Mashable reports that a new online social network has started up for folks who are into all things fashionable: 2Threads. 2Threads has grown from an email newsletter on fashion to an inclusive social networking site that allows people to display their latest designs, or comment on designs by others, by posting pictures, videos and blog entries.
There are some nice elements tailored to the fashion crowd, such as sections on individual profiles to list your fans (people following you) and inspirations (people you follow). And users can add images to the Images, Looks and Style sections of their profile, which automatically scroll when others visit your profile – your own perpetual online fashion parade.
The luxury magazine Robb Report has launched its own luxury brand investment fund, Trendhunter reports.
Joining forces with financial services company Claymore Securities, Robb Report is putting its theory to the test that luxury goods are nearly inflation proof. And it makes a certain amount of sense – what billionaire is going to stop buying the latest Bentley or Gulfstream private jet, just because they dropped a few million at the casino last night?
“The underlying demand for luxury goods and services has been growing due to the growth of the ultra-high-net-worth consumer base,” Christian Magoon, senior managing director at Claymore says, according to Trendhunter. “There was not really a luxury packaged product in the [United States] to act as that.”
Red Hat, the world’s biggest vendor of free, open source software Linux, will release a pre-installed desktop version of Linux globally in September targeted primarily at small business users, iTWire reports.
The new Linux desktop platform, called Red Hat Global Desktop, performs a similar role on your PC to Windows, and will initially be available on cheap unbranded PCs driven by Intel hardware. The key idea is to provide a PC and software package that does the job for a lower price than other products now on the market.
“We have partnered with Intel to deliver Global Desktop via their vast channel of system builders because the reality is that most of the world buys from whitebox vendors,” the Red Hat’s site states. “Whitebox vendors are in a position to better understand this market’s needs, what they can afford and then deliver that solution.”
Online advertising spending in the US is expected to overtake newspaper advertising in terms of value by 2011, according to a report on the media sector by Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) reported in the Financial Times.
VSS forecasts that online advertising will grow by more than 21% to reach $US62 billion in 2011, when it will overtake the $US60 billion newpaper advertising in the US is expected to be worth by that time.
It’s not all bad news for old-tech however: broadcast, cable and satellite television will continue to take the biggest share of advertising dollars, forecast to reach $US86 billion in 2011.
The shift in advertising spending from traditional media to online and digital alternatives is taking place at a faster rate at other places around the globe, with some forecasters predicting newspaper advertising to be overtaken by online spending in Britain and Sweden this year, according to the Financial Times.
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