Black ownership of businesses more than doubled throughout the Golden Triangle and the state during the Great Recession, but sales by those businesses remained disproportionately low when compared to earnings from businesses owned by whites.
The Commercial Dispatch staff took home 14 awards Saturday in the editorial division of the 2013 Mississippi Press Association's Better Newspaper Contest.
About three years ago, I walked past Linda Massey's desk and into my own office. My office has a window that looks into the front office of The Dispatch. I had noticed a man talking to Linda when I walked in, but didn't realize it was Lloyd Vaughan until I sat at my desk and looked out that window.
Since my son was born a little more than six years ago, my wife and I have had countless angst-ridden discussions on what to do when he reached school age. Public, private, boarding, home -- we've weighed every schooling option. He started kindergarten last month, and, though we are thrilled with his school, the dialogue continues.
Earlier this year Google launched Consumer Surveys, a service allowing business owners and individuals to survey a targeted audience. This is an incredibly useful tool for businesses wanting to gauge customer satisfaction and preference.
Sherlock Holmes, Alex Cross, Adam Dalgliesh, Commissario Brunetti, Sam Spade, Perry Mason, Miss Marple, and Lisbeth Salander: February is "mystery month" at the Table Talks sponsored by Friends of the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library. The Friends launches its latest series on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at noon in the library meeting room, 314 7th St. N.
The Dispatch's website, cdispatch.com, has long encouraged online readers to leave comments at the bottom of each article. Though the paper still receives some letters to the editor by mail, most people now either email letters to us or simply post a comment at the end of a story.
I'm teaching a class on social media for Mississippi University for Women's Life Enrichment Program this semester. Our first class was Tuesday night, and we started by reviewing some staggering statistics: 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, more than 600 million people actively use Facebook, 1 billion tweets are sent per week.
The recent phone hacking scandal in the U.K. has so far resulted in multiple resignations, arrests and the closure of a 168-year-old newspaper.
A couple of weeks ago AT&T Mississippi president, Mayo Flynt, passed through Columbus and spoke with me about the pending merger between wireless carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. The merger is currently being reviewed by the Federal Communications Commission.
For anyone new to the area, Smackers is a relatively new frozen yogurt shop, located near the intersection of Highway 45 North and Highway 82, just behind Chili's. Since opening on Valentine's Day this year, Smackers has done a tremendous job of branding themselves (The catchy name comes from a combination of the last names of the founders: Smith and Acker) and in using new technology for promotions.
Last week we looked at a few contests some large corporations are currently running on their Facebook pages. Let's look at some ways local businesses can create buzz with their pages.
Companies are still trying to learn how to best use social media for marketing and profit. In next week's column I plan on giving some tips on how local businesses can use social media for promotions. For now let's look at a handful of interesting contests that are currently running online.
On Wednesday night I rented a movie through Netflix's Watch Instant feature. As I easily selected a movie, I wondered what else could be rented online. Here are a few of the more interesting online rental options I found.
At a family dinner the other night, an uncle mentioned that he has grown tired of reading the mundane in his Facebook News Feed.
News broke last week of a burglary ring in New Hampshire that selected targets by using Facebook. Specifically, they used the new Facebook Places feature to target more than 50 victims.
A mystery man was spotted in downtown Columbus on Thursday.
Search articles back to February 2009 with the form above.
1. Skull identified as missing son of former Columbus police chief COLUMBUS & LOWNDES COUNTY
2. Story of Columbus teen on death row airs on Headline News COLUMBUS & LOWNDES COUNTY
3. MSU beats Ole Miss in Governor's Cup thriller COLLEGE SPORTS
4. Police searching for suspect in death of Starkville woman STARKVILLE & OKTIBBEHA COUNTY
5. Restaurant tax: Smith, Younger agree on reducing restaurant tax floor COLUMBUS & LOWNDES COUNTY