In a move that might stun those who believe that capitalism exists merely to ensure that the majority of workers end up unemployed, Albertsons, the very fine grocery chain, has reportedly decided that self-checkouts are just not so good for business. It is removing all the self-checkout lanes from its 217 stores.

The way The Seattle Times tells it, Albertsons felt that the machines took away from employee/customer interaction.

Please pause to consider the depth of that one while I offer you the thought that, even though companies might offer many reasons, one just might be that people don’t enjoy using the self-checkouts. In my own regular wanderings through Safeway, I see the self-checkout lanes routinely empty while the lanes manned by stressed human beings are full of customers.

In support of my entirely unscientific observation, my regular reading of Storefront Backtalk reveals to me that Kroger’s, another fine chain, is also experimenting with removing self-checkout lanes from one of their Texas stores.

The simple truth is surely that self-checkout machines are a lot harder to operate than an iPhone and a lot less fun. Which doesn’t mean that technology and retail are enduring a permanent falling out. The Seattle Times reports that Home Depot is trying out 30,000 First Phones, which allow its staff to check customers out anywhere in the store. (That last sentence might have a double meaning, but it is entirely unintentional.)

In retail, the customer experience isn’t merely about speed. It’s about something that makes you feel good (or at least doesn’t make you feel bad) every time you do it.

Though playing video games is often called a child’s activity, a new study from the Entertainment Software Association has found that that perception couldn’t be further from the truth.

According to the organization, which represents the game industry, the average gamer today is 37 years old. Moreover, the average game buyer is 41 years old. Because of that, a greater number of parents are playing games with their children. The ESA said that 45 percent of parents play games with their kids "at least weekly."

Those statistics are quite important to the ESA and the industry as a whole. Over the last several years, the gaming business has been targeted by critics and lawmakers who say that mature-rated titles, like the Grand Theft Auto franchise, among many others, are too easy for children to buy.

However, in April, the Federal Trade Commission released the results of an "undercover shopper survey" that found just 13 percent of underage teenagers were able to buy mature-rated games that are designated as only suitable for those 17 and older. When children attempted to buy R-rated DVDs, on the other hand, 38 percent of them were successful.

To add to that and further make its case that the majority of kids are being kept away from violent or sexually explicit games, the ESA revealed today that parents are involved in the purchase or rental of games in 91 percent of cases. In addition, 90 percent of parents said that they are aware of the content in the games their children are playing.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board, which assigns ratings to video games based on their content, was also highly touted by parents. The ESA said that 86 percent of parents are aware of game ratings, and out of that group, 98 percent believe they are accurate.

Even so, that hasn’t stopped critics from taking aim at the industry and its ratings system. In September, James Steyer, the CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, an organization that touts legislating the gaming industry, pointed to his own firm’s study that found 72 percent of parents would support a law that bans the sale of "ultraviolent or sexually violent" video games.

"The results of this poll clearly show that not only do the effects of ultraviolent or sexually violent games weigh heavily on the minds of parents but also that parents feel that the video game industry isn’t doing nearly enough to protect kids from accessing the most ultraviolent games," Steyer said.

Regardless, the gaming industry continues to be big business. According to the ESA’s study, the industry generated $25.1 billion in revenue last year. Digital game revenue, including mobile apps and social games, hit $5.9 billion last year.

The Exchange Bar & Grill, set amid the bustling shops and pubs of the Grammercy Park neighborhood, is replete with a ticker tape flashing menu prices in red lettering as demand forces them to fluctuate.

Customers can move prices for all beverages and bar snacks such as hot wings ($7 for 6 pieces) or fried calamari ($9). The prices will fluctuate in $.25 cent increments, but will most likely plateau at a $2 change in either direction.

A glass of Guinness starts at $6 but could be pushed to a high of $8 or a low of $4, depending on popularity.

So if one drink is in heavy demand, its price will rise, causing the cost of other equivalent drinks to drop. A rush on a particular beer would increase its price, and cause other beers to drop.

The Exchange Bar & Grill has a long bar facing the ticker tape — and flat screen televisions — as well as a few tables in the back where patrons can eat in greater comfort.

Restaurants in New York and across America have had a tough year because consumers have slashed discretionary spending in a tough economic climate. New York has about 23,000 restaurants, with about 4,400 opening each year according to the city’s Department of Health, which tracks establishment licenses.

A recent article over at Mashable looked at some Nielsen statistics regarding the concurrent use of television and a computer. The general trend indicates that households are growing more comfortable with the idea of using a computer (most likely a notebook) while watching their favorite programs. The surge of real-time social media (like Twitter and Facebook) is probably a big factor.

There have been some neat experiments with convergent programming such as sporting events delivering stats and alternate views during games, adding additional content to repeated shows and of course the ever-present user interaction on Twitter and show bulletin boards.

As multi-platform viewership continues to grow, how will networks and companies take advantage of it?

Some interesting stats from Nielsen:

Surveillance cameras can be such a menace. We never really know these days whether someone is spying on us doing intimate, personal, but often necessary things.

Burger King in Brazil decided that, perhaps, a little surveillance might go a long way to create a large amount of customer loyalty.

You might think that their promise that you can "Have It Your Way" would not be entirely conducive to the use of secret cameras. However, in a very nifty and personal touch, they photographed customers secretly while they were ordering their burgers and then printed the customers’ pictures on the wrapper.

I can imagine this interesting procedure might have slowed service just a fraction.

But the pleasure that people experienced on seeing their own face covering a large slab of pleasantly greasy meat, possibly defrosted bread and the condiments of a distant chef shows that the personal touch is, without question, very much alive.

Just imagine how many people would leap beyond the boundaries of their local Apple store, if, when they picked up their brand new delectable iPad, it came with their own picture on the box.

Today’s musicians, both mainstream and indie, are using social media to connect with fans, build anticipation, and generate revenue in new and unique ways. The products range from singles to mix tapes to digital six-packs, even oddly shaped USB sticks, vinyl, and the occasional traditional album.

But how are these artists reaching their new fan bases online through social channels? Much like the business world, social media promotion for musicians is still a very new game, with no exact recipe for platinum success.

There are however, some innovations being put forth, and a new connection is being formed between artists and fans — a connection that empowers both to give each other what they are looking for.

Fan-Funded Projects

We have all heard about the success of micro lending organizations like Kiva, which use multiple small payments to contribute to a larger goal. The same process is being applied to creating an album or a music-based project.

One such project is the Washington D.C.-based indie hip-hop group Panacea. The producer/MC duo listed their project on Kickstater, a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers, and others.

The project was posted on the morning of February 26th. According to Jeremy Calvery, the group’s Director of Digital Media and Promotion, “We were at $1,000 before the end of the first day. We had to increase the number of $200 packages from three to five over the weekend because people were e-mailing and literally begging for the chance to ‘buy’ the whole back catalog. Less than five full days from the first e-mail to the list, we had reached the funding goal of $3,800, which was set to be just a bit more than what the minimum press of 250 vinyl copies was going to cost.”

Another hip-hop outfit, the Get Busy Committee, also launched a project on Kickstarter. In their drive to raise $3,218, they included one premium pledge level at $1,000 — an investment that netted the donor a song about him or herself to be included on the record, as well as a platinum plaque. They sold this spot within 24 hours.

Using Video to Create Buzz

Another approach musicians are taking is the use of web video series. Indie pop artist Mike Posner has been telling his story over the course of a video series titled “One Foot Out The Door.” Daniel Weisman, Mike’s manager, stated that he was attempting to create an income stream for Mike while he was finishing college and working on his debut album.

Daniel and his management company Elitaste were approached by the shoe company Puma about integrated artist campaigns. Puma ended up sponsoring Mike’s last semester in college, and provided a camera crew to follow him from classes, to the studio, to shows all over the country.

Daniel wanted to do something special for the Mashable readers when I reached out to him, so fresh off the upload, here is the premier of Episode #10 of “One Foot Out The Door.”

Live streaming has also been worthwhile for big announcements. Underground artists the Kottonmouth Kings turned to Ustream to tell their fans all about their new album and when they could expect it in local stores.

The video was watched live and formatted like a press conference, with fans getting the chance to ask questions and share their feedback. It was a smart way to bring their fans into the experience and give back to the community that has supported them for 10+ years.

Creativity From the Fans

Rob And Kal are a pop/rock act from the UK who are taking fans inside their studio and the music creation process. They call it Mubla 2.0, which Rob defined as “our interactive recording project where we come up with song ideas and you help us develop them with your comments, suggestions and musicianship.”

So far they have five songs in progress with fans like Adam saying, “I just feel the intro has a little too much going on and 2.33 to 2.56 I almost want the piano to play and pull at the heart strings.” Another commenter named Russell gave tips like, “Think drums and a bit more of heavier guitar would go down nicely particularly near end.”

This concept empowers fans and gives them a product they feel responsible for and connected to. The project can only strengthen the bond between fans and artists, and result in an easier sale when the time comes to release an album.

Reaching Out to Non-Music Bloggers

Glasses Malone, a new artist signed with Cash Money Records, is turning to bloggers to get the word out about his new album “Beach Cruiser.” What makes his campaign unique is that unlike traditional artists who look to get their tracks on highly trafficked MP3 blogs and review sites, Glasses and his team are focused on adding value to bloggers whose primary focus is not on music.

A marketing rep for Glasses told me, “These bloggers are more open to running contests and integrated campaigns than traditional music bloggers because they are not accustomed to being pitched by a major label artist. We have found blogs that love unique and fresh content that will separate them from their peers and competition, and it is working out very well for us so far.”

Armed with a research team, they have been targeting biking blogs, college blogs, beach lifestyle sites and more, all with the hope of driving new traffic to Glasses’ site and generating some pre-album buzz.

Conclusion

No matter what the labels and corporations are doing, musicians are taking it upon themselves to use social channels to connect with fans, offer value, and create relationship. This has ultimately led to new business models and revenue streams from sponsorships, touring and live appearances, custom products, and social monetization through advertising.

Classmates.com

Defeated by Facebook in terms of traffic and – excuse the pun – class, Classmates always had a questionable way of handling its visitors.

The problems for Classmate.com began back in late 2007, when San Diego resident Anthony Michaels received an e-mail from the social networking company informing him that his old classmates were trying to contact him.

In order to see who and why, Michaels had to upgrade to a “Gold Membership.” However, upon forking out to do so, he discovered that nobody was trying to get in touch; it was just a dubious marketing ploy from Classmates.com.

Michaels initiated a false advertising lawsuit against Classmates.com, which became a class action suit that anyone who suffered the same fate as the plaintiff could sign up for.

Fast forward to today: Although Classmates.com has admitted no wrongdoing as part of the proposed settlement now waiting for U.S. District Court approval, it has agreed to pay out $3 for every Classmates.com member who upgraded to a “Gold Membership” on the site after receiving an e-mail like Michaels’ — estimated to be just over three million people.

Whether or not you sympathize with those that fell for Classmate.com’s oh-so-obvious tactics, it’s an interesting case in terms of wider web marketing. Dating sites are known to carry out similar practices, and this settlement may make offenders sit up and take note.

While this particular case may be settled, it’s not the end of Classmates.com’s legal troubles. The site is facing another lawsuit filed just this month, this time a class action privacy lawsuit that accuses Classmates.com of ignoring federal and state privacy laws by making user profiles public via a controversial opt-out scheme.

More than 24 percent of those who responded to the survey (full results in PDF form here) said they regularly play social games, a category that includes Facebook games such as Farmville, Mafia Wars and Happy Aquarium. According to survey company Info Solutions Group, that level of response suggests a total social gaming population of approximately 100 million. Social gamers were defined as those who said they play games on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace at least once a week. The market for social games has been growing so quickly that companies that make them, such as Zynga and Crowdstar, have become investment and acquisition targets.

Social gaming seems to appeal to a much older demographic than traditional video games, perhaps in part because social games are easier to play for short periods of time, are largely free, and don’t involve sophisticated equipment or gratuitous violence. According to a recent survey by Royal Pingdom, the average age of social networking site users in general is also older — the largest single group is between 35 and 44 years of age. More than 60 percent of Facebook users are over 35.

The PopCap study showed that 55 percent of all social gamers in the U.S. are women, as are almost 60 percent of those in the UK. The average age in the U.S. is 48, which is substantially older than the 38-year-old average in the UK, and 46 percent of American social gamers are 50 or older, compared with just 23 percent in the UK. Only 6 percent of all social gamers are age 21 or younger.

According to the survey, women make up the majority of avid social gamers, with 38 percent of female social gamers saying they play social games several times a day, vs. just 29 percent of males. Women are also more likely to play social games with their real-world friends than men are (68 percent vs. 56 percent) and are nearly twice as likely as men to play social games with relatives (46 percent vs. 29 percent). The vast majority (95 percent) of social gamers play multiple times per week, and nearly two-thirds play at least once a day.

The largest single group of social gamers — 41 per cent of those surveyed — work full time, while 13 percent are retired and 11 percent are homemakers. In terms of educational background, less than half of those who play social games in the U.S. are college graduates. One-third of those in the U.S. earn less than $35,000 a year while 17 percent earn between $35,000 and $49,000; 21 percent make between $50,000 and 75,000 and 21 percent earn more than $75,000 a year.

Other points of interest from the study include:

• More than 60 percent of social gamers say their average session lasts more than half an hour, and 10 percent say it lasts 3 hours or more. About a third (35 percent) say their consumption has increased over the past three months, compared to 10 percent who said it has decreased.
• Facebook is by far the most popular destination for social gamers, with 83 percent of those surveyed saying they play games there, compared with 24 percent who play on MySpace, 7 percent on Bebo and 5 percent on Friendster.
• Social gamers spend 39 percent of their time on social networking sites/services playing games, compared with chatting with/messaging friends (17 percent) and playing solo games (15 percent). Nearly half (49 percent) said that when they connect to social networks, they do so specifically to play social games.
• The most popular games are Farmville (69 percent of those who play it say they play once a week or more), Bejeweled (65 percent say once a week or more), Texas Hold’em Poker (63 percent) and Cafe World (61 percent).
• A little over half (53 percent) of social gamers say they’ve earned and/or spent virtual currency in a game, but only 28 percent have purchased virtual currency with real-world money and only 32 percent have purchased a virtual gift.

“This study establishes social games as a fast-growing and quickly maturing pastime for an enormous portion of the population,” Robin Boyar of Thinktank Research said in a statement. “With more than 80 percent of social gamers stating that playing social games strengthens their relationship with friends, family and colleagues, social gaming reinforces the core appeal of social networks.”

See the original article at GigaOM.

What isn’t easily appreciated is the extent to which such social sharing is tied to different identity and authentication platforms across the Web. If you can log into a site easily using your Facebook or Twitter account, it is easier to broadcast links from that site to your friends.

To get a sense of which services on the Web drive the most sharing, I asked Gigya for some stats. Gigya powers sharing widgets on more than 5,000 content sites, including ABC.com. NBA.com, PGA.com, Answers.com, and Reuters. Consumers can click a share button on these sites and send an article link, photo, or video via a menu of different services including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and AOL. Over the past 30 days, people have shared almost a million items over the Gigya network. Facebook and Twitter dominate with about three quarters of all shared items between them. Here is how the services break down (note that these are relative numbers) :

Distribution of shared items
Facebook: 44%
Twitter: 29%
Yahoo:18%
MySpace:9%

It makes sense, people prefer to broadcast links rather than share them one at a time via email. Although Yahoo makes a strong third-place showing. When it comes to authentication, simply using your existing username and password to log into another site, Facebook is still the most popular via Facebook Connect, but only just barely. Google via Gmail and Yahoo are almost equally popular, at least on certain types of sites where people are just reading for themselves like news sites. On entertainment sites where people are more likely to share content, Facebook Connect makes up the majority of logins.

The acquisition includes both talent and technology, so Ping.fm co-founders Adam Duffy and Sean McCullough are now Seesmic shareholders and key members of the management team. They will begin immediately integrating Ping.fm technology into Seesmic applications.

Sometime in January you can expect updates to Seesmic’s Blackberry, Android, web, Windows and OSX (via Air) apps. Each will add advanced Ping.fm integration, supporting the ability to post to 50 social networks with a single update, special Ping.fm triggers to specify posting to specific social sites, and the option of using Ping.fm’s e-mail, SMS and chat functionality.

Ping.fm currently boasts 200,000 updates a day from its 500,000 registered members. More than 100 applications already use the Ping.fm API for cross-posting purposes, and although Seesmic will assume full control of the platform, they’re committed to maintaining it and supporting the developer community.

The maneuver no doubt means that Seesmic is now infringing upon TweetDeck’s territory and mission with ambitions to be much more than just a Twitter client. Ultimately, Seesmic aims to be your primary gateway to the social web and to serve 1,000,000 updates per day in 2010.