AS I WAS SAYING, we need more hard-hitting news. That's why I'm writing about Angry Birds, the most popular game app on the planet. As a kid, I fired rocks from my slingshot like an Uzi. During college, I worked in a meat-packing plant that ground swine into sausage. That makes me a natural for Angry Birds, where you score by crashing missile-like birds into hapless little hogs.
Is the world flocking to the game? Fifty million downloads to smartphones and tablets (mostly iPhones and iPads) in 80 countries. That's a lot of wage slaves who are bombing pigs, instead of working. It's also serious business for Rovio Mobile, the Finland-based creator of Angry Birds, which was made for $100,000. Like good capitalists, Rovio is selling plush toys and ringtones, and exploring a TV show or movie. Another revenue stream: Angry Birds will launch on Sony's PlayStation 3 and PSP, and possibly Microsoft and Nintendo game platforms.
COMPASSIONATE CAPITALISM? -- Seventh Generation co-founder Jeffrey Hollender (Web siteand Wikipedia profile) writes in CSRWire that the corporate social responsibility movement -- "committed to using capital to achieve well-being, sustainability and justice"-- is catching on globally. Hollender, who stepped down last year as Seventh Generation CEO, is a global authority on CSR issues and now advises the American Sustainable Business Council. His latest book is Planet Home: Conscious Choices for Cleaning and Greening the World You Care About.
LIKE A VAST wave, you could see this business megatrend rising a decade or so ago. More revenues, more investments,more employees, more R&D, more everything coming from fast-growing businesses overseas. Now, that trend -- the emergence of new companies in rapidly developing economies -- clearly is a powerful pillar of the global economy that will reshape the world, says the Boston Consulting Group, which has been studying global companies for many years.
AS I WAS SAYING, we need more hard-hitting news. That's why I'm writing about Angry Birds, the most popular game app on the planet. As a kid, I fired rocks from my slingshot like an Uzi. During college, I worked in a meat-packing plant that ground swine into sausage. That makes me a natural for Angry Birds, where you score by crashing missile-like birds into hapless little hogs.
