Online stage to strut your stuff
Always wanted to be on Australian Idol, but never had the chance? The OurStage website may be just the thing for you. According to Springwise, OurStage works by providing a forum for artists – in categories such as film, comedy or music – to upload a short clip of them doing their stuff.
Visitors to the site then vote for their favourites, with the top 10 in each category, and then the winner of each category, going head-to-head at the end of each month to become the OurStage grand champion.
And winning doesn’t just get you glory – each monthly champion picks up a $US5000 cash prize, not to mention awards from sponsors ranging from one-on-one sessions with industry professionals to opening gigs with established bands.
The iPod economy
iPods are everywhere nowadays, so it should come as no surprise that a whole sub-sector of SMEs is building up around the gizmos. Here are a selection of iPod-related businesses in the US put together by the Small Business Trends blog:
- LoadProng’s iPod loading service: This company will send out a worker to pick up your iPod and your CD collection at your home or office and, for a couple of bucks per CD, load your music collection on to your iPod.
- PumpOne iPod workouts: Workout programs, set to energising music, that you can download to your iPod. Each workout includes instructions, tips and visuals you can watch at your own pace.
- Levi RedWire DLX jeans: These iPod jeans feature built-in headphones, joystick and docking cradle. They have a special side pocket with a white leather patch to store an iPod, a joystick on the watch pocket so you to control the iPod without getting it out, and built in retractable headphones. Soooo fashionable.
Top 8 workplace taboos
What are the biggest no-nos committed in your workplace? A new Harris Interactive poll reported by IncBizNet asked more than 5000 US workers to fess to taboos they had breached most often at work:
- Falling asleep at work (45%).
- Kissing a co-worker (39%).
- Stealing from the office (22%).
- Spreading a rumour about a co-worker (22%).
- Consuming alcoholic beverages while on the job (21%).
- Snooping after hours (18%).
- Lying about an academic background (4%).
- Taking credit for someone else’s work (2%).
And who is most likely to commit the faux pas? Well, men much more often than women, apparently. The survey found that 49% of men have fallen asleep at work compared to 35% of women, while 44% of men had smooched a co-worker compared to 34% of women.
Booze is bad news
Drinking alcohol in moderation doesn’t have as many health benefits as we’re led to believe, according to a new study by a Monash University PhD student.
Results of the 11-year study, involving 38,200 healthy people aged from 40 to 69, show that for men, a limited daily alcohol intake wasn’t associated with reduced cardiovascular disease, while for women there was a weak association, with most benefit coming from wine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.