The July 4th holiday is an explosive one for Zambelli Fireworks, a fireworks and pyrotechnics company. According to a CNN/Money article the company produces 1,600 fireworks displays nationwide for Independence Day celebrations.
The self-titled "first family of fireworks," based in New Castle, Pennsylvania, has been in business since the turn of the century, when Antonio Zambelli brought his pyrotechnic ability to the U.S. from Naples, Italy.
The company was then passed on to Antonio's son George "Boom-Boom" Zambelli in the 1950s, and is currently run by George's children.
"My dad took the business to another level," said George Zambelli Jr. "He created a designer brand of fireworks, and choreographed the displays to musical scores or live music."
"That's when the business exploded, you could say," Zambelli added.
Now Zambelli, who started working with fireworks at the tender age of 12, serves as chairman of the company. He works alongside his four sisters and his own children, including Jared and George Zambelli III, who will likely take over the business one day.
The article says the biggest displays require as much as "45,000 fireworks and 770,000 pounds of mortars." The company also provides for smaller celebrations like weddings. They also provide indoor pyrotechnics for sporting events and conventions. But this time of the year is likely the company's biggest -- you might hear one of their productions this upcoming holiday weekend.
Have you ever heard of the Gizmondo, the handheld do-it-all device from Tiger Telematics that had a big buzz behind it in 2005? If you haven't heard of it that is because the Gizmondo handheld hype turned into a disaster. GameSetWatch has written a detailed 10,000 word article on the Gizmondo disaster story that peaked with the infamous Ferrari Enzo car crash.
So, here's the first of the GameSetWatch 'holiday special' articles, and it's a kinda interesting one. The first thing to note is that it's out of date - it was originally written in January 2005, and never published. And, well, it's an investigative article written by me about Gizmondo, the now-famed Ferrari-crashing, money-squandering handheld company.
But because it goes into unprecedented detail about the financial history of the company, I think it's worth publishing. In fact, it goes into somewhat ridiculous, almost 10,000-word long detail, which is one of the reasons that it was never published. But let's give you some context here - when in Gizmondo's history was this published, and why didn't it make it out at the time?
Even if you are not into gaming this is still a classic business meltdown story.
Greenbiz.com has provided an interesting article (via Principled Profit) about the top green business stories of 2006. Here are the stories they included in their list.
Wal-Mart Goes from Zero to Hero
Alt-Fuel Vehicles Get in Gear
Carbon Neutral Brings Hope and Hype
Financial Sector Takes on Climate
Investors Flex Their Muscle on Climate
Renewables Become the New Recycled
Water Rises as a Business Issue -- and Opportunity
Computer Industry Plugs in to Green
Green Chemicals Become Supercritical
Green Becomes an Engine of Growth
Be sure to read the full article on Greenbiz.com for the specifics of each story. It is pretty clear with the momentum currently behind Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth that green will be even bigger in 2007.
Broderick Perkins at the Reality Timesargues that the housing market was last year's top business story.
The market was so hot for a while, condo speculation (along with a concentration of high-end condos in some markets), drove up the national median condo price beyond that of single-family detached homes, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Last year, however, accelerated home price appreciation proved unsustainable, sales slipped, speculators split, renters stayed put, builders bolted, foreclosures reached historic proportions in some demographic segments and the inflated bubble of a housing market began to reenter the atmosphere.
It was the sudden reversal of fortunes that led Associated Press' newspaper and broadcast editors to put the housing market at the top of the heap of business stories for 2006, according to the news service.
"At the housing market's peak, buyers rushed to open houses, blank checks in hand. Lenders gave big-money mortgages to people who could barely afford their monthly payments. That ended in 2006, when home builders scuttled projects, walked away from land they'd hoped to develop and would-be buyers canceled orders," reported AP's Ellen Simon.
Everyone had been expected the housing bubble to burst and housing did indeed retract. The big question is how much more are housing prices going to drop in 2007 and will all home prices be affected or just those markets that have had the biggest bubbles.
Have you ever heard of the 