The iPhone has led some ski operators to become more honest about the state of the slopes, a sign that social networking applications coupled with mobile technology could lead to more business and price transparency across a whole range of sectors. That trend is good for the consumer.

The reason for the sudden wave of honesty is a new iPhone app which plugs into www.skireport.com. The site publishes regularly updated (and one would assume independent) reports about each ski resort.

A study by two economics professors from Dartmouth College (first reported in Canada's Globe and Mail) showed that ski areas reported 23 percent more snowfall, on average, on Saturdays and Sundays than the weather reports indicated. The report adds that many of the resorts in the study did make accurate reports. The others are serious serial offenders.

Jonathan Zinman, an economics professor and co-author of the study, says that after SkiReport's iPhone app was released (during the 2008-2009 ski season) the hype diminished at those that practiced deceptive advertising. The app allows skiers to provide reports live from the resort they are visiting, giving others a more accurate idea of what they might find when they get there.

"Near the end of our sample period, we observe a shock to the information environment: a new iPhone application feature makes it easier for skiers to comment on resort ski conditions in real time," the report states. "Exaggeration of fresh snowfall by resorts falls sharply, and falls much more at resorts with better iPhone reception.

In all, the results suggest that deceptive advertising varies sharply with incentives, both within resorts (over time, at high-frequencies), and across resorts."

So there you have another example of how information exchange and social networking is destroying the old ways of business. Just wait until social networking hits with a shopping comparison app. Then consumers will be able to send posts about deals and even query shoppers at a competitor to find out where they can find the best deal.

One hopes there will be cheaper competitors to the iPhone, that apps will be available across different platforms, and the cost of connecting to the Internet through the mobile network will have fallen enough so this kind of consumer-driven price transparency becomes affordable to those who really need it. Retailers and supermarkets – whether in Bermuda or Boston – better get ready for the change.

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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada featured the latest devices and software about to be released on the market. One standout (and there were many) is Blio eReader.

This is free software that converts your laptop, netbook or smartphone into an electronic reader. It is an alternative to buying the relatively pricy electronic readers released by Amazon and the like.

Blio (http://blioreader.com) uses publishers' original PDF files to preserve the exact format of books and magazines.

The company hopes to make its money through a related online bookstore, which will feature 1.2 million titles.

This to me is the proper business structure. For me, digital reading devices such as the Kindle are convenient and handy but make sense mainly in the corporate environment (for example in the manufacturing and construction sectors).

I prefer to spend the $260 plus it takes to get one of these devices on actual books. I suspect many in my wage category feel the same way. The Blio eReader by K-NFB Reading Technology is designed to sell books; not new devices. Let us see if it changes the fledgling market.

By the way, if you do have the cash to spare, a bunch of other companies released their versions of an electronic reader at CES to compete with Amazon's Kindle, the Sony Reader and the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Samsung has come out with two e-readers. One is the E6, which has a six-inch (15.2-centimetre) screen.

The other is the E101 with a ten-inch display. Both have forgettable names. Obviously Samsung has a marketing deficiency. No one is going to say they are going to have a quick read on their E6.

Plastic Logic revealed QUE, its e-reader which the company's chief executive calls a "paperless briefcase" for the business professional.

The QUE bookstore is run by Barnes & Noble. A QUE with four gigabytes of memory is capable of storing as many as 35,000 documents. It will cost about $700.

Send any comments to Ahmed at elamin.ahmedgmail.com