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We've held
no punches in sharing our thoughts on Palm's
recent ad campaigns, but the one spot that was actually not heinous has seemingly
served as the basis for one of Microsoft's first-ever WP7S commercials. Debuting here at the tail-end of MIX, the ad spotlights Anna -- a fictitious gal we've
certainly heard of before -- using her new smartphone to share photos with her dear lover
Miles. It also features Luca, a kid with an undying love for playing
Xbox LIVE titles, who seems to be caught somewhere in between the world of nature and nurture.
At any rate, it's worth your while to give the new Microsoft commercial and the Palm ad which it
has oh-so-much in common with right after the break.
Oh, and Palm -- we guess "Windows Phone 7 Series was your idea," right?
Chris Hughes, who co-founded what became one of the world’s largest social networks and
then just a few years later orchestrated a social-media campaign that helped put Barack Obama to
the White House, has launched a new, non-profit startup that he says will create an “online
platform to connect individuals and organizations working to change the world.” He launched
the new entity, called Jumo, not on Facebook but through a post on his Tumblr blog and on Twitter. He didn’t provide many
details about the venture or what it intends to build, but said:
To do this well, I’m firmly of the mind that we have to foster relationships between
everyday people and issues and organizations that are personally relevant to them. It’s now
possible to provide each person with information and opportunities for meaningful action tailored
specifically to who they are. If Jumo can make sure that happens and offer opportunities for
meaningful engagement alongside it, I think we can speed the pace of global change.
Hughes told The Huffington Post in a
phone interview that he was looking for something to do after the Obama campaign ended, and
knew that “I wanted to do something at the nexus of what I call global development and
technology.” By global development, he said he meant a “broad umbrella including
everything from health care and education to agriculture. He said he spent the past year
“traveling and talking to people — researching, studying, learning everything I could
in the space.” Jumo is opening an office in Soho next week, Hughes said on his blog, and is
also looking to hire a developer, a design director and an “outreach director” who it
says will require a “wide-ranging, nearly unparalleled command of the global development
field and the ability to see through ideological constraints fairly and analytically.”
To some extent Jumo — whose name means “together in concert” in a West African
language called Yoruba — may wind up competing with Hughes’ former company once it
launches. Not only do many charitable groups use Facebook pages to gather support for causes, but
former Facebook president Sean Parker has a Facebook application called
Causes that has attracted millions of users. There are also several other Web-based platforms
that are trying to connect people interested in global development, including Ushahidi, which pulls together information to help in crisis situations
such as the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.
Hughes left Facebook, which he co-founded with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and fellow classmates Dustin
Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin, in 2007 to lead the social-media efforts for the Obama campaign,
including helping to develop My.BarackObama.com, and was the subject of a number of flattering
profiles in mainstream media outlets such as Fast Company magazine — which
called him a “boy wonder” — and
the Wall Street Journal. After the campaign ended he became entrepreneur in residence at
General Capital Partners in Cambridge. It’s not clear whether General Capital has funded
Jumo or not — a spokesperson said it is “a non-profit venture and we’re raising
funds from both foundations and individuals.” Hughes told Fast Company he is
looking to raise about $2.5 million.
Hughes said in an email sent to friends that he believes Jumo can “leverage the
participatory web to foster long-term engagement with the issues and organizations that are
relevant to each individual. Jumo has the potential to unlock a great deal of time, skills, and
financial resources previously unavailable to organizations around the world.” After the
“soft launch” of the startup, Hughes got a number of congratulations on Twitter,
including one from Charlie O’Donnell of First Round Capital in New York, who said that he was “excited
@chrishughes is back in the making the world a better place business.”
Jack Dorsey’sSquare was unveiled last December
as an innovative way to let people quickly and easily accept physical credit card payments from
their mobile phone.
Since then, Square, which has been in limited beta, has been used in a variety of use cases. E.g.
philanthopic organization charity:water recently used
Square at the SXSW festival to collect donations.
A local flower cart in San Francisco is using Square to take payments from customers. Denim, a
jeans store in New York is using Square to take payments from shoppers. We even used Square at
this year’s Crunchies
to raise money for the UCSF Foundation.
Here’s how Square works: A small device attaches to the phone via the headset/microphone
jack. The device gets the power it needs to send data to the phone from the swipe of the card,
and sends the information over the microphone connection. The device is compatible with both the
iPhone and Android. It’s similar in some ways to PayPal, but anyone can now accept physical
credit card payments, too. With no contracts or monthly fees. People are sent receipts by text
and email. If you haven’t seen Square in action, check out this video.
And now, a new use case has popped up for Square: political fundraising.
Square is currently being used in two campaigns. Silicon Valley VC Josh Becker, who is running for state assembly in
California’s 21st district, has been using Square at fundraising events. And lawyer
Reshma Saujani, who is running for Congress in New
York’s 14th district, is using Square at campaign fundraising events, including at an event
in San Francisco on Friday.
Square is ideal for taking money at political fundraisers for several reasons.
Currently, if you want to donate money at a fundraising event, you often have to fill out a form
and hand over a check or cash at the event. If you don’t have your checkbook or cash handy
(which, many of us don’t), credit cards are the only option. You can write down your credit
card number and info for fundraisers to charge at a later date, but you have to trust that the
fundraiser keeps track of that information and paper.
With Square, there is both a convenience added for both the payee and fundraiser. The donation is
instantly processed, and Square will send the receipt via SMS or email to the payee. Of course,
political contributions and donations are a little more complicated because of the reporting
requirements associated with donations.
For many types of donations, you need to take the donator’s name, occupation, address, and
other information. Currently Square doesn’t allow users to input all of this information
but Dorsey says that they are releasing Square’s API to allow fundraisers to build
additional applications on top of Square, where they could input all of the necessary data. Once
this is enabled, Square will allows fundraisers to eliminate paper collection and payments all
together.
Dorsey says he’s already getting significant interest from politicians and political
candidates across the country, but because Square is in limited beta, is being selective about
how the service is distributed. Dorsey expects Square to be open to the public sometime in the
next few months.
Valued at $40
million even before launch, Square is off to an impressive start. And technology’s most
notable investors and leaders seem to think so as well.
We've held no punches in sharing
our thoughts on Palm's recent ad campaigns, but the one spot that was actually not heinous
has seemingly served as the basis for one of Microsoft's first-ever WP7S commercials. Debuting here at the
tail-end of MIX, the ad spotlights
Anna -- a fictitious gal we've certainly heard of before -- using her new smartphone to share photos with her
dear lover Miles. It also features Luca, a kid with an undying love for playing Xbox LIVE titles, who seems to be caught somewhere in between the world of
nature and nurture. At any rate, it's worth your while to give the new Microsoft commercial and the
Palm ad which it has oh-so-much in common with right after the break.
Oh, and Palm -- we guess "Windows Phone 7 Series was your idea," right?
The Open Video Alliance (OVA), a group that seeks to promote adoption of standards-based open
video technologies, has launched a new campaign encouraging users to upload videos to the
Wikipedia Web site. The goals behind this new campaign are to visually enrich the online
encyclopedia and promote awareness of the value that open video technologies can bring to the
Web.
The OVA's members include open video platform company Kaltura, Yale's Information Society
Project, Mozilla, and the Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF). To get the party started, the
PCF is making available a new software tool for Windows and Mac OS X that can convert videos into
the open Ogg Theora format. The OVA has rolled
out a new Web site with simple instructions that describe how users can download the software
and start participating in the campaign.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- YouTube's first serious attempt to monetize web video -- text overlays --
is still the most effective, with click-through rates that are eight to 10 times higher than
other ad formats, according to the company. Get ready for more of them.
That's because Google is making the overlays self-serve, meaning any advertiser
can create and place overlay advertising on video, much as they might place their own display or
search campaigns.
A study from Arizona State University shows that using chubsters in weight loss ad campaigns lowers
womens' self-esteem and makes them less likely to buy a product...but more likely to eat an carton
of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.
NIKO is a collaborative effort
to build a Twitter-controlled robot as part of the Noika PUSH N900 Mod in the USA campaign.
Recently team member Eric posted
this short video showing his progress.
At the end of Sunday I got the N900 posting to Twitter, taking a photo with flash on, posting
to TwitPic, and even got the Lego components working! Here's a video of Niko's first completely
automated movement, camera capture, touch sensor, and posting using just the N900! Read more |
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Stealth
startup Trada launched to the public today as an online
marketplace allowing small and medium businesses and agencies to essentially crowdsource search
engine optimization services. The startup has raised $2.2 million from the Foundry Group and angel
investors Alan Warms,Carlos Cashman, Dan Murray, James Crouthamel, Stuart Larkins and
Robert Wolfe.
As we all know, search advertising is necessary for businesses but SEO can be a time consuming,
perplexing and tedious task. Many businesses overpay for common keywords or don’t use the
right keywords to drive traffic. Trada comes into play here by crowdsourcing SEO experts to build
and manage and advertiser or business’ paid search campaign across search engines. The
service currently supports Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing.
Essentially, Trada ends up being a middleman for coordinating SEO service. Advertisers use Trada
to enter information about a campaign and experts, who must be AdWords or SEMPO certified and
pass Trada certification, use the site to find interesting campaigns and submit keywords, ad copy
and bid prices across the search engines and to track and optimize campaigns across the ad
networks. Trada coordinates the payments and takes a small cut of each transaction between
advertisers and SEO experts.
The benefit for the SEO experts is that they don’t have to deal with the administrative and
management issues with clients. Experts earn money when they generate clicks or other actions for
less than the advertiser’s target price. Advertisers get 25 qualified experts to work on
their campaigns and according to Trada, those businesses who participated in the private beta of
the service are seeing successful results.
Trada entered private beta in January 2009 and currently has 70 advertisers and 280 experts to
date. Founded by entrepreneur Niel Robertson, Trada was born after Robertson grew frustrated
managing his own $8,000-a-month paid search campaign. Realizing that paid search campaigns are
best left to experts, he thought an online marketplace for PPC experts and businesses would be
the best way to maximize SEO. The startup faces competition from
Kenshoo,
Conductor and many others.
Trada—a startup which helps small and medium
sized businesses improve the performance of their search ad campaigns by connecting them with
experts—has raised $2.2 million in a first round of funding. On Trada, advertisers create a
profile of a campaign they would like to run and set out basic parameters, such as the maximum
cost per click they are willing to pay. “Experts,” who are certified by Trada, then
help create the ads and get cash if the campaign exceeds the goals the advertiser initially set
(Trada also gets a cut).
Wikipedia is one of
the most amazing knowledge resources on the Internet, featuring millions of articles and images,
but it sorely lacks a certain (very important) type of content – video.
For this reason the Open Video Alliance
is launching a mass campaign to bring video to Wikipedia. The central site for the project is
Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia,
featuring a tutorial on how to post videos to Wikipedia as well as a gallery of some of the
recently posted videos.
There’s also good news for those who were struggling to convert videos to Theora, which is
the open video format used by Wikipedia. The makers of Miro are testing a free utility for
converting videos to Theora; it’s not ready for launch yet, but it will be very soon. From
their
blog post:
“Shhhhh. If you look around that site, you’ll notice a reference to a new Miro
product that is in a usable beta form but not quite ready for a full launch. Look for a launch
announcement very soon.”
April 2010: The Perfect Pairings Menu Campaign brings together 50 of Los Angeles’ most
talked about chefs and restaurants to raise funds for the nation's largest Meals on Wheels
program. Throughout the month, participating restaurants will feature delicious food + beverage
pairings on their menus tagged with the Perfect Pairings fork-and-bottle logo. When these
exceptional items are ordered, a portion of proceeds is directly donated to Los Angeles' St.
Vincent Meals on Wheels. (PRWeb Mar 18, 2010)
Trada—a startup which helps small and medium
sized businesses improve the performance of their search ad campaigns by connecting them with
experts—has raised $2.2 million in a first round of funding. On Trada, advertisers create a
profile of a campaign they would like to run and set out basic parameters, such as the maximum
cost per click they are willing to pay. “Experts,” who are certified by Trada, then
help create the ads and get cash if the campaign exceeds the goals the advertiser initially set
(Trada also gets a cut).
DICE has said it won't rule out single-player downloadable content for high-flying Battlefield:
Bad Company 2, and in the meantime its multiplayer endeavours will be designed not to fragment
the audience.
"The good thing about having a post-launch campaign that we have - that we plan to take care of
the product for a long time - is that we can be reactive to what people think," Troedsson told
IGN (thanks VG247) when asked about single-player DLC possibilities.
"But obviously, creating single-player missions is a much bigger thing than creating additional
multiplayer maps."
This autumn, Ai Weiwei, China's most outspoken artist, will take over Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.
He talks about how his art and politics are indistinguishable
When you first meet him, Ai Weiwei seems as solid and impassive as a pillar of granite. He leads
the way into his home without a word, then sits silently at the head of a long wooden table. But
on the wall of his elegant, open-plan home, in the outskirts of Beijing, hangs a single image: of
a hand with its middle finger raised. Ai has plenty to say.
Indeed he has so much to say that the 53-year-old is not only China's most famous living artist,
but also a constant irritant to its authorities. When Tate Modern announced recently that it had
commissioned him to fill its Turbine Hall later this year, it was a welcome reminder of his work,
which in recent times has become almost overshadowed by his social and political criticism. Ai is
now perhaps best known for his angry and sustained denunciations of officialdom through
interviews, documentaries and above all the internet.
Around 26,000 people follow his volley of outrage and satire, facts and aphorisms, on Twitter:
"No outdoor sports can be more elegant than throwing stones at autocracy; no melees can be more
exciting than those in cyber space," read one recent missive.
"People often say I started to become too outspoken after a certain period. It's all because of
the internet – if we didn't have this technology I would be same as everybody
else; I couldn't really amplify my voice," he says.
But the voice itself was forged in his earliest childhood. "I experienced humanity before I
should. When I was very young," he says. If that sounds grandiloquent, consider his history: Ai
spent years of his childhood in a labour camp in the far north-west of China, on the edge of the
Gobi desert. His father, Ai Qing, was an artist and one of China's most revered modern poets, but
fell foul of the late 1950s anti-rightist campaign. Life was precarious, and his parents had
little time to spare for their offspring. "It was like being a little boy in the centre of a
storm. Just always scared or surprised by surroundings that you cannot make sense of. And you
have no comparisons because you have no memory of what another life can be," he says.
Ai Qing, a cosmopolitan intellectual who had translated symbolist poets, spent years cleaning
toilets. "Sometimes he shared stories with us, like his early [years] in Paris and the kind of
paintings and artworks he liked – always things full of joy," says Ai Weiwei.
"But it had nothing to do with our surroundings – they were very tough. For
years he wouldn't take one day off. We always saw him as this very tired worker coming home with
no energy; just having to lay down and sleep."
On a good day, Ai Qing would rouse himself and amuse his children by sketching for them. His
ability to depict a scene in a few simple lines captured his son's imagination, but he never
encouraged his offspring to take up art. "I guess that's kind of the way he tried to protect us,
because hundreds of thousands of artists and writers were being punished, severely," says Ai.
Instead, a family friend pushed Ai into applying to the Beijing Film Academy. It was 1978 and the
cultural revolution was over, and the students flocking through its reopened doors included the
now celebrated film directors Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. For many it was a heady, inspiring
atmosphere in which they could embrace creativity and explore western culture. To Ai, it seemed
stifling and doctrinaire. "All I wanted was freedom, because my life had always been under these
circumstances of strong repression and pressure," he says.
So in his early 20s he packed up and moved to New York for good – or so he
thought. "That was quite a shock. I was a young person from the Gobi desert, who grew up almost
having no electricity, who was suddenly dropped into this city full of energy and speed and all
kinds of craziness," he says. His hazy image of the US had been largely derived from Walt
Whitman's poetry and other early Americana. "I loved New York – every inch of
it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong
– visually and intellectually. It was like a monster."
But 12 years later, when his father fell ill, he moved back to Beijing. He did so with little to
show for his time in the US, at least to the outside eye. "I hadn't become very rich or got
status or become part of the American dream – I had no success. I hadn't got
my school diploma [or] American citizenship – that's unique for the early
Chinese students in the US; those are two things they all got. I was unmarried, didn't have a
real job, couldn't drive. So my mother really thought I'd never been there. She was shy to even
introduce me to her friends," he says jokingly.
Ai's father sensed his discomfort on returning and offered some advice: don't be courteous. Treat
this country as your home. Do whatever you want. The artist is still grateful for those words,
though one feels the Chinese government may be less so. Ai helped to design the "Bird's Nest"
national stadium for the 2008 Olympics – then blasted the country's
"disgusting" political conditions and the use of the games as propaganda. Since then he has
championed a number of sensitive causes, notably internet freedom and
justice for children who died when shoddy schools collapsed in the devastating Sichuan
earthquake. Others have fallen foul of the government for far less, and supporters fear Ai's
position and his father's reputation will only shield him for so long. Certainly, the authorities
seem to regard him, increasingly, as a problem. His China-based blog has been closed down, his
email account hacked into, and security officials have made inquiries at his bank. In Chengdu
last year, police detained him and fellow activists to prevent them attending the trial of a
campaigner investigating schoolchildren's deaths. In the furore, a policeman punched him in the
head, leaving him with painful headaches; weeks later, while working in Germany, he underwent
surgery after doctors spotted internal bleeding.
"Life is never guaranteed to be safe so we better use it when we are still in good condition," he
says now. "I always think that incident shouldn't have happened that way. Other than that . . . I
don't want the bad memories, bad incidents, to stop me or have an effect on me."
But he acknowledges a "strong increase in danger" from a state that seems increasingly intolerant
of criticism. In December, a court jailed the well-known author Liu Xiaobo for 11 years for
inciting subversion, one of the harshest punishments given to a dissident in recent years. Many
had thought him relatively insulated from pressure, but his co-authorship of a call for political
reforms proved unacceptable.
"The state is taking action against people who have peacefully demonstrated their ideas. They are
writers – all they did is to express their minds through the internet. So the
pattern is very clear. The state tries to maintain stability by crushing any thought of making
change," Ai says. "It could happen to me, because I did the same thing and in many cases I went
much further and deeper. But I always think the government can learn from their mistakes
– they should learn and should understand; they should be just as intelligent
as anyone else. I have to be wishful [optimistic] in that sense."
His father's experiences have left him, he says, with a sense of duty "to speak for the
generation, or generations, who didn't have a chance to speak out". "And I also have to speak out
for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up
hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out," he says.
And then, of course, there's his art. Ai's growing profile as a government critic has come swift
on the heels of artistic acclaim for works such as his photographic series "Dropping a Han
dynasty urn", which captures his destruction of an ancient vessel. But to Ai there is no
meaningful distinction between his art and the rest of his life: "I'm not worried viewers will be
distracted [by my activism] – I am worried they will not," he says. "I would
never say I am just an artist or have some higher aesthetic values."
In recent years even his work for galleries has become overtly political, blurring the boundary
between art and activism – at a recent show in Munich, his Remembering
installation comprised 9,000 children's backpacks, in reference to the death toll of pupils in
the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Attached to the outside of the Haus der Kunst, they spelled out a
grieving mother's words: "She lived happily for seven years in this world."
Ai thinks the casual jobs he did in New York, babysitting and housecleaning, were as formative as
the visual education or western culture he experienced there. In those days he hungered for
success, he says, but it arrived long after he realised "that it's not so important
– that life can be much bolder and stronger without that kind of recognition".
Fame is a kind of burden, he thinks, giving him the responsibility to speak out as well as a
certain space to do so. "China's rise affects everyone, not just its citizens," he says. "China
still cannot offer any real value to the world except cheap labour, manufacturing and its own
so-called stability. Besides that, I don't see any creative values and creative minds
– thinking – that can be announced from China. It [needs]
to have a more reasonable political structure which allows this kind of development to happen."
But he says his relationship with the country has been strengthened by his struggles with it. He
makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh when asked if he fears the authorities might
bar him from returning to China one day. "People have said, if you leave, you may never come
back. Or they may not even let you leave. So this is always a cost you may have to pay," he says.
"But I don't want to restrict myself: when it happens, it happens. I have to deal with it, but
not to prepare for it, because it is a kind of stupidity. If you prepare for it too much, you
become a part of it."
Adobe already has trouble on its hands over Apple’s
decision to not support Flash on the iPhone and the
iPad – and the general public’s “meh” response.
Now Adobe’s got bigger Flash problems.
The Open Video Alliance, which includes Mozilla, Kaltura, Miro, and Yale Law
School, are joining forces to bring video to
Wikipedia – Flash-free.
In the midst of some confusing turn of events, the Peruvian government reversed its decision to
grant a pardon to former television businessman José Enrique Crousillat. This led to
Crousillat to go into hiding, and some speculate that he may have fled the country. Crousillat,
along with his son, were shareholders and on the board of directors of América TV television
station in the 1990s.
However, during the scandal involving the videos that showed
former head of Peru's intelligence service Vladmiro Montesinos giving bribes for favorable
media coverage, Crousillat and his station were implicated for receiving payment for favorable
coverage for the campaign of former President Alberto Fujimori. He fled the country, but was
later captured and extradited back to Peru, where he was tried and sentenced to prison.
Peruvian government palace by martintoy and used under a Creative Commons license.
He was scheduled to have completed his sentence in 2014, but in November 2009, there were
discussions that he would be pardoned for humanitarian reasons because he had complained of heart
problems. On December 11, Crousillat was pardoned by President Alan García and was released
the same day. This led to a wave of reactions, some in favor and others against the decision.
Following his release, Crousillat stated his intention to retake control of his former television
station. However, what turned public opinion against him were the photographs that showed him
first at an exclusive resort, and later at a café in the upscale neighborhood of
Miraflores. This showed that Crousillat was not on the verge of death as had been alleged.
Due to the media pressure and citizen outrage, President García called for a review of the
pardon. However, it was the role of Justice Minister Aurelio Pastor, who was fired by
García, for allegedly providing unreliable evidence that led to Crousillat's pardon, which
has now been revoked and which led to his going into hiding. He was the first political victim in
this case was the Justice Minister Pastor, who before being fired or “resigned” as
the government states, said
that an economic group wanted to “crucify” him [es]. After his resignation, he
left a message for his Facebook contacts.
These events bring back memories for some citizens, such as the blogger from Plan H
[es],
who comments sarcastically:
Esta historia me parece haberla escuchado antes. Un presidente que sale ante cámaras,
proclama ante el país que el otro hombre es un peligro nacional y que ha dañado la
imagen del país, además de ser un corrupto. El presidente lo declara enemigo numero
1 y posteriormente se lanza en su captura,.. esto se repite en las mismas circunstancias que hace
9 años, cuando Fujimori, aterrado por los reveladores vladivideos, salió a la
“caza” de Montesinos en una patético demostración de la poca dignidad
que le quedaba a ese gobierno. Ahora, reemplaza la palabra Fujimori por Alan y Montesinos por
Crousillat y tenemos lo mismo.
I think I have heard this story before. A president goes in front of cameras and declares in
front of the nation that the other person is a national danger and that he has damaged the
country's image, in addition to being corrupt. The president declares him enemy number 1 and later
goes after him to capture him,… this is repeated with the same circumstances 9 years ago,
when Fujimori, shaken by the revelations from the vladivideos (videos showing Montesinos giving
bribes), went on the hunt for Montesinos in a pathetic demonstration with little dignity that the
government remained. Now, replace the name Fujimori with Alan (García) and Montesinos with
Crousillat and we have the same story.
El monto de reparacion civil que debe al estado quedo “sin efecto”. Después el
estado se queja de que no hay dinero para pagar las reparaciones de derechos humanos. ... A este
paso sólo falta indultar a Fujimori. La puntada es con hilo: García prepara indulto
a ex dictador Fujimori.
The amount of civil reparation that he owes the state now remains “void.” After the
state complained that there is no money to pay human rights reparations … At this rate,
all that is left is to pardon Fujimori. The stitching is with thread: García prepares to
pardon former dictator Fujimori.
Todo esto transcurrió en una semana que acaso, en opinión del que suscribe, es la
más vergonzosa que ha vivido este régimen. Incluso más que cuando ocurrieron
hechos como los “petroaudios” y el “baguazo”. Porque estas idas y venidas
reflejan algo más que sentirse “burlado”, además de una tremenda
descoordinación. Reflejan, sin duda alguna, que el gobierno buscaba algo más, y que
esta rectificación tardía es una vergüenza para el país. Es un
pésimo precedente, tanto en materia jurídica como la política.
All this happened in a week where in a week perhaps, in my opinion, is the most embarrassing that
this government has experienced. It is even more embarrassing than the “petroaudio”
and “baguazo” scandals. All of these comings and goings reflect something more than
feeling “tricked,” as well as a tremendous dis-coordination. It reflects, without a
doubt, that the government loked for something more, and that this late correction is an
embarrassment for the country. It is a terrible precedent, both legal and political.
El doctor Alan García ¿habría procedido a revocar el indulto sin la
presión e indignación ciudadana? No, por supuesto que no. A pesar de que sus
compañeros de partido afirmen que ha sido “sorprendido” yo pienso que no es
así. Si se indultó a José Enrique Crousillat fue porque había una
decisión política en ese sentido, y el hasta ahora ministro Aurelio Pastor fue un
eficiente operador.... los esfuerzos de dos gobiernos anteriores, el de Valentín Paniagua
y de Alejandro Toledo, en materia de lucha contra la corrupción, han involucionado. Hoy se
hace lo posible por deteriorar la institucionalidad y ser permisivo con la corrupción.
Would President Alan García have revoked the pardon without all of the pressure and public
outrage? No, of course not. Even though his fellow party members claim that they were
“surprised” I don't think that was the case. If José Enrique Crousillat was
pardoned it was because it was a political decision in this regard, and until now Minister
Aurelio Pastor was an efficient operator …the efforts of the two previous governments,
that of (former Presidents) Valentín Paniagua and Alejandro Toledo, in the fight against
corruption, have digressed. Today it is possible to damage the institutions and be tolerant of
corruption.
Cuando el Grupo Plural (El Comercio y La República) sintió que sus intereses eran
amenazados, soltaron los “perros de presa” o “seudos” investigadores
periodísticos para husmear, perseguir, ubicar, fotografiar, filmar o seguirle los pasos a
José Enrique Crousillat , personaje que cometió el error de sentirse invencible,
intocable, soberbio, tal vez, confiaba en que nunca iba a ser tocado porque el indulto es
irrevocable o se sentía seguro y confiado porque cuenta con grabaciones sobre la
negociación del indulto ... porque existe la sospecha que el indulto no cayó por
gracia del Espíritu Santo que se apiadó de un septuagenario próximo a morir
y que debía pasar sus últimos días en compañía de sus seres
queridos. Desde ese momento, dos grupos económicos se han declarado la guerra y los
ciudadanos miran impávidos como se destrozan o atacan los dueños del país
para hacerse dueño de América TV. Por un lado está el Grupo Plural, por otro
lado, el grupo económico que representa José Enrique Crousillat
When the Plural Group (El Comercio and La Republica) felt that their interests were threatened,
they released the “attack dogs” or “pseudo” journalistic investigators to
snoop, pursue, locate, photograph, video, or follow the steps of Jose Enrique Crousillat, a
person who made the mistake of feeling invincible, untouchable, arrogant, and perhaps, was
confident that he would never be touched because the pardon is irrevocable or felt secure and
confident because it had recordings of the negotiation of the pardon … because it is
suspected that the pardon did not fall by the grace of the Holy Spirit which took pity on a
septuagenarian near death and that he should spend his last days with loved ones. Since then, two
economic groups have declared war and the citizens are watching impassively as they destroy or
attack the owners of the country to become master of América TV. On one side is the Plural
Group, on the other side, the economic group that represents José Enrique Crousillat
The case is still under development with the results being awaited of the lawsuit filed by
Crousillat, even thought it was declared
inadmissible [es] in an injunction filed in the northern city of Motupe, which was based on a
irregular housing certificate. Crousillat's lawyer
has been denounced for concealment of his client [es]. That while there is a warning that
Crousillat could request via a habeas corpus to request the restitution of his pardon. There is
also a Facebook group called “Wanted: Crousillat
[es]” which already has more than 1,300 members.
"By encouraging more people to post videos in Wikipedia articles, we can bring theora video played
in html5 to a very large audience. Currently, there are very few wikipedia articles that have
videos. We hope that this campaign will bring thousands more to the site and show people how great
theora can be. HTML 5 video, which plays without Flash, is a wonderful step towards a more open web
- but if it depends on proprietary codecs like h.264, we will still be stuck with a gatekeeper for
online video."
"By encouraging more people to post videos in Wikipedia articles, we can bring theora video played
in html5 to a very large audience. Currently, there are very few wikipedia articles that have
videos. We hope that this campaign will bring thousands more to the site and show people how great
theora can be. HTML 5 video, which plays without Flash, is a wonderful step towards a more open web
- but if it depends on proprietary codecs like h.264, we will still be stuck with a gatekeeper for
online video."
Fox News' Marc Siegel said he believed the findings of a 3-month-old email survey which found
that 46 percent of primary care physicians would consider leaving their profession if health care
reform passes despite the survey's questionable methodology because its findings were similar to
a September 2009 Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll. However, Fox News previously
acknowledged that the IDB/TIPP poll was also "not scientific," and statistician Nate Silver
stated that the poll was "simply not credible."
Siegel uses "not scientific" IBD/TIPP poll to prop up unscientific Medicus
Firm survey
From the March 17 edition of Fox News' America Live:
MEGYN KELLY (ANCHOR): Well, the health care survey conducted back in December is getting some new
attention today. It shed some light on how some medical professionals feel about the president's
plan to reform the health care system. According to the survey which was conducted by The Medicus
Firm, which is a national physician search firm, almost half of doctors who participated say they
will either be forced to leave or will want to quit the medical profession if this bill actually
passes. Joining us now for a fair debate, Dr. Kathleen London, a family practician, and Dr. Marc
Siegel, a member of our Fox news medical a-team. Good afternoon, doctors.
[...]
So this, we're just being told that actually the New England Journal of Medicine, which was
originally responsible for posting, not publishing, not conducting the survey, but for posting it
on its web site later removed it. It's not a scientific poll, it's a survey, but does it bear any
truth in your experience?
[...]
KELLY: Dr. Siegel, do you accept -- do you agree that this survey probably doesn't represent how
most doctors feel about this overhaul?
DR. MARC SIEGEL: No, Megyn I don't agree. First of all, there were 1,200 physicians that were
surveyed here, and it also reflected what was found in an IBS/TIPP poll that was done
back in September where Investors Business Daily also surveyed over a thousand
physicians.
Siegel was referring to a September 2009 IBD/TIPP
poll which found that 45 percent of practicing physicians would consider leaving their
practice if health care reform were passed.
ButIBD/TIPP poll's
credibility previously refuted by Fox News, Silver
Nate Silver: Poll is "simply not credible." In a September 16
post to his blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Silver listed five reasons why the
IBD
poll should be "completely ignore[d]":
1. The survey was conducted by mail, which is unusual. The only other mail-based poll that I'm
aware of is that conducted by the Columbus Dispatch, which was associated with an
average error of about 7 percentage points -- the highest of any pollster that
we tested.
2. At least one of the questions is blatantly biased: "Do you believe the government can cover 47
million more people and it will cost less money and th quality of care will be better?". Holy
run-on-sentence, Batman? A pollster who asks a question like this one is not intending to be
objective.
3. As we
learned during the Presidntial campaign -- when, among other things, they had
John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 -- the IBD/TIPP polling operation has
literally no idea what they're doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don't trust IBD/TIPP
to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you'd
think.
4. They say, somewhat ambiguously: "Responses are still coming in." This is also highly
unorthodox. Professional pollsters generally do not report results before the survey period is
compete.
5. There is virtually no disclosure about methodology. For example, IBD doesn't bother to define
the term "practicing physician", which could mean almost anything. Nor do they explain how their
randomization procedure worked, provide the entire question battery, or anything like that.
Silver added: "There are pollsters out there that have an agenda but are highly competent, and
there are pollsters that are nonpartisan but not particularly skilled. Rarely, however, do you
find the whole package: that special pollster which is both biased and inept.
IBD/TIPP is one of the few exceptions."
Fox News itself acknowledged that the poll is "not scientific." During Neil
Cavuto's discussion of the IBD/TIPP poll on the September 16 edition of Fox
News' Your World, the on-screen graphic indicated that the poll was "not
scientific":
The Medicus Firm's survey was a promotional document for firm, used
unscientific methodology
The Medicus Firm - a medical recruiting firm -- conducted the survey in December
2009. The Medicus Firm, a Dallas- and Atlanta-based firm that recruits and
places physicians in jobs, was responsible for conducting the survey. It issued a
press release about the results on December 17, 2009. A report written by the Medicus Firm
subsequently
appeared in Recruiting Physicians Today, an employment newsletter produced
by Massachusetts Medical Society, "the publishers of the New England Journal of
Medicine." The report also appeared on the NEJM
"CareerCenter" website, but
was taken down on March 17.
Methodology consisted of emailing doctors in the Medicus Firm's database. The
NEJM CareerCenter article indicated that "[t]he survey sample was randomly
selected from a physician database of thousands. The database has been built over the past eight
years by The Medicus Firm (formerly Medicus Partners and The MD Firm) from a variety of sources
including, but not limited to, public directories, purchased lists, practice inquiries, training
programs, and direct mail responses. The survey was conducted via emails sent directly to
physicians."
Survey write-up was essentially a promotional document for the firm. After
discussing the results of its survey, Medicus
touted the importance of physician recruitment firms "[a]fter health reform is passed and
implemented":
What does this mean for physician recruiting? It's difficult to predict with absolute certainty,
but one consequence is inevitable. After health reform is passed and implemented, physicians will
be more in demand than ever before. Shortages could be exacerbated further beyond the predictions
of industry analysts. Therefore, the strongest physician recruiters and firms will be in demand.
Additionally, hospitals and practices may be forced to rely on unprecedented recruitment methods
to attract and retain physicians. "Health reform, even if it's passed in a most diluted form,
could be a game-changer for physician recruitment," said Bob Collins, managing partner of The
Medicus Firm in Texas. "As competitive as the market is now, we may not even be able to
comprehend how challenging it will become after health reform takes effect."
Fox News pushed both dubious survey and poll
Fox pushed Medicus survey, falsely attributed it to New England Journal of
Medicine. Several Fox News personalities highlighted the dubious
survey and falsely attributed it to
the credible New England Journal of Medicine.
Fox ran wild with "not scientific" IBD poll. Numerous
Fox News media figures highlighted
the IBD/TIPP poll, even after Fox News had described it as "not scientific."
Los Angeles - The major Hollywood studios and cable TV
providers have partnered on a $30 million national TV, print and online marketing campaign to
promote movies on demand services. The campaign, entitled "The Video Store Just Moved In," will
include a dedicated website at CableVideoStore.com.
Sequoia Capital partner Mark Kvamme, citing examples from campaigns run on Funny or Die and
AdMob, told an audience of marketers at OMMA Global in San
Francisco today, “If you can harness social media marketing, you don’t have to pay
for advertising any more.”
Kvamme, whose
experience in advertising dates back to the 1980s, when he led advertising agency CKS Group,
justified his argument using Neil Borden’s “Marketing Mix” theory. He said Borden’s
elements of promotion — advertising, direct marketing, PR, point of sale and word of mouth
— are still valid for marketers today, just in different ways.
The biggest difference can be found in the word of mouth category, said Kvamme, who subsequently
called it a tremendous — and cheap — opportunity. “If you take what’s
going on on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Digg, the masses are starting to make their own
media, and it’s basically free,” he noted. “So if you can figure out how to
work in this world, you can get your message out very quickly.”
Funny or Die’s (one of Kvamme’s Sequoia
investments) recent Presidential
Reunion, which brought together actors who’d portrayed U.S. presidents throughout the
years on “Saturday Night Live” at a cost of $20,000 (primarily flying all the
participants in), according to Kvamme, yielded some 3 million views.
Presidential Reunion was a bit of a passion project for Funny or Die co-founder Will Ferrell, but
Kvamme also pointed to last summer’s relatively unsuccessful movie “The Goods”
starring Jeremy Piven (and produced by Funny or Die co-founder Adam McKay), the expected box
office returns for which were lifted 15 percent through a Funny or Die campaign including prizes
for retweets on Twitter (which led to the movie becoming a Twitter trending topic), featuring on
the front page of Funny or Die and its Facebook fan page, two appearances on the front-page of
Digg for custom Funny or Die content, live-tweeting from the premiere and a live conversation
with McKay on Ustream. It generated “several million dollars in sales for something [the
studio] probably didn’t pay Funny or Die enough for,” said Kvamme.
But the next big opportunity is in mobile, said Kvamme, using AdMob to illustrate (again, another Sequoia company, but at least one
that’s had a successful exit, with Google beating out Apple to buy it for $750 million). With
more than twice the global penetration of the Internet, mobile — especially smartphones
— represent an opportunity to harken back to that “Marketing Mix” theory,
because they can encapsulate all the elements of promotion from one single screen that’s
attached to its owner at all times. An AdMob campaign for the movie “Wolfman” had ads
on mobile media sites ad within applications that users could click on in order to get more
information, share it with their friends, buy tickets directly and set up a mobile calendar
alert.
Sure, Kvamme is pitching his own investments here, but to his credit he said that one of his
favorite and most-visited sites is search.twitter.com, for keeping up with what people are
talking about online. He also talked about Facebook’s opportunity to become the new mass
media — with half its 400 million users logging in every day, “that’s almost
like what broadcast television was 20 or 30 years ago” — and to dominate and grow the
market if it ever does launch its own payment platform inside its trusted environment, just as
PayPal revolutionized eBay.
Hollywood studios together with cable operators
launched an ad campaign today aimed at
educating consumers about on-demand video rentals available directly through their local
cable providers — and making up for the shortfall generated by declining DVD sales.
20th Century Fox, Focus Features, Lionsgate, Rogue, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Summit
Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Entertainment have partnered with cable
companies Armstrong, Bend Broadband, Bright House Networks, iO TV, Comcast, Cox, Insight and Time
Warner Cable for the national marketing initiative, which will include TV, print and interactive
ads, as well as a dedicated web site at www.cablevideostore.com. Altogether, the companies plan to
spend $30 million on their “The Video Store Just Moved In” ad campaign.
Hollywood has long relied on DVD sales as its cash cow, but the market for physical media has
been shrinking for years. Adams Research estimated that
DVD sales dropped 13 percent year-over-year to just $8.73 billion in 2009, down from $10.06
billion in 2008, according to a recent report.
The decline in DVD revenue could continue, as consumers flock to
$1 DVD rentals from kiosk vendors like Redbox or increasingly turn to DVD-by-mail
subscription services from Netflix. Sony, Disney, Lionsgate, Paramount and Warner Bros. have
attempted to stem losses in DVD sales by striking
deals with Redbox and
Netflix to delay the availability of new releases rentals for 28 days. By doing so, they hope
that consumers will choose to purchase a DVD or Blu-ray disc rather than wait for the rental.
Studios also see some competition for DVD sales from new digital entertainment storefronts like
Vudu and Roxio CinemaNow, which are increasingly turning up on HDTVs, Blu-ray players and other
consumer electronics devices, while also battling free, ad-supported movies available through
online video portals like Hulu, YouTube, and Comcast’s Fancast. While studios do get a cut
of digital sales and advertising revenues from movies licensed to be sold or appear on these
platforms, in most cases it’s not nearly enough to make up for the loss of revenue they
would see for a DVD sale of the same title.
To battle these services, studios are increasingly making videos available for rental on demand
on the same day and date that they are available for sale on DVD. As part of the new ad campaign,
the studios are touting the availability of new releases such as Precious, The
Twilight Saga: New Moon, Ninja Assassin, Pirate Radio, Astro Boy,
Bandslam, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Fantastic Mr. Fox and
The Fourth Kind on cable on-demand menus.
Unless you've bee living under a rock lately, you've heard about the Citizens United
decision by the Supreme Court, which reiterated corporate personhood in certain circumstances --
specifically with regards to political campaign funding -- effectively freeing up companies to
spend as much money as they wanted to support (or not support) political candidates. The ruling was
quite controversial, and it's not at all surprising that a Facebook group popped up with the
creative name "Citizens United Against Citizens United." Turns out that the Citizens
United organization was none too happy about the criticism. Paul Alan Levy alerts us to the news that
the new bastion of "free speech" is claiming that the Facebook group violates its trademark and is demanding the
destruction of all documents bearing its mark. Although we haven't seen this issue
litigated in the context of Facebook, Citizens United's demand flies in the face of the many
decisions holding that an Internet gripe site (or fan site) may use the trademark of the subject of
the discussion as its domain name. Under Lamparello v. Falwell, 420 F.3d 309 (4th Cir. 2005),
that's even the rule in the Fourth Circuit, where Citizens United is located. How can they possibly
hope to win a case like that?
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's argument would seem to be even stronger, because it is using
"Citizens United" in its descriptive sense, and not as a mark. It seems doubtful that Citizens
United the conservative group can prevent a group of citizens who are united to support or oppose a
particular proposition from referring to their effort as Citizens United For X or Citizens United
Against Y. (Otherwise, many groups that would have to change their names). It is especially hard to
understand how any confusion about source could be expected to result from labeling a campaign
"Citizens United Against Citizens United."
Interestingly, Citizens United asks Wisconsin Democracy Campaign to destroy all documents bearing
the Citizens United trademark. If that demand were extended to the Supreme Court, could it succeed
in wiping the Citizens United decision off the books?
In a blog post, Center for Immigration Studies executive director Mark Krikorian advised
respondents to the 2010 Census to avoid disclosing their ethnicity by selecting "[s]ome other
race" and writing in "American." Other conservative bloggers and radio hosts have followed suit,
mounting a campaign to thwart the Census' efforts to gather information on the topic, which the
Census says is needed to enforce federal laws.
Krikorian encourages people to "[p]ass it on"; other bloggers comply
Krikorian pushes "a way for ordinary citizens to express their rejection of
unconstitutional racial classification schemes." From Krikorian's March 8
3/7/10]
After the successful partnership between EyeClick and OgilvyOne Worldwide in London and Beijing,
it was time to bring EyeClick’s innovative technology into Ogvily’s headquarters in
NYC. Together the goal is to push emerging technologies into marketing campaigns and deliver a
personal digital branded experience. (PRWeb Mar 17, 2010)
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