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Construction on College Ave. and the associated decrease in sales has forced many businesses to close. Stores in the College Avenue Mall, the Younkers building, and other establishments along College Ave. west of Lawrence are among those affected. Starting March 23, College Ave. will be closed completely, except for select cross streets. The work will progress from the intersection of Richmond Ave. and College Ave. and move east toward Lawrence.
Construction is scheduled to end in late August. The project is intended to stimulate business and attract pedestrians to the area.
Businesses already on College Avenue, however, may feel more of the negative effects of construction than the positive effects of a redeveloped downtown.
The manager of Jerry’s Tobacco and Book Shop has seen a definite decrease in business, although he cannot be sure if it is from the weakened economy or the construction.
Ron Teske, owner of Dr. Jekyll’s Bar, has seen no decrease in business. He says that although there have been closings, “the city is doing everything they can to make sure businesses stay open”.
Teske added that there has been an increase in upscale bars and eateries on College Ave. The introduction of Dj Vu, a martini bar, and Mill Creek Pub, which features out-of-town blues acts, has brought a new, “upscale” clientele to the avenue which could increase business for the other establishments.
Teske says it is too soon to tell what effects construction on College Ave. will have on his business and others.
The downtown developments to attract a wider range of clientele is predicted to cost $6.3 million, $1.4 million of which will be used to fund the new streetscape, complete with more benches and wider sidewalks. The new streetscape is intended to make the avenue much more pedestrian-friendly.
This development, coined the “business recruitment program,” has caught the attention of a larger business that has an interest in the downtown renovations. SBC Ameritech has donated $15,000 towards the construction, hoping, along with all the other College Ave. businesses dependent upon this investment, that they will reap the benefits of an Appleton renaissance.
Some stores along College are moving for other reasons. Rose Prehall, a former Younkers employee, said the store was forced to close because it “couldn’t compete with itself.” There is another Younkers location at the Fox River Mall, which gets most of the business. Some residents of Appleton were upset by this move, which will force them to go to the Fox River Mall for clothes and other items.


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Leave it to T-Mobile to obliterate yet another pain point of subscription plans everywhere. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the self-proclaimed “Un-carrier” took the wraps off Un-carrier Next, a host of new benefits for longtime subscribers.
“Four years ago, we were talking about a trend in the industry,” T-Mobile chief John Legere said. “More than 70 percent of wireless customers say wireless plans are too complicated. They want simplicity.”
To that end, T-Mobile’s replacing its capped data plans with the new T-Mobile One plan it announced earlier this year. A single line starts at $70 on auto bill pay for unlimited talk, unlimited texting, and unlimited 4G LTE data. Lines for a family of four start at $40. And optional add-ons include an international calling plan for $20 per month and 4G LTE tethering (3G speeds on the standard plan) and HD videos (480p) for $15 a month more.
“The Internet was meant to be unlimited.”
As part of the One plan’s broader rollout, T-Mobile’s introducing the “One plan guarantee.” Starting on January 22, it promises not to lock in prices for new customers.
But that’s not all. The carrier’s adding a new plan benefit that refunds subscribers for the data they don’t use. It’s called KickBack, and T-Mobile says it’s the first example of a “major provider” doling out payments to subscribers who use 2GB of data or less. If you fall under a data threshold for the month and pay your bill on time, you’ll receive up to a $10 credit in the form of a bill credit. It’ll appear as a $20-per-line opt-in option in T-Mobile’s account management app in the coming weeks.
T-Mobile said it’s combating the more than $1.3 billion, and $2.4 billion, consumers pay in switching fees and overages, respectively. The firm estimates that lightly used lines can save up to $120 a month in kickbacks, and that with an extra line costing $20 on T-Mobile One, subscribers can add a line that amounts to just $10 a month after KickBack.
“The Internet wasn’t meant to be metered in bits and bytes, so it’s insane that wireless companies are still making you buy it this way. The rate plan is dead — it’s a fossil from a time when wireless was metered by every call or text,” Legere said. “The Internet was meant to be unlimited, and at T-Mobile, we believe that everyone should have unlimited mobile internet.”
T-Mobile’s working to eliminate another pain point, too: plan pricing. According to the carrier, wireless subscribers pay more than $17 billion in taxes and government fees on top of their bills for wireless cell service. Starting this month, T-Mobile’s eating the cost of those. “We’re investing in our customers,” Legere said.
The carrier’s launching promotions in the form of a “tax rebate” benefit and #FreeFace. Starting January 6, customers get $150 per line — $600 for a family of four — for every line that switches from another carrier to a T-Mobile One plan up to 12 lines. And customers who post a selfie of their reaction to their inflate wireless bill on social media will be entered into a daily #FeeFace off, with each winner walking away with prize packs including a smartphone of their choice, a free year of T-Mobile One, and a pair of Beats headphones. The grand prize is a four-night, five-day trip for two to Vegas.
Digits and the One plan are far from T-Mobile’s only recent innovations. Its Simple Global plan provides unlimited texting and data roaming in more than 140 countries, a benefit which the carrier says resulted in customers using 255 times more data internationally. Mobile Without Borders extended T-Mobile coverage benefits to parts of Mexico and Canada. T-Mobile Tuesdays introduced weekly discounts on movie tickets, ridesharing services, and more. And Binge On and Music Freedom provided access to a number of streaming video and music services that don’t count against data caps.
And in December, T-Mobile announced Digits, a new service that provides a single phone number that works across smartphones, tablets, computers, and even wearables. Subscribers can answer and place calls from the aforementioned devices, and a dedicated Digits dashboard provides access to call history, messages, and voicemail.
They come on the heel of network improvements. In December, T-Mobile announced that it covers 313 million people in the U.S. — one million shy of Verizon’s coverage — and that its current generation of cellular can now achieve a faster theoretical speed — 1Gbps — than every other major carrier in the U.S.
In terms of growth, the carrier’s on an upward trajectory. In the fourth quarter of this year, T-Mobile added 2.1 million customers and reported a best-ever churn rate of 1.28 percent. Over the course of 2016, the carrier added 8.2 million customers.
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Newsbrief by Dan Seifert on Friday July 06, 2012.
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The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will remain banned from sale in the U.S. for the time being, as the U.S. Court of Appeals has denied Samsung's request for a stay on the ban. The tablet was banned from sale late last month ahead of the patent infringement trial between Apple and Samsung. Samsung's initial request for a lift on the ban was denied by the presiding judge over the case earlier this week, and now the Court of Appeals has also denied the company's request. Apple accused Samsung of "slavishly copying" the design of its iPad tablet with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 last year. The trial between the two companies is due to begin at the end of this month.source: Reuters


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Earthport Agreement in Romania Expands Money Transfer Service
Service taps into country’s $3.2 billion remittance receive market
MoneyGram and Earthport announce the launch of a new service that allows MoneyGram customers around the globe to send money directly to any RON bank account in Romania.
“This is an exciting and innovative opportunity for MoneyGram. We continue to expand our network and provide convenient ways for customers to send international remittances,” said Pete Ohser, MoneyGram’s executive vice president of Americas and Europe. “We look forward to working with an industry leader like Earthport. At MoneyGram we put the customer first in everything we do. We are certain that our customers will benefit from this continued expansion of our money transfer services.”
Earthport is connected to more than 60 local currency clearing systems and their market portfolio includes strategic corridors for MoneyGram’s service. Earthport enables this rich new product offering through a single technical integration, greatly speeding time to market. MoneyGram will be able to accelerate market development with the capabilities of Earthport’s global network and product suite.
“We are delighted to announce this collaborative deal with MoneyGram and tie together two powerful and expanding product sets to offer better services to customers worldwide,” said Daniel Marovitz, President and COO, Earthport. “We aim to “future proof” our clients through continuous investment in technology, compliance and reach. As MoneyGram expands its money transfer services to accounts, we are a natural partner for acceleration and innovation. We look forward to working together on this exciting new development.”
According to the World Bank, an estimated $3.2 billion was sent into Romania in 2015. More than $930 million was sent from Italy, $740 million was sent from Spain and another $422 million arrived fromGermany.
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The Indie Beauty Media Group (IBMG) is partnering with Douglas, a leading European beauty retailer, to boost the European independent beauty community. Through the partnership, the two brands plan to promote independent innovation and champion beauty entrepreneurship in Europe through a number of unique initiatives.
“Independent beauty is about beauty entrepreneurs who are tirelessly pushing the boundaries of innovation to address unmet needs and delight consumers,” says Nader Naeymi-Rad, cofounder of IMBG. “By partnering with Douglas, a recognized leader in beauty retailing and a company with a well-established track record of bringing new innovations to market, we will be able to assist many more entrepreneurs in Europe while opening a substantial new area of opportunity for all beauty entrepreneurs.”
IBMG will assist Douglas in sourcing and onboarding a collection of top indie beauty brands across a wide range of categories, providing millions of beauty enthusiasts living in Europe the opportunity to shop a curated collection of indie beauty products, and allow independent beauty brands to be discovered by consumers through Douglas’s 2,400 stores across 21 European countries.
Douglas will also become the official retail sponsor for the launch of IBE Berlin, taking place March 22-23 at Station Berlin, and the launch sponsor of the German language version of the entrepreneurial-focused digital publication Beauty Independent. The German-language version of the publication will provide greater coverage of European independent and emerging beauty while becoming more readily accessible to beauty entrepreneurs among the 100 million German-speaking citizens of Europe.
In the states, Douglas Group CEO Tina Mueller will be the keynote speaker at the BeautyX Retail Summit, taking place in Dallas May 13-14. “Independent beauty is a strategically important area for Douglas, and we want to earn our place as the instinctive retailer-of-choice for independent brands entering or expanding in Europe,” says Mueller. “We also recognize that beauty entrepreneurs are the real driving force behind independent beauty, which is why we also want to directly connect with innovators, so that we can earn their trust and respect.”