According to Google, more than 60% of the nation’s small businesses have no website.  To change this and at the same time to drive economic growth with tools and resources to get online, Google and partners are offering a free, easy-to-build website, among other things, for a year.  Scott Levitan, Google’s director of small business engagement, told BusinessNewsDaily.com, “We created the program to nip the idea in the bud that going online is hard, expensive and time- consuming.”

While 97 percent of Americans look online for local products and services, 63 percent of the country’s small businesses have no website, according to Google. The search giant has teamed up with a network of national and local partners to change that, one state at a time, and has already put thousands of small businesses online.

This program is designed to drive economic growth by providing the nation’s businesses with the tools and resources to get online.  Small businesses that want to participate are offered a free, easy-to-build professional website from Intuit, a free customized domain name and hosting for a year, a free local business listing on Google Places and free tools, resources and local events.

“The reality is that many businesses are invisible to their customers and potential customers looking online,” Scott Levitan, Google’s director of small business engagement, told BusinessNews Daily. “We created the program to nip the idea in the bud that going online is hard, expensive and time- consuming.”

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2nd Event – While CES has a much wider array of Apple-centric products/solutions than this year’s Macworld/iWorld, the event was still an opportunity for the fans to see what all of the iTalk was about and to renew old acquaintances.

If you spent a few days in SinCity for Macworld I (CES) to see the star-studded array of Apple-centric hardware, software, semi-ware; it sorta’ took your breath away. Then you go to San Francisco to see Macworld II to see a lot of the same only with a dramatically smaller venue. At Macworld I, there were thousands of booths and hundreds of thousands of people jamming in booths, standing in cab lines and hoping for a dinner reservation. At Macworld II, there were hundreds of booths, thousands of people checking out stuff with credit cards in hand, hailing cabs, eating at charming out-of-the-way restaurants. The biggest news at the event wasn’t the stuff on the floor but:
- Apple’s blow-out results for the quarter in sales/profits
- Apple’s huge cache of money (nearly $100B) sitting in offshore accounts
- Apple passing HP in PC sales
- The assertions that Apple didn’t care about the working conditions for employees at their suppliers (fortunately, Cook subsequently and vehemently said wasn’t true)

Showy Difference
Macworld I may have had its drive-in theater LG OLED TV screen, but the real Macworld had a $68,000 set of speakers … so take that Shapiro!

Rich Sounds – They may not sound like your Bose speakers, but the $68,000 red leather-lined, diamond-studded speakers from All Jack would certainly make a statement in your home or apartment. Photo – PC World

It’s totally unfair to compare the two events and you try not to but…you just can’t.

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As Domino’s Pizza celebrates its 51st year, it announced more Web-based sales following its record-breaking online orders the week after Cyber Monday.  The pizza chain surpassed the 1 million mark for the first time in its history.  The Los Angeles Times reports that 30% of Domino’s sales come from online orders.

Pizza is going more and more digital as several major chains said they broke online and mobile ordering records after Cyber Monday.

Domino’s said Internet orders surpassed the 1 million mark from Nov. 28 through Dec. 4 for the first time in the company’s history. Online orders now make up 30% of the chain’s total.

Today, the company is celebrating its 51st anniversary by trying to pump up more Web-based sales, offering half-off pizzas ordered online through Facebook.

Pizza Hut, which recently began offering its sprawling Big Dinner Box deal, told Nation’s Restaurant News that the post-Cyber Monday period was also its best week ever for online sales. Papa John’s said it was a “big online sales week” as well.

The popularity of mobile ordering is steadily percolating through the restaurant industry.

Since 2004, websites such as GrubHub and Snapfinger have teamed with major chains such as California Pizza Kitchen to facilitate online ordering from customers. Last month, daily deals website LivingSocial began offering online ordering options for restaurants.

Photo by skampy

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Listen Up – You were told in school to keep your mouth shut, pay attention, listen, and learn. The same thing applies if you want to be the teacher’s pet and the most popular kid in school…listen to the community. You may have heard by now that folks spend more time on Facebook than any other website. By a whole lot! To be more precise, it’s 53.5 billion minutes a month on the world’s largest social networking site. When Zuck announced at F8 – the Facebook developer’s conference – that the site now had more than 800 million citizens, he said he wanted them to be even more involved with the Site. In fact, he wanted Facebook to become the destination where people tell the story of their life. We, and you, might think that’s over sharing, but the growing community is changing the way companies relate with customers. Companies are establishing their Facebook pages in record numbers and feeling their way along as they build, expand, leverage those relationships. No one is exactly certain how much all those eyeballs and likes are worth. It’s still too early to say how much a Facebook friend and his/her recommendation can generate, but that’s not inhibiting the rush to be there. Companies like Coke, Starbucks, Nutella, Papa John’s, Pringles, Skittles, Zynga, Zappos, Electronic Arts feel it’s worth the effort.

Fan Value
While Zynga racked up more than $290 million last year from their visitors/users, others have determined how much their fans are worth to the company:
* Starbucks – $1.20 per fan
* Coke – $0.96 per fan
* Pringles – $0.02 per fan
* Adidas – $2.40 per fan
* Red Bull – $1.14 per fan

That’s because a positive online brand experience creates loyal customers. They in turn tell friends and family about the brand and the sphere of influence grows.

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Open the Gates – With more than 13 football fields of show space, CES attendees have to crowd in opening day and walk themselves ragged in hopes of not just seeing all the show but seeing what will win/fail big in the coming year. While a few folks have said CES is on its last leg, we wonder if they were at the same show we were this month. More than 3,100 exhibitors squeezed into a mere 1.861 million net square feet (13+ football fields) of exhibit space and the show drew more than 153,000 attendees. There was the urban sprawl of the big boys trying to out-glitz each other (even as they experienced record losses or marginal profits).  Microsoft announced that this was their last keynote, last time of exhibiting; and folks immediately said, “See the show is losing its relevance in a real-time world.”  These same folks probably said Ballmer couldn’t get out of his own way.  Suddenly he’s brilliant? Folks pointed out that really big things in the past have gone on to bomb, die. You know Palm/WebOS, netbooks, 3D TV, etc.

O.K.:
- Palm/WebOS – It was a year+ between announcement/delivery and nothing changed even though everyone else looked at what they did and leapfrogged them! Of course, Leo didn’t help.
- Netbooks – Cheap, weak knock-offs of the Mac Air (that’s about it). We liked the idea, but you couldn’t do squat with ‘em! Google didn’t help ‘em either.
- 3D TV – Hey we were blinded by them; but once you got past watching a few movies and maybe some football, there was nothing to watch. If content isn’t there, why sit in front of the set with glasses on?

This year, we’ll probably be caught up in the hype (again) and miss some of the winners, but whose fault is that? Yeah!

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“I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies.” – Mary, He’s Just Not That Into You, Warner Bros (2009)

While the universe continues to expand, we live in an ever-shrinking world. It was first identified by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy when he advanced the idea of six degrees of separation, our increasing connectedness. Not long ago, Facebook’s Paul Adam reduced it to our being six degrees away from people who influence us. O.K., so Facebook didn’t invent it; but you have to admit they “enhanced” the idea by cutting your search time in half. Then one of their engineers had to correct biz development by saying we’re really separated by 4.74 people. Come on folks, the world population just streaked past seven billion…so of course we’re closer together! But we prefer Mitch Joel’s world-shrinking approach–today we’ve only got six pixels of separation. He probably knows better but after writing his book Six Pixels of Separation and doing a blog and podcast by the same title, he takes a more creative approach to our growing connections. Joel is trying to interpret what’s going on in the interconnected world while Adam and his engineer are just collecting, selling the connections.

Close Enough
They both know we are constantly sharing content online in more ways and are using more platforms to share more stuff with more groups of people who share it – good news, bad news, stuff – with more people.

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“Why, anybody can have a brain. That’s a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven’t got: a diploma.” – Wizard, The Wizard of Oz, MGM (1939)

Maybe the computer never delivered on the promise of the paperless office, but it did open the floodgate on one thing … data. The result has been a data explosion:
- 1,203 Exabytes of digital info was created, replicated around the globe last year
- 1 Petabyte of new info has been produced every 15 seconds this year
- The annual growth in information is 59 percent
All of this is because people want to do it themselves (O.K., maybe companies “encouraged/pushed us a little) with ATMs, self check-in/check-out, email/video/tweets, online tell your life story, personalized TV/video/music entertainment, online travel/banking/paying/shopping.

DIY World
Folks just can’t do enough themselves.

Social Noise – Social media has made some significant “contributions” to big data but even more comes from the growing networks of sensors and monitors. The great thing about social media though is that so many people volunteer to put in so much information about themselves, their wants/needs, friends and thoughts that enterprises are able to collect/analyze all of the data and use predictive technologies to plan for tomorrow.
As if that wasn’t good enough, all of that DIY work, every click, creates an even bigger digital shadow about you … 8-10 times more than the data you produce.

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An estimated 500 million people travel by plane every year; an overwhelming statistic. However whilst no one would deny a person of a well-deserved holiday or break, many of these travellers are business persons wishing to travel nationally and internationally to different parts of the world to attend meetings, seminars and sales presentations. Not only are they adding to the harmful emissions that are released into the air, effecting animals, plants and, ultimately, people, but they are also racking up huge expenses that all need to be accounted for. It seems silly when video conferencing has been around for several years.

It is a well-known fact that planes, trains and motor vehicles release harmful chemicals and fumes out into the atmosphere which damages the ozone layer, animal life on the ground and affects people who have to deal with the increase in pollution. Cars release around 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air, affecting people’s health and wellbeing, every year.

Unnecessary journeys

Thousands of business people travel by various modes of transport to attend meetings. This means time away from their desk, resulting in a lack of productivity; It means expense, as everything needs to be paid for; It means harming the community, something which nobody wants.

Video conferencing allows for people, in several locations, to engage in conversation and interaction at the same time, provided an internet connection is available. Because the system is performing in real-time, users are exposed to high quality visual and audio elements, which saves money, time and the environment, without ever having to leave their desks.

Businesses remain reluctant to invest in video conferencing equipment, arguing it’s expensive, it’s of low quality and it’s unreliable.

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In any business, software needs to be constantly updated to keep up to date with the advancements in technology. New software packages allow for companies to implement a system which makes day-to-day tasks and activities easier to conduct and complete. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system integrates all of the facets of an operation into one easy to manage system, including manufacturing, development, marketing and sales departments. An ERP system can be an effective and useful tool, however, if staff and users are not given the correct and appropriate level of training, the software will not be used to its full potential.

When staff are trained on new software packages and programs, several mistakes are easily made. Here are the most common:

Forget to explain why

Training and education are two completely separate processes and many companies train their staff on how to use particular programs but fail to educate them on the deeper ins and outs of the system. Training staff on how to use a piece of software and how it helps with daily tasks and duties will ensure that they are capable of using the system to benefit them in their daily routine. However, without sufficient education, members of staff will not know how to diagnose a problem if one occurs. Educating staff on how to navigate a particular piece of software is not enough; they need to be able to understand why a system works in a particular way and why problems may occur and how they can be amended.

Change is difficult

Change can be a scary and daunting experience. Many staff may not want to have to adjust to a brand new software system, especially if they are relatively new to the company or have only recently come to terms with a former system.

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For a whole bunch of publicists, the holidays – Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, you name it – are the starting gun to perform, deliver for bosses and clients at what is arguably the largest trade show in the world … CES (Consumer Electronics Show).

Here are the players:

The Client/Boss
More than 3,000 companies preen themselves, get pumped up and spend a whole lotta’ money to descend on Las Vegas. Their goal:
- show new products they expect/hope will take them to the next level
- develop a lot of buzz about the company/products
- at the very least, enable them to survive another year or be bought
They work through the weekends, nights finalizing product ideas and finishing up the first run of product or polish prototypes.
They direct their publicity folks to ensure that they get to meet with/be interviewed by all of the “big” members of the media. (Yes, Virginia despite all of the social media discussion, press people are still held in high regard.)
They throw last- minute specifications and applications information to the publicists; and as they leave for the holidays, tell them to produce elegant releases that get their messages across loud and clear.
They continually ask which media people will they meet with; and with a voice that questions your professionalism, relationships ask why Bill, Joan, Jane, Walt, David, Deborah aren’t on the list.

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Better Year – To know where you’re going you have to know where you’ve been, what you’ve been through. Based largely on what we’ve been through, people are cautiously more optimistic about the coming year. Image – Universal Pictures

Imagine-

A global population of seven billion people … and growing. More than six billion mobile subscribers … and growing. More than nine billion connected devices (two billion machine to machine) … and growing. We’ve become a mobile and open world, and there’s no turning back.

Constantly Connected – Some feel at a loss if they don’t have their mobile “tools” – smartphone, iPad, notebook – with them constantly. Admit it. You go back home if you forgot your phone. You’re at a loss when your table/computer battery runs low. No wonder we feel we’re always connected … we are! While feature phones still dominate the 5.5 billion mobile subscriber market (4:1), smartphones showed the sharpest increase, selling an estimated 468 million units for a 58 percent increase. Many have said that the tablet (O.K., the iPad) is the laptop killer; but if something is going to dent the growth of the new families of ultralight to heavy duty portable systems, it will be the mobile phone.

Don’t Talk – While people carry their feature/smartphone with them constantly, it’s less about talking and more about messages, news, and entertainment. A growing number of folks have perfected on-the-go messaging using their smartphone as their only go-to device. More than one billion people accessed the mobile Internet this past year and usage is expected to double within five years. In China alone, there are more than 280 million mobile users, many of them mobile-only who seldom or never use a desktop, notebook or tablet.

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When the Internet was in its infancy, an editor once commented to us that if a person didn’t have an email address, he had no reason to talk with him. Today, if you don’t have a Facebook page, it’s almost as though you don’t exist. That’s true of individuals; and increasingly, it’s true of companies. That’s because Facebook is the location to go for news, information, ideas, and friends. In six years, Facebook has gone from zero members to more than 800M (latest “official” count).

Global Momentum – People can’t produce infographics fast enough to keep up with Facebook’s growth. This recent chart was dramatically outdated by Zuck at f8, the organization’s developer conference, when he reported Facebook now has more than 800M “citizens” around the globe and is published in more than 100 languages. Source – pingdom.com

Put in a global perspective that would make Facebook the third largest country in the world, behind China and India. Because of its size and influence, Facebook has become a major source and resource for businesses. Its rapid growth and global reach is impressive, to say the least. Facebook outsizes all of the other online social media … by a lot. Mark Zuckenberg, CEO, sees Facebook becoming the “open” resource for individuals, organizations, friends, foes. Regarding the openness and sharing, he recently said, “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people – and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.” It seems like the more the company offers to its users, the more they use it.

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“For the first time in my life, I got people respecting me. Please, don’t ask me to give it up.” – Erin Brockovich, Erin Brockovich, Jersey Films (2000)

When we talk about social media, most folks think first of Facebook. Heck, with 800 million users it’s the biggest walled garden on the planet. There are a lot of sites we visit first when we want undiluted company, product information; however, when we’re looking for information from real people, real users; we’re like a lot of folks and turn to the blogosphere. There’s a better than 50-50 chance that the search will take us to a female’s blog. It’s not planned. It’s just that there are more women on line than men. Then too the blog often has a heavy dose of what we guys seem to lack…common sense. As Brenda said, “Yes, it’s called accountability and…” Of course, we’ll get information, assistance from anywhere, anyone we can…we’re not proud. It just seems that female bloggers are more intent with their online activities–especially when it comes to blogs – reading, posting.

Casual vs. Business – Females are heavily involved in a complete range of social media activities including Facebook and others. A great many are also finding their voice by reading, posting to and publishing their own blogs. Source – BlogHer, iVillage

The blogosphere is an excellent means of getting information within a specific subject community and at the same time obtaining a variety of information.

Focused Information
This is because unlike a specific company’s website or sites devoted to special subjects like gaming, cars, health; the bloggers cover a range of topical information. Source – Forrester

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At least 40 percent of my time is spent on the road attending and speaking at conferences, meeting with integrators and visiting their customer sites. It lets me see firsthand how they’re using our digital signage products and services. It also gives me an opportunity to listen to their questions; their wish lists and their visions of tomorrow’s systems and solutions.

What we’re hearing is businesses are stressed economically and would like to do more with less. Here’s how digital signage can help.

* Virtual Salesman – a digital signage solution can also be used to reduce–or even to replace–the need for hiring expensive employees as it can act as a well-informed sales representative. Interactivity such as bar code scanning of an item which triggers an in-depth review of the product, RFID, buttons, touch screens (product finder), etc. all put the power in the customer’s hand during the sales process, but lets retailers drive their decision with well-thought-out messaging.

* Dual Personality – businesses can dual-purpose their signage to train employees. Corporate communications can be sent to the signage for employee meetings during off hours.

* Affordability – with the price of LCD screens going down, digital signage is more affordable than ever before. According to WitsView, panel makers have experienced a consecutive decline in sales through the past three quarters and can only hope to maintain production by reducing costs and selling off inventory. And to drive these screens, digital sign controllers are required. By selecting a platform that is all-inclusive offering the hardware to actually run the presentations, software to create the presentations and networking to conveniently deliver them, high-quality digital signage becomes accessible to virtually any size business.

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Many people are going crazy over e-learning software. With the fast-paced lifestyles we live and the way we’re always connected to the Internet in one way or another, it’s really no wonder why.

However, the truth is that far too many people, and even educational institutions for that matter, are purchasing e learning software they end up not using for reasons that range from difficulty of use, incompatibility with learning needs, to complete obsolescence.

Why is this so?

The crux of the matter is that there are simply various different types of e-learning software out there, some of which may or may not fit your needs. This is precisely the reason why asking yourself a handful of important questions is crucial in finding the right type of education software for your situation. The first step is to identify your learning needs; if you’re a teacher looking to provide educational software to your students, you’d need to identify their needs instead.

1.  What are your learning needs?

Each person has different learning skills. Do you want to increase your skills in literacy and numeracy? Do you lack the ability to focus? Do you require lessons in a particular subject, such as the sciences or the arts?

Acquiring e-learning software also entails that you put yourself in the position of the teacher because you are, to some extent, teaching yourself. Ask yourself what type of learning experience you’re after. Is it interactive? Slow, or fast paced?

2.  What budget do you have?

The most comprehensive and fully-featured e-learning software doesn’t come cheap. So it’s best to determine your budget before buying anything to see what you can and cannot afford. This saves you time you might have otherwise spent evaluating software you can’t afford anyway.

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“I figure life’s a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you… to make each day count.” – Jack, Titanic, 20th Century-Fox (1997)

Last year, more than four billion devices connected to the Internet shoved more data across the pipes than was sent from the Net’s beginnings in the late ’60s through 2009 … combined. Industry experts estimate that it won’t be long before 15 billion devices will be connected to the Net; and by 2020, something like 50 billion devices will be “communicating” across the Net. That’s more than six devices for every person on Earth. Contrary to what a lot of folks mesmerized by the glare of the oncoming headlights, they won’t all be iPads! Most of us only use three or four connected devices – smartphone, tablet, TV, computer.  The big chunk of the connected/communicating devices will be parts of sensor networks – low-power sensors that collect, transmit, analyze and distribute data on a massive scale.

Big Numbers
Regardless of the device, if you run the numbers on the volumes of data that are going to be sent then…it’s HUGE!

Coming of Age – The Internet, the Web, social media and mobile devices have put content and content development into everyone’s hands; and boy, are they taking advantage of it by developing and distributing more data than ever. Last year, there was more data produced and distributed than in the previous 30 years…combined. Source – IDC

Just think; back in 2008, only five Exabytes of unique information were created. That’s about one billion DVDs. This year, we’re creating a staggering1.2 Zettabytes (one Zettabyte equals 1,024 Exabytes). Yeah it’s a big number…really big number equal to:

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Business has been built on the foundation of selling stuff. Hopefully, lots of stuff – products, ideas, services – to lots of folks. The latest tool new-marketing experts are promoting to management is social media. You know, putting your products, your ideas in front of the masses to buy. Most social media efforts today – Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube video program – are implemented, tested and measured to push what your stuff to retail (brick and mortar or ecommerce) to keep the cash register ringing. If the bottomline is black, the people who recommended and ran the program say, “See, it works!” If the bottomline bleeds red, another social media team is brought in.

Social media, the internet, smartphones, ecommerce, mobile to in-store signage and friends digital coupons put you in front of the customer. If it’s a bad product, bad process or the business-as-usual model hasn’t changed to align with today’s new environment; social media people and tools won’t produce the results you want and need…a sustainable business. Digital marketing and social media programs that are implemented on top of the same old business model to move the products/ideas are too obvious, too easy to see through. They’re about as transparent as Morgan Spurlock’s recent documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. The business of yesterday was tough. The business of tomorrow is even tougher; and only a few will be willing to be sit there and be told what they want and must buy through psychological manipulation and repetition.

The business of today isn’t the same as it always was. It’s different. It’s better. It’s tougher. And it isn’t going back.

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Digital signage has proven to be one of the most influential, most effective communications tools available for virtually any business or organization-including budget-conscious, small- to medium-sized organizations. That’s because digital signage isn’t what it used to be – namely, simply video playback. By adding new technologies and capabilities to signage, organizations can do a better job of capturing the audience’s attention and keeping it there through user and mobile interaction. We have moved way beyond traditional digital signage to- intelligent signage that can be experienced.

Today’s digital signage appeals to consumers because it delivers messages in a familiar, high-quality form that competes with their entertainment devices. It also appeals to businesses because it enables them to provide instantly updateable, targeted visual communications that are informative and engaging. However, people are inundated with commercial messages today; so unless your digital signage rises above the noise level of the crowd, you risk having your message fall on deaf ears.

The key is to research the wants and needs of customers and potential customers and target them with digital signage. Then, create a successful digital media mix by leveraging the signage marketing with a cross-channel strategy that embraces in-store marketing with mobile and/or online marketing. Thanks to the technical advancements available today, there are many options that can be deployed with digital signage to increase your eyeball capture rate/mindshare and win the battle for attention. Here are a few strategies that I’ve seen work well.

1. Multi-Purpose Your Content: We all know that content is king, but it can be costly to develop for specific mediums.

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“You wanna waste my time? Okay. I call my lawyer. He’s the best lawyer in Miami. He’s such a good lawyer, that by tomorrow morning, you gonna be working in Alaska. So dress warm.” – Tony Montana (Al Pacino), Scarface, 1983 (Universal Pictures)

When you become the head of a country – any country – there are some “normal” things you have to give up.  President Obama gave up a lot of things, including his Twitter account, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace pages…hair color! Jobs offered him an iPhone and iPad during their meeting at One Infinity Circle at employee rates (come on, business is business!) but the Prez had to turn them down…national security ya’ know. Your boss has more freedom, so he got his (at retail) …he’s so cool! Check around the office and all the marketing and communications people have their smartphone or tablet – Android or iOS – because they need ‘em! Most bought their own, since they use them for personal and business activities. But as Elvira said, “Don’t toot your horn, honey. You’re not that good.”

Being in Touch
They’re indispensible in our 24×7 world. Just as the Web and social networks are the places folks go to connect with people. Working Solution – People in developing countries embrace the use of the Internet and Web more rapidly … not just for personal enjoyment, but more importantly as their means of reaching out and working with business partners, regardless of where they are located. Source – IDC

Even though they often aren’t certain how to use them and, more importantly, how to measure the results, marketing departments everywhere have increased their social media activities.

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A few businesses have started installing charging stations for electric cars in their stores.  This is in anticipation of the future where electric cars will be more common as our dependence on oil decreases.  FoxNews.com reports that the McDonald’s franchisee in Huntington, West Virginia, has two such chargers installed last year.  Walgreens, too, has some in Texas and plans to add more in other cities.  About 13,000 charging stations will be available by 2012.

When McDonald’s franchisee Tom Wolf built his latest restaurant in Huntington, W.Va., late last year, he installed two chargers for all-electric cars so customers could juice their batteries while eating.

So far, the charging station has been used a few times.

“It’s for the future,” says Wolf, who spent $6,385 on chargers that are about the size and shape of a parking meter. He doesn’t know anyone in Huntington who owns a plug-in car but expects that will change once electric vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf become more widely available.

Across the US, such equipment is proliferating even though it is unclear whether plug-in cars will prove popular.

Walgreen Co. has chargers outside four Texas stores and plans to add more there and in San Francisco, Orlando, Fla., and Washington, D.C.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. expects to have chargers outside some Tennessee restaurants within months. Murphy Oil USA, a gas-station operator, is testing one in Chattanooga, Tenn., to gauge demand.

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