Every spring, the world eagerly gathers to watch The Academy Awards, an event that honors the dazzling film industry and is televised live in more than 100 countries annually, with more than 39 million viewers in North America alone. We swoon as film industry elites hypnotize us with gorgeous smiles, clothes and speeches. On the business professional side of life however, another type of annual awards ceremony takes place, The Stevie Awards. This ceremony honors the achievements, outstanding contributions and hard work of the business world across 60 countries and has been referred to as “the business world’s own Oscar awards” by the New York Post. The Stevie trophy is even designed by R.S. Owens, the same company that makes the Oscar and is considered by many to be the world’s most desirable honor.
2012 is celebrating the 10th Annual Stevie Awards and they’ve started with more popularity than ever before! Having originated as a way to recognize good business leaders and “restore public confidence and investor trust”, the Stevie Awards are closely watched by the business community because of their reputation for fair and accurate recognition. Finalists are determined in preliminary judging over a five week period in which more than 140 executives vote on nominated companies. Gold, Silver, and Bronze finalists are then determined in final judging by more than 150 members of 10 specialized final judging committees.
Stevie Awards programs include The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, For Women in Business, and For Sales & Customer Service. Currently, The American Business Award finalists have been announced but the other 3 categories are still accepting nominations. The final award presentations for The American Business Awards will be split into two award galas for the first time this year. The traditional awards banquet will be held in New York on June 18, and the tech awards gala will be hosted in San Francisco on September 17.
ZippyCart is proud to recognize one of their own Top 10 Best eCommerce Solutions, CoreCommerce, as a finalist in 3 categories; Computer Software, Programming and Design, and E-Commerce Website! They earned this recognition from more than 3000 submitted entries and 2012 marks the 3rd year that CoreCommerce has been a finalist of its award nomination.
Speaking on the nominations Matt DeLong, President and CEO stated, “We are grateful that CoreCommerce is being recognized for its products and services. We have been serving our customers with the best Ecommerce products and legendary services for over ten years. We love helping entrepreneurs and businesses sell their products online and are grateful to be recognized for such prestigious awards.”
About CoreCommerce
CoreCommerce is a leading hosted eCommerce shopping cart software provider. Founded in 2001, the company provides an exceptional online solution for entrepreneurs, and small to medium size businesses allowing them to create a storefront and sell products around the world. CoreCommerce software integrates with a hundred partners offering payment gateways, shipping, product feeds, fulfillment, email marketing and social media. Its Legendary Support is second to none in the industry. For more information about CoreCommerce, please visit ZippyCart’s expert review.
Stay tuned in on the Stevie Awards as the traditional awards banquet in NYC is this Monday, June 18th! Look this fall, Sept 17th, for the tech awards gala in San Francisco,
ShopSavvy, the mobile app that allows users to compare prices on anything, anywhere, will be adding Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin to its board of directors.
The company announced Thursday that it has secured a $7 million round of Series A funding led by Saverin. Additional funding came from Brad Martin, former Chairman and CEO of Saks Incorporated, who will also be joining ShopSavvy’s board of directors.
The ShopSavvy app scans the barcode of any item and shows users the best deals for that item both online and in nearby stores. The location-based technology makes it easy for shoppers to quickly find all local retailers that carry an item in order to get the best price without having to actually visit every store. ShopSavvy also uses mobile wallet ecommerce software QuickPay to allow shoppers to make a purchase with their smartphone.
ShopSavvy launched in 2008 and has had 20 million downloads with a current user base of 10 million. The company has more than 40,000 partnerships with retailers including giants such as Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Sears, Nordstrom and Barnes & Noble. Saverin had this to say about his new investment:
“Much like the nascent days of social media, I believe the mobile shopping services market is in the very early stages of change. In my opinion, ShopSavvy has the right connections, the right partners and the right technology to be a game-changer.”
Prior to the recent round of funding ShopSavvy generated revenue from AdOns. AdOns target shoppers based on their location and the items that they are scanning to compare. Businesses can choose to offer things like coupons or rebates to entice customers to add items to their shopping carts.
ShopSavvy will use the new funding to open an office in San Francisco and hire more engineers. The company currently has an office in Dallas and 15 employees. Alexander Muse, CEO of ShopSavvy, had this to say:
“Our focus has always been providing the best experience and service to the consumer. This round of funding gives ShopSavvy the resources to build new services that will help provide consumers better real-time visibility for the best buying decisions possible.”
Apps like ShopSavvy are changing the way people shop, more than half of the people who own smartphones use their mobile device at some stage of the shopping process, whether it be to get directions to a store or compare prices. Mobile payment ecommerce solutions such as Google Wallet and Card.io are also changing the way that people pay when they shop.
One of the most sobering moments in life is the untimely passing of a talented artist at a young age. Consider those in the music industry — Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain, all young artists who have mysteriously passed at the age of 27 however whose music increased in popularity after, thus dubbed the members of the “Forever 27 Club.”
Winehouse on the cover of the Back to Black album
On Saturday, July 23, five-time Grammy Award winner Amy Winehouse became the latest young artist to join the Forever 27 Club.
Her passing has gathered great criticism from the public at large about her lifestyle choices and bad girl image but what is clearly emerging to the forefront (as it should be) is her talent, her music.
The news of her death sparked almost, if not immediately, a wave of fans rushing to online stores like iTunes and Amazon (who had immediately released online special promotions) to fill shopping carts with Winehouse singles and albums.
Winehouse’s most public album, “Back to Black” (2007) has now skyrocketed in sales, a clear nod to a genre of music that, unfortunately, will not be produced again or at least with Winehouse’s soulful voice behind it.
According to the UK’s Official Charts Company, shopping carts have been increasingly filled with Winehouse music that the ‘Black’ album sales increased by 299%, jumping to the 59th spot in just two days, and is sold out in many brick and mortar shops.
As of Monday, the album took over the number one slot on iTunes in the U.S. and the U.S., UK, French, and German Amazon sites have both of Winehouse’s albums ‘Black’ and “Frank” (2003) taking over the majority of the top five spots on the site’s bestsellers list.
However, officials say this is just the start as sales are expected to continue to surge over the upcoming week. As the past has shown, posthumous fame (like those in the Forever 27 club) ushers in a new audience of listeners and creates the kind of success that can only snowball after death.
Winehouse clearly brought her inner demons and pain into her music. With bleeding heart singles like “Love is a Losing Game,” “Back to Black,” and the now very transparent “Rehab,” the ‘Black’ album is a eery snapshot of the troubles the artist was battling that eventually lead to her fatal undoing.
As the demand for her music increases, Winehouse’s label, Universal Music is rumored to release an album of songs that were expected on an upcoming album in addition to any unreleased recordings of the soul singer.
Wanting fans can anticipate to put at least one more new song from Winehouse in their shopping carts. The legendary Tony Bennett was the last person to work with the singer and recorded “Body and Soul” set for Bennett’s upcoming album “Duets II.” Bennett responded, “She was an extraordinary musician with a rare intuition as a vocalist and I am truly devastated that her exceptional talent and has come to such an early end.”
From her signature smoky voice and beehive coif, a style nod to an era where the 60’s girl group reigned supreme, paired with a gritty, unabashed personality, Amy Winehouse has become one unforgettable talent in music history.
Ever wanted to ride with Snoop Dogg to the studio? Does meeting Taylor Swift at her concert in Lexington, Kentucky sound appealing? How about a one-hour tennis lesson from Chris Evert, one of the greatest female tennis players in history? If any of this sounds good to you, then charity auction site CharityBuzz has great news for you. The site allows users to add celebrity experiences and memorabilia to their online shopping carts, all while benefiting charitable organizations.
Current offerings include the ride with Snoop, which includes a seat in the studio while the rapper cuts a track. Other options on the site vary from a meet and greet with Nickelodeon TV star-turned-singer Miranda Cosgrove, four backstage passes to a Selena Gomez concert, and a signed guitar from Country Western singer Zac Brown. A tour of Facebook Headquarters and lunch with the co founder of Firefox, Blake Ross, is also up for bidding. In addition to celebrity encounters, users can also win travel packages, power lunches with business executives, and add hard-to-find tickets to major sporting events to their shopping cart.
This isn’t your typical, all-for-profit eBay auction where the seller walks away with the proceeds. A portion of the proceeds from every auction go to a charitable organization. Many of the auctions benefit Urban Farming, an organization that “supports and encourages the establishment of gardens on unused land and space while increasing diversity, raising awareness for health and wellness, inspiring and educating youth, adults and seniors to create an economically sustainable system to uplift communities around the world.”
CEO Coppy Holzman founded CharityBuzz to lead nonprofits toward a collaborative approach to fundraising in April of 2004. The company is headquartered in Manhattan, and has raised more than $40 million for nonprofits worldwide. The company aims to combine pop culture and charity for the mutual benefit of everyone involved. In July of 2010, the site passed a major milestone with $200 million in bids. In December of 2010, the company auctioned the first Chevy Volt available to the public on behalf of General Motors. Everyone here at ZippyCart (or anyone, really!) would certainly appreciate one of the current travel experiences, 5 Nights aboard a Private Yacht bound for Cabo San Lucas! Anyone willing to pony up the current $26,000 bid?
Celebrate National Car Collectors Day by adding a multimillion dollar big red bus to your shopping cart! The auction of a GM Futurliner is set to break eBay’s record for a single sale. The Futurliner, originally built for the 1939 World Fair, cost GM $2 million to build. Only nine of these busses exist to this day, and at a recent sale, one rang in at $4.1 million. The bidding ends July 18th and currently only boasts one bid at $500,000.
The Futurliner was originally intended to exhibit the marvels of modern science at the World Fair. The bus opens up to display the “modern” marvels of the microwave and jet propulsion, scientific developments that were considered breakthroughs in the 1930s. This particular Futurliner was found in a cornfield in New York in 1997, and has been meticulously restored by Peter Pan Bus Lines for the past three years.
eBay has sold some very interesting vehicles in the past, including cars from movie sets and celebrities. Soccer star David Beckham’s Porsche 911 Turbo recently sold for $217,100. A lucky eBay user landed a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 used in the fiming of the Dark Knight in their shopping cart for $319,900. Charlie Sheen’s old 1997 Ferrari was listed for $79,500. The most expensive vehicle ever sold on eBay was the 1959 Ferrari 250 used on the set of Ferris Buehler’s Day Off. The vehicle sold for $3.26 million.
eBay Motors has had great success with the online sale of vehicles. The ecommerce solution processed over $9 billion in sales through eBay Motors. A passenger vehicle is sold once every minute, and a Ford Mustang sold once every 40 minutes on the site. By 2009, more than 3 million vehicles had been sold on eBay Motors. Kia and eBay recently teamed up to sell brand new cars through the online marketplace. eBay Motors is regularly ranked as the top automotive web site by Nielsen Ratings, with 24% of all “automotive minutes” spent online coming from eBay Motors.
In the future of curated deals and daily deals ecommerce solutions, no one will ever do anything by themselves ever again. In the wake of the Great Recession, consumers, almost destroyed by the financial institutions and possessions that they once placed so much faith in, seem to have vowed never again to let the power rest solely in the hands of manufacturers and marketers. Instead they have turned to group buying and exclusive deals ecommerce solutions to leverage, even in some small way, the power of collective bargaining.
The latest entry into this ring is the newly revamped OpenSky, an ecommerce solution that delivers curated deals to its members. The deals are hand-selected by celebrities who push items in their areas of expertise. Whether it’s fashion (Kristin Cavallari) or cooking (Bobby Flay), they are names that shoppers know and trust. How much faith you put into your chosen celebrity is up to you. There’s no monthly buying requirement or monetary commitment. If you like what they chose, you buy it.
So far a large number of newcomers to the service have come from the Twitter-pools of the various participating celebrities. Flay, for example, has almost 300,000 followers on Twitter and 60,000 on OpenSky. CEO John Caplan bills the service as “CSN meets Twitter.” He’s betting heavily on the new model for the service after some not-so-stellar results with the original version. According to Caplan:
“Mixing content and commerce was confusing to people.”
That was the original setup: Caplan had reached out to bloggers, encouraging them to blog about products that they used and/or liked. Why wouldn’t users want to buy merchandise sponsored by their favorite bloggers? If they liked and trusted these writers enough to read their blogs regularly, it seemed to make sense that they might buy some merchandise too. Caplan even offered the bloggers a sweet 50/50 deal on any successful conversions, but it didn’t work.
Even as social commerce blurs the lines between ecommerce solutions and social networks, people still want to know and understand when they are being pitched to. Where does a blog end and an advertisement begin? With the new model, the relationship is understood: you are on this service because it offers you deals on special merchandise sponsored by celebrities you like. There’s no gray area.
Muggles and magic folk alike have been on the edge of their seats to hear the latest news from the Harry Potter world. The most recent news comes from a mysterious site, lingering for several days now called Pottermore, and with the final installment in the Harry Potter movie franchise set for a nationwide release on July 15, there is really only so much more waiting fans can bear. However, today J.K. Rowling herself has revealed through a YouTube video [see below] what Pottermore will offer to anxious Potter fans.
Pottermore, which Rowling created in partnership with Sony, promises an online, interactive reading experience unlike any other. Pottermore will include fans in the story, and an opportunity to put audio books and, for the first time, Harry Potter ebooks into their shopping carts.
However, true Potter fans know that Rowling has an incredible imagination and according to her video message, promises to immerse fans into Potter’s world by revealing secrets she’s been “hoarding for years.” According to sources, these secrets include over 18,000 words of additional Harry Potter content, as well as a chance for online users to get sorted by the Sorting Hat and placed at a house in Hogwarts (not Slytherin, not Slytherin…).
There’s already a number of theories as to what these additional secrets and features Pottermore may be. The UK’s Guardian lead on that Pottermore may include an online treasure hunt that gives users clues that will lead them to prizes in the real world, such as an undisclosed number of hidden magic wands.
There have been rumors of an eighth book, but Rowling stated that if she did write another one, it would be for charity, and it would most likely be an encyclopedia.
Other hearsay conclude Pottermore may be the ultimate Harry Potter social network, in which fans from across the world have one place to unite and talk shop.
Follow the Owl
Like Morpheus in the Matrix, telling Neo to follow the white rabbit to see just how far the rabbit hole goes, Rowling tempts fans to “simply, follow the owl” to reveal more clues on how to gain early access to Pottermore. The site will be open to the public in October but only a select few will get to privately see the site in July and help “shape” the Pottermore experience.
As enchanting as it is, you bet there will be a surge of people with Google Alerts and the like set with the word “owl.” At press time, Pottermore was inundated with fans trying to register their emails that it is no longer accepting any more (hope you signed up already). Until the site is accepting emails again, it’s safe to say muggles– we will all just have to wait to get our Potter fix when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II comes out in July, and even then, advanced sales for the screening are running out. Viva La Potter!
It looks like Lindsay Lohan is still able to make some money despite her being under house arrest. The actress was charged with the theft a $2900 necklace some months ago. She was also charged with cocaine possession and drunk driving in 2007.
A new online penny auction ecommerce solution called Beezid.com filmed a commercial with Ms. Lohan inside her Venice, CA home. In the commercial Lindsay says:
“Hey to all of my friends, I just wanted to share with you a great website with amazing deals that I discovered during my time at home and it’s called BEEZID.com. Be sure to check it out!”
She also took to Twitter during the day to share with her over 2,000,000 followers about Beezid. After taking a look at her recent tweets, it’s fairly easy to see she has some other advertising gigs going one, especially 1-800-Muffins.
Beezid reportedly offered Lindsay somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000 to do the commercial. She initially turned it down, then accepted once another $10,000 credit to the ecommerce solution was on the table. That’s a pretty nice paycheck for an 18 minute video huh? Lohan is currently serving a 35-day sentence which ends on June 29th. Despite the complications with the law, Lindsay is still “hard at work.”
Beezid is just like any other penny auction ecommerce solution. You can purchase bids for between $0.50 and $0.99 and the more you buy, the cheaper it gets. The site has every auction set at $0.00 and everytime someone places a bid the time goes up by 10 seconds, and the price by $0.01. The item sells at an incredibly cheap price (~$50 for an iPad 2), but the company makes much more than that with bid purchases, and the buyer probably spends close to the amount of the item in bids trying to win.
These types of sites have been sprouting up at a rapid pace, but none have a star like Lindsay Lohan for a commercial. Who knows if this will be a break-through marketing tactic for the company or not. The YouTube video has over 105,000 views in two days, with twice the amount of dislikes versus likes, but it sure is a great PR stunt.
NBA star Lebron James is promoting a new alternative to energy drinks, hoping that consumers will add it to their online shopping cart. The new product is called “Sheets,” a tiny strip of flavored, dissolving material containing 50mg of caffeine per sheet. The product just went on sale online this past month and will be available in GNC stores this summer. Consumers can expect to pay $2.95 for a four-pack and $4.95 for a 10-pack.
Sheets is similar to the Listerine breath strips that have been around for years. For comparison purposes, top selling energy drink Red Bull contains approximately 80 mg of caffeine per 250ml can. A standard cup of brewed coffee contains approximately 100mg of caffeine. The popular 5 Hour energy drink contains around 130 mg of caffeine.
The energy drink market is exploding in the United States. In 2011, consumers put almost 8 million energy drinks in their shopping carts in the US. The consumption of energy products generates almost $9 billion a year for American companies. It is the fastest growing beverage industry in the nation.
Lebron is only the most recent celebrity to jump on the Sheets campaign, which already features the likes of DMC (of rap duo Run-DMC) and music star Pitbull. Sheets kicked off their marketing earlier this year with a $10 million advertising campaign that featured a giant billboard in Times Square. They have also signed a deal with the World Series of Poker to become an official sponsor of the Poker Tour. Their website features instructions for using the product, and is currently offering free shipping.
Sheets co-founder and CEO Warren Struhl says he’s hopeful the product will appeal to a new sector of the energy drink market. Those looking for a faster, more portable and convenient method for their daily pick-me-up will certainly find Sheets appealing.
Struhl says he believes the no-calorie, no sugar and no carbohydrate Sheets will also appeal to the female demographic and those on a diet. Struhl also sees Sheets as a viable alternative for those who spend a lot of time traveling and passing through airport security. Those seeking a TSA-friendly, non liquid solution to the drain of traveling will most likely soon be able to add Sheets to their shopping cart in airports across the country.
It’s always sad when we have to write one of these articles, but Ryan Dunn, a noted cast member of the infamous Jackass TV and movie series, died last night in a fiery car crash outside Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania town of West Goshen. It was originally unknown who was driving when the crash happened, but Dunn and one other passenger (name unreleased) both died. Eventually cops released that Dunn was behind the wheel. One thing that we do know for sure is that the eBay ecommerce solution will be flooded with Ryan Dunn-related merchandise once this news makes its way further around the internet.
eBay already features a few signed posters of Dunn and longtime co-star/teammate/all-around-best-bud Bam Margera. Some of the merchandise references or endorses a favorite band of theirs, CKY. To add terrible irony to Dunn’s tragic (avoidable?) death, Dunn’s last tweet is a photo of him and two friends drinking. After all the dangerous stuff that Dunn, Bam Margera, and his Jackass buddies did on camera, for him to meet his end in a car crash is also sad and ironic.
eBay’s auction-based ecommerce solution is often loaded with merchandise after a celebrity dies. MTV has already posted a photo retrospective on their website. Many celebrity and entertainment news outlets are also running extensive coverage, as well as the other staple of a celebrity death: the massive outpouring of Twitter sadness.
The massive cloud of media and selling stuff on ecommerce solutions sometimes tends to cheapen a star’s death. True fans and admirers of their work, however, will also keep an image of that special person in their minds (and maybe in their hearts, at the risk of sounding too weepy). Fans of Dunn will always remember him for his iconic beard and wild antics. Maybe pop in an old Jackass DVD and have a few laughs. That’s why he did all that stuff, after all.
Julian Assange, the mastermind behind Wiki-Leaks, is auctioning a lunch date with 8 lucky bidders on eBay. The three-hour lunch will be held at a London restaurant, followed by an event at which Assange will be speaking. Currently, bids are starting at £1900. This is Assange’s first eBay auction, and denotes WikiLeaks’ first attempt at a personalized e-commerce solution to it’s current financial isolation.
Assange has been wrapped up in some expensive legal proceedings in Sweden, and is currently on house arrest in England. Last year, WikiLeaks published what were then confidential government correspondence. As a result, many online payment sources such as Visa, and PayPal have banned donations to the site. Some are considering Assange’s auction as a sign of desperation, an attempt to resolve issues surrounding Wikileaks’ funding. A former spokesman claims WikiLeaks has raised plenty of money, it’s overhead is very low, and the site is not concerned with funding.
Since being turned down by Visa and PayPal, two major online payment sources, Wikileaks has turned to alternate forms of receiving donations. Following the story yesterday about $500,000 in BitCoin being stolen, WikiLeaks has had to start accepting the grey-market currency BitCoin. Assange has also turned to Facebook as an e-commerce solution to funding his legal defense. The auction is expected to net anywhere from £5,000 ($3,100) to £8,000 ($4,960) a seat. This could potentially net Assange and WikiLeaks a combined $40,000. Not too bad for an extended lunch and a quick eBay listing.
Justin Bieber — Sure he has his pretty boy looks, a hair flip that makes every tween and their mom in a half mile radius shed a single tear, musical talent for days, but one seriously noteworthy thing about him is that the kid has the Midas Touch. The culmination of all this has sparked a phenomena called Beiber Fever in which every product associated with Bieber is quickly put into an online shopping cart. Whether you’re a girl who wants to be with him, a boy that wants to be him (or a shameless adult jamming to his tunes in the ZippyCart corporate offices) the fever has hit almost everyone in some way.
Now just a week away comes the latest Bieber sensation for the ladies — a Bieber scented inspired fragrance dubbed “Someday.” The name comes from The Biebs own “after-school special” message to his fans that they too can “someday” achieve their dreams, of course while putting his fragrance in their shopping carts.
One could only imagine what the Biebs truly smells like but based on the mix of mandarin, pear, wild berries, jasmine, coconut orchid, and hints of vanilla, the eau de Biebs is probably just a short cry from what heaven must smell like. However, something tells us that The Biebs probably smells like crisp, green Benjamins as the fragrance is expected to bring the tween king an additional $30 million!
But before any judgement is passed, The Biebs will be hitting the CharityBuzz auction block to raise funds for the Communities in Schools and the Give Back Brands Foundation. CharityBuzz has been working tirelessly to raise money for a number of charities worldwide. This time around, Communities in Schools LA West surrounds students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life while GiveBack Brands partners with entertainment artists to donate to select charities like the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
From now until June 21, Beliebers can bid some serious milk money for a chance to meet and greet The Biebs himself at his June 23 fragrance launch in NYC. At press time, the current bid sat at $3,250 with the prize package doting an estimated value of $10,000.
“Someday is the idea that we can change the world, make our dreams come true, and even be with the one person that means everything” The Biebs stated. “Giving back has always been incredibly important to me, but let’s be honest… I wanted to create a fragrance for my female fans that I can’t get enough of… that I want to get next to and I can‟t stay away from. I know they’ll love the scent, but also the opportunity to support some amazing charities. It’s a gift that gives back.”
Will a Steve Jobs biography iPad digital comic be next?
Hot on the heels of his authorized biography shooting up the bestseller list months before it is due to hit stores, Bluewater comics has announced its upcoming Steve Jobs comic book. Much like the authorized biography that Jobs allowed through Simon and Schuster, the comic book will tell his life story – though this time with pictures! The chance to own yet another piece of paraphernalia associated with the tech giant has fans and foes alike scrambling to get the comic into their shopping carts.
Much like how the video montage in the first part of the the movie Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. told the audience everything they needed to know about the fictional tech genius (hmm…), the comic book version of Jobs’ life is laid out in just 32 pages, which means it’ll have to move pretty quickly. Hardly enough time to give the rich, varied, and sometime sordid details of his life and business dealings all the attention that they deserve. But it will be enough to give people a quick glimpse at all the important parts of his journey through the tech world.
Early shots put up on PC World show the black and white panels without word bubbles (hey, print them out and add your own words for comedic fun with one of the world’s most powerful businessmen!). They were quick to point out that the finished product would look very different. The editions put out by Bluewater are typically pretty high quality and offbeat, focusing on major figures from business and/or culture.
Previously Zippycart covered the comic book release of the Betty White book, which people rushed to put into their shopping carts in the wake of her renewed visibility circa her SNL appearance. Other Bluewater “stars” have included Mark Zuckerberg, comedienne Kathy Griffin, and even prominent figures within the Republican and Democratic political parties. A Charlie Sheen comic is in the works too!
Usually most people featured in Bluewater comics are happy to be there, or at least don’t object to it. Most likely the Bluewater bio will present a more-or-less balanced and/or positive take on Jobs. Otherwise they could find themselves up against the massive might of Apple. Jobs and Apple wield their corporate power quite freely, using their lawyers and influence to block anything that they see as threatening or unfairly using their image (even as they make somewhat questionable copyright/trademark moves themselves).
Most recently Apple squashed the unauthorized Steve Jobs figurine that had appeared on an online store and then on eBay. Their legal injunctions prevented people from putting them in their shopping carts, then shut down the auction. They’ll probably let this one see the light of day, though.
The biggest announcement to come out of Cupertino may not be the new plans for Apple’s UFO-shaped headquarters or the latest releases from the World Wide Developer’s Conference like the iOS 5, iCloud, or the astonishingly low priced OS X Lion for $29.99, but rather a sweater. Steve Job’s sweater to be exact. The latest ecommerce craze that has Jobs fans filling their shopping carts and shutting down online storefronts is Steve Jobs’ signature black cashmere sweater – seriously.
One of these years is not like the other ones, which year is it?
After the big WWDC keynote speech on Monday, many were left wondering about the developing future of Apple’s technology and how it will affect key competitors like Amazon and Google, while a select few were wondering just who designed his sweater. Wonder no more you select few, Techcrunch first got word from German luxury fashion house, Vonrosen, that the cashmere sweater is featured on their European flash site and that people can put it in their shopping carts to don the same Jobs fashion for a rough $616 (jeans, sneakers, and black mock neck not included).
Steve Jobs’s signature black sweater is like the Wilson to Tom Hanks in Castaway. It has taken its own runaway identity so much so that Vonrosen has reported that due to the overwhelming number of orders, as of Wednesday the company was no longer able to take any future orders. Apparently, everyone wants to look like Steve Jobs.
A quick apples to apples comparison:
iPhone: $300
iPod: $400
iPad 2: $629
Copping Steve Job’s black sweater: priceless $616
However, not to be outdone, fans of rich CEOs can also parody Mark Zuckerburg’s look on faux online shop, MarkbyMarkZuckerburg.com. Rather than shelling out $616 for a sweater, shoppers can put a $23 white t-shirt or a pair of Adidas flip flops into their shopping carts.
Sure you may not be rich like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerburg but at the very least, you can look like them (and even own a Steve Jobs bobblehead!).
By Susan Delly
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