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Category: News

  • Two Terms Marketers Need for Today’s Media Landscape

    We knew that the Internet would bring with it a whole wave of new media disruption. We were unprepared for just how massive the disruption has been. You needn’t look any farther than this one staggering statistic to understand the scale of change: Google’s advertising revenue is larger than that of the entire print industry’s revenue.

    In the past short while, we have seen a rise in new ways for advertisers to connect with consumers like never before. We’re also seeing an increasing amount of media budgets shifting from traditional channels to digital advertising. You can’t throw a marketer down a flight of stairs these days without hearing terms like real-time bidding, big data, retargeting and native advertising tumbling off of his tongue. It’s beginning to make social media, mobile marketing and plain-old digital advertising seem somewhat antiquated.

    So, where do you, the business leader, place those ad dollars? Do you spend them with the latest and greatest shiny object? Do you stick to your traditional guns? Do you sprinkle them around in the hopes of hitting the jackpot on the advertising table of roulette?

    What we need is a framework that helps us transcend the many different ways that consumers are connecting with brands and lets us see the bigger picture.

    What if we tossed away the terms we have used to date? What if we forgot all about traditional media, social media, mobile marketing, banner ads, QR codes and the rest and simplified the advertising process by simply asking if the media in question is active or passive? Passive media is any form of media where the consumer can’t physically do anything with it, except for consume it (newspaper, television, radio, etc). Active media is any form of media where the consumer can physically engage with it (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc).

    But there’s a catch to this (there is always a catch, isn’t there?). We can’t just look at one aspect of the experience to see whether it is active or passive. To find the right marketing mix, we have to look at four elements of the modern media experience:

    1. The Consumer. When is the consumer active or passive with the media channel? Do all consumers want to tweet, share, chat and create when they are engrossed in a TV show late in the evening, or are they most comfortable sitting back and watching the drama unfold? We live in a world where television broadcasters are pushing at a feverish pace to make what was a very passive media channel (sitting back and watching) into an active one (adding widgets and tickers, encouraging tweeters to use special hashtags, etc). Understanding how the audience consumes the medium is core to understanding what type of advertising they will best embrace. So yes, you can tell TV show viewers to follow along on Facebook, but how many of them simply want to sit back, watch the TV show, and fall asleep?

    2. The Media. How do you think Google — as a search engine — would be performing if the sole form of revenue was driven by banner advertising on the search results and not the contextually relevant format of AdWords? In fact, banner ads are a very simplistic and non-active type of media. They essentially replicate the print model: “We have content on a web page, why not put an ad next to it like we do with magazines and newspaper?” While banner advertising still generates billions of dollars in media advertising, the truth is that it is a very passive advertising format that was simply copy and pasted over to the a very active new medium. We could talk about how “interactive” these banner ads are (or were promised to be), but the numbers don’t lie: banner ads couldn’t perform any worse. Well over 99% of banner ads fail to generate any kind of click. They are passive forms of media that are out of touch with their very active digital channels.

    3. The Channel. Are you the same person on Google that you are on Facebook that you are reading this post on Harvard Business Review? These are very different types of digital channels and digital consumers act differently depending on which channels they are using. When you are doing a search on Google, you have a very different intent and mindset than when you’re on Facebook and connecting with friends or catching up with acquaintances. It becomes abundantly clear that you’re also in a dramatically different media mindset as you read these words than when you’re creating a board on Pinterest. Understanding how these channels independently operate, and which types of advertising match the consumer’s intent, is critical to building a successful advertising campaign.

    4. The Platform. The word “platform” gets thrown around a lot. Here’s what I mean by it: the Internet is the platform that the Facebook channel resides on; television is the platform that the HGTV specialty channel resides on. So before you allocate those marketing dollars, ask yourself: is the platform an active or passive one? Think about digital books as a platform. Do readers really want links, embedded video, extended audio interviews, sharing capabilities and more in a book? Will they, intuitively, turn what has traditionally been a very passive platform into an active one, simply because book publishers feel they are competing for attention with the Internet? As we watch the “smartening” of the television, it will be interesting to see just how many viewers truly dive into the myriad new ways of engaging with television. Certainly, those in the TV business hope that lots of them will. Most newer televisions are Internet enabled, but what is the true number of households that actually connect their TV sets to the Internet? According to eMarketer, nearly one quarter of US households now have a TV connected to the Internet, so we’re about to find out just how active this typically passive platform can become.

    One important caveat: it is not a zero sum game when it comes to active and passive media. The ways that consumers engage with different forms of media is not an absolute. While some will claim that Twitter is useless unless you’re constantly tweeting and retweeting, there is a large user base that is simply interested in following celebrities (these people are very passive in an active channel). And, for every person who watches The Voice while building up a hearty Doritos stain on their jammies, there is a ever-growing segment that will tweet, share, chat, and follow every move that that Team Usher makes (these people are very active in a passive channel). So, instead of worrying about social media marketing, mobile marketing and more, why not sit back as ask yourself these questions:

    • When are our consumers active or passive with our brand?

    • Is our advertising active when they’re active and passive when they’re passive?

    • Are the channels that we’re advertising on active when the consumers are active and passive when they are passive?

    • And, lastly, is the platform — in and of itself — a predominantly active or passive one?

    From there, you can truly start to better understand what a proper advertising mix can look like, be better at defining which opportunities could potentially work against others, and know which ones are just woefully flawed.

  • BlueStacks brings mobile gaming to the big screen with GamePop console; free with $6.99 subscription

    BlueStacks GamePop Release Date
    BlueStacks is known best for its App Player software, which allows users to run Android apps and games on Windows and Mac PCs. The company on Wednesday announced that it is branching out, however, and it will soon launch a home video game console that brings the mobile gaming experience to the big screen. Available for preorder beginning immediately, BlueStacks’ GamePop is the first console ever to be offered for free when users sign up for the company’s subscription game service. The console ships with one controller, and only those who preorder the GamePop during the month of May will be able to take advantage of the free offer.

    Continue reading…

  • Will The House Be Convinced That An Online Sales Tax Bill Hurts Small Businesses?

    The Marketplace Fairness Act – a bill that forces online businesses to collect sales tax from all 50 states – is fairly controversial. Some fear that it will put an undue burden on small businesses. It’s a legitimate concern, but opponents may not have to worry as the bill is about to face its toughest hurdle yet – the House of Representatives.

    Do you think the Marketplace Fairness Act will pass the House? Does it have a chance of being signed into law? Let us know in the comments.

    On Monday evening, the Senate voted in favor of the Marketplace Fairness Act by quite a wide margin (69-27). The bill enjoyed bi-partisan support and the National Retail Federation applauded its passing with a statement saying that it expects the bill to pass in the House as well:

    “This bill and its companion in the House will level the playing field for all retailers – both online and off – while safeguarding states’ rights. And the bill does it all without raising taxes, new government mandates or adding to the deficit. NRF and our broad cross-section of members will work closely with our bipartisan sponsors in the House, Reps. Womack and Speier, and Chairman Goodlatte to ensure that efairness is debated honestly and on its merits. When brought to a vote, we believe the House will pass the bill and it will be signed into law.”

    Despite the NRF’s enthusiasm, the Marketplace Fairness Act will probably not get the same treatment in the House as it did in the Senate. For starters, the Senate completely bypassed the committee process thus ensuring that the bill was approved with its original text. Most would say that was a mistake, and the House fully intends to correct that mistake by putting its version of the bill through the House Judiciary Committee.

    This is where things get tricky. The House Judiciary Committee chairman is Robert Goodlatte, a representative of Virginia and one of the few Republicans in the House that has voted in favor of tax increases. Despite his willingness to raises taxes, Goodlatte may be opposed to the Marketplace Fairness Act if it isn’t simplified enough. He said just as much in an email to The Roanoke Star:

    “I do not believe legislation like the Marketplace Fairness Act is sufficiently simplified yet. While it attempts to make tax collection simpler, it still has a long way to go. There is still not uniformity on definitions and tax rates, so businesses would still be forced to wade through potentially hundreds of tax rates and a host of different tax codes and definitions. There is also concern that despite disclaimers the bill could open the door for states to tax or even regulate beyond their borders. I am open to considering legislation concerning this topic but these issues, along with others, would certainly have to be addressed.”

    Goodlatte shares the concern that many others in and outside the House share about an online sales tax bill. Many think it may go too far. It also doesn’t do anything to help simplify tax collection for these online businesses as they would have to submit themselves to whatever inane sales tax code each state employs.

    Still, Goodlatte may let the House’s online sales tax bill through his committee. It could be just a little or very different from the bill the Senate passed, but it would still face some stiff opposition before hittting the House floor for a vote.

    That stiff opposition is the large number of organizations and businesses that have come out swinging against the bill. For starters, the Financial Services Roundtable has said that it will oppose the bill as long as the bill’s wording is vague enough to allow a tax on financial services transactions:

    “A transaction tax on financial services products will hurt retail investors, retired Americans, and small businesses, effectively making it more expensive for them to invest and plan for the long-term. Without hearings, these implications and others will not be properly addressed.”

    What is arguably the most influential outside voice in the House on tax issues – Americans for Tax Reform – has also come out swinging against the bill. The group says its main concern is making small online businesses collect sales tax for other states, but it says the bill has a number of other problems as well:

  • Threatens Privacy – Business and state revenue boards with a track record of losing private information will have more chances to do so.
  • Slippery Slope – Opens the door for further government intervention in the internet and for states to reach across their borders for other taxes.
  • Too Confusing – Small businesses would be forced to accommodate over 9,000 highly variable state and local tax codes and be required to settle disputes with out of state revenue boards in out of state courts.
  • Discourages Tax Competition – Rather than competing to lower taxes and attract businesses, states will compete to raise taxes on residents of other states
  • Expands State Tax Authority – State Governments will be able to tax across their borders despite clear legal and judicial precedentarguing otherwise

    • Do you agree with the arguments against the online sales tax bill? Or do you think it’s still a good idea? Let us know in the comments.

    If all of the above fails to move the House against the bill, there may be one final obstacle standing in its way – House Speaker John Boehner. He holds considerable power within the House, and he has already said that he opposed the bill. Speaking on Bloomberg Television, he said that the bill would make “it much more difficult for online retailers to be able to comply” with state sales tax regulations. He also said that the bill would put “a big burden on some very small businesses.”

    The Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act with little debate, but it’s looking like we’re going to get plenty of heated arguments in the House. The opposition is fired up, and there’s plenty of powerful congressmen opposed to the bill. It may not be enough to stop the bill in its tracks, but we’re at least going to get some interesting debate on the Internet and online taxation out of it.

    Will the Marketplace Fairness Act survive in its current form? Or will the House spruce it up to make it more palpable to online businesses? Let us know in the comments.

  • Shaka Is A Wind Meter Device For iOS With Gustier Ambitions

    shaka-wind-meter-hand

    After reading about WeatherSignal, a new project from London startup OpenSignal which makes use of the latest sensors in smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 to crowdsource weather information, I was reminded that I recently caught wind of Shaka, an Estonian startup that has built a wind meter accessory for iOS.

    Due to start shipping next month, the battery-free Shaka Wind Meter plugs into an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad’s headphone socket, and combined with the existing onboard sensors of Apple’s hardware and the startup’s own app/service, measures, records and displays wind-specific weather data such as current and average wind speed, maximum wind gust, ambient temperature, and wind direction — all mapped to a location via GPS.

    The device’s inspiration and intended use-case was to enable people who take part in wind-related sports, such as windsurfers and kitesurfers, to find good wind conditions. “Forecasts are often inaccurate and the coverage with stationary and connected stations is not good enough,” says Shaka co-founder Raigo Raamat. “We wanted to simplify the process of sharing good wind conditions inside the community.”

    But when he and his two other co-founders — Jens Kasemets and Mihkel Güsson — embarked on the project as far back as 2011 they soon realised “many more communities” could benefit from a device that enabled a smartphone or tablet to be transformed into a “connected weather station” for either private use or for contributing to and accessing real-time crowdsourced weather data. These range from academia, agriculture, emergency services, to golfers and motor sports. “The problem for all these use cases differ, but all need local weather measurements as input,” says Raamat.

    To that end, Shaka has gustier ambitions beyond just a wind meter. Longer term, the startup and graduate of the harware-focused accelerator HAXLR8R (which also provided seed funding), plans to build what Raamat’s calling a platform for the world’s smallest weather station. “We’ll add barometric pressure and humidity sensors to achieve that and also support Android devices,” he says. The startup’s ultimate target is expensive and non-connected legacy handheld weather stations.

    Today the company is monetizing on the hardware only — the accompanying app is free — but in the future it will offer additional paid-for services, along with opening up the platform to partners who want to develop apps on top of Shaka that target various weather-related communities.

  • Cleveland: Suicide Note Found in Castro’s House

    Earlier this week, three women held against their will for years were rescued when a local man heard one of them screaming and came to the rescue. The women were later revealed to be Michelle Knight, Gina DeJesus, and Amanda Berry, who had been missing for ten years.

    Their captor has since been identified as Ariel Castro, who kept the women for his own dark desires. Castro has now been arrested and charged with kidnapping and rape. The Cleveland community is beginning to come to terms with how the seemingly boring man could have been a torturer.

    According to a report from local Cleveland news station 19 Action News, a letter written in 2004 has been found at the suspect’s house. In the letter, Castro reportedly blames his victims for being caught, and colors himself as a “sexual predator.” Castro goes as far as to admit that he needs help, and even contemplates suicide for the sake of his victims.

    19 Action News reporter Scott Taylor has been tweeting details from the letter:

    Taylor has promised that he and the news station will be revealing further details on the letter on Thursday.

  • In Nook, Microsoft sees a chance to compete against Amazon and Apple

    Microsoft, which already has a stake in Barnes & Noble’s Nook and college bookstore businesses, is offering to buy them outright for $1 billion, according to a report in TechCrunch, based on leaked internal documents. The documents also reportedly say that Barnes & Noble plans to discontinue its line of Nook tablets by the end of fiscal year 2014, while letting the e-readers stick around for awhile longer.

    Publishers Lunch points out that much of the financial analysis in the report of the proposed buyout is inaccurate: Among other things, while the report says a $1 billion purchase price is “well below the price it had originally bought in at,” Publishers Lunch notes that because of the way the original investment was structured, this price would actually represent a small premium. Nonetheless, if the documents are legit (the NYT says they are, but appear to be a few weeks old), it’s worth thinking about what Microsoft wants with the Nook business. Barnes & Noble shares were up 23 percent in pre-market trading this morning.

    A reading ecosystem for Windows 8

    It’s not surprising that Microsoft reportedly has no interest in Barnes & Noble’s tablets, which have never taken off. In fact, as of last week, the Nook HD and HD+ incorporate a full host of Google services, including Google Play, Gmail and the Chrome browser. While B&N has claimed it is committed to the Android platform and to the tablet business overall, Microsoft obviously has no incentive to keep a line of poorly performing Android tablets up and running.

    What Microsoft does need is a reading ecosystem for its Surface tablets and other Windows 8 devices. That’s why the company bought a stake in Nook in the first place, but so far it hasn’t resulted in much more than a Nook app for Windows 8 (released after Amazon launched its own Kindle for Windows 8 app). With full control over the Nook ecosystem, Microsoft can take advantage of some of the technology — including book discovery and “scrapbooking” features — that Barnes & Noble has built for these devices without being dragged down by the devices themselves. It would also presumably get access to Nook’s ebook publisher relationships, which lie with Nook Media, not with Barnes & Noble.

    A pre-existing customer base to compete against Amazon and Apple

    The buyout could also help Microsoft compete against Amazon and Apple. Kindle is still the leading e-reading platform, and Apple’s share of the e-reading market is small, but growing, especially when it comes to heavily illustrated and interactive titles. While there is no guarantee that Microsoft can become a leader in e-reading, it has a better chance of doing so if it harnesses an existing platform and customer base and then extends it to Windows users worldwide, rather than attempting to build a system from scratch.

    A caveat is that Nook hasn’t managed to grow its market share against Kindle. It’s been stuck around 25 percent since 2011. But that’s better than the zero that Microsoft has now. “They can afford it as a bet, even if it is a long shot,” Peter McCarthy, the founder of book publishing consultancy McCarthy Digital, told me. “Microsoft is awful with content and know it. They’re  always looking for another Xbox, though.”

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  • Weekly Radar: Watch the thought bubbles…

    Far from the rules of the dusty old investment almanac, it’s up, up and away in May after all. And judging by the latest batch of economic data, markets may well have had good reason to look beyond the global economic ‘soft patch’ – with US employment, Chinese trade and even German and British industry data all coming in with positive surprises since last Friday. Is QE gaining traction at last?

    Well, it’s still hard to tell yet in the real economy that continues to disappont overall. But what’s certain is that monetary easing is contagious and not about to stop in the foreseeable future – whether there’s signs of a growth stabilisation or not. With the Fed, BoJ and BoE still on full throttle and the ECB cutting interest rates again last week, monetary easing is fanning out across the emerging markets too. South Korea was the latest to surprise with a rate cut on Thursday, in part to keep a lid on its won currency after Japan’s effective maxi devaluation over the past six months. But Poland too cut rates on Wednesday. And emerging markets, which slipped into the red for the year in February, have at last moved back into the black – even if still far behind year-to-date gains in developed market equities of about 16%!

    Not only have we got new records on Wall St and fresh multi-year highs in Europe and Japan, there’s little sign that either this weekend’s meeting in London of G7 finance chiefs or next weekend’s G20 sherpas gathering in Moscow will want to signal a shift  in the monetary stance. If anything, they may codify the recent tilt toward easier austerity deadlines in Europe and elsewhere. But inevitably talk of unintended consequences of QE and bubbles will build again now as both equity and debt markets race ahead , even if the truth is that asset managers have been remarkably defensive so far this year in asset, sector and geographical choices …  one can only guess at what might happen if they did actually start to get aggressive! Perhaps the next pause will have to come from the Fed thinking aloud again about the longevity of its QE programme — so best watch those thought bubbles!

     

    Next week’s big data and events:

    G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meet in London Sat

    EBRD meeting in Istanbul Sat

    Pakistan general elections Sat

    Bulgaria parliamentary elections Sun

    China April Industrial output/retail sales Mon

    France/Italy bond auctions Mon

    Euro group meeting Mon

    US April retail sales Mon

    Indonesia rate decision Tues

    EZ March industrial production Tues

    German May ZEW sentiment Tues

    ECOFIN meeting Tues

    UK 5-yr gilt/Japan 30-yr JGB/Dutch DSL auctions Tues

    EZ/DE/FR/IT flash Q1 GDP Weds

    UK April jobless Weds

    Iceland rate decision Weds

    Greek PM Samaras in China Weds

    Japan Q1 GDP Thurs

    UK 30-yr gilt/Japan 5-yr JGB auction/German 2-yr auction Thurs

    Spain’s Rajoy meets with unions on pension reforms Thurs

    Draghi speech Milan Thurs

    US/EZ April CPI Thurs

    US April housing starts/permits, May Philly Fed index Thurs

    Turkish rate decision Thurs

    Turkey’s Erdogan in Washington Thurs

    G20 sherpas meeting in St Petersburg Sat/Sun

               

  • Target’s innovative use of social media

    Always pleased to see Minnesota companies using social media creatively – even when it’s a really big Minnesota company. The Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal reports on Target partnering with Facebook on a new social media app…

    Target Corp. is teaming with Facebook for a new digital-sales program, called Cartwheel, that’s one of the biggest-ever efforts by both companies to bridge the worlds of social media and real-world commerce.

    Ad Age reports on the program, launched by Minneapolis-based Target, which will let customers select promotional deals at Target through their Facebook accounts. If they make the buy, their activity is shared with friends through their Facebook news feed.

    On the one hand it’s cool and I always like a bargain, on the other hand I wonder how much I want my friends to see what I’m buying or frankly to know what they’re buying. Apparently they are thinking about that aspect of the project – but I have to wonder what constitutes a personal purchase. Using their example below, I don’t care if people know I buy underwear – but no one needs to know about daily purchases of gummi bears. Personal is in the eye of the beholder!

    Ad Age notes that Cartwheel is similar to a Facebook offering called Beacon, which was shelved after a backlash over privacy. Target seems to have that in mind. Sales of some personal items, such as underwear, won’t be pushed onto a user’s news feed, and you can shut the sharing aspect off altogether if you want.

  • Stunning Google Earth photos show our planet changing

    Google along with the US Geological Survey, NASA and TIME has shared a quarter-century of photos taken from space that show the surface of the earth and the changes that have happened over that period. From Google’s blogpost:

    We started working with the USGS in 2009 to make this historic archive of earth imagery available online. Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data—to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year.

    The changes on our planet are stunning. A glacier has almost vanished, a new city has been created and Amazon rainforest has been decimated. Our capability as humans to destroy our planet and re-create it is astonishing. The whole project makes you realize that in order to understand something important and profound, you have to look at it over a period of time.

    Check it out on Google’s Timelapse website.

    googleearthpics

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  • ‘Cheap’ isn’t always cheap – Galaxy S4 costs more to build than iPhone 5

    Samsung Galaxy S4 Teardown
    Samsung is constantly knocked for launching smartphones and tablets that feel cheap and flimsy compared to rival devices, but just because something feels cheap doesn’t mean it is cheap. A teardown analysis of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 performed by market research firm IHS iSuppli found that the 32GB version of the new flagship phone has a bill of materials (BOM) of approximately $237 per unit, AllThingsD reported. That figure comes in almost 10% above the $217 BOM that IHS iSuppli previously reported for Apple’s 32GB iPhone 5. Of course, much of the Galaxy S4’s component cost is funneled back to other Samsung companies, giving the company a nice advantage over rivals. “Samsung’s strength is this ability to in-source to itself,” IHS analyst Vincent Leung said. “They just keep adding to the list of components that they can supply to themselves.”

  • Ariel Castro Arraigned, Charged With 4 Counts Of Kidnapping, 3 Counts Of Rape

    Ariel Castro was arraigned on Thursday, appearing in court for the first time since he and his two brothers were arrested in the case of the three kidnapped women in Cleveland. The brothers were not charged, but Ariel was arraigned on four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape.

    Castro reportedly spent the majority of the hearing looking down at his feet. USA Today reports:

    In a brief explanation of the charges, prosecutor Brian Murphy alleged that Castro had “snatched three young ladies from the streets” and forced them to endure a “horrifying ordeal for more than a decade.”

    He said the victims had been “bound, restrained and sexually assaulted.”

    “They were never free to leave this residence,” he said, referring to Castro’s home on Seymour Avenue.

    Bail was set at $8 million. Judge Lauren Moore ordered that he have no contact with the victims or their families, should he post bond.

    Two of the three women – Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus – returned home on Wednesday. The third, Michelle Knight, remains in a hospital in Cleveland.

  • Cloud providers seek to become “arms dealers” to telco, carrier clouds

    It’s clear that all the cloud providers really want old line telcos, carriers and hosting providers to embrace cloud technologies — they want the business.

    cloudsThe cloud technology providers are banking that these legacy players have tried to build their own cloud services and realized that it’s easier and more productive to base those services on a cloud expert’s technology. So they’re rolling out bundles and packages tailored for that constituency.

    Case in point: On Wednesday Tier 3  announced the “Reseller Edition” of its Enterprise Cloud Services.  The Bellevue, Wash.-based company built its own management, controls and services atop VMware vSsphere and packaged all that up for third-party providers from VARs to  telcos.

    And Thursday, Dell and OnApp announced joint offerings that are pre-tested to enable service providers, MSPs and telcos ro roll out cloud services as fast as possible.Last month, Rackspace pitched its own cloud infrastructure as a short cut for telcos, MSPS – the usual suspects — to build their own clouds.

    Pivotal CEO Paul Maritz has repeatedly used wireless carriers as a key target market for the big data-oriented cloud platform his company is building.

    So if carriers are gearing up to build clouds atop third-party IP, why is it happening now versus say, six or nine months ago? Tier 3 CEO Jared Wray thinks it’s because they see the market maturing. “Before recently it just wasn’t defined and there wasn’t a huge de facto open source initiative going on,” Wray said. Now, with OpenStack, in particular, that has happened.

    “OpenStack has the fanfare and momentum, so the telcos see a defined, evolved ecosystem and it’s looking like they understand what the key components are,” Wray said. “The idea now is to use the colos and wires they already have and layer value added services atop all that.”

    Wray attended last month’s OpenStack Summit to see for himself. As to whether Tier 3 will add OpenStack support he was noncommittal.

    This is, of course, all very self-interested by these cloud providers to say. But there is evidence that hosting companies, data center providers and telcos really are getting pressure from their customers for the sorts of cloud services that come from Amazon Web Services and others, said Carl Brooks, cloud analyst at The 451 Group.

    To be fair, not all the old line companies have given up on building their own technology for the cloud era. Thirty-year old MetaSwitch is open sourcing it’s new IMS core software to ease cloud development.

    But whoever’s technology ends up in the mix, as raw connectivity and compute get ever more commoditized, the secret to profitability — and happy customers — is truly useful services and cloud seems the deployment model of choice.

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  • Micro Mayhem!

    Road Kill

    Sometimes little things can offer up big results when you use them correctly. For instance, combine a few pint-sized toy cars, an itsy-bitsy custom camera, a little road kill and a few creative minds, and what you’re left with is one of the coolest stop motion videos I’ve seen in a LONG time. Check it out after the jump.

    Source: Micro Mayhem!

  • Biggest Loser Divorce Comes Before Baby

    “The Biggest Loser” has gained so much popularity over the years because the competitors are so relatable; we all want to see them do well because we care about them. Unfortunately, fans are about to get some disheartening news about two recent stars of the show.

    Sam Poueu and Stephanie Anderson, who met while filming season nine and married last May, have announced they are ending their marriage. The news comes a shock for fans, as Stephanie is seven months pregnant.

    “It is with great sadness that my marriage to Sam Poueu is ending,” Anderson said in a statement. “Thank you in advance for respecting our privacy during this difficult time.”

    The couple endured a major hardship when Poueu took a terrifying 54-foot fall and was severely injured; Anderson helped nurse him back to health, which made him see that she would be a wonderful wife and mom.

    “Just from the experience of her being my caretaker post-accident, it was a dead giveaway that she’d be a fantastic mother,” he said. “That was an early sign for me that our child is going to have the best mother ever.”

    The couple have not given a reason for the split, and there are no details at this time as to custody plans once Anderson has the baby.

  • Microsoft may be willing to take Nook off Barnes & Noble’s hands for $1 billion

    Microsoft Nook Purchase Offer
    With Barnes & Noble planning to kill off the Nook in the near future, Microsoft is reportedly willing to take the eReader line off the company’s hands for the cool $1 billion. TechCrunch reports that Microsoft “is offering to pay $1 billion to buy the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the digital book and college book joint venture with Barnes & Noble and other investors.” Under the terms of the proposed deal, Microsoft would gain control over Nook “e-books, as well as Nook e-readers and tablets,” so it seems that Microsoft is looking to branch out its tablet business from high-end devices such as the Surface to cheaper tablets and eReaders in the future. Barnes & Noble’s shares jumped nearly 25% in pre-market trading on the rumor.

  • TED wins a National Design Award

    2013 National Design Awards

    We’re thrilled to announce: TED is one of the 2013 winners of the National Design Awards, given by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. The National Design Awards celebrate design “as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world” — which is how we feel about it too. Great design, like great writing and great speaking, is a vital tool for helping ideas spread.

    TED wins for Corporate & Institutional Achievement — a category that honors the way great design weaves into everything TED does, from stage sets to mobile apps, from program guides to our world-spanning open initiatives like TEDx and the Open Translation Project.

    And we’re in wonderful company. Other winners include Paula Scher (watch her TED Talk), fashion designer Behnaz Sarafpour, and the urbanist and critic Michael Sorkin. Browse the full list »

    Among the designers, photographers and volunteers who contributed to our in-house team’s work — and are a key part of this award:

    Photographers: James Duncan Davidson, Ryan Lash, Robert Leslie, Michael Brands, Marla Aufmuth and kris krüg.

    Mobile designers: Brian Wilson and Rusty Mitchell.

    Video designers: Psyop, Oliver Jeffers and Mac Premo.

    Print, online and event designers: WORKSHOP, Hybrid Design, Albertson Design, Paper Plane Studio, Laura Morris, Robert Horansky, Plunkett + Kuhr, Paul Soulellis, Always With Honor, Phi-Hong Ha — and of course the founder of TED, Richard Saul Wurman …

  • Michael Arrington Sues Rape Accuser Jenn Allen

    Jenn Allen, an ex-girlfriend of Techcrunch/Crunchfund Founder Michael Arrington, recently took to Facebook to make abuse allegations against him. While rape was not mentioned in the initial post, she later brought that up in comments on a Gawker article about her first post. Arrington, who has strongly denied any abuse or rape, has now filed a suit against Allen.

    Here’s what Allen said in her initial post:

    Last post on someone i’m completely over. I’ve never been lonelier in my entire life. To all my friends who loved me for who I am – thank you. Power hungry people, I loved Michael Arrington for 8+ years starting when i implemented Eurekster search at the time on Techcrunch in 2006 and throughout the years i didn’t know he cheated on me multiple times, then tells people it was me immediately after he did it. It hurts when you love someone borderline and they can’t feel anything at all for you, and threaten to murder you if you told anyone about the physical abuse – all for keeping his reputation. The emotional abuse was equally bad. On a positive note, it can’t get any worse than this and I can’t get myself of this bed.

    And here’s what she said in the comments on the Gawker article:

    I’ve looked inward and outward long enough to finally say something and know exactly why I had to say it. His lies, abuse, threats and what he did to a friend of mine 5 months ago was unforgivable as well. He raped her, and she told me in person he called her to confirm he did it after the fact. I’ll leave it up to her if she ever wants to report it or say anything. This madness needs to stop, or he needs to start controlling his rage and rape ‘disorder.’

    Arrington remained quiet for a period, while others rushed to throw in their judgments of his character, until finally, he put out a statement saying:

    There have been some extremely serious and criminal allegations against me over the last week. All of the allegations are completely untrue, and I’ve hired a law firm to represent me in the legal actions against the offending parties.

    I know this isn’t, for now, much information. I will have a full and complete response to these allegations sometime later this week. My goal will be to direct as much sunlight as possible on the issues so that the absolute truth can be known and I can begin to put my life back together.

    I’ve also asked my attorneys to contact appropriate law enforcement agencies about these false allegations. Given the gravity of the claims, I think it’s important that the police be involved in this now.

    The whole thing had largely been ignored by the media and blogs other than a select few, until Arrington’s statement, then everyone started covering it. Likewise when former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde jumped to Arrington’s defense. She wrote:

    During my five years at TechCrunch, there were no complaints or cases of sexual harassment or misconduct against Michael Arrington. If there had been any rumors of misconduct from staff or other third parties, I would have taken the matters seriously and investigated them. Many people, including Michael’s friends and girlfriends, sought me out as a confidante for disagreements or challenges they faced with Michael, so I would have been aware of rumored bad behavior.

    You can read her full post here.

    About a month ago, Arrington posted a detailed letter refuting the allegations. Here’s that letter:

    Demand Letter to Jennifer Allen

    And now this week, the lawsuit has been filed. In it, Arrington alleges that Allen felt “betrayed and slighted,” and aimed to “destroy his reputation and to deter third persons from associating with him.” The suit includes a demand for jury trial, and seeks $75,000 in damages.

    Here’s the court document:

    Arrington

  • Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler Cleared to Enter the Ring

    In September 2012, Jerry “The King” Lawler, the long-time ring announcer for WWE, collapsed during a taping of Monday Night Raw. Lawler had suffered a gruesome heart attack live on national television. Following surgery, Lawler was able to return to co-hosting WWE events in late October 2012.

    Now, Lawler will be returning to the ring himself, in the role that made him famous during the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

    According to a Miami Herald report, Lawler has been cleared by doctors to wrestle once again, despite his heart trouble. Lawler will return to the ring for the first time since his heart attack in an Ocala, Florida show titled Support Your Troops 91, Royal Combat.

    During the show, Lawler will participate in a tag team match with another former WWE wrestler, Dory Funk, Jr. The 72-year-old Funk told the Herald that he felt “privileged” to fight with Lawler once again.

    (Image courtesy Smart Mark Greene at en.wikipedia)

  • Few Executives Are Self-Aware, But Women Have the Edge

    So is the best man for the job a woman?

    Research by Hay Group, culled from its 17,000-person behavioral competency database in 2012, finds that when it comes to empathy, influence, and the ability to manage conflicts in the executive level, women show more skill than men. Specifically, women are more likely to show empathy as a strength, demonstrate strong ability in conflict management, show skills in influence, and have a sense of self-awareness.

    baldonichart.gif“Women often face barriers throughout their careers that require them to develop these skills to excel and advance in their organizations,” says Ruth Malloy, global managing director for leadership and talent at Hay Group. Malloy adds that the shift from hierarchy where individual achievement matters to matrix organizations where teamwork counts put a premium on the skills that women have mastered.

    “Influence and conflict management are not necessarily inborn, these competencies more often are learned,” Malloy added in an email interview. Research by Hay Group found that “women scored higher on these matrix competencies compared to their male counterparts. My hypothesis is that these women who broke the glass ceiling as a population acquired and demonstrated more of these competencies to overcome obstacles to succeed.”

    “I think women leaders do have to manage the female stereotype of being more relationship focused, softer or nicer,” says Malloy. “Behaviors associated with strong leadership tend to be more consistent with the masculine stereotype.”

    “Women face the double-bind when taking on leadership positions. If their behavior is too feminine they are seen as too soft and incompetent, however if their behavior is too masculine they are perceived negatively.”

    So why, despite these strengths, don’t we see more women in senior management? The reasons are complicated, even for ambitious, highly skilled women. One reason may be that successful women managers must demonstrate more leadership skills. According to Malloy, “Research the Hay Group conduced on outstanding women leaders found that they navigate this double-bind by using a combination of both stereotypically masculine leadership styles (e.g., being Authoritative or Visionary) and feminine leadership styles (e.g., being more Affiliative or Participative).” Men by contrast only need to demonstrate the “masculine” leadership styles.

    Another challenge is how these top job openings are framed. When the role is framed less as an opportunity to demonstrate acquired expertise and more as a role that would give a high potential candidate a chance to grow and learn, “women and other diverse constituencies are more likely to be recognized” as suitable for promotion to senior positions. That’s assuming, though, that their skills and strengths have been recognized. And that’s the third obstacle: recognition for strong interpersonal skills is not straightforward. As Malloy says, “these [interpersonal] competencies are also more challenging to demonstrate.”

    Finally, the single area where both female and male managers need to improve is in self-awareness. While women did outperform men on that metric, notice how low the rates for both genders are — under 20%. “If you think about most people in our day-to-day lives we tend to run on auto-pilot,” says Malloy. “We often are not mindful about our impact on others or how and where we spend our time. We can easily get caught up in the task or the day-to-day distractions” and pay less attention to ourselves and effect we may have on others.

    “Improving self-awareness requires getting some source of credible feedback, and being open to that feedback,” she advises. “Find a trusted colleague or someone from your personal life who can give you constructive feedback in real-time.”

    Malloy continues, “Developing self-awareness also requires reflection… Schedule time every week on your calendar to reflect on what went well, what did not, and how could you react differently in the future.”

    Self-awareness is essential to effective leadership. A leader must know herself — her abilities, her shortcomings, and her opportunities for growth in order to be able to provide direction, guidance and inspiration to others.

    Leadership demands strong interpersonal skills. And while research may show that women leaders have the edge in certain areas, the lesson I take from this study is that both men and women have work to do in order to become the leaders their followers need.

  • Pakistan – a personal perspective

    In the UK, Pakistan is regularly in the news, and most of it is bad. So you may find it hard to believe that anyone would work here by choice. But I do – and I really enjoy it! Pakistan is a fascinating country with great people, stunning landscapes, and real potential for a brighter future. It’s a complex environment with many deep rooted challenges, but if you think that Pakistan is all about bad news, you’d be surprised by some of what’s going on here.

    Let’s start with the big picture – which is certainly daunting. More than 60 million people in Pakistan live on around 30p a day; nearly one in ten of the world’s out-of-school children live in Pakistan; and one in eleven children dies before their fifth birthday. The population is growing by 3 million every year and is set to rise by 50% in less than 40 years. Decades of conflict, instability, weak governance and corruption have left the state unable to deliver the services that people need.

    Set against this, some things are changing – and fast. After 60 years of democratic instability, national elections this weekend will mark the first ever democratic transition from one civilian government to another. Women are gaining a voice and rights. Landmark legislation passed last year finally provides legal protection against violence, and more women will vote in this weekend’s elections than ever before – one million of them thanks to support from the UK. The media – liberalised in the mid-2000s – is flourishing, and new media and new technologies are propelling changes to banking, industry, communications, and politics which have been visible even in the two short years that I’ve been working here. A full 50% of Pakistanis now have access to a mobile phone. And get this – Pakistan has produced two of the world’s top five most popular blackberry apps.

    So the challenges are enormous, but I think there are important reasons for hope, and our support is helping to make a difference. I manage DFID’s health and education work here and over the coming years we’re aiming to transform education and deliver real improvements in health for poor people, especially women and girls. I’m mostly office based in Islamabad, but the best part of my job is getting out to see what’s happening on the ground, where we’re making progress and what still needs to be done.

    A lady health worker in Pakistan, with a patient and her 14 day old baby. Picture: DFID Pakistan

    For example, last Friday I went to visit some schools in central Punjab. The second one was most interesting. I walked into the headmistress’ office to find her talking sixteen to the dozen to my colleague Taimoor. Without pausing for breath she recounted how hard it was trying to get her teachers to turn up every day. She would phone, cajole, scold them. She was turning down their requests for days off. But (and here she mellowed) it was working. The teachers were turning up and as a result things had improved at the school.

    This was the Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School in warm and dusty Jhelum. Built in 1880, it was an impressive red brick building. On the wall beside me a big banner announced the importance of the ‘Punjab Schools Reform Roadmap’. This is what I went to explore – I wanted to know whether the UK’s support for the Roadmap was really helping to improve things in schools.

    Two years ago, Mrs Cheema’s school, like most in Punjab saw around 25% of teachers fail to turn up to work on any given day. Without teachers to teach them, many of the 1700 female students would stop turning up too. Now, she told us, things were changing.

    Debbie with headmistress Mrs Cheema. Picture. DFID Pakistan

    Mrs Cheema’s school is part of the turn-around happening in 60,000 schools across Punjab. Since the UK started work with the Punjab Government on the Roadmap in 2011, 81,000 more teachers have been employed in state schools. By tackling absenteeism, around 20,000 more teachers are in classrooms teaching kids each day. We’re helping to improve the quality of teaching by giving teachers lesson plans which guide them through what they need to teach, lesson by lesson. And this year, for the first time, every child in Punjab is being given a textbook for English, Maths and Urdu – a big step forward. The statistics speak for themselves, but I wanted to cross-check them against what was happening at local level.

    As we walked around the school, Mrs Cheema complained that she got little recognition for all her work ensuring her teachers were in school. She, and thousands of other head-teachers across Punjab are the key to making things better. I thought she had a really good point, and vowed to raise this with the Secretary in charge of Punjab’s schools when I next met him.

    Girls getting an education – pupils at the Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School. Picture: DFID Pakistan

    So some things are changing – and fast. But it’s only the start. There are around 20 million kids in school in Punjab, but over 3 million don’t yet go to school at primary level alone. Transforming education is the focus of my work here. DFID invests in a range of education programmes across Pakistan. As a result some 4 million children in primary school will benefit from UK aid by 2015. We are helping them learn better and for longer. There are signs that all the hard work is beginning to pay off. It’s early days – to transform a system of 60,000 schools will take time – but it’s starting to happen. That’s why I’m here. And that’s why, despite all the challenges, and despite all the bad news, I’m hopeful.

    I’ll put up another blog soon to keep you posted on progress, including what happens this weekend, when I’ll be out and about monitoring Pakistan’s historic elections.