Qualities Americans Desire in the Opposite Sex
The top traits people find most desirable in the opposite sex are being "Affectionate and sensitive" and having "a good sense of humor." See the following chart for details.

[Back to Index]

Webby Awards for Best Web Sites
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences has been honoring the design, creativity, usability and functionality of web sites since 1996. Here are a few of the 2004 winners.

[Back to Index]

[Back to Index]

The Changing Rules for Advertising
According to The Center for Emotional Marketing, there are five entrenched rules for advertising that contribute to lackluster results. Recommendations include dropping those rules and replacing them with new principles more suited to today's marketplace.

[Back to Index]

Entertainment Media Trends
While the US has seen a 31% increase in population between 1978 and 2003, sales or viewership of the most popular entertainment media have not kept up. 

• Some 39% fewer people went to see the year's biggest movie in 2003 than in 1978. 
• The best-selling music recording of the year sold 60% fewer copies in 2003 than it did in 1978. 
• In 2003, 14% more people watched the Super Bowl than in 1978, but the 2003 telecast reached a smaller percentage of the US population than the 1978 game. 
• The number of households watching the most popular broadcast television series of 2003-2004 season was 47% lower than it was in the 1978-1979 season.

Women-owned Businesses On the Rise
Business ownership among women in general is growing at nearly twice the rate (17%) as all businesses (9%), according to a report published by the Center for Women's Business Research. The study also found that the number of businesses owned by minority women - historically the smallest segment of entrepreneurship in the U.S. - is growing at six times the rate of all private companies. Since 1997, the number of businesses owned by minority women grew 54.6%. African-American women saw a 32.5% jump, while Hispanics, Asians, and Pacific Islanders; and Native Americans and Alaska Natives, each showed increases of 60%. The highest estimated growth for companies owned by minority women (55.8%) was in the service sector.
[Back to Index]

Technology Trends Forecast
The recent annual "Top 10 Technology Trends" event in Silicon Valley featured a panel of tech industry experts who predict the following changes.

[Back to Index]

Search Engine Optimization Key for B2B Companies
Search Engine Optimization, also called natural search, is where a web site's content and unseen tags are optimized to appeal to search engine spiders. Only 54% of business-to-business companies optimize their sites at all or do so at least nominally. This is unfortunate since these companies may find their position in search results to be even more critical than consumer goods companies. This is because they have longer sales cycles, where prospects are anonymously gathering information on solutions to chronic or complicated challenges. Business-to-business customers often look for companies considered industry experts, and being listed in natural results gives the company added credibility. 

According to OneUpWeb, of the business-to-business companies that optimize their sites, 19% are doing it well and as a result, appear on the first three pages of Google and Yahoo!. Another 35% are doing a "moderate" job.
[Back to Index]

Consumers' Decreased Trust in Businesses
Eight in 10 Americans think that businesses are too concerned about making a profit and not concerned enough about their responsibilities to workers, consumers and the environment. Almost two-thirds of these people say that even well known, long-established companies can't be trusted to make safe durable products without government guidelines, and 44% would like to see more government regulation of business. 

Almost one-half (45%) of consumers report that there is at least one retail business that they once trusted, but no longer do. Most of these consumers (94%) say they spend less money with that company now than in the past.
[Back to Index]

Health Insurance Coverage Drops
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the proportion of Americans covered by employment-based health benefits dropped to 64.1% in 2002 from 70.1% in 1987. Several factors affect this including the rising cost of providing health benefits and a decreasing number of workers who find their part of the premiums prohibitively expensive. 

Approximately 81.8 million Americans (one in three people under age 65) were uninsured at some point during 2002-2003. About 31.7 million were uninsured for at least 12 months.

[Back to Index]

Seniors Increasingly Look to Web for Health Information
Currently, 5.5 million seniors in the US use the Internet to find health information, and so do eight times as many future seniors (people between the ages of 45 and 65). Analysts, assuming these 40 million people continue their online activity as they age, expect huge market growth over the next 15-20 years for senior's online healthcare information and services.
[Back to Index]

US Lags Behind in Working Conditions Affecting Families and Children
America has a good track record on the right to work, which includes equitable opportunity for all racial and ethnic groups, men and women, regardless of age or disability. However, it lags behind other countries when it comes to working conditions especially in areas that affect families and children. The chart below highlights several of these areas for improvement.

[Back to Index]

Biometric Technologies Use in Healthcare Organizations
In response to the need for greater security within healthcare organizations, many are adopting biometric technologies to provide patient information access to doctors and other employees. Biometrics involves the biological identification of a person based on the structure or action of physical characteristics such as fingerprints, hand geometry, irises, the face, voice responses and handwritten signatures. 

Worldwide use of biometric technologies is expected to grow rapidly during the next four years, from revenues of $50 million in 2004 to almost $200 million in 2008. The most common technologies in use today within the healthcare industry are iris, fingerprint and hand geometry.
[Back to Index]