Local scrap-booking company to appear in Martha Stewart Living

Do a Google search for Tabitha Geary and 37,900 hits come back. After clicking through eight pages worth of links and being confronted time and time again by the same face, it seems that there is no other Tabitha Geary than the Richmonder who owns a scrap-booking company that bears her name. And now Geary's face will be staring back from the pages of Martha Stewart Living.

The brief history of our Wikipedia page

BizSense had a Wikipedia page, then lost a Wikipedia page within two minutes. I’ve always been a fan of the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It’s free and always up to date. To edit on Wikipedia, you need a free account. So I signed up. I tried to keep our Wiki page objective and lay low on the promotional garble.But Wikipedia is a smart one. The Wikipedia moderators tagged us for “speedy deletion.” They gave me the chance to explain why we should stay on my discussion page. I tried, but no dice. Adios RichmondBizSense Wikipedia. Good knowing yah.

Ukrop’s latest promotion: buy grocieries, save $ at the pump

Spend $50 on groceries at Ukrop’s Grocery and take 10 cents off the price of a gallon of gas at Uppy’s Convenient Stores, a savings of $2. Spend $500 and save $1 off each gallon (up to a 20-gallon fill-up) for a savings of $20. The new consumer-focused promotion is called Fuelperks!. Consumers need only swipe their customer card at the gas station. (Cool technology, if we’re understanding it correctly). This is Ukrop’s second foray recently to deal with higher gas prices. Earlier this month the grocer announced that it was converting its cooking oil into fuel for its trucks.

Roll the cameras: Fox 35 killing cats

Talk about a cat fight. When local TV station WRLH Fox 35 hired an exterminator to kill feral cats in a back lot of its building, the local SPCA got wind and unleashed a save-the-kittens firestorm. Now the station is dealing with a far larger problem than a few alley cats: a PR snafu that has it looking like a cold-blooded cat killer.

More crime against businesses

On Tuesday posted a story about the rising crime against businesses. Now the T-D is reporting that two downtown businesses were robbed at gun-point yesterday. “Two men robbed the Limited Edition store at 302 Goshen St., near Virginia Commonwealth University, at about 12:25 p.m.,” writes Michael Martz. At about 4 p.m. yesterday, a man and a woman robbed The Hook Up at 325 W. Broad St."

Media General CEO predicts mergers

Media General CEO Marshall Morton says major American newspapers will have to join forces in order to stay alive. "There’s got to be some assimilation, I would guess that rather than bankruptcies, you’d see some combinations,” he says in a story that appeared in Monday's NY Times. Ad revenue at newspapers across the country is down around 15% in May compared to the previous year. In part that's because the hurting real estate companies aren't buying ads. And while the web is often hailed as the knight in shinning armor, it remains far less profitable than the print version.“We have pulled our thinking down twice with respect to revenue,” Morton told the Times' Richard Perez-Pena.

SCORE Launches Web Site with New Home Page & Resources for Entrepreneurs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMay 22, 2008 National Contact: Michael L. KeatonDirector of Communications202/205-7637; media@score.org SCORE Launches Web Site with New Home Page & Resources for Entrepreneurs New Sections Offer the Latest Tips, Trends & Events to Help a Business Succeed Washington, D.C.—SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" announces a fresh, new design for the SCORE Web Site, www.score.org. Visitors can quickly access SCORE's online counseling system or enter their ZIP code to locate the nearest SCORE office for face-to-face mentoring and workshops.

2008 Greater Richmond’s Companies to Watch Event Announced

Richmond, VA –- May 20, 2008 – The Venture Forum will hold its fourth annual Greater Richmond’s Company to Watch event (GRCTW) event, this year on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at Toad’s Place in Richmond’s Shockoe Slip. The event is a gathering of local entrepreneurs, financing sources and service providers.

The purpose of the event is to highlight Greater Richmond’s vibrant and innovative entrepreneurial community. The event features the selection of a dozen local companies deemed “companies to watch”. From the first 24 selected in the first two years, over a dozen went on to have successful sales or capital raised and many of the others have grown significantly in revenues and employment.

CarMax and Circuit City: Sniffles and Pneumonia:

It was a rough week for CarMax and Circuit City. CarMax stock shed $2 a share, or about 11%, on news that profits at the company dropped 55%. Meanwhile, Circuit City – the company from which CarMax was spawned – is on life support and looking for a transfusion. Or is it an organ transplant?

Networking online…helpful or just a passing fad?

The professional networking site LinkedIn just raised $53 million in capital, which pegs the company’s valuation at around $1 billion. Technology analysts are wondering if that’s a tad high. How much social networking sites can extract from advertisers and subscribers, after all?

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