Business Management - Industry Trends
July 17, 2012
The latest RFID market research from IDTechEx finds that, in 2012, the value of the entire RFID market will be $7.46 billion, up from $6.37 billion in 2011. This includes tags, readers and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs and all other form factors.
July 17, 2012
The printing industry is very much a closed network, an insular community dominated by those who have worked in it for decades. The longstanding relationships that form within it provide lots of benefits, but this type of network encourages groupthink.
July 16, 2012
I sit at an unusual junction of media convergence. This “cruel crossroads,” as I call it, includes creative, marketing, print and education. There is a need for collaboration across these and many other channels to achieve profit and business success for all today.
July 16, 2012
In June, Valassis (VCI)—it delivers advertisements and coupons—bought Brand.net, an online display, video and mobile advertising platform. Management believes this acquisition will help Valassis widen its existing reach and adapt its “old school” direct mail business to the digital world.
July 11, 2012
The scientists say that their white LEDs can be applied to any sheet of paper or plastic that’s been treated with a water-sealing layer of resin called cyclotene. What’s more, the powder-based process could be mass produced using a printing press.
Flat, flexible lighting could be used in a multitude of applications including actual uniform soft-boxes for photography, flexible and thinner screens, less terrible LED advertisements at New York’s Times Square, and a real Tron light suit.
The group of scientists is currently trying to secure a patent for the printing process.
July 5, 2012
It seems as though American holidays, like our American waistlines, have become super-sized. I’m all for a little R&R from time to time, but I do find it peculiar that during a time when many across the world question America’s ability to maintain its global dominance, we’ve become accepting of something less than our founding Protestant work ethic.
July 3, 2012
There’s a universal theme to paper road maps, especially for baby boomers traveling after retirement, said Kevin Nursick, spokesman for Connecticut’s transportation department. Paper maps, he said, offer an experience that dead batteries and unreliable service connections cannot.
July 1, 2012
Paper pricing has been affected in the past few years by a general decrease in demand for printed products, which affects all paper types and grades. Within the market, however, complex dynamics play out as supply adjusts and demand shifts in the wake of price fluctuations.
June 28, 2012
Is threatening to torch books the only way we can get people to care about them anymore? In order to save the books, they had to threaten to burn them. At least, that’s the story told by Leo Burnett Worldwide…A ballot measure was up before the Troy (MI) electorate last summer, seeking a local property tax increase to cover the operating costs of the library. Without the funds, the city council maintained, the library would have to be closed.
June 25, 2012
Readers can’t survive on e-books alone, says author Richard Russo. The latest work from the Pulitzer-winning Russo, “Interventions,” is a tribute to the printed book, while taking a backhanded jab at electronic books and online bookselling. It’s not for sale in electronic version.
“Interventions” is a collection of four separate volumes that are packaged in a slipcase, each work coming with a postcard-sized color print of a painting by Russo’s daughter, Kate. The collection, three short stories and a novella, is published on high-quality sustainably harvested paper.
“It’s the idea of buying locally,” Russo said. “I think there’s a groundswell of people
