The world around us

To really enjoy a vacation, I think one should get a more local feel of a place and one way to do that is to stay at vacation homes and condos that don’t have too much of a sterilized and generic feel as hotels generally do. I’ve got nothing against hotels, but I tend to find them more workman-like and when going on vacation, rather stay at a more homey and welcoming place. What if you could stay at a Maui Condo like this one? Wouldn’t that be an incredible vacation? Yes, I think so too. I love the fact that it feels like one’s own home when staying at a villa or condo and that is really important to us. For more condos like this one, have a look at Gebhart Properties, who has some of the best properties available through them.

What is it with all this spam I’ve suddenly been getting lately. I am pretty sick of it and have blocked about 65 email ids and domain names on my yahoo account. I added to my problem by opening one of the mail and triggering a signal to the spammer that the mail had been opened, so then I started getting even more mails. In the past week, it has reduced to 2-3 a day though, for which I am really quite thankful for.

AOL announced that it would be blocking images from unknown senders, meaning that many promotional emails from retailers will be affected. According to David Daniels, email marketing specialist at JupiterResearch, retailers will now have to place more emphasis on their text, instead of only focusing on images. He also said that retailers should add tags to convey the message of the photo, so email recipients are able to get the message. Other email services like Google and Yahoo already block images, so retailers are aware of this and are making a change. One change they are making is asking customers to add the retailers email id to their address book as then they will be able to see their graphics and images.

Since I’ve decided to take a long weekend this time around, I think it’s the perfect time to catch up with some gardening and maintenance for my window garden. Even though we live in an apartment, we have wrought iron grill extensions on all our windows for plants. These are at just the perfect height so that the pot does not show and the plants reach the windows, so all one can see is beautiful green plants. It would be nice to have a real garden, but until we do, this is a nice substitute.

Landscape Design has become really big business now, with almost offices hiring experts to do up the littlest patch of green for them. There really is an art to it, a normal person might just see some grass, but a landscape expert sees the potential of turning even the plainest green spot into something unique and creative. You might be surprised at what all a company such as SLDA can come up with, as they are one of the leading landscape design companies in the area.

To SLDA, landscaping is so much more than arranging a few bushes and stones. It’s actually about how you live your life and how a landscaped garden can enhance it. By going into details like finding out which door you use to enter your garden, what pets you have, what your lifestyle is like, they collect insights into your life and create a garden that will cater to all aspects of it.

Thank god it’s the weekend…and this weekend is a long weekend for me. I decided to take part of friday and monday off to make it a really nice and long vacation. Well, I am a freelancer and that is one of the main advantages to working to one’s own beat right? Here’s to a nice and long weekend!!

eBay has purchased StumbleUpon, a community based search site, for $75 million. With this purchase the auction company is keen to get into social networking and combine it with search tools. Besides StumbleUpon’s technology, eBay will also take over SUs base of 2.3 million people (me included!) who use the site to discover new sites based on their set preferences and recommendations of other users. As of now, there will be no change inthe management team of StumbleUpon, who will continue to operate from San Francisco.

In my previous post I wrote about personalized emails and here I continue with the subject on finding the right people to send these mails to. Mailing Lists and databases are one of the most sought after companies these days since everything depends to mailing information to customers who are being targeted. One of the most prominent companies for mailing list databases is Martin Worldwide, who has established itself as one of the leaders in this competitive industry. With their new feature ResponseCom, the company has combined its data from more than 100 demographic and phychographic options and created a dynamic and multi-dimensional database. This new system has proven to improve response rates as well as profitability, which it has been doing already.

Are you more likely to respond to a personalized email from a company? According to a new study, personalized and customized email messages are likely to get a better response and can boost site visits. The study conducted by RightNow Technologies and Harris Interactive showed that, email messages that are segmented and tailored specifically to the recipient could drive sales. In the survey, 68% of respondents stated that they decided to visit a site after getting an email from a retailer, while 73% said that they would like follow up after they completed a purchase from the site.

The survey also found that 50% of consumers have increased shopping online “a great deal” or “somewhat” in the past five years. 42% said they would prefer to be able to find the answers they need online by themselves if they had a question or needed help during an online shopping experience.

Claire’s Stores announced that it will be purchased by Apollo Management a private equity firm for around $3.1 billion. Claire’s is one of the most popular costume jewelry retail chains in the US and has 3,000 stores around the world. It’s target customer are “tweens”, teens and young adults. The company’s new CEO was recently announced to be Eugene S Kahn, formerly the chairman and CEO of May Department Stores.

How about a vacation in Florida? Sounds good, right? Florida receives one of the largest number of visitors in the US, no matter what time of the year. Summer gets it higher visitors due to school holidays, when the theme parks are in high demand. Real estate in Florida has been seen as a good investment for quite some time now and will continue to be. One of the oldest agencies for sales and rentals of properties in Florida is UK based Lowery’s that has been in business since 1947 and set up its Kissimmee office in 1986. They specialize in providing information about renting a Florida Holiday Villa, condos, vacation homes, cars, buying tickets etc in Florida for UK customers and have built up quite a customer base in this niche.