Seth Godin: Who are these people?

If you look at the numbers, you soon realize that a huge portion of the population apparently:

Has read two books in the last year, Harry Potter and The DaVinci Code
Uses only two websites, Google and Facebook
Visits only a few blog posts a day, and every single one of them is on the home page of Digg
Watches only two or three TV shows, including the Super Bowl
Eats only at McDonalds
Watches only incredibly snarky or juvenile videos on YouTube

Mass phenomena are tricky things. It's true, the typical American reads exactly one book a year. How are you going to predict which of the 75,000 books published are going to be that book?

You can't.

Many bloggers seem to be on a perpetual hunt for the front page of Digg. Sure, it brings you hordes of eyeballs, but then they turn around and leave. What's the point of that, really?

I think that are plenty of tips you can follow to optimize your offering for this fickle mass group. But it's still a crap shoot. Doesn't it make more sense to incrementally earn the attention of a smaller, less glitzy but far more valuable group of people who actually engage with you? And the best part is, your odds of success are a lot better.

Keeping tabs on gift cards

The Irvine-based company hopes its online service, at www.leveragecard.com, will alleviate some of the frustrations associated with gift cards. This year, consumers will lose about $8 billion in unredeemed gift cards, according to Consumer Reports, which also found that 27% of gift card recipients have at least one unused card from last year.

Shoppers listed gift cards among their favorite presents to receive, but many acknowledged having a difficult time keeping track of their whereabouts and balances. Some had found creative ways to keep their gift cards in one place.

"I used to lose them like crazy," said Andrea McCoy, a corporate flight attendant from Los Angeles. "Now I keep them all in a Ziploc bag. It's not very sophisticated but it works."

Julie Foster, a Long Beach accountant, was so notorious among her friends for misplacing gift cards that one pal gave her a business card case for her recent birthday."When you lose several of them," she said, showing off the new leather case filled with 11 gift cards, "it adds up."

By registering a card at Leverage, users can track their gift cards online and are notified when gift card balances change. If a card is misplaced, a backup mechanism can retrieve lost card numbers.For those who buy gift cards on the site, there's a small financial reward: 3.65% in interest. Cards that are registered with but not purchased from the website earn 1%
interest.

"People might not be making $100 a year from this," Mathe said, "but it's definitely better than having dead plastic sitting in your wallet."

NHL, Reebok Create Glitzy Midtown Manhattan Store

The NHL store landscape ispunctuated by larger-than-lifeplayer images.

The National Hockey League and Reebok have collaborated on an apparel store in midtown Manhattan with a dazzling display of video screens and designer t-shirts where shoppers can also relax over a double mocha latte.

The NHL Powered By Reebok, as the store is billed, is intended to stop hockey fans strolling by in their tracks with enough eye candy to rival the window displays in the city's diamond district across from the Sixth Avenue location.

It lives up to the billing, as yesterday's press tour revealed. Next to a wall display of Reebok shoes, fans can design their own pair with an NHL team logo. Along with newly-designed high-ticket Reebok NHL jerseys are designer variations on the NHL team themes, including t-shirts and pullovers designed by Reebok for men and women

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