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Reporters' Roundtable: The rise of the connected consumer

We're in the middle of a revolution in consumer commerce. The connected consumer (all of us) no longer relies on catalogs for prices or salespeople in stores for advice. Now we use our social networks to get advice from friends and friends of friends, and we have access to scanners and price comparison engines on our smartphones that are turning retail stores into showrooms, not necessarily places you go to buy.

There's a smart guy who's been tracking these trends for years, and he's my guest today. Brian Solis is author of The End of Business as Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution.

Brian was on the Roundtable about a year and a half ago discussing social media. Currently, Brian is principal at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm.

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Solitaire with flair

SoliLuxe features several versions of the popular card game solitaire. If you like to add a challenge to your game playing, you'll enjoy this program. The versions of the game included with SoliLuxe are a bit more complicated than regular solitaire. You can customize the look of the background and the cards and even add your own rules to the game.

SoliLuxe is attractively designed and easy to navigate. There are many different card deck designs to choose from, and you can also upload photos from your computer to make a custom deck. We've played computer solitaire, but … Read more

SoliCharger juices iPhone everywhere under the sun

If you own an iPhone 3G, you know how the 3G and GPS features eat battery life. The Mophie juice pack is the first accessory I got for mine. I liked it, but like all juice packs, you'll have to plug it in at some point--unless you get the SoliCharger from SoliLight.

This new juice pack for the iPhone (both versions) and iPod is probably the most versatile in terms of how it gets recharged.

The SoliCharger can be charged in any one of four ways: via Apple's USB charging cord, an Apple compatible car charger, a computer'… Read more

Brian Solis: 'There is no viral marketing'

NEW YORK--Blogger and new-media publicist Brian Solis struck down one of the biggest marketing buzz terms of the past few years in a panel on Wednesday morning at the Web 2.0 Expo here.

"There is no 'viral marketing' per se," Solis said, referring to the marketing trend of creating a catchy online gimmick and hoping it will spread like the latest cat-does-something-funny video on YouTube. Rather, Solis explained, it's the people who make it viral. Getting a grip on online marketing is an ongoing strategy, he said. "This isn't a campaign. This is something … Read more