Want to take advantage of online shopping, but don’t have the time to hunt for bargains? Or, do you shop online, but find out that your size isn’t offered any longer at the sale price? Now there is a fun, free www site that does all the work for you. Consumer spending has come to a halt and is critical to getting the economy going again……so it is your civic duty to go buy something….ok, ok…maybe not, but www.shopittome.com is a cool little site that will help you find a few bargains.

Here is how it works. You start by creating a profile. This will take about 5 minutes. First you tell www.shopittome.com what you are interested in (e.g., men’s clothing, women’s clothing) and your sizes. Next, you select brands that interest you. There are approximately 600 women’s brands and 300 men’s brands on the site and you can pick as many as you would like. Everything from Armani to Adidas and beyond. Shopittome has a pretty good selection. Last but not least, you provide an email address, your first name and how often you would like to hear from www.shopittome.com.

On the frequency that you specify, you will receive a personalized “Salemail” that lists sales on items that want and in the brands and sizes that fit you. If you see something you like, simply click on the link that takes you to the retailers www site to complete the purchase. All purchasing and returning is done via the retailer and not www.shopittome.com.

Pretty simple. I am a big fan of simple. In today’s busy world, www.shopittome.com provides a nice free service that can help anyone take advantage of the convenience of online shopping.

The Examiner newspaper said goodbye to Baltimore this weekend with its final edition. Ad revenue wasn’t enough to keep the free paper in circulation. At the Baltimore sun, circulation is down and more than 200 jobs have been cut in the last 18 months. Reports indicate that on a national basis, overall newspaper based readership is down about 3% from last year.

The interesting side to all of this and the story you aren’t hearing much about is that online news sites are dramatically growing in readership. According to a recent Nielsen online survey, online readership on the top 10 news www sites is up an average of 16% with 40 million unique visitors in December 2008. This is up from 34 million in December of 2007. Total viewers peaked at 252 million in the same period, compared to 199 million in December 2007.

Our desire to be informed appears to be growing. From being connected via PDA, cell, internet to print – we want to be up to date. What is changing is how we get our news. Personally, I get a ton of news on my phone and via email alerts. The convenience of online is hard to beat. Online news is real time and can be targeted to a specific person via personalized alerts. Another major factor is that internet news is free.

What does this mean to newspapers? The dominant trend is get news online, so newspapers need to follow that trend and continue to shift more resources to their online presence. How to shift the business model is going to be a challenge. It is difficult to name more than a few online news outlets that have “figured it out”. Most appear to have a loyal following for specific content either at the national (Wall Street Journal) or the local news level.

There has been some discussion regarding the charging for access to news content or charging micropayments. Micropayments would involve charging by the story in a manner similar to the iTunes method of charging by the song. Either business model will be difficult to make profitable as most news stories are carried by multiple outlets and if one continues to offer free news, it will impossible for the other news agencies to charge for the same story.

The green movement is also making the use of paper frowned upon when another means of delivery is possible.

All of these signals are pointing to the need for news organizations to move to online delivery and to determine a valuable niche that can generate profits. The most successful organizations are going to figure it out soon and capture this trend to their advantage.

When you listen to the radio, you are at the mercy of the station manager and what he/she wants to play. Sometimes you like the songs and sometimes you don’t and your only recourse is to change the channel. Wouldn’t it be great if you could create your own station that only played your favorite songs and songs that sound similar? Well, that is exactly what you get from www.pandora.com

Pandora allows you to create up to 100 personalized internet radio stations and listen to them on your computer or your iPhone or Windows Mobile Phone. Sorry about that Palm users.
Getting started couldn’t be easier. You simply tell Pandora your favorite songs and you are ready to go. Even one song will get you going. Pandora will then create a radio station based on music you like and music that is similar to music that you like. Registering an account isn’t required to get started, but you will need to register to save your stations.

How does Pandora do this? Pandora knows all about music based on data from the Music Genome project. The music genome project began in 2000 by a group of musicians with the goal of mapping all music based on certain characteristics. They have assembled hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. These genes capture the true essence of a song – everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to arrangement to lyrics.

Ok, so back to Pandora….what happens when you hear a song that you like or don’t like? When you like a song, and want to hear it played more often, then click the “Thumbs Up” icon. When you don’t like a song, and then simply click the “Thumbs Down” icon and the song will stop playing.

This how Pandora learns from you. By presenting you with new songs that are similar to songs you already like, and by recording your thumbs up and down designations, Pandora learns what you like and don’t like. Pandora then keeps sending you songs that you should enjoy. If you hear a new song that you want to buy, then just click to buy from iTunes or Amazon.

If you want more information about the new bands you are listening to, then click on Pandora Backstage to get more data about artists, their music, their albums, and about our listeners and their stations.
Even better, you can share your station with you friends as well as see and listen to other stations that have been created other pandora-ites that are just like you.
If you want to take control of your listening time and discover new music and artists, then Pandora is the website for you.