More than 450 million retailer gift cards and prepaid cards were shipped by Rogers-based Archway Marketing Services in 2008—10 million more than the company had forecast and more than double the number in 2007 (which was more than double the number in 2006). About three-quarters of those cards go out during the fourth quarter of the year, the company says, for use by major retail and restaurant chains nationally.
EnteroMedics, the St. Paul developer of devices to treat obesity, has closed on $20 million in new debt financing from sources in California and Connecticut. The working-capital loan will be used to pay off an existing loan and to fund company operations into 2010. EnteroMedics plans to have Food and Drug Adminstration approval by then for its Maestro system, which decreases appetite by blocking nerve signals.
The Zon from Eden Prairie–based Starkey Laboratories just won a 2009 Innovations Design and Engineering Award from the Consumer Electronics Show. That’s after recent honors from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Spark international design competition, and the Minnesota High Tech Association. The Zon’s shape minimizes contact with a wearer’s skin, and its technology reduces feedback and ambient sounds that interfere with conversation.
At least one local TV news program is finding ratings success: KSTP Channel 5 Eyewitness News added a half-hour 11 p.m. newscast this fall to cover the lead-up to the election, then decided in November to keep the expanded news coverage, Monday through Thursday, starting at 11:05 p.m. “Since we debuted this newscast back in October, we have seen a 70 percent rating increase in adults 25 to 54 in this time period,” says KSTP News Director Lindsay Radford.
Minneapolis futurist Cecily Sommers noted Make magazine as a trend indicator back in May 2007 when TCB profiled her. Now Twin Cities Public Television is launching a new program called Make that’s based on the DIY technology magazine and underwritten by the Geek Squad division of Richfield-based Best Buy. Make debuts in January on public television stations nationwide.
