How well do you know your employees? Results from this year's American Express Business Gifting survey may help you find out. The survey found that 92 percent of companies polled will be giving year-end gifts to their employees, though only 64 percent of employees say they're expecting a gift from their employer. As for their gift of choice, 42 percent of companies plan on handing out gift cards this holiday, followed by spot cash bonuses (37 percent), company products (35 percent), food baskets (26 percent), merchandise (25 percent) and time off (24 percent). Once again, employees and employers are at odds: The survey reported 44 percent of employees wanting cash as their company's gift, followed by time off (17 percent) and gift cards (15 percent).

If you're still debating whether to hold your annual holiday party, the American Express survey found that employees have mixed feelings. Though about 27 percent said a company holiday event can be "fun and interesting," about half say they can "take it or leave it."

Does the thought of reverting to the days of dial-up make you cringe? According to this USA Today article, the internet could begin slowing down as a reaction to overwhelming use by 2010. Business technology analysts Nemertes Research found that interactive and video-intensive services will continue overwhelming local cable, phone and wireless internet providers--and consumers will be forced to deal with the effects. "Users will experience a slow, subtle degradation, so it's back to the bad old days of dial-up," said Nemertes President Johna Till Johnson. "The cool stuff that you'll want to do will be such a pain in the rear that you won't do it."

To prevent the slowdown from occurring, Nemertes says cable and phone companies in North America must invest about $55 billion. A large chunk of the high cost goes toward running new, high-capacity lines.

A survey conducted in early 2007 suggests there may be a correlation between the state of the economy and teens' desires to become entrepreneurs. According to the sixth annual JA Worldwide "Interprise Poll on Entrepreneurship," about 67 percent of teens surveyed said they would like to start their own business someday, down from about 71 percent in last year's poll. JA Worldwide president and CEO Gerald M. Czarnecki explains the drop: "Starting with the 2001 recession, the job market experienced considerable weakness for several years and teen interest in becoming entrepreneurs climbed. When the job market improves, as it has in recent years, interest in starting a business seems to decline," he said.

About 34 percent of teens surveyed cited earning more money as the top motivation for starting a business, in addition to being your own boss (21 percent) and having a great product or service idea (19 percent). To check out the rest of the poll results, visit the JA Research Center.