Recent Stories in Business

Steve Broback of the Parnassus Group, at 140TC: Seattle. Photo by Brian Westbrook.

This was Monday early afternoon, and Sagolla and I were making up for not having been able to connect face-to-face earlier in the day, while I was down at the Bell Harbor Conference Center at Pier 66 for 140: The Twitter Conference, a commerce-meets-culture confab digging into nitty-gritty of how to maximize whatever benefit you're trying to get from your 140-characters-at-a-time online presence.

While the audience was decidedly business-y, and most of the presentations oriented towards marketing and branding opportunities via Twitter, the subjects of politics, pop culture, philanthropy, and privacy kept popping up. On the last subject in that list, Ben Parr of Mashable pretty much summed up the prevailing philosophy when he explained: "Privacy is dead." So there's that....

As much as I like to rail about government bureaucracy--come on, who doesn't?--I often see signs that our government is populated by hard-working, competent people. (Whoops, there go our eastern Washington readers.)

Yesterday I wondered aloud at the seeming discrepancy between a report that the state added 12,000 jobs in January, and another report that indicated our unemployment rate had either stayed the same or edged up imperceptibly.

Sheryl Hutchison, the state's Employment Security Department communications director, wrote in to explain, in refreshingly clear terms:

On the surface, it seems illogical that the unemployment rate could increase at the same time jobs are increasing. The answer lies in the definition of "labor force."

As the economy starts to improve and more jobs become available, discouraged workers will start looking for work again--thus increasing the total size of the work force. Since these individuals haven't found a job yet, it causes the unemployment rate to increase.

For several months now, our economists have been predicting this phenomenon would occur as the economy starts to pick up--and it appears that it's starting to happen. As illogical as it seems, it's actually a positive sign that the economy is starting to move again.

The question of whether an unemployment rate is what it says it is, if it doesn't count all the ready-to-work unemployed, aside, at least it makes sense. If and when the job market starts to get back to its feet, the news that people are hiring will draw thousands back to the labor force. The Seattle Times economy reporter Jon Talton vouches for this reading in his post today:...

Despite the PSBJ headline, "Washington unemployment rate rises to 9.3 percent," there's been no substantial change in unemployment. January's unemployment splits the difference between December's estimated percentage (9.5) and revised downward final (9.2).

What's slightly confusing is that the state claims to have added over 12,000 jobs in January. The Tacoma News Tribune says "job gains occurred in retail trade, educational and health services, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, manufacturing and aerospace and parts manufacturing."

That would be three percent of the approximately 395,000 Washingtonians who are unemployed.

Statements were issued: "This is a positive sign for Washington state," said Gov. Chris Gregoire. "It’s encouraging to see jobs finally coming back," said ESD Commissioner Karen Lee. No one addressed the question of how 12,000 new hires would completely fail to impact unemployment. It's as if the two measurements had been somehow decoupled for the benefit of political press releases.

(via TechFlash) "Let's Move!" is the headline for the full-page Microsoft ad in today's Seattle Times (also here). They don't mean to Reno, Nevada, where as a tax-dodge they have domiciled Microsoft Licensing Incorporated. They mean figuratively, on the construction of a new 520 bridge. Any design improvements, Microsoft says, would "cause yet more delay, increase the cost to taxpayers, and put this vital transportation and economic corridor at risk."

"Increase the cost to taxpayers"! That is pure altruism, which you just don't see a lot of these days. Thanks to their avoidance of Washington state B&O taxes, Microsoft hasn't paid upwards of $700 million on revenue from software licensing. (That's fifteen percent of the bridge's $4.65 billion price tag.) So it's hardly any skin off their nose if the cost to taxpayers goes up.

They're more concerned about the average taxpaying citizen, when it comes to funding infrastructure so that people can drive to and from their Redmond campus more quickly. I, for one, salute Microsoft for this gutsy public stand in defense of our tax dollars.

That BoingBoing headline--"Broke-ass Washington state set to give MSFT $100M annual tax cut and amnesty for $1B in evasion"--should make the people (well, Jeff Reifman) at Microsoft Tax Dodge happy--they've been wondering where the Seattle Times has been on this issue. Who needs old media? BoingBoing is here.

To catch you up, many people have long known about Microsoft's bid to avoid paying Washington state's B&O royalty tax by setting up Microsoft Licensing Incorporated in Reno, Nevada. Jeff Reifman has been reporting on that story since 2004, as he will be the first to mention, in a slightly incredulous, "Has it been that long?" way. (Reifman has worked at both Microsoft and Seattle Weekly.)

Although Microsoft makes no secret of producing its software in Washington state, the idea is that since the sales "location" is domiciled in Nevada, they're not subject to Washington state taxes. Notes Reifman:

Nevada's tax rate for licensed software is zero. Washington's is .484%, lowered in 1998 from 1.5% by lobbying from...the software industry....

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Bill Gates' TED talk has hit the internet--it's almost 30 minutes (Gates speaks for about twenty, and then there's a Q&A), so the majority of people will likely not make it all the way through it before needing to look busy at work. Luckily, other people have watched the whole thing, and they have responded, so you can sound up-to-speed anyway.

Probably the most important element of the talk for environmental listeners is Gates' focus on the scope of change that needs to happen. He's been criticized in the past for limiting his philanthropic focus--which people take as a kind of emphasis on what needs to be done, globally--so that climate change and carbon reduction seems blanketed by an SEP field. That is no longer the case.

World Changing's Alex Steffen said:

Friday, Gates predicted extraordinary climate action: zero. Not small steps, not incremental progress, not doing less bad: zero. In fact, he stood in front of a slide with nothing but the planet Earth and the number zero. That moment was the most important thing that has happened at TED....

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Economist Yoram Bauman likes to paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke when you ask him the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics: "Microeconomists are wrong about specific things, and macroeconomists are wrong about things in general." He likes that take so much, it's right there on page nine of his book, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics.

He elaborates, though, if you continue to stare quizzically at him.

"Microeconomics deals generally with small scale things, individual markets, while macroeconomics deals with big-picture issues: unemployment, inflation, the business cycle, economic growth." An environmental economist, Bauman teaches at the UW's interdisciplinary-oriented Program on the Environment, at the sustainability-oriented Bainbridge Graduate Institute, and at wealthy-parent-oriented Lakeside High School.

When you read, for example, that climate change may cost the state of Washington almost $4 billion by 2020, you're in Bauman's wheelhouse. To him, the public's struggle to get our heads around environmental economics follows from a long and storied tradition of ideological tension between free-marketeers and regulatory pressures. "A lot of what you see on TV are the extremes, you have the Heritage Foundation, who are like, 'We just need freer markets!' or the other side, who say, 'We need government involvement in lots of things.'"

And then there's the tension between people who can't imagine things being possible, and those who can. Privatize the post office, you say? It's too large and complicated. To which the economist replies with Leonard Read's story about how the pencil is made. In the decades it has been impossible to privatize the post office, FedEx, DHL, and UPS have all revolutionized the logistics of delivery, while the post office has catered to bulk mailers (where almost 40 percent of its revenue comes)....

The top Twitter hashtag for Seattle right now is #WP7, as the smartphone crowd hashes out what the advent of Windows Phone 7 means. TechFlash has "what they're saying," and what they're saying is very complimentary (except for the name, Windows Phone 7). Gizmodo says it's "the most groundbreaking phone since the iPhone." But don't expect to see it until the holiday season.

The short story is that Microsoft has thrown out the old WinMo experience and adopted an augmented Zune HD interface that's heavy on live animation, so that its integration with external sources like Facebook is, to the user, seamless and always-on. "You never see an annoying 'loading...loading...loading,'" says Microsoft's Joe Belfiore.

This, combined with the news that two dozen cell phone providers are forming their own mobile app store, is keeping the mobile marketplace very interesting. That next iPhone had better be a doozy.

Earlier this week Josh posted about how Bing is integrating geotagged Flickr photos almost seamlessly into its streetview maps. You have to see it to believe it. As this TED talk starring Blaise Aguera y Arcas (below) demonstrates, that functionality is really just the tip of the iceberg.

There's also a Local Lens app for a visual view of hyperlocal stories (the difficulty in getting this right is illustrated with Capitol Hill stories provided by Cap to the Hill, Seattlest, and Beacon Hill Blog, with no Slog or Capitol Hill Seattle).

In the video, there's a breathtaking use of live streaming 4G to integrate a video of a Bing Maps team down at Pike Place Market into the view of Pike Place Market that Aguera y Arcas is showing the TED audience.

That leads us to Liquid Galaxy, where Google's Jason Holt turns Google Earth's 3D view into a flying carpet ride. When you step inside an interactive booth wrapped by LCD screens, you get the immersive experience (I got vertigo just watching the video) of traveling through space--in the air, at ground level, and even below water (the video below takes you for a dip in Monterey Bay).

Bing, the little local search engine that could, is tech previewing an astounding new integration of photos into their maps. By trawling Flickr for public, geotagged, creative commons pictures and aligning them with their panoramic street views, they've created something that at least in slick YouTube presentations approaches the territory of being indistinguishable from magic. Details of the process are posted on the Bing Blog for those who want to understand the underpinnings rather than just trembling before them in awe.

Seattle is featured in the preview Streetside Photos release along with San Francisco and Vancouver; so for a good sense of the possibilities, try diving into parts of the map that are especially photo-dense like the Pike Place Market or just about any intersection with a view of the Space Needle and let us know if you find any particular gems.

(via waxy.org) 

Regular readers of The SunBreak are aware that a friend of mine had a traumatic roll-of-quarters experience with the Chase branch in the University District, back in November:

He stopped by the branch in the University Village to pick up a roll of quarters because he's paranoid about using his credit card in parking meters. He bought a roll for ten dollars, stepped outside to open up the roll, and discovered that he'd also bought a number of dimes, nickels, pennies, and Phillipine centavos.

As it happened, this week brought a return visit to the same branch (via drive-thru) for quarters. The teller proffered (via the drive-thru transport device) one of the self-packed rolls that customers bring in, and my friend, remembering his last experience, balked.

"Can you open it?" he asked. Behind the window, the teller gave him a look that translated as, "Um--no!" He explained that he only asked because of the last time with the centavos. "The last time, you guys said if I left with the quarters, it was my responsibility." The teller agreed it was. "Can I just get one of the machine-filled rolls?" The teller was disinclined to acquiesce....

(via TechFlash) All over the Pacific Northwest this morning, PR professionals glanced through the New York Times and thought, "Hey, Microsoft got a hit!" Then they realized that a hit had been done on Microsoft and they prepared for a round of stomach-churning conference calls.

Dick Brass, a VP with Microsoft for seven years, until 2004, wrote this about his former employer:

The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It's not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft's music, e-books, phone, online, search, and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.

Apologists will have plenty of countercharges to make against Brass or his claims, but this element of Microsoft's culture is well known, and remonstrating with people who mention it is just evidence of Microsoft's inability to see and critique its behavior....

For more in-depth analysis, here's the Seattle Times Amazon story. And here's the PostGlobe City Books post.

Bill Gates

So when people say middle class salaries have not gone up much I think that the “basket of goods” approach to measuring improvement inherently understates how much better life is now than it was in the past.

It's not that he's not correct, but there's equity and there's "better." When you talk about quality of life improvements, you're often talking about things that a society shares (or tries to share) access to. Bill Gates uses the internet; so does the homeless person at the library. But: income inequality in the U.S. hasn't been this great since the Great Depression. I worry about the blinkered effect of this kind of thinking.

Still, it's an intriguing question, how to measure what innovation brings to the table, because as Gates instances, innovation often makes something inexpensive. We're not good at seeing the removal of costs as a benefit. (Just like Microsoft can't seem to get their heads around the removal of bloat.)...

Surprise is the operative word when it comes to Rob Glaser's announcement that he's stepping down as CEO of RealNetworks, though he will remain chairman of the board. TechFlash says Robert Kimball has been named president and acting chief executive officer. Kimball will be a candidate in the search for a new CEO. Here is the RealNetworks release announcing Glaser's resignation.

In an email to RealNetworks staff, Glaser said:

The senior executive team is galvanized and committed to making RealNetworks a company where customers love our products, employees are excited about being here, and we create value for our shareholders. We want RealNetworks to be a more focused, faster growing and profitable company. We are going to simplify the way we do business, empower employees to do their jobs, and hold people accountable for their results. I look forward to working with all of you to transform RealNetworks as part of this next chapter.

That "simplify the way we do business" is a small phrase, but, coming at this juncture, it has the power to send chills down nervous spines. It could signify a major reorganization at Real. Glaser has given no particular reason for his actions, saying only, "After nearly 16 years, I've decided it's time for me to step away from day-to-day operations."

Kimball's statement seems to indicate, as well, that change is in the wind: "We plan to transform Real into a more focused and more profitable company that delivers value to our shareholders."

Daniel Pink visits Town Hall in Seattle on Monday, January 11. His talk begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5.

Of the pack of gurus in the running to assume the mantle of Drucker and become the business world's go-to guy for advice on how to have it all, the author of Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink, both is and isn't in the running.

It's hard to imagine anyone today having the chance to survey a monolithic business world the way Peter Drucker did. Today's analyses are either fiercely domain-specific or meta-analyses of a fractured, niche marketplace. Nonetheless, Daniel Pink books--for "intelligent, forward-thinking, optimistic folks," bursting with the hallmarks of the get-smart genre--sell like iPods (which I think supplanted hotcakes in sales rankings some years ago).

Drive naturally comes with an extended subhead ("The Surprising Truth ABout What Motivates Us") and includes seven reasons for things, invented dichotomies ("Type I's almost always outperform Type X's in the long run"), recourse to experts and research, and glowing case studies of businesses that "get it."

In other words, Drive is to books what the Clif Bar is to food. If, like me, you find your soul's tastebuds shriveling from over-exposure to this high-energy presentation style, I want to deliver some surprising truth of my own: It's worth reading, and mulling over. It challenges you. (If hard-charging execs did book clubs, this would be a good pick.) And it's not "just" for business types--if you need to work for a living, there's something here for you.

Let me skip to the end, to explain why. According to Pink (the author, not the singer), motivation is what happens when autonomy, mastery, and purpose head off in the same direction. That's drive.

He's arguing for real autonomy here, not the faux kind where corporate sets goals and workers have the "freedom" to achieve them by working as long as they want so long as it's longer. The example he gives is of a ROWE (results-oriented work environment), where employees set their own hours--they come to work to work, not to show up at the office for 8.5 hours.

On the one hand, I resist the book jacket's "paradigm-shattering" emphasis, but on the other, just imagine what it would take to get your office to switch to ROWE. Many, if not most, of you are all too familiar with how suspicious command-and-control types are of giving employees meaningful choices. They may mean well, but they just can't get their heads around it. Their mantra is "Work harder, not smarter."

Fundamentally, they believe people don't like work, and would rather be someplace else: Only rum and the lash motivate the swabbies. But the thesis that underlies Pink's book is that in many cases, extrinsic motivators are only briefly effective, and are often counter-productive for the long-term. The thrill of a Salesperson of the Month plaque dwindles quickly. And if it's all about the extra money from a raise, why not take bids from competing firms for your services?...

It's like a Bizarro-world "Gung Ho"!

Over at the Harvard Business Review, blogger Dick Nolan (Boeing Philip M. Condit Professor of Business Administration at the UW's Foster School of Business) thinks Boeing's Trojan Horse moment was in outsourcing that famed Boeing know-how. Writes Nolan, "Before the 787, Boeing had retained almost total control of airplane design and provided suppliers precise engineering drawings for building parts (called 'build to print')."

Not that that has changed entirely--ironically enough, here's this recent headline from the Wall Street Journal: "Boeing takes control of plant." But that's a South Carolina plant. For the 787, Boeing has constructed 300-partner supply chain that spans the globe.

Continues Nolan:

Boeing effectively gave Tier 1 suppliers a large part of its proprietary manual, "How to Build a Commercial Airplane," a book that its aeronautical engineers have been writing over the last 50 years or so. Instead of "build to print," Boeing provided suppliers with performance specifications for parts and components and collaboratively worked with them in the design and manufacturing of major components such as the wing, fuselage section, and wing box.

The only problem is that once Boeing has trained and retooled its far-flung suppliers, it will have planted a worldwide crop of competitors. China, Nolan thinks, is the most likely to run with the commercial airplane ball. Airbus has already agreed to a Chinese final-assembly plant, work that it, like Boeing, has tried to keep "stateside."

So forget South Carolina: Asia's lower-paid workforce is learning from the best how to build a plane from nose to tail, and how to put it together and sell it for about fifteen percent less (per Nolan) than Airbus or Boeing. It's a fait accompli, a matter of when, not if.

As the PSBJ reports, Ryanair has walked away from an order of 200 Boeing 737s, an order that would have more than doubled the size of the Irish budget airline's fleet. It's not exactly a crushing blow for Boeing, since "The airline added Friday that its decision won’t affect its delivery of 112 737s in the next three years."

Seattlepi.com quotes Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary as saying, "We have no plans to reopen discussions with Boeing or any other aircraft manufacturers," which lends credence to the view that Ryanair is rethinking its breathless rate of expansion. That is the subtext in Bloomberg's story on the jet deal, which would have been worth around $14 billion, according to the Financial Times.

Bloomberg quotes analysts who point out that with over 100 737s on the way, Ryanair is in no pressing hurry to make a deal if it thinks the market for planes might dip further during the recession. In fact, Boeing and Ryanair had agreed on the price, but Ryanair was demanding unnamed "contractual terms and conditions" that Boeing balked at adding.

O'Leary had one card left to play this hand--How much was it worth to Boeing not to "lose" one of the largest deals in commercial airplane history? Not enough. They'll shuffle the cards and start over.

For more than a decade, Seattle has prided itself on its robust economy and unmatched blend of innovative, successful companies. We’ve had it all. So it’s particularly hard to see a local, homemade Seattle company get whacked and weakened by punch after punch from its competitors.

Starbucks [SBUX] is having a rough recession. They’ve had to close hundreds of stores due to declining sales and have seen their market share shrunk by the likes of McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts.  

Today, they’ve taken another smack to the gut from the boys behind the Golden Arches. Starting in January, McDonald’s will be offering free Wi-Fi. What this means is that the company behind the guy in the clown outfit has out flanked Starbucks yet again and gone directly to consumers with something they want and, frankly, demand.

For years Starbucks has stubbornly stuck to the notion that people like their stores and products so much that they will pay for an Internet connection they can find for free at a local café down the street (or now at a fast food chain with much cheaper lattés). In all fairness, Starbucks does offer free Wi-Fi, but only to AT&T Internet subscribers, or if you have a Starbucks card--otherwise, you pay for your time.

This might have made sense four years ago when wireless Internet first made its move towards ubiquity. But the world has changed and customers demand access as a prerequisite for settling down with a hot cup of Joe.   

Everyone else, it seems, has recognized that having people stay in your store and probably buy more than one drink, a donut, juice, or a Happy Meal is a very good thing. They probably realize that the income they generate from those incremental sales will pay for the cost the store incurs from an Internet connection.

The bitter irony, pun intended, is that Starbucks invented the concept of the coffee-house-as-office. They created the idea of a comfortable, cozy place to have an espresso and get a little something done. One could argue that the rapid rise of 3G phones is a direct response to people wanting tools that would allow them to be productive while sitting in someplace very much like Starbucks.  ...

Jon Talton's post says much of what you need to know about Weyerhauser's decision to turn itself into a real estate investment trust (REIT): "A REIT distributes some 90 percent of its income directly to shareholders, in exchange for a corporate tax rate of zero (Weyerhaeuser's is currently 35 percent)."

Wall Street has been after Weyerhauser to go the REIT route for years, and their announcement in 2008 that they couldn't transform into a REIT in 2009 punished their stock value. That said, people knew it was just a matter of time, and charted the timeline via the rise of Daniel Fulton, former head of Weyerhaeuser Real Estate, who was promoted to CEO of Weyerhaeuser. "That's a fast track!," exclaimed The Timberland Blog back in 2008.

After CEO Fulton's announcement of the REIT move, shares shot up seven percent. Like Seattle's Plum Creek, Weyerhauser's identity (and worth) will now be tied primarily to its land ownership, rather than to an integrated business model; as Talton explains, "REITs don't exist to make productive, value-added things."

So I'm sitting in the Elliott Bay Café in Pioneer Square, interviewing Vittana co-founder Brett Witt (hobbies: iPhone hacks, djing) and their international partnerships guy Nick Cain (skateboarding, water polo).

In quick succession we hit on Amazon's personalization (though Witt and CEO Kushal Chakrabarti don't work on Bezos' farm no more), Seattle's microfinance start-up scene (not to mention heavy hitters like Grameen, Unitus, Global Partnerships, too), and social media--and I realize I am scribbling this all down in a $1.29 notebook I got from Walgreen's. 

Bloggers invented microfinance!

Actually, no, we did not. Neither did Muhammad Yunus, but the founder of Grameen Bank did a lot to prove that microcredit works--that right-sized lending creates a huge pool of potential investors and gives micro-entrepreneurs a chance to take financial risks that won't crush them.

With the nonprofit Vittana (they're also on Facebook), Kushal and Brett are taking microfinance in a new direction: college loans. Up to now, microlending has focused on the benefits of lending small amounts over short time frames. College loans are (someone has to say it) microfinance 2.0. That's why, I imagine, Huffington Post readers picked Vittana as the " Ultimate Game Changer in Philanthropy." (1.7 million votes were cast in ten "Game Changer" categories.)

A recent New York Times profile of Vittana summarizes the stumbling block: "Mainstream banks and others lend to microfinance institutions who in turn lend to small entrepreneurs because those loans support an activity that generates income. But a loan to a college student bears no immediate promise of repayment."

Especially in developing countries, the concept of government-funded student loans has yet to take hold, and prospective students are faced with the familiar Catch-22 of borrowers the world over: You have to be well-off to qualify for a loan.

The Times quotes Timothy Ogden, publisher of Philanthropy Action, to get to the real game-changing part: "If you’re trying to raise standards of living, making an education loan is probably a better way of doing that than lending another $100 to an illiterate and unskilled woman to open another roadside stand."

Brett Witt

"We just want to show that this is a feasible idea--a probable idea," says Brett, who's from Chicago's West Side, dredded, and brought you your Amazon Watch List. "One of our biggest 'products' or contributions to the field is just figuring out how student loans work [with a microfinance model]."

So far, Vittana has provided students with 33 loans worth $37,000 altogether, to students in urban areas of Paraguay, Nicaragua, Peru, and Mongolia. Vietnam and Cambodia are just coming online.

Right now, the average loan amount is just over $1,000, but "historically" (the site launched in May 2009), loans have ranged from $500 to $800. After their HuffPo fame broke, the number of lenders has doubled, which is good news because the number of students they put up on the site is tied to the lending resources available. Vittana lenders get their money back (in fact, there have been no defaults at all so far), but the loan is provided on an interest-free basis. All the cash transfers happen via PayPal....

"a murder of one" by Zenobia Joy, via The SunBreak Flickr pool.

Hey ladies: Blackbird's spin-off, women's store Birgitta is set to close, like, now.  So head to Ballard this weekend for a mega-clearance sale.  Some clothes for women will remain at Blackbird, on the main floor.  But the rest of the stuff upstairs has gots to go!

Full press release after the jump.

Blackbird to Close Women's Store

Big clearance sale on remaining merchandise

As a change in business plan, Blackbird is closing Birgitta, its women's store, immediately. A small selection of women's brands will be integrated into the main floor at Blackbird and the new store, The Field House.

Almost one year ago Blackbird decided to diversify and broaden its reach in the Seattle retail market. Blackbird had been selling menswear to women and also had a successful ongoing women's rack in Blackbird. Women's clothing seemed to be the natural next step. After almost a year, it was realized that the other Blackbird businesses were more successful and took far less effort.

Owner Nicole Miller says, "Closing Birgitta is not easy, but we think people will be excited about our new projects to come."

The space where Birgitta was--upstairs in Blackbird--will be converted into a private personal shopping studio, and will potentially be used for shop-in-shop/pop-up-shops.

THE BIG BIRGITTA CLEARANCE SALE

Sunday, December 13th 6pm - 9pm

Monday, December 14th 9am - 9pm

40-80% off

RACKS AND RACKS of LOVELY THINGS

Karen Walker

Helmut Lang

Harputs Own

Harvey Faircloth

Mono

Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair

Blank

Ladyboy

Repetto

Cosmic Wonder

Deadly Ponies

Patrick Stephan

RVCA

Obey

Tslay

Clu

Boy by Band of Outsiders

Dace

Fremont

Woolrich John Rich & Bros.

and lots of Vintage

Congratulations, Central Cinema! Besides being The SunBreak's most loyal advertiser, you're one of Google's Favorite Places in Seattle. Which means that Google has or will be sending you a decal for your front door with a bar code on it. When passers-by with smart phones scan the code, they'll be offered a link to your Place page, which has hours, reviews, a map, photos, and a link to your website.

Of course, the smart phone has to be able to scan QR codes. (Yes, there's an app for that.) To get things started, Google has partnered the makers of an iPhone scanner app, QuickMark, so the first 40,000 downloads are free. (It's normally $1.99, so not really a budget-buster in the first place.)

Google plans to send out 100,000 Favorite Places decals to businesses across the country, in 9,000 towns and cities. The "favoritism" is based on Google searches of business listings. Here are some of Seattle's Favorite Places, a list that looks more like tourists assembled it than residents:...

A friend just called, practically spitting bullets. He stopped by the Chase branch in the University Village to pick up a roll of quarters because he's paranoid about using his credit card in parking meters. He bought a roll for ten dollars, stepped outside to open up the roll, and discovered that he'd also bought a number of dimes, nickels, pennies, and Philippine centavos.

Because banks are too busy to count change, they simply measure the rolls of quarters people bring in. A scammer had padded both ends of the roll with quarters, and filled in the middle with an assortment of coins that in width and weight brought the roll to the right specifications.

Whoops! So back into the bank, only to learn that Chase observes a strict "caveat quarter" rule--once you walk out the door, that's your money. No returns. "No, no, look," protests my friend, "I just gave you ten dollars and you gave me less than that." A manager is summoned. A customer's long history with--well, not Chase, but with the previous bank, a friend...

First it was the Bailey Coy Books closure, which, it being book-loving Seattle, generated all sorts of sturm und drang. But fairly soon on the heels of that announcement comes the news that the War Room may close if a buyer isn't found by the end of November. Last night, CHS reported on the shuttering, this Sunday, of the Taco Time on Madison Street.

Now, each of these announcements have their own history. As CHS points out, there has been a fast food exodus off Capitol Hill: "Hill outlets of Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, and Kentucky Fried Chicken have all closed within the past three years."

And of course nightclubs come and go. The War Room opened in March 2005, and its owners say simply that they've had a good run. There was a similar tone to Michael Wells' "farewell to all that" interview--possibly he could have responded more to the competition of online retail, Wells admitted, but he just wanted to sell books to people.

On the other hand, it's been a long, hard recession, and it's troubling to see businesses...