THE WORLD IN TECH
TJX reaches
settlement in data breach case The parent company of retailers
T.J. Maxx and Marshall's will pay $9.75 million in a settlement with
multiple states related to a massive data theft that exposed tens of
millions of payment card numbers. Framingham, Mass.-based TJX Cos. said
Tuesday it will pay $2.5 million to create a data security fund for
states as well as a settlement amount of $5.5 million and $1.75 million
to cover expenses related to the states' investigations. But TJX stressed
that it "firmly believes" that it did not violate any consumer
protection or data security laws. The breach -- disclosed in January
2007 -- and exposed at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards to
possible fraud in the computer systems breach that began in July 2005.
The breach wasn't detected until December 2006. More.
MySpace
to cut 300 international positions, close offices Social-networking
site MySpace said Tuesday it plans to cut 300 jobs, or two-thirds of
its overseas work force, in an effort to rein in costs and focus on
countries where it has many users and better business opportunities.
The move comes a week after the News Corp. unit said it would cut 420
jobs in the U.S., or nearly 30 percent of its domestic work force. Combined,
the cuts will reduce MySpace's employee base by nearly 40 percent to
about 1,150. "Our goal to tap into as many international markets
as possible drove us to create too many offices around the globe, and
with them came inefficiencies," Chief Executive Owen Van Natta,
a former executive at rival Facebook, said in a memo sent to employees
Tuesday. More.
Intel,
Nokia to work together on pocket computer projects
Intel Corp. and Nokia Corp. said Tuesday
they're joining forces to build better technology for smart phones and
other mobile Internet devices. The deal is significant for Intel because
it will help the world's biggest maker of PC microprocessors penetrate
the smart phone market, an area Intel sees as crucial for growth. Intel
now makes smaller, lower-power chips for devices like "netbooks"
- stripped-down laptops that do less and cost less. The company wants
its chips used in other devices that act as computers, like smart phones
made by Nokia. Nokia gets Intel's agreement to license modem technology
from Nokia and build it into future Intel chips. More.
Three
plead guilty in BetOnSports online gambling case Three
former executives of the online sports gambling Web site BetOnSports,
including two of the company founder's siblings, pleaded guilty to federal
racketeering charges. Company founder Gary Kaplan's brother and sister
-- Neil Scott Kaplan, 43, and Lori Beth Kaplan-Multz, 48 -- and former
personal assistant, Penelope Ann Tucker, 64, pleaded guilty Monday to
racketeering charges in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. All three
agreed to forfeit money held in Swiss Bank accounts. For the siblings,
that is expected to amount to millions of dollars. Formal sentencing
is Sept. 15. None of the three are expected to serve jail time. More.
Stocks:
Tech stocks gain, but Nasdaq still slips for the week Investors are holding off
making big moves while they wait for the Federal Reserve. Stocks ended
little changed Tuesday, a day after the major indexes had their worst
day in two months. Traders are looking for the central bank at its two-day
meeting ending Wednesday to outline its expectations for the economy
and signal when it might raise interest rates. Investors reacted coolly
to a report from the National Association of Realtors that May sales
of existing homes rose 2.4 percent. The increase was smaller than economists'
forecast for 2.8 percent, and not enough to alleviate anxiety about
reports later in the week on durable goods orders, new home sales and
personal spending. (More.)
The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP)
fell 1.27 points or 0.1 percent to 1,764.92. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average ($INDU)
fell 16.1 points or 0.2 percent, to 8,322.91. The Philadelphia Semiconductor
Index ($SOX)
fell 0.94 points or 0.4 percent to 253.66. The Morgan Stanley High Tech
35 Index (MSH)
rose 0.99 points or 0.2 percent to 435.43. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical
Index (DRG)
rose 0.69 points or 0.3 percent to 259.05. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index
(BTK)
rose 0.61 points or 0.1 percent to 664.78. Finally, the Standard & Poor's
500 (SPX)
rose 2.06 points or 0.2 percent to 895.1.
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by Matt Roush, Technology Editor, WWJ Newsradio 950, Detroit. GLITR may contain material from the Associated Press, CNET, News.com, MarketWatch.com or Reuters, used by permission. For coverage comments or news tips, e-mail Matt Roush at
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TiE Detroit plans bigger, better convention in October
