The Facebook generation is so over Facebook, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

After surveying 802 teens, ages 12 to 17 about their online habits, it turns out that Facebook has become a "social burden." "While Facebook is still deeply integrated in teens’ everyday lives, it is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own." While 94 percent of teens are maintaining their Facebook accounts, more and more continue to migrate to Twitter and Instagram as largely parent-free zones that give them a greater ability to freely express themselves. According to the survey, 11 percent of teens had Instagram accounts, 5 percent have Tumblr accounts and 7 percent have accounts on Myspace.Continue reading...

It turns out that Americans haven't given up on soup afterall. Proof is in this week's quarterly snapshot by Campbell Soup, whose CEO deemed the company's US soup trade stabilized after a sales increase of 14 percent. From innovations in products such as Go Soup and a new CMO to new programs using digital marketing, this success bears the hallmarks of a number of recent turnaround efforts by the brand.

In fact, the increase was the fourth straight quarterly gain and the segment's largest increase in nearly five years. "We are confident that we can now drop the world 'stabilize' from our strategy," Campbell CEO Denise Morrison told analysts in a conference call, according to the Wall Street Journal. Morrison actually raised the company's outlook for the year.

Campbell's soup business had been down for two straight years. Morrison set to work as its new CEO last year to come up with more new products and to make some of the brand's existing soups taste better, while still trimming overall advertising. In this week's report, she said that each part of the soup business—condensed, ready-to-eat, and broths—notched double-digit sales gains during the period. Colder weather than a year ago also helped.Continue reading...

When you’re a 6-10 pro basketball player, you are used to getting things your way. But Los Angeles Clippers power forward Lamar Odom, husband to Khloe Kardashian, may not win the current battle he’s thrust himself into.

Odom and designer Jonathan Garcia launched a clothing line, Rich Soil, back in 2009 and one of its T-shirts caused so much of a stir that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo actually sent him a letter to tell him to stop selling it, the Associated Press reports. Cuomo expected Odom and his pal to stop sales within five days.

The problem? The shirt looks an awful lot like a logo for a New York State farming program. The Rich Soil shirt features a very similar Statue of Liberty that sits behind familiar-looking crop rows, encircled in a similar font reading "Rich Soil New York" as opposed to the program's "Pride of New York." Check out a side-by-side here.Continue reading...

The nanosecond a so-called student athlete in college takes money of any kind related to his or her sport, they are suddenly considered professionals and cannot play in college anymore, so says the NCAA, who laid out the rules that lets the organization instead profit from things such as jersey sales with player names.  

The NCAA’s coffers have also been lined by its relationship with Electronic Arts, which has been making video games based on college teams and athletes for years. However, a few former players aren't happy about being duped out of revenues from those sales, and one of them, former Rutgers University quarterback Ryan Hart, has now made some legal headway.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia on Tuesday ruled that Hart can try to cash in on some of the money EA made from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 versions of its college football game. The 2-1 decision overturned a decision by a lower court that said that it was OK for EA to use Hart’s likeness without him getting any kind of royalties due to First Amendment rights.Continue reading...

Businesses dream of phones ringing off the hook and website traffic spiking thousands of percent. But such activity can also be bittersweet and a tightrope of ethical messaging and decision making. Just ask Tornado Alley Armor, the Oklahoma-based seller and installer of high-end storm shelters, about the bittersweet truth of how disasters can mean good business.Continue reading...

German software company SAP is looking to break out of the mold and hire hundreds of people with Autism, recognizing their unique talent for information technology. By 2020, the company plans to have 1 percent of its global workforce of 65,000 employees be individuals with autism.

SAP executive Luisa Delgado told the BBC that the company believes that "innovation comes from the edges." While it is a developmental disorder, Autism has a very broad spectrum, and many people afflicted with the disorder demonstrate an impressive attention to detail and are highly focused and intelligent. "Only by employing people who think differently and spark innovation will SAP be prepared to handle the challenges of the 21st Century."Continue reading...

New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art is taking its collection of more than 19,000 items for a ride downtown in two years as it moves from its current location to a new Renzo Piano-designed building right at the southern end of the High Line. With the move, museum execs saw the opportunity to also change up the museum's 13-year-old blocky logo.

Maybe to avoid too much change at once (or so it can be sure to have all the new stationery in place before the new building’s opening), the Whitney unveiled its new logo and visual identity system this week. It consists of a very simple W that Amerstam-based design firm Experimental Jetset apparently sees a lot of symbolism in.Continue reading...

When you're stuck in neutral as McDonald's has been lately, you begin to try a little bit of everything. Expanding the menu. Focusing on value options. Sacking your chief of US operations. And, now—reducing the menu.

On the heels of its elimination of the Angus Burger, Fruit & Walnut Salad and Chicken Selects, there are reports that other McDonald's menu items are on the chopping block too as the chain scrambles for ways to maximize traffic and revenues while minimizing costs to deal with stubbornly reluctant consumers.

Caesar Salad, McSkillet Burrito and the Southern Style biscuit also could end up following the same path, according to a franchisee e-mail obtained by Bloomberg. These would be further cutbacks in McDonald's core menu at a time when the company increasingly has been emphasizing the traffic-building value instead of "limited-time" items such as popcorn chicken and McRib sandwiches.Continue reading...