Nespresso may have invented the single-serve capsule coffee machine in 1986, but obviously it's gotten plenlty of company in that arena since then. While the Nestle-owned brand sees lots of growth potential around the world, executives have selected two particular targets for—the United States and China—that won't yield new sales as easily as Nespresso got them in building its original business in Europe.

Two aspects of its business make Nespresso stand out from other competitors such as Green Mountain, the US-based purveyor of K-Cups that has been allying with Starbucks lately. First, Nespresso's business model is direct-to-consumer, not making its pods available on grocery-store shelves, and second, Nespresso leadership actually sees huge remaining growth opportunities in Europe despite the continent's struggle with recession.

"The potential is big" in the UK, Italy, Germany and Russia, where household penetration by Nespresso machines is only about one-fifth of that in coffee-slaking France, Nespresso CEO Jean-Marc Duvoisin told the Wall Street Journal.Continue reading...

Airbnb, an online booking service that allows anybody to rent out any premises for as little as a night, sounds like a great idea that leverages the "sharing economy.” Investors think Airbnb is pretty slick too: Two years ago, the San Francisco company was valued at over a billion dollars and today its value has more than doubled.

But is Airbnb about to experience a crash landing? A judge in New York City has just ruled that an Airbnb user broke an “illegal hotel” law when Nigel Warren rented out the bedroom of his apartment in the East Village for three days. The law “restricts residents from renting out apartments, or rooms in them, for fewer than 30 days, unless they are also living in the home during the guests’ stay.”

Airbnb representatives appeared in court along with Warren, arguing that “certain language” in the code allowed him to make the room available to a renter. But judge Clive Morrick indicated that “Airbnb renters did not have access to all parts of the apartment, specifically the room of Mr. Warren’s roommate, who was still living there while Mr. Warren was away and renting out his room.”Continue reading...

The Facebook generation is so over Facebook, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

After surveying 802 teens, ages 12 to 17 about their online habits, it turns out that Facebook has become a "social burden." "While Facebook is still deeply integrated in teens’ everyday lives, it is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own." While 94 percent of teens are maintaining their Facebook accounts, more and more continue to migrate to Twitter and Instagram as largely parent-free zones that give them a greater ability to freely express themselves. According to the survey, 11 percent of teens had Instagram accounts, 5 percent have Tumblr accounts and 7 percent have accounts on Myspace.Continue reading...

It turns out that Americans haven't given up on soup afterall. Proof is in this week's quarterly snapshot by Campbell Soup, whose CEO deemed the company's US soup trade stabilized after a sales increase of 14 percent. From innovations in products such as Go Soup and a new CMO to new programs using digital marketing, this success bears the hallmarks of a number of recent turnaround efforts by the brand.

In fact, the increase was the fourth straight quarterly gain and the segment's largest increase in nearly five years. "We are confident that we can now drop the world 'stabilize' from our strategy," Campbell CEO Denise Morrison told analysts in a conference call, according to the Wall Street Journal. Morrison actually raised the company's outlook for the year.

Campbell's soup business had been down for two straight years. Morrison set to work as its new CEO last year to come up with more new products and to make some of the brand's existing soups taste better, while still trimming overall advertising. In this week's report, she said that each part of the soup business—condensed, ready-to-eat, and broths—notched double-digit sales gains during the period. Colder weather than a year ago also helped.Continue reading...

When you’re a 6-10 pro basketball player, you are used to getting things your way. But Los Angeles Clippers power forward Lamar Odom, husband to Khloe Kardashian, may not win the current battle he’s thrust himself into.

Odom and designer Jonathan Garcia launched a clothing line, Rich Soil, back in 2009 and one of its T-shirts caused so much of a stir that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo actually sent him a letter to tell him to stop selling it, the Associated Press reports. Cuomo expected Odom and his pal to stop sales within five days.

The problem? The shirt looks an awful lot like a logo for a New York State farming program. The Rich Soil shirt features a very similar Statue of Liberty that sits behind familiar-looking crop rows, encircled in a similar font reading "Rich Soil New York" as opposed to the program's "Pride of New York." Check out a side-by-side here.Continue reading...

The nanosecond a so-called student athlete in college takes money of any kind related to his or her sport, they are suddenly considered professionals and cannot play in college anymore, so says the NCAA, who laid out the rules that lets the organization instead profit from things such as jersey sales with player names.  

The NCAA’s coffers have also been lined by its relationship with Electronic Arts, which has been making video games based on college teams and athletes for years. However, a few former players aren't happy about being duped out of revenues from those sales, and one of them, former Rutgers University quarterback Ryan Hart, has now made some legal headway.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia on Tuesday ruled that Hart can try to cash in on some of the money EA made from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 versions of its college football game. The 2-1 decision overturned a decision by a lower court that said that it was OK for EA to use Hart’s likeness without him getting any kind of royalties due to First Amendment rights.Continue reading...

Businesses dream of phones ringing off the hook and website traffic spiking thousands of percent. But such activity can also be bittersweet and a tightrope of ethical messaging and decision making. Just ask Tornado Alley Armor, the Oklahoma-based seller and installer of high-end storm shelters, about the bittersweet truth of how disasters can mean good business.Continue reading...

German software company SAP is looking to break out of the mold and hire hundreds of people with Autism, recognizing their unique talent for information technology. By 2020, the company plans to have 1 percent of its global workforce of 65,000 employees be individuals with autism.

SAP executive Luisa Delgado told the BBC that the company believes that "innovation comes from the edges." While it is a developmental disorder, Autism has a very broad spectrum, and many people afflicted with the disorder demonstrate an impressive attention to detail and are highly focused and intelligent. "Only by employing people who think differently and spark innovation will SAP be prepared to handle the challenges of the 21st Century."Continue reading...