Forbes Column 08: How Technology Can Save Retailers

My new Forbes column How Technology Can Save Retailers gets into online brand engagement, focus groups, inventory planning.

Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche (Part 3)

SM: What stage are you at now? Revenue? Profitability? Traffic? Customers? Users? Advertisers? Any other metrics you track? MM: We do not comment on our financials. We’re over 7 million uniques a month today and hope to be in the double digits soon. We’re over 2 million uniques in the U.S and over a million

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Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche (Part 2)

SM: How did Paperdollheaven come about? MM: Some of the ideas were already there – the initial magic of paperdollheaven.com was all because of Liisa, our original founder and her vision of a fun, creative place for a forgotten demographic on the web: young girls. The new team then added the idea of personalized avators

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Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche (Part 1)

I covered Stardoll in the Deal Radar series. Here’s the story from CEO Mattias Miksche. SM: Please describe your personal background : Family, upbringing, early career, etc. leading up to this venture. MM: I have a multicultural background. Austrian dad, German mom – they came to Sweden during/following World War II. I was born &

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Trend Radar 2008: Edutainment

Jeff Katz told me about the Tag when I interviewed him in the Fall, but I promised not to write about it. Well, now the announcement is out. Tag is the new reading product from Leapfrog, replacing the LeapPad franchise that took the company to heights in 2003.

Deal Radar 2008: Girls Like Stardoll

Stardoll.com, formerly known as Paperdoll Heaven, is an online community for girls aged between 9 and17. It is a free online version of dress up dolls and is meant for those in love with fashion and style. The site features over 330 dolls and tens of thousands of virtual garments and accessories. It is now

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Web 3.0 & Viacom (Part 4)

Acquisition Targets In the past one year, Viacom has acquired Quizilla, Harmonix Music Systems, Atom Entertainment, Xfire, and Y2M: Youth Media & Marketing Networks. These acquisitions are strategic and fit well into the Company’s overall theme of youth focused entertainment. Viacom, through its Nick brand, is popular among the kids. Presumably, the Company would acquire

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