If You Complain To A Company On Twitter, It Probably Doesn't Care Enough To Answer You

Nobody likes to be ignored, but that's exactly what happens to most people when they complain to companies on Twitter.

71% of people never get a response from companies that they bother with their woes on Twitter, according to a recent study by Maritz Research and evolve24.

And of the 29% that did, they approved of the effort. 83.5% said that they either liked or loved getting a response from the company.

What brands do on Twitter makes an impact. Perhaps it's impossible with the amount of resources most companies put towards social media to respond to every single complaint, but to have the vast majority go completely unanswered isn't acceptable. Many brands have devoted customer service Twitter accounts, and there's just no excuse for not answering on those.

The point of a company being on Twitter should be to communicate with its customers. That's a two-way street. Brands that go on Twitter just to be a loudspeaker to promote themselves aren't accomplishing much -- they're just making their customers feel like they don't matter.

Here's a chart of some of Maritz and evolve24's findings:

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It Costs $226,920 To Raise A Child -- And That Doesn't Include College

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The astronomical price of day care -- which costs more than the median annual rent payments in all 50 states -- is a major reason why raising a child to 18-years-old now costs $226,290, CNN Money reports.

Compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these numbers reveal a 40% increase from ten years ago, or about $60,000. Rising food and transportation prices also play a major role; those numbers now sit at $36,210 and $30,900, respectively.

And because the DOA considered the cost only to 18, that $226,290 doesn't include college, which often merits the lion's share of financial planning and discussion when it comes to raising children.

The cost of child care, though, jumps out from the other numbers. CNN Money spoke to a woman who spends about 30% of her $39,000 annual income on day care for two children. That's $5,850 per child per year, or $487 a month.

To confront these costs, there is the obvious recourse -- try to save -- but planning might take a back seat to the immediacy of some needs. CNN Money spoke to one financial adviser who said that, if you have to choose between college and day care for your child, choose day care.

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If This Doesn't Get You Pumped For Rugby We Don't Know What Will

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New Zealand's rugby team, The All Blacks, perform this traditional war dance in front of the other team before they start a match.

It's intense, it's awesome, and it gets you seriously pumped for rugby. The Haka starts at about 4:25:

Here's another video of the All Blacks and the Tonka both performing:

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A Con Man Recruited High School Basketball Stars To Play For A School That Doesn't Exist

A former college basketball player recruited kids from all over the world to come play hoops at a West Virginia prep school that doesn't exist.

About 16-to-18 kids were discovered sharing a single South Charleston apartment last week, sleeping on the floor and starving after two days without food.

All of them were promised a spot on the basketball team at West Virginia Prep Academy, a new college prep school that was supposed to be opening this fall.

But beyond this hastily assembled website, there's no evidence that the academy exists or ever intended to.

The man behind the school is team "coach" Daniel Hicks. He charged many of the players $500 in admission to the school and they were expected to pay $300 a month in food and lodging.

However, once they showed up, there was no gym, no games, and not even a school. Players were forced to fend for themselves to get meals, despite most of them having no cash.

It's not clear if Hicks intended to defraud the players all along or truly hoped to build a prep basketball team – and failed once he realized that starting a high school is not as easy as he thought.

Unfortunately, starting a high school team is easier than you think. It's clear that West Virginia Prep Academy is modeled after academies like Findlay Prep, a Las Vegas academy that has one of the top high school basketball programs in the country.

However, Findlay Prep is not a school. Its players all live together and play a full basketball schedule against other top teams, but the kids actually take classes at a different private school in Henderson, Nevada. They are essentially a private team, outside the jurisdiction of state athletic associations. It's perfectly legitimate, if not entirely about education.

According to Yahoo Sports, who spoke to one the duped players, some of the boys were told to enroll in and get financial aid from an online university. In theory, they could have gotten their education from that school while playing for West Virginia Prep, but Hicks failed to even schedule games for his new "team."

Sadly, the ease with which someone can create a team and lure kids dreaming of a NCAA scholarship makes scams like this almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Findlay and others like it may be totally legit operations, but are only a few steps removed from a guy with a van hoping to make a few bucks in the world of high school recruiting. Hicks still claims his school is real and there will certainly be others like him in the future, some more scrupulous than others.

South Charleston city officials have helped all the boys who Hicks recruited to get back home, after Greyhound and a local Ramada hotel pitched in to help the stranded players. The FBI is investigating, though arrests have been made.

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This Hair Salon Doesn't Really Care If You Think Its Ad Is Offensive, But Apologizes Anyway

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A hair salon up in Edmonton, Alberta is getting railed on for a controversial ad depicting domestic violence, and its owner is now vigorously defending it (via copyranter).

Instead of pulling the ad and running for the hills, Fluid Salon owner Sarah Cameron fired a salvo back at her detractors.

Here's what she told the Edmonton Sun:

“It might strike a chord, but as the way our society and community is getting, we keep tailoring everything because everyone is getting so sensitive,” said Cameron. “Anyone who has a connection or a story behind anything can be upset or have an opinion. We are not trying to attack anyone.”

Cameron later added a note on the salon's website, which defends the ad, but also says that it will donate to a women's shelter. The ad is still up on Fluid's site.

There's also this conditional apology -- with a little lecture about domestic violence thrown in too:

"If survivors of abuse interpret this ad to make light of any abusive situation, we sincerely apologize, that was never our intent as there are people that worked on this campaign who are survivors of abuse. To the rest of you who this has so deeply affected, we truly hope you do something to help stop domestic violence. Truly honor the survivors that you are standing up for. Unfortunately boycotting a hair salon will not accomplish this."

That's certainly a different way to deal with a huge wave of negative PR. 

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Here Are 15 Songs The Chinese Government Doesn't Want You To Hear

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China's ministry of culture has made its own 100 list, The Guardian reports -- a list of 100 songs that cannot be played in the country.

All songs, they say, violate a 2009 law that bans songs with "poor taste and vulgar content."

Websites that don't remove them before September 15th will be prosecuted.

Not all of the songs are American, but we have some serious stand-outs. Lady Gaga made the list 6 times -- truly impressive. And the ministry even found the time to dig back into the 90s, pull out a track from The Backstreet Boys, and ban that pop gem.

This is old hat for China. The Rolling Stones are unable to play hit songs like "Honky Tonk Woman" and 'Let's Spend The Night Together" when they play there. I suppose that makes more sense than banning Bruno Mars, though.

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Here's What Apple Loses If Steve Jobs Doesn't Come Back (AAPL)

The stock market obviously views Apple as Steve Jobs -- shares are off 5% in the wake of his retirement announcement.

But Apple is a company with more than 45,000 employees, including some of the greatest product designers, engineers, and marketers of any company in the world. 

Apple has an incredible product pipeline: the iPad 2 is the only tablet that matters, the iPhone takes the lion's share of profits in the smartphone market, and the Mac is the only personal computer brand that's growing as the rest of the market is shrinking.

All of those products have at least one, maybe two, more updates already in the pipeline.

Strategically, Apple is in the right place: both Google (with the Motorola acquisition) and Microsoft (with its Nokia partnership) have basically acknowledged that they need both hardware and software to compete in smartphones.

Apple is behind those two companies in terms of online services -- the third part of the equation -- but at least it's recognized the problem and will try to address it with iCloud.

But two or three years down the road? If Jobs does not come back, here's what Apple will lose:

The ultimate arbiter. A lot of big companies are bogged down with bureaucratic infighting -- it's endemic at Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard's botched earnings/strategy/acquisition announcement last week point to political problems there as well. That has never been a problem with Steve Jobs in control of Apple. Everybody there respects him, he knows what every part of the company is doing, and he's not afraid to make big changes when something's broken. Other CEOs may be as smart and as strong-willed, but they can't possibly garner the same level of respect as the founder who returned to bring his company back from near death.The product planner. Jobs is obsessed with simplicity and leaving things out: he culled the Mac product line down to a couple models when he returned, refused to let the Apple mouse have two buttons, and insisted that the iPhone NOT try to do everything at once. Other Apple employees understand that, but it's unknown whether anybody else will be able to execute that art as well as Jobs has. Especially when product groups and individuals see a new and fresh chance to gain status and get their ideas heard (see last point).The recruiter and magnet. Apple already lost its retail planner Ron Johnson, and product design head Jony Ive was reportedly making noises about leaving as well. More to the point, everybody wants to work at Apple today. That's party because of the company's record of success -- but it's probably also in good part because of the mythos of Jobs.Pop culture icon. Steve Jobs's keynotes are packed with press -- including popular press. Will the media fawn over Tim Cook or Phil Schiller when they talk? Don't count on it. And that means that you might not see every Apple product announcement featured on the local TV news as it has been.

Case in point: look at Microsoft under Bill Gates, and Microsoft under Steve Ballmer.

Apple will still be a juggernaut for a long time. But the company's competitors have to be viewing today's news with at least a small twinge of ... let's call it anticipation.

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