Thursday, August 14, 2003

Online Ads...On The Rise?

Even more evidence that the dot-com black hole may have reached infinite zero and is again expanding can be found in the latest numbers for Internet advertising.

C’mon, you remember when there were salesmen who wanted to sell you banner ad space on their web site? They were the guys that would take shares of stock instead of money as payment.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson...Believe it or not, spending for online advertisements is expected to be higher in 2003 than 2002, the first increase since 1999.

If that doesn’t shock you, how about what that figure for 2003 will be...$6.3 billion. Still not surprised? Online advertising will increase for 2003, but other media such as radio, TV and print will not.

Friday, August 1, 2003

Why Is Ben On The C-Note?

Have you ever wondered why Benjamin Franklin is the only person featured on American paper currency who is not a former President of the United States? To find the answer, we must travel back to Ben Franklin’s day, but make a quick stop in an America on the brink of civil war.

When Abraham Lincoln took over the presidency, despite nearly one hundred years of existence, our fine country still did not have a federal, nation-wide currency. Realizing that war was eminent, and that a federal currency would be needed to fund and control war-time spending in the North, Mr. Lincoln ordered the first printing of the US federal dollar.

So, what did America do for money for the first hundred years? Would you believe that local banks printed currency notes themselves? You went to your bank, withdrew a note for a pre-designated amount and traded it with a store owner for goods on the pretense that the store owner could go to your bank and draw on the bank’s funds or have money put in his account to cover the amount of your purchase.

Bank notes back then worked much like a check works today. One of the main problems with this bank note system was that at any given time in pre-Lincoln America, up to 2/3 of the bank notes being passed around were counterfeit. In fact, one of the major British war efforts in the 1770s was to flood the American colonies with fake bank notes to destabilize our new, independent economy.

Some of the bank notes were easily forged by the monarchy, while others were very difficult to copy. And whose were the most difficult to copy? Why, the ones designed and printed by Mr. Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, or course. Hence, the well-deserved honor of gracing the $100 bill.