June 20, 2004 in Business

DVD yearbooks have become popular option

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Many high school students this graduation season are leaving with two yearbooks — a print version and a DVD. Graduation-supply giant Jostens has started testing DVD yearbooks to accompany the traditional big book.

Several startups also have sprung up to help students make DVD yearbooks, for a fee. The DVD keepsakes blend digital photographs and video highlights of the school year.

Print yearbook deadlines tend to be in February or March and miss key spring events. A digital yearbook can cover it all and be finished as late as two weeks before graduation.

Some schools even wait for graduations in May and June. Cameras are on hand for the ceremony, and the DVD gets mailed off in summer instead of being handed out the last week of school.

“That’s the beauty of DVD,” says Lisa Baird, who runs Springfield, Mo.-based YoDVD. This year she worked with 25 schools to produce DVD yearbooks. They cost schools $6 to $39 each. Most schools sell 500 to 1,500 copies of the DVD yearbook, she says.

Netizens addicted to Web

Internet users are so hooked on the technology that they can’t go without it for even a week. That’s what Nielsen/Net Ratings says, based on a survey of 500 households with online access.

Seven out of every 10 respondents said they’re bringing a laptop or other Net-enabled device along on their next vacation. Many are doing so because they’re also bringing digital cameras on the trip, or plan to send e-mails instead of postcards.

Half the surveyed people said they based their choice of hotels on the availability of high-speed connectivity.

The Web is also an essential outlet for travel planning: three-fourths say they plan to do at least some of their vacation research online — especially price comparisons and maps.

Cellboost gives backup power

No matter what brand of cell phone you own, sooner or later it will run out of power.

If you’re lucky, it will happen when you’re in your car with a charging cable nearby in the glove box. But in the more likely scenario, you’ll be in the middle of an important business call in an airport, a taxicab or a restaurant when your phone goes dead.

A company called Compact Power Systems Inc. says it has the perfect solution: a device called Cellboost that gives your phone a cheap shot of energy when it’s needed most.

The Cellboost is a portable battery that’s about the size of a Zippo lighter. They started appearing in retail stores, drug stores and airport shops this spring.

The list price is $10, but retail prices are usually at least a dollar cheaper.

Each Cellboost comes with a plug designed to fit a specific phone. There are 10 different versions. The devices plug into the same charging port that phones use to recharge from an AC cable or docking cradle.

You can use the Cellboost to recharge the phone, or keep it attached and let the phone draw on its power.

Yahoo beefs up e-mail service

Internet giant Yahoo Inc. is fortifying its free e-mail service with 25 times more storage and freeing up millions of previously claimed e-mail addresses in an effort to thwart a looming threat from its increasingly disruptive rival Google Inc.

Starting last week, Yahoo said its free e-mail accounts will be upgraded to 100 megabytes, a move spurred by Google’s plans to offer 1,000 megabytes of free storage through its Gmail service, which has remained in a test phase since early April.

Yahoo has been offering 4 megabytes of free e-mail storage, although some people with accounts opened several years ago have 6 megabytes of free storage.

Yahoo operates the most popular free e-mail service on the Web. The company’s e-mail service attracted 39.8 million unique users in April, trailed by Microsoft’s Hotmail service at 34.6 million unique users, according to Nielsen Net/Ratings. The Hotmail service offers only 2 megabytes of free e-mail storage.

Remaining Beatles give in

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have finally given in to peer pressure. The two are negotiating with online music sites for the right to distribute Beatles songs, something the group’s two surviving members had been resisting until now.

The lead contender for the contract is Microsoft’s MSN, which is planning to launch an online music store later this year to compete with Apple’s iTunes, the service that dominates the market.

EMI currently owns the Beatles’ master recordings, and although it hasn’t gotten directly involved in negotiations yet, the company has already given its tacit approval.

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