move update
Zumbox lines up partner to launch paperless postal service
| June 9th, 2009
Zumbox is announcing a new partner and a new chief executive today to prepare for its launch of a national paperless postal service.
The Westlake Village, Calif.-based company said it has partnered with ALC, a data marketing service provider, to help launch its system, which lets companies send you bills or friends send you correspondence to a digital mailbox, eliminating the need to send paper letters or bills through the U.S. Postal Service. The company came out of stealth mode in February.
Zumbox has also hired Donn Rappaport, ALC’s own CEO, as its new chief executive. Rappaport will remain chairman of ALC, which he founded in 1978. ALC will help Zumbox with sales and marketing. Maury Friedman, founder and chariman of Zumbox, said the moves represent a new stage of growth for the company. Zumbox will start its national service in September.
Zumbox lets you send or receive scanned, physical representations of letters, bills or other things you might normally send via paper mail. You can log into your mailbox at the Zumbox site and then receive digital delivery of your mail.
And you don’t have to put a stamp on anything. For now, it’s free for everyone except advertisers and marketers, who can pay for premium service. Consumers can now view online the mail they wish to receive and the service allows them to access it from anywhere at anytime via the Internet. And the service doesn’t take a day off on Sundays.
Zumbox has created a digital mailbox for every street address in the U.S. So companies can send bills via Zumbox. You open them and they look like scanned versions of the real paper bills. The Zumbox site will let you look at a variety of media in the form of HTML, Flash, audio, and video. Nonprofits, businesses, government entities and consumers can use it for free.
Zumbox mailboxes are secure, since the company uses a closed system with security measures that meet the toughest regulations, such as the medical-record HIPAA law. Users get a secure PIN number, which they receive from Zumbox via paper mail, just to make sure that scammers don’t hijack your mail. The benefit of the closed system is there’s no junk mail. Consumers can still order and use a variety of electronic payment systems. They can also browse through the catalogs they want to see and order goods.
Zumbox will charge advertisers and marketers because it gives them real-time campaign measurement tools that are unavailable through traditional mail. Marketers and advertisers can also send mail to a single address, a mailing list, or a specific geographic region such as all of the homes in a specific zip code.
The company was founded in 2007. It has 33 employees and has raised $4 million from private investors. Rivals include Earth Class Mail, another provider of alternative mail services.
Postal Service has survived past challenges — and it will again
By DAVID BECKER II
Special to the Herald-Journal
Published: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 3:15 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 6:50 p.m.
The Herald-Journal’s recent editorial, “Postal progress,” begged for balance in both logic and facts about the U.S. Postal Service, our employees and customers. Here’s some food for thought for your readers.
While it’s true that the recession and the Internet are contributing to difficult financial circumstances for the Postal Service, the major cause of loss of mail volume and revenue is the economy. Let’s not all throw in the towel and turn to the Internet without considering some important facts:
* The U.S. Postal Service is our nation’s third largest employer; its employees and customers represent a functioning, viable $900 billion economic cornerstone of our economy in a time when jobs are scarce.
* Eight-two percent of Americans still pay their bills by mail.
* Like other American businesses, the Internet has revolutionized customer service for the Postal Service with usps.com providing 80 percent of the services you get at a post office. In 2008, stamp and retail sales at the Postal Store totaled more than $442 million.
* The Postal Service has the largest fleet of alternative fuel vehicles in the nation: 43,000 in all.
* According to the Environmental Protection Agency, advertising mail accounts for less than 2.4 percent of municipal waste in landfills.
* Postal Service Priority and Express packaging is free, eco-friendly and recyclable.
* Thanks to the Postal Inspection Service and the Office of the Inspector General, delivery of your mail is secure.
* Less than 4 percent of identity theft happens through the mail; the remainder comes from illegal computer access of personal information.
* Without the Postal Service providing affordable, universal, surcharge-free prices, private shipping rates would likely skyrocket.
* Is e-mail cheaper than a 44-cent stamp? Consider the cost of the computer, the Internet service provider fee, the power bill and the ongoing equipment upgrades.
* About one-third of our population does not have Internet access.
* Ideas to charge per e-mail already have been considered by Internet service providers. Without a postal alternative, service providers could charge and raise the cost for each e-mail at will.
* Other forms of communication (TV and the Internet) have a considerable negative environmental impact, sending outmoded models to landfills by the millions. According to the National Safety Council, only 11 percent of computers get recycled, and small-time consumers alone add 10 million computers to landfills each year.
From the telegraph to the Internet, new technology has historically caused many predictions of the end of the Postal Service. But because the Postal Service is able to adapt and change to ensure secure, affordable, universal delivery, it has withstood similar threats to serve our country for almost 250 years.
David Becker II is the Spartanburg postmaster.
Summer Postage Sale - well, sort of a sale, no, more like a small rebate
summer sale
To those that are excited about the impending summer postage sale, there are a few details you need to know, first, did you receive a letter from the USPS recently?
Here is what it looks like: summer-sale-electronic-letter
Here are the details:
The USPS has made it official (almost) that they are going forward with the proposed ‘Summer Sale’ event. The PRC must still weigh in with their decision, which is expected in late May, to make this program official. This program would provide a 30% postage credit on mailings submitted between July 1, 2009 and September 30, 2009. This incentive program is designed to increase mailing activity during the usually dormant summer months, when the USPS has their most excess capacity available.
Unlike most sales however, there are a multitude of qualifiers that apply to the Summer Sale.
Who and what qualifies?
For the most part, the USPS has already determined what mailers qualify. Letters were sent out on 5/7/09 to approximately 3,200 mailers whom they determined will be eligible for this program by utilizing the mail volume data that exists within their internal system.
1. This program only applies to Presorted Standard letters and flats.
2. The next qualifier is that you must have mailed a minimum of 1,000,000 pieces during the time period of October 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008. Total volume is calculated by mailer, so even if you utilize multiple permits, your total volume will be calculated across all permits that are associated to your organization. This also applies to “Ghost Numbers”, which are created if your mail is sent through a Mail Service Provider. If you feel you are eligible, but have not received a letter, then you can request a contact by emailing your information to summersale@usps.gov.
If you have met the criteria above, you are ready to begin to calculate the ‘Sale’ portion of the program. The 30% postage credit will be given only on the number of mail pieces that exceed your mailing threshold for the time period of July 1, 2009 to September 30, 2009. The caveat to this all is that your mail volume in October must not fall below your mailing threshold for that month. If this occurs; the total credit accrued from mailings between 7/1/09 to 9/30/09 will be deducted by the amount of pieces that fell below the threshold in October and that will be the final credit. The credit will be issued at some point in December of 2009 once the USPS has completed the above calculations.
How to calculate your potential savings:
Below is an example of how to calculate the savings that you as a mailer may receive through this program. Listed in this example is the all important Threshold, which will be the key to planning your mailings to take advantage of this program.
1. Base volume (7/1/08 – 9/30/08): 500,000 pieces
2. Trend:
a. Volume 10/1/08 – 3/31/09 = 1,800,000 pieces
b. Volume 10/1/07 – 3/31/08 = 2,000,000 pieces
c. a/b = (1,800,000 / 2,000,000) = .90 or 90%
3. Base x trend = Threshold:
500,000 x .90 = 450,000
4. Rebate = (Actual volume – threshold) x (actual postage cost / actual volume) x 30%
a. Actual volume for 7/1/09 – 9/30/09 – threshold =
475,000 – 450,000 = 25,000 pieces
b. Actual postage cost / actual volume =
$103,075 / 475,000 = $0.217
c. Rebate =
25,000 x $0.217 x .3 = $1627.50
The October Effect:
It is important to keep your mailing volume for October in mind when factoring the potential savings. If your volume falls below the calculated threshold, then your overall credit will be impacted. Below is an example of how to calculate this effect.
a. October 2008 volume x trend (in #2 above) = October threshold:
300,000 x .90 = 270,000 pieces
b. If October 2009 (260,000 pieces) < October threshold:
Threshold – actual = adjustment
270,000 – 260,000 = 10,000
Rebate adjustment
a. Actual volume – summer sale threshold – rebate adjustment:
475,000 – 450,000 – 10,000 = 15,000
b. New rebate:
15,000 x $.217 x .3 = $976.50
For those of you that have received a letter; be sure to certify the volume that the USPS has provided to you since this will be a binding once you have agreed to enroll in the program. Also be sure to have your response in by August 1st, 2009.
This program is a great way to potentially reach more customers at a lower cost and therefore enhance your business’ ROI. The system is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction for the USPS to utilize their new found pricing freedom to help mailers.
From the Federal Register today:
Federal Register Notices
DATE: Pending publication in the Federal Register.
Standard Mail Volume Incentive Program (aka Summer Sale)
AGENCY: Postal Service™.
ACTION: Final rule.
SUMMARY:
The Postal Service is revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®), to add section 709.2 which introduces new standards for a special volume incentive program for mailers of Standard Mail® letters and flats with mail volume exceeding their individual USPS™-determined threshold levels. The program period will be from July 1, 2009 through September 30, 2009.
EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2009.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kevin Gunther at 202-268-7208.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
The Postal Service is implementing a volume incentive program for qualified high-volume mailers of commercial or Nonprofit Standard Mail letters and flats, for volume mailed between July 1, 2009 and September 30, 2009, above their USPS-determined threshold level. This program encourages mailers to provide new volume and to take advantage of our current excess capacity to process and deliver additional volume.
Big Brother is Watching-direct mailers beware, you are not safe even when postage is paid
PostCom’s general counsel has communicated the following to the association:
The United States Postal Service, which appears headed for a multi-billion dollar loss this year, has quietly launched a major new initiative to collect more postage from mail that already has been paid for and delivered.
The primary targets of the initiative are business mailers—the mailers that use large volumes of First-Class and Standard Mail for marketing, billing, account statements, and other customer communications and the mail service providers that help prepare these mailings.
The Postal Service’s strategy is to investigate recent mailings for violations of the complex and arcane mail preparation requirements for discounted postage rates. Evidence of violation can lead to demands for additional postage, or enforcement actions under the False Claims Act. The potential financial exposure for big national mailers can be seven or eight figures.
The Postal Service seems to be looking for violations of Move Update (address updating) requirements, other addressing requirements, and other mail preparation and content requirements that could lead to large revenue deficiencies. In some cases, the investigators seek evidence that the mailer entered improper mailings knowingly or intentionally, states of mind that can support a claim under the False Claims Act.
Violation of the False Claims Act can expose a mailer to double or treble damages—i.e., liability equal to two or three times the amount of the underlying revenue deficiency—as well as civil penalties of approximately $11,000 per violation. The Postal Service typically rules that each mailing statement constitutes a separate violation; hence, total civil penalties sometimes can be ten or more times the underlying revenue deficiency. Criminal liability under the False Claims Act is also possible, but unlikely except in extreme cases. The firm has provided tips on how to deal with postal inspectors.
USPS: Ve Haf Vays of Making You Use Our Barcode
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 From the Dead Tree Edition
The Postal Service’s Intelligent Mail program might fail because it is not sufficiently attractive to mailers, the Government Accounting Office warned today.
Not to worry, the Postal Service responded. If the tiny Intelligent Mail barcode (IMb) discounts scheduled for later this year are not enough to entice mailers, it said, two years from now the huge penalties for not using IMbs will force mailers to change their ways. Starting in May 2011, mail without IMbs will be ineligible for automation discounts, which typically are at least several cents per mail piece.
“Some mailers have said they find the pricing incentives insufficient to recover their investment in the program,” said the GAO report. “For example, some large mailers said they invested millions of dollars to update and purchase hardware and software, while some smaller mailers expected to invest tens of thousands of dollars.”
Other highlights of the report and the Postal Service’s response:
The Intelligent Mail program “lacks a comprehensive strategy” that includes a detailed plan or “goals and measures of success”, the GAO said. The Postal Service agreed to beef up its planning but said the approach recommended by the GAO would drag out implementation too long.
“USPS and mailers may not be ready for implementation given USPS’s short-time period in which to simultaneously design, develop, test, and implement the Intelligent Mail program,” the report said. Amen to that!
An odd statement from the Postal Service: “Despite an extremely compressed schedule, the successful implementation of the Operating System environment on May 11 and the Test Environment for Mailers on May 18 demonstrates how well this effort works.” May 11 and 18 haven’t occurred yet, and mailers are reporting that the Postal Service is not ready for those key dates. See “Another Delay for Intelligent Mail?”
USPS “lacks information on costs and savings attributable to the Intelligent Mail program,” the GAO said. USPS responded that the program will give it valuable information enabling it to become more efficient but that “there is no sound financial method to specifically attribute these reductions to Intelligent Mail.”
“According to USPS, Intelligent Mail is the most complex project it has undertaken,” the GAO report said.
USPS Summer Sale - Save 30%!!!!
May 1, 2009
DMM Advisory
Pricing and Classification — keeping you informed about the prices and mailing standards of the United States Postal Service
Summer Sale
Today we filed a notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission for a Summer Sale. The Sale will provide a 30 percent reduction in postage for qualifying Standard Mail customers mailing letters and flats. The Summer Sale will run from July 1 through September 30, 2009.
The Summer Sale offer is subject to review by the Commission for up to 45 days following May 1.
The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) is available on Postal Explorer (pe.usps.com). To subscribe to the DMM Advisory, send an e-mail to dmmadvisory@usps.com. Simply indicate “subscribe” in the subject line
Corporate Social Responsibility News
4.30.2009 - 12:04pm ET
CSR News from: SustainCommWorld
News Categories: Sustainability
The Big Debate: Print or Digital Media - Which is more Sustainable?
Strategic Business Leaders with answers to address The Green Media Conference
(CSRwire) MERCER ISLAND, WA. - April 29, 2009 - Which is more sustainable, physical mail or email, a magazine page or a web page, a book or an ebook? Which has the larger carbon footprint and what is the risk to a brand if their messaging says one thing and their media supply chain choices say another?
Publishers, advertisers, marketers and supply chain professionals are increasingly being challenged to make decisions that address climate change and that are consistent with the principles of sustainability.
Carbon Dioxide has been ruled a pollutant dangerous to human life by the EPA, climate change legislation is pending in congress, and the leaders of 192 nations, including the US, China and India, will meet in Copenhagen this December to agree on a climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. With an eye to the future, what efforts can be taken to measure the carbon footprints and otherwise qualify and quantify arguments for the sustainability of print and/or digital media?
Leaders from publishing, the postal service, and printing who are addressing this issue now, will be speaking at The Green Media Conference, June 9 in Washington, DC. They will be speaking in a session entitled: The Great Debate. Addressing the audience will be:
Hans Wegner, Vice President, Production Services, National Geographic
Mike Fanning, Manager Business Development, United States Postal Service
Dave Podmayersky, Director of Sustainability, Earth Color
Quote: Don Carli, Conference Chair and Executive Vice President, SustainCommWorld and Sr. Research Fellow at The Institute for Sustainable Communication
“Sustainable supply chains and climate action are becoming mainstream priorities for leading brands and for government. Just as their governance policies, products, packaging and messages are being scrutinized, so to are their media supply chain choices – print, websites, emails, direct mail, advertising, brochures, tradeshows and events – all are being scrutinized as the next big area for improvement in sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Key questions that our speakers will address include:
What standards and best practices can be employed to assess the sustainability of your operations and your media supply chain practices?
What are the most significant challenges you face in reducing their carbon footprint and making them more sustainable?
How will your media supply chain need to change in response to these issues, and what are the firms most likely to survive and thrive going to look like?
What risks do the precarious state of the printing, papermaking and publishing industries present to government, business and society?
What risks do the energy demands of IT, e-waste and the ephemeral nature of digital media present to government, business and society?
“These conferences bring thought leaders together with a focus on graphic communication, marketing, publishing and to discuss, challenge, learn and drive implementation of best practices in the greening of print and digital media supply chains.”
With the theme of “Expanding Lean & Green Opportunities,” The Green Media Conference brings together practitioners, best practices and real world case studies on the production of sustainable media and illustrating how to make money at the same time. Attendees to SustainCommWorld events are marketing and advertising professionals who need the latest information to make sustainable advertising, printing and web decisions as well as analyses the businesses within their supply chains.
This June there will be two conferences, one in Washington, DC on June 9 and one in Chicago on June 23. Each city will have a different group of speakers addressing these issues. For more information on conference program and additional speakers, visit: http://www.GreenMediaConference.com
About SustainCommWorld
SustainCommWorld is focused on educating communication professionals from corporations, institutions and government agencies how to develop sustainable green workflows and supply chains to lower their carbon footprint. SustainCommWorld currently produces major events including The Business of Green Media Conference in cooperation with the Cal Poly Graphic Communication Department and the Graphic Communication Institute at Cal Poly, and The Green Media Conferences.
SustainCommWorld staff consults with institutions and enterprises on issues related to sustainable communication – the production of sustainable media and the associated business challenges and opportunities that face the graphic arts community, enterprise marketers and those involved in media production. Senior executives are frequent speakers at conferences around the world.
To further spread their green message, SustainCommWorld produces a bi-monthly newsletter Green Media Newsletter, Communicate Green Radio, a radio show debuting next fall and sponsors GreenMediaConnect, a social networking site featuring forums, blogs and resources. For more information visit, http://www.sustaincommworld.com
For more information please contact:
Lisa Wellman, CEO
SustainCommWorld
206 275 9992
206 236 0354
www.greenmediaconference.com
People Try Twitter One Month, Then Fly
From PC World Wednesday, April 29, 2009 4:22 AM PDT
It’s good to know I am not alone: Many other people use Twitter a few times and can’t think of a good reason to come back. With all the hype about Twitter’s 140-character version of living, I’d gotten the impression that I’m the only one on Twitter who doesn’t get why Twitter matters.
Not so, according to Nielsen data that shows 60 percent of people who use Twitter one month, even at its peak popularity, don’t come back the next. While it used to be that 70 stayed away that improvement is not much to brag about–Twitter’s customer retention is prone to peaks and valleys.
Twitter needs to be concerned about this, especially since both MySpace and Facebook have failure to return rates only about half that of Twitter. Put another way, 60 percent of MySpace and Facebook users come back the next month, about the same percentage that do not return to Twitter on its best months.
It is easy to think of reasons for this. Twitter is a one-trick pony. If you do not like tweeting or reading the tweets of others, there are not a whole lot of reasons to return.
Both MySpace and Facebook, for all their problems, offer more services than Twitter. It is easy to see how places where users can do more things could make the two services “stickier” than Twitter.
This does not surprise me. Twitter feels really light to me. Some people, obviously, become addicted but large numbers of others just walk away. That is not such a big deal right now as Twitter is in major growth mode. Growth hides all manner of sins.
However, if that growth mostly results in new users sampling and leaving, the growth will not last. Worse, it may be hard to get those unhappy users to return should Twitter ever expand its product features.
It is not clear whether Nielsen’s measure of Twitter’s return rate counts people, like me, who use a third-party application for their twittering. I do not return to Twitter nearly so much as I return to TweetDeck.
Today, it would be much easier for TweetDeck to make money off my use of Twitter than it would be for Twitter itself. Again, I do not see how these social networks ever make the big money that investors are betting they will.
To be honest, I am using Twitter mostly because I think “it’s good for me,” like some sort of social network vitamin. Like most good intentions, it will be interesting to see how long that lasts. Nevertheless, I am pretty certain to make it into next month.
I’m sure Twitter will be happy.
David Coursey tweets occasionally, and reached by e-mail using www.coursey.com/contact.
Publishers Seize on iPhone as Great White Digital Hope for Print
Industry Progressing from Replicas of Issues to Formats Better Suited to Small Screen
by Nat Ives
Published: April 27, 2009
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Can the Jesus phone resurrect print’s hopes for paid digital content?
Several players, from ambitious software developers to arcane auditing bodies, are suddenly converging this spring to hasten the arrival of a long-awaited “iPod for print.” It might just be the iPhone.
So far magazines and newspapers have built applications chiefly for the iPhone — and the surprisingly popular iPod Touch — that riff on their core editorial missions. Witness Condé Nast Digital’s Style.com app, which plays video of Fashion Week runway shows, or Lucky magazine’s shopping app, which helps users find nearby stores with certain shoes or bags in stock.
The Style.com app has been downloaded 230,000 times since its introduction last August, according to Drew Schutte, senior VP-chief revenue officer at Condé Nast Digital. And it represents the first way publishers are making money from apps: by selling ads or sponsorships on them. The Style app, free to consumers, served 2 million ad impressions for marketers such as H&M in the first quarter of the year.
“Ever since the iPhone came around, it turned the mobile-advertising opportunity from something really stiff, cramped, awkward and slow into something beautiful, sexy and fast,” Mr. Schutte said.
About 90,000 people have downloaded the free “Lucky at Your Service” app since its debut just two months ago. It’s a brilliant brand extension, another way publishers want apps to further their business.
Commerce
Some publishers also want to facilitate commerce — in exchange for a cut of the revenue. “Certainly there’s an opportunity on your iPhone, whether it’s stuff like buying movie tickets or buying products,” Mr. Schutte said. “We’re just beginning to explore it.” Lucky offers advertisers participation in “Lucky at Your Service” as added value for in-book advertising.
But many publishers would also like to turn iTunes into a virtual newsstand and subscription hub. It’s immensely popular, and people like buying things there. What better place to try to give paid circulation a foothold in digital?
Selling magazines through iTunes might have promise, depending on execution, audience and other factors, publishers said. “ITunes is a great marketplace for entertainment, movies, music, TV, even books. Magazines are actually conspicuous in their absence,” said Ryan McConville, publisher of the Bauer Teen Group, whose titles include J-14 and Twist. “If teens are already there buying Miley Cyrus records and episodes of ‘The Hills,’ it’s not a stretch to think they could just as easily be buying copies of J-14.”
The Wall Street Journal, for example, plans to start charging for some of the content people get from its free app, which it upgraded earlier this month. But that app pulls news content from the web. Selling digital editions of print issues, certainly magazines’ chief asset, has had limited prospects until now.
On one hand are digital replicas of magazines for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which not many people like reading, even according to companies that offer apps to that end. “The digital edition as it currently exists, as a replica, has great value for some percentage of the population — a small percentage,” said Cimarron Buser, senior VP-marketing and business development at Texterity.
“We don’t think that the digital-replica model is the business of the future,” said Jeanniey Mullen, exec VP-chief marketing officer for Zinio.
Race to the phones
On the other hand, translating print issues into versions better suited for the iPhone also faced several hurdles.
First there was the technical heavy lifting required. But now Texterity, Zinio and a developer called Bite Sized Candy are each racing to deliver new systems to put issues in better formats. They all said they’ll introduce their systems this year; Bite Sized Candy said it’s shooting for summertime. “The goal is to extend the reach of publications through the iPhone via iTunes,” said Parie Markowitz, managing partner at Bite Sized Candy.
Then there was the problem of the small screen, a concern even if one didn’t try to sell page-by-page replicas. The apps in development, however, already look better than anticipated. “I’ve been impressed with some of the examples and apps that I’ve seen, and I didn’t expect to be,” said Sean Nolan, VP-online operations at Rodale, publisher of magazines including Men’s Health, Prevention and Runner’s World.
“Like a lot of things on the iPhone, it’s tough to describe but cool to experience,” he said. “Having the product load locally on the device, rather than through a wireless connection or Safari, is a big key for the user experience. It loads quickly and allows you to page through, item by item, from a standing menu. It’s not as image-driven as a magazine, but then it shouldn’t be.”
Publishers are also worried about advertisers, whose revenue was too important to leave out of the equation.
Replication challenge
Until recently the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the dominant referee of magazine and newspaper circulation, let publishers count digital editions toward their “paid” circulation only when those digital editions precisely reproduced each printed page. A non-replica — with all an issue’s contents but laid out specifically for the iPhone — did not count as paid, the kind of circulation advertisers most want to buy.
This spring, however, the bureau voted to allow nonreplica versions to be reported as paid. Publishers still aren’t allowed to count non-replica digital versions toward their paid-circulation guarantees, a basic metric for negotiating ad rates, but the bureau is already talking that over.
That means publishers looking to sell issues through iTunes will soon have just one hurdle left: consumer demand. If readers like using iPhones to buy the March issue of Gourmet or a year’s subscription to Fortune, advertisers will come along.
“Certainly, on paper, everything that’s just been talked about makes all the sense in the world,” said David Leckey, exec VP-consumer marketing at American Media, publisher of Star and Shape, as well as a vice chairman at the Audit Bureau. “Whether it should go there or not, I think, will ultimately be the consumer’s decision.”
The potential isn’t clear today, said Rodale’s Mr. Nolan. “What we do know today is that, despite the rumors of its demise, print is not dead,” he said. “And we also know that people are consuming more branded content, not less, which is good news for us. But the new wrinkle is how they’re consuming it. It’s print, yes, but also iPhone, Kindle, BlackBerry, syndication, YouTube, Hulu, Facebook widgets, on-demand web video via the PC and so forth. So our goal is to test and learn and understand what our audience wants, when they want it, and how they want it. As distribution channels evolve and change and fragment and Long-Tail, we intend to follow them and ensure we continue to deliver our premium consumer content.”
NZ Post completes NZ$200 mln sale of 7.5% bonds
Now this sounds like an excellent idea USPS anyone reading this???
17:53 April 24, 2009Article
Article - Businesswire
April 24 – New Zealand Post Group Finance completed its NZ$200 million sale of bonds that pay 7.5% annual interest.
NZ Post completes NZ$200 mln sale of bonds paying 7.5%
April 24 – New Zealand Post Group Finance completed its NZ$200 million sale of bonds that pay 7.5% annual interest.
The notes pay annual interest through until Nov. 15, 2014, the reset and step-up date. The initial margin is 2.8%, the postal service’s finance unit said in a statement. The debt matures in November 2039.
All NZ$200 million of the notes were sold to clients of investors who participated in its bookbuild. The sale was for NZ$150 million of notes, rated A by Standard & Poor’s, with oversubscriptions of NZ$50 million.
NZ Post chairman Jim Bolger the postal service is “delighted with the positive reception to this offer and the large number of investors who participated in the offer, which maintains New Zealand Post’s very strong financial position.”
The notes are expected to begin trading on the NZDX market on April 27. NZ Post joins corporate including Contact Energy in selling debt securities, taking advantage of dwindling deposit rates, which spur demand for fixed-income returns.
(Businesswire)
