Evolution Media

Tina Lambert and her husband wanted an investment that would help them pay for their kids' college tuition someday. When he insisted on paying $49,000 for a condominium in Ocean City in 1997, she worried. But by the middle of this decade, when housing markets were in full boom, the condo's value ...


Business - United States - Travel and Tourism - Lodging - Caribbean

SEATTLE - Hewlett-Packard boosted its bid for 3Par to $1.88 billion Friday, topping Dell's offer by 11 percent and again raising the stakes in the bidding contest for the data-storage company.


Hewlett-Packard - Dell - HP - HP 3000 - Unix

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen lobbed a patent violation lawsuit at some of Silicon Valley's most prominent companies on Friday, accusing them of using ideas hatched at one of his former businesses.



Google - Microsoft - Apple - Paul Allen - Searching

U.S. stocks jumped Friday, recovering some of the week's losses, as investors were encouraged by better-than-expected news about economic growth and a renewed commitment from the Federal Reserve to intervene should the economy take a turn for the worse.


Gross domestic product - Business - Investing - Stocks and Bonds - Equities

JACKSON, WYO. - With the economy faltering, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Friday he was prepared to take dramatic steps to boost the recovery but only if conditions get worse than he now expects.


Ben Bernanke - Economic - Federal Reserve System - Central bank - Deflation

The Justice Department greenlighted the planned merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines on Friday, paving the way for the creation of the world's biggest airline.


United States - Justice Department - Continental Airlines - United States Department of Justice - Southwest Airlines

American taxpayers spend 7.6 billion hours and roughly $140 billion a year to comply with the bewildering thicket of requirements in the federal tax code, according to a report released Friday by a White House advisory board whose members urged Congress to adopt their ideas for simplifying people...



United States - Politics - Taxation - Paul Volcker - President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board

Online crafts marketplace Etsy, the five-year-old Brooklyn-based company that has catapulted to success, is getting even bigger. The company just nabbed a former Google executive as its chief operating officer, and raised an additional $20 million in venture funding.

Adam Freed, formerly a Google international executive, will join 125-employee Etsy as chief operating officer, further cementing the e-commerce site’s global expansion plans. In early August, Etsy began supporting 23 different currencies through PayPal for shoppers from around the world.

“Now when you’re viewing items, it’ll show you what it costs in your local currency,” said Etsy spokesman Adam Brown.

In its fifth round of venture funding, Etsy attracted Index Ventures, along with Accel and Hubert Burda Media. The firms have agreed to pony up a total of $20 million for the growing Brooklyn firm. The previous round was in January of 2008, when Etsy received a shot of $27 million in funding. In total, Etsy has raised around $52 million.

Etsy Founder and Chief Executive Rob Kalin could not be reached for comment. Mr. Brown said that the company is profitable and predicts revenue this year between $30 million and $50 million. Through July, the gross value of goods on Etsy.com was $158 million, though the company expects to reach $400 million by the end of December.

Experts say the venture capital market is just getting started, and activity in the Big Apple is robust. Despite Etsy’s profitability, it still makes sense to seek additional funding, said Cris Dolan, executive director of the New York Venture Capital Association.

“Any company that has the opportunity to raise capital at this point is probably going to do so,” she said. “You have retail and media and finance all within a small footprint so companies located in this area have tremendous growth potential as a result of the access to all these various sales and marketing relationships.”

Mr. Kalin was named a Crain's Top Entrepreneur last year.

Emily Laermer - Here's more evidence that digital marketing and advertising are soaring in New York City: nine such companies in the metro area made the latest Inc. 500 list, released Thursday.

These companies make up just under a fifth of the 48 New York-area companies with the fastest-growing revenues tracked by Inc. magazine.

The New York area also led the pack for metropolitan areas, with 401 companies making the magazine's expanded Inc. 5,000 list.

“New York is a hot bed of activity; there's a lot of innate talent here,” said Mike Deluca, senior vice president of sales and marketing of Yodle, an online advertising company that ranked No. 35 on the list—and first in the state. Yodle increased its revenue to $45.9 million in 2009, from $758,000 in 2006 and nearly doubled the size of its New York staff, Mr. Deluca said. “Ad agencies are growing as tech and media strategies emerge.”

Online advertising so far this year is up more than 10% from last year and is expected to increase by an additional 45% by 2014, predicts eMarketer. Yodle, as an example, is contributing to this activity by adding its customer's links to online maps; ads for the 800 Yodle clients who use this service appear when users search for corresponding keywords on these maps.

New York business boosters shouldn't get too smug, however. As more content goes online, office location will become less important in the marketing and advertising world, said Nick Pahade, chief executive of digital media planning company Traffiq, one of Inc.'s Top 10 Indian-run fast-growers.

“Even though physical location is less important, there's something to be said about having a presence in New York,” said Mr. Pahade, whose Manhattan-based outfit ranked 50th on the list and increased its revenue to $5.7 million in 2009 from $125,600 in 2006. “There's a lot of action here. It's only natural for a high propensity of advertising agencies in the area.”

Other New York sectors with impressive showings on the latest Inc. list include software, business products and information technology, which each had four companies on the Top 500 list.

Statewide, the Empire State came in third to Texas and California on the expanded list.

And CheckOutStore, a media storage company based in Brooklyn, increased its 2009 revenue to $3.1 million from $281,500 in 2006 and made the magazine's list of Top 10 Asian-run companies.

JACKSON HOLE, WYO. - The Federal Reserve will take new action to bolster the economy only if conditions worsen further, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Friday, adding that he expects a continued economic recovery.


Federal Reserve System - Ben Bernanke - Economic - Chairman of the Federal Reserve - Social Sciences

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke acknowledged in a much-awaited speech Friday that the pace of economic growth "recently appears somewhat less vigorous" than expected, but said that the economy is on track to continue growing and the central bank would only take new...


Ben Bernanke - Federal Reserve System - United States - Business - Storage

The Commerce Department slashed its estimate for U.S. GDP growth in the second quarter from a 2.4 percent annual rate to 1.6 percent, confirming fears that economic growth has slowed to a crawl.


Business - Economic - Instrumentation - Electronics and Electrical - Flow

Credit card reform came too late for 20-year-old Tamaira Shaw.



Credit card - Business - Financial Services - Business and Economy - Merchant Services

NEW YORK - Stocks fell Thursday after early gains from a better report on jobless claims faded in late trading, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to its first close below 10,000 since early July.



Economic - Social Sciences - Indicators and Statistics - Official Statistics - United States

A report Thursday by the federal regulator overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac put a new wrinkle in a common explanation for why the mortgage giants collapsed and could complicate efforts to restructure them.


Fannie Mae - Freddie Mac - United States - Mortgage loan - Real estate

The federal government wants to fine American Airlines a record $24.2 million for failing to adequately address a problem with wheel-well wiring that could cause fires in its fleet of 245 McDonnell Douglas MD-80 airplanes.


American Airlines - United States - Airline - Government - Aviation

With the economy rapidly weakening, some senior Democrats are having second thoughts about raising taxes on the nation's wealthiest families and are pressing party leaders to consider extending the full array of Bush administration tax cuts, at least through next year.



Tax cut - United States - Taxation - Politics - Republican

Foreclosures and late payments on home mortgages dropped slightly in the second quarter of this year, but sustained high unemployment and a stalled economic recovery could make the improvement short-lived.


Foreclosure - Mortgage Bankers Association - Loan - Mortgage loan - Business

Emily Laermer - The first batch of inspected restaurants in New York City received higher grades than anticipated, the Department of Health said on Thursday.

Just under half, or 49%, of the first 250 restaurants received A grades for safety and sanitary conditions, and an additional third received Bs.

That’s significantly better than the Department of Health’s estimate in March. The agency predicated that only a third of restaurants would receive the top grade, while most would get Bs.

About 8% of restaurants have been closed because of sanitation and health violations found during the inspections.

“Our goal is to reduce illnesses associated with eating food in restaurants,” said Commissioner Thomas Farley. “The restaurants appear to be taking the inspection process more seriously than they did the past.”

Through the city’s new inspection process, restaurants are given two opportunities to receive As. If the restaurant does not receive a top grade, it has the opportunity for a re-inspection within three weeks. After the initial round of inspections, 26% received As.

After the second inspection the restaurant must either post its grade, or appeal to the tribunal.

Restaurants can be docked for violations, like keeping or serving foods at the wrong temperatures, health hazards and pests, and each violation is associated with a certain point value. Restaurants with under 13 points receive As; 14 to 27 points, Bs; and above 28 points, Cs.