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DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. – The emergence of decentralized digital identity as a powerful new tool to safeguard personal information is the subject of a new whitepaper published by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the information technology (IT) industry and workforce.
Produced by the CompTIA Blockchain and Web3 Advisory Council, “Decentralized Digital Identity & Self-Sovereignty” examines how this method of sharing personal information is reshaping IT security, giving individuals and organizations greater privacy and better control over where and how their information is used.
The whitepaper’s authors also encourage managed service providers (MSPs) to educate themselves on decentralized digital identity credentials so they are prepared to work with their customers to strengthen security and privacy postures.
“Large organizations are deploying decentralized digital identity credentials to safeguard personal data and information,” said Elena Dumitrascu, chief technology officer, Credivera, and co-chair of the CompTIA Blockchain and Web3 Advisory Council. “Small and medium-sized businesses will soon follow. Many organizations will look to their technology partners and providers for their guidance and expertise.”
As detailed in the whitepaper, a decentralized digital identity is made up of digital credentials, also called verifiable credentials (VC), that are held in a VC wallet. The digital wallet is locked with a PIN or passphrase and is under the full control of the user. Using the decentralized digital identity approach, an individual’s information remains encrypted until they choose to share. When they do so, the place they share this information with receives only a proof token, not the individual’s entire information record, to store on their servers.
“This enables both individuals and organizations to take greater control of their online information and relationships while also providing greater security and privacy,” said Wes Jensen, blockchain advisory council co-chair and partner at 21Packets.
Several examples of current and future real-world uses of decentralized digital identity, including shopping, employment, government services, education, financial transactions and healthcare, are included in the whitepaper, available at “Understanding Decentralized Digital Identity & Self-Sovereignty.”
CompTIA’s Blockchain & Web3 Advisory Council brings together thought leaders and innovators to identify how technology companies and their customers can leverage blockchain technology in their business cases. Council members have backgrounds in supply chain consulting, software development, legal, marketing, education, business-to-business and business-to-consumer organizations. Visit CompTIA Blockchain & Web3 Advisory Council for more information.
The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is a leading voice and advocate for the $5 trillion global information technology ecosystem; and the estimated 75 million industry and tech professionals who design, implement, manage, and safeguard the technology that powers the world’s economy. Through community, education, training, certifications, advocacy, philanthropy, and market research, CompTIA is the hub for unlocking the potential of the tech industry and its workforce. http://Connect.CompTIA.org


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Salt & Straw, the Portland, Oregon–based ice cream company known for its fantastical flavors, will open its second L.A. location this week in Venice. The new shop, at 1357 Abbot Kinney Blvd., has already attracted crowds of ice cream lovers with the truck that's been parked out front for the last couple months. With a full-scale shop, customers will be able to get favorite flavors such as black olive and goat cheese not just in cone form but also as pints to-go, and as sundaes and milkshakes. (Who among us does not hanker every now and then for an olive-and-cheese milkshake?) There will also be artisanal products such as jams, fancy salts and chocolate for sale.
Salt & Straw founder Kim Malek brought in Andee Hess from Osmose Design in Portland to design the 1,035-square-foot space, which pays tribute to the neighborhood's artsy vibe with artwork from glass artist Sherry May of Beauvilla Glass Designs on Abbot Kinney, and a mural from L.A. artist Adi Goodrich. The shop has already made an effort to integrate itself in the community with some fundraisers over the past few months with its ice cream truck. As a result of those fundraisers, Salt will donate $4,200 to local Venice school Westminster Elementary.
Once it opens its doors this Friday, Jan. 15, Salt & Straw will be open from 11 a.m. to 11 .p.m., daily. Salt & Straw has plans to open subsequent Los Angeles shops in Studio City and the downtown Arts District later in 2016.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.

domain: news


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Trade talks between the Philippines and South Korea started Monday discussing the future of a bilateral free trade agreement in Seoul.
Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee and Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez agreed to officially launch the negotiations toward a bilateral free trade accord that would cover the removal of impediments to trade and creation of more business and investment opportunities.
Aside from Philippine agricultural products, the Philippines is expected to push for concessions on electric vehicles. The Philippines proposed to help Korea build a battery production hub in the Philippines where local companies can supply nickel for the electric batteries and copper for cars and vehicles.
The Trade Department said if talks on EV progressed, the Philippines could also ask Korea to reduce the tariff on other imported parts used in making EV batteries.
Other items on the agenda are issues on government processes such as procurement, intellectual property, public utilities, and services.
Korea earlier confirmed its interest to advance the discussions on an Asean-Korea FTA on top of a bilateral free trade with the Philippines.
The Philippines wants a further reduction in the most favored nation or MFN rates potentially to zero.
The Philippines and Korea are putting their best effort to complete the FTA by November 2019 to coincide with the 2019 ROK-Asean Commemorative Summit.
Both ministers committed to conclude a comprehensive and future-oriented FTA to provide for greater market access for goods and services, improved investment opportunities and collaboration in the fields of innovation and research and development to foster the development of industries of the future.
Both countries aim to create more favorable conditions and substantial benefits to exporters, investors, industries, workforce and MSMEs of their two countries, Lopez said.
The two ministers expressed enthusiasm on the FTA providing for a very strong foundation towards building not only closer but also a strategic partnership between South Korea and the Philippines.


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If someone turns up on your farm, selling Stihl 461 chainsaws, please shout out. That’s the message from NZ Young…
Displaying items by tag: RED BANDS
Thursday, 10 October 2019 12:28
It's a change of scenery, customer and supply chain for Skellerup’s incoming agri division head, Hayley Gourley.
Published in General News
Wednesday, 27 March 2019 10:12
Published in Agribusiness


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The continuous downturn faced by the international economy since the beginning of the year has adversely affected the growth of the entire electronics industry. Almost all electronic components manufacturers are facing tough times and are unable to find a way out of a sluggish global electronics market.
Thanks to the growth of emerging industries such as smart home technologies, green energy, new energy resources, the Internet, optical communications and more, China's electronics market has continued to develop rapidly. In this context, the 14th China Hi-Tech Fair ELEXCON (ELEXCON2012) held on November 16, 2012 is a good barometer of the Chinese electronics market.
With a total exhibition area of 15,000 square meters, the fair had exhibitors from nearly 300 top local and international companies, continuing on the success of previous fairs. The fair's theme was "Leading smart technologies and services in the electronics industry, together with ELEXCON!" The aim was to exhibit various new components, materials, equipment, latest technologies and products. In addition to traditional technologies and products, this year's fair highlighted cutting-edge technical applications such as smart home technologies, environment and energy, smart planet, flexible manufacturing systems, cross-border integration and others.
International manufacturers continued to deeply explore the potential of Chinese market
The downturn in the global electronics market has forced international electronics manufacturers to adjust their product strategy accordingly. The vendors see the Chinese market as an important strategic developing market, and have deeply expanded their Chinese operations. Improving market share in China has become an important strategic objective of international electronics manufacturers. As an important annual event for international electronics manufacturers to open up the Chinese electronics market, ELEXCON has attracted a large number of overseas exhibitors, especially Japanese manufacturers, in each of the ELEXCONs held during previous years. At the exhibition grounds, ROHM, Panasonic, Murata, TDK, Taiyo Yuden, Nichicon, Nippon Chemi-Con, Kyocera and other international leading manufacturers have spared no effort to display the latest products and technologies, and have included products such as the world's smallest monolithic ceramic capacitor introduced by Murata, the world's first mass produced "SiC" power modules released by ROHM, the industry's thinnest PGS graphite film launched by Panasonic to release and diffuse the heat generated by heat sources such as CPUs, processors, power amplifiers and cameras, and more.
The MURATA BOY robot is displayed by Murata at every ELEXCON, and this year's MURATA BOY had integrated another new technology – a gesture control sensor, which enables the operator to command the MURATA BOY with visual gestures that are interpreted by MURATA BOY, instead of using a tablet PC.
Despite adverse economy, Chinese local vendors grew rapidly with the fast development of China's electronics market
Among the exhibitors at this year's ELEXCON, local manufacturers such as Eyang, Sunlord, Adtech, Mornsun, Lierda and more garnered a high profile and displayed their latest products to compete with international manufacturers on the same stage. While the large number of manufacturers participating in the exhibition reflected the attention paid by global suppliers to the Chinese market, it also witnessed the rise of China's domestic manufacturers.
In recent years, Eyang Technology Co., Ltd., has developed microminiaturized and ultra-miniaturized product lines, and has made certain achievements. The size of its chip multilayer ceramic capacitor has been developed from 0603-type to 0402-type, which is the mainstream specification in the market. Its 0201-type MLCC production volume has exceeded 7 billion, and mass production of its 01005-type products has begun this year.
As per Sunlord's representatives, the global induction production is being transferred to China. Sunlord has been the first to enter the field of LTCC, and has begun production of LTCC antennas, LTCC filters and other new products.
Complete development of equipment and components, ensures strong growth in industrial development
Equipment and production technology are core factors determining the technological advancement of the electronic components industry. Only with the support of better equipment and raw materials can a company achieve greater breakthroughs in the development of components and products. As one of the most influential local electronics exhibition in China, ELEXCON brought together a group of excellent raw material and equipment manufacturers, including Alpha, Robostar, Nordson, Adtech, Saejong and other equipment manufacturers, as well as Meixin, Rockbond, Darbond and other material and component manufacturers, which provided a mature industry supply chain and supported services to the electronic components industry.
The continuously increasing costs, labor shortage, ever-changing industry environment, current high investment status in equipment and flexible manufacturing requirements impelled the manufacturers to continue to seek multi-functional automation equipment that are highly flexible. To deal with this problem, industrial robots are the most typical automated factory system in the field of manufacturing. In this year's ELEXCON, more than 10 equipment manufacturers displayed their latest industrial robot systems. The industrial robots' operation demonstration during the exhibition became a core focal point for visitors at the exhibition hall.
High-end forums guide major emerging industries and blue ocean market
In addition to the wonderful exhibition stalls, five professional forums were held at ELEXCON, covering hot topics such as passive components, smart TV and digital homes, power quality management, electric vehicles and charging devices, industrial robots and factory automation, and others. These forums brought together more than 30 experts in the respective fields, and had an audience of thousands of professionals to discuss the most popular topics in the current electronics industry during the three-day event.
With the recession of the entire electronics market, electronic component manufacturers are facing tremendous pressure on the environment and transformation challenges. How to reverse the situation and successfully transform is an urgent issue that needs to be resolved by all electronic components manufacturers. During the Seventh International Passive Components and Market Development Forum (PCF2012), Wen Xueli, Secretary General of the China Electronic Components Industry Association said that although the development of electronic components industry has slowed down, it does not mean that the whole industry is declining. There are many outstanding enterprises still maintaining a good momentum of development. In the near future, it is expected that some large companies may have an absolute advantage in several industry segments in China's electronic components industry. The Chinese government is vigorously supporting and promoting emerging industries such as cloud computing, the Internet, optical communications, new energy and more, and has invested a large amount of support funds that will bring new opportunities to the weak electronic information industry.
The popularity of smart TV will also provide a strong impetus to the electronic components market. As per statistics, the penetration rate of smart TVs in 2013 will grow to 33 percent. The popularity of smart TVs means that the industrial development pattern of its related industrial supply chain such as CPUs, chips, devices, content, networks and others are experiencing a deep integration and change! In the 2012 Conference of Smart TV and Digital Home Industry, guests from DisplaySearch, CEC CoreCast, Gaya, Konka, ARM, TCL, Mstar and other well-known enterprises delivered insightful speeches about the smart TV markets and technologies.


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In 2010, on a trip to Beijing, China, Mike Duke did what 100 million other people around the world do each week: he stepped into a Walmart to go shopping. But Duke wasn’t just a typical customer, he was also the company’s CEO. Walking through the store’s isles looking at products, Duke noticed something interesting about the bananas. The bananas Walmart sold in in Beijing weren’t from Beijing — they weren’t even from China at all; they were all imported. Duke turned to his teammate Doug McMillon, the leader of Walmart’s international division; “Bananas grow in China. Why don’t we sell local bananas?” Continue reading
This essay originally appeared on the Percolate Blog.
Social is entering a new era in the history of its communications potential. In doing so, ‘social media’ companies like Facebook and LinkedIn are briskly redefining their identities, business models and the boundaries they are able to connect people — or brands to people — within. All told, 2015 looks more and more like the year social will formally move beyond social, and the time when advertisers and technologists stop talking about a company, marketing channel, event or job title as ’social,’ and, instead, simply describe it as something that is.
After all, what is or isn’t social anymore? Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are now closely interwoven throughout all modern media — from live event and TV experiences to journalism to federal government policy awareness — and thanks to mobile are now first screen centers of attention.
How do you define a social company? Today, Facebook generates more annual advertising revenue than Fox News, CNN or MSNBC, with a much faster underlying growth rate fueled by mobile device adoption and budget reallocation to digital.
As we’ve talked about in the past, Facebook is also distancing itself from its own company pages and contest tabs, becoming a modern media company that connects people and serves ads across a network that extends well beyond Facebook.com. And if the definition of a social company is as open-ended as one that creates or facilitates interactive communities, brands as diverse as Amazon, eBay, Uber, Github, Kickstarter, Venmo, Medium, Pandora, Spotify and a litany of other companies are also intrinsically social businesses. ‘Social’ is where people spend time on the internet, it’s what people intrinsically want to do in their lives and with their phones, and it’s been a central element of human behavior for thousands of years.
[This post originally appeared on the Percolate Content Marketing Blog]
Over the summer of 2013, David Byttow, a former Google software developer, started building a mobile app to solve a problem he had. Byttow noticed he and the engineers he worked with were bad at giving each other feedback, and he wanted a way they could comment honestly on each other’s work without professional or personal backlash for saying something negative. Byttow wanted a way to tell the truth, without revealing who said it.
Eight months later, the most talked about content at SXSW 2014 wasn’t a flashy new tech launch, sharing economy roll-out or big-budget event activation: it was a SXSW feed from Byttow and co-founder Chrys Bader‘s two month old app, Secret, that aggregated and shared honest, anonymous feedback about the conference. The feed, coming on the back of Secret’s $10 million fundraising announcement, caused the app to jump more than 500 spots in the Apple app store rankings over the weekend, making Secret one of the fifty most downloaded social media apps, ahead of Foursquare and Facebook’s new Paper.
By itself, Secret is a noteworthy example of product design and community-building in an identity-conscious, mobile feature-unbundling world. But Secret isn’t alone. Its largest competitor Whisper also just raised venture funding, another addition to a Snapchat-led ecosystem of apps that help users create, share and consume content that’s genuine, unedited and in the moment. In fact, I see Secret, Whisper and Snapchat as part of a larger content and cultural trend centered around a key brand pillar: honesty. Continue reading
[This post was originally published on BuzzFork’s social marketing blog]
While Cyber Monday shoppers bought up iPads and Macbooks in droves, Apple did some purchasing of its own, acquiring social search and data analytics aggregator Topsy for a reported $200 million+.
Topsy, known by many as the “Google for Twitter,” offers tools to analyze tweets, social data and consumer sentiment. I’ve featured Topsy hashtag and keyword data previously on BuzzFork’s blog to look at trending terms and topics at events like Advertising Week and the World Series.
Apple confirmed the acquisition, but its representatives have declined to comment on how the company plans to use Topsy. The most probably outlook for Topsy is a public-facing shutdown of its core services as the product and team gets assimilated into various Apple efforts. Nonetheless, I see Topsy factoring into Apple’s plans across a variety of potential avenues and product applications: Continue reading


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The first runner-up of the 2020 Big Brother Naija Lockdown Season, Dorathy Bachor, on Wednesday, November 4 received a Benz car from her fans as a birthday gift.
Naija News reports that Dorathy clocked 25 years of age yesterday.
“It’s not my own’ says Dorathy as she beholds the brand new car with screaming to express how gladness.
Watch the video below;
BBNaija Dorathy Gets Benz As Birthday Gift pic.twitter.com/6KwFL80R01
— Richard Ogunsile Joshua (@Olaricbizhub) November 5, 2020


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IOC Tops Fortune India 500 List, But Indian Oil Prices Are Still Highest In The World
Fortune Magazine has just released their Top 500 Companies list for India, and as per the latest data, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has emerged as the biggest Indian company. Reliance Industries is at #2 followed by Bharat Petroleum which is at #3.
With annual revenue of Rs 5,00,973 crore, state run IOC has beaten Ambani led Reliance Industries which had annual revenue of Rs 4,44,021 crore.
Bharat Petroleum with Rs 2,67,718 crore revenue is at distant third meanwhile Hindustan Petroleum with Rs 2,36,797 crore is at #4.
The complete ranking is as follows:
1st: IOC (Indian Oil Corporation)
2nd: Reliance Industries
3rd: Bharat Petroleum
4th: Hindustan Petroleum
5th: Tata Motors
6th: State Bank of India
8th: Tata Steel
9th: Essar Oil
As we can observe, out of ten, six companies are state-run while only 4 are private companies.
As per Fortune Magazine, the top 4 companies (which are all oil based) from India have retained their last year’s ranking. Overall, revenues of top 500 Indian companies have increased by 9.5% and profits have increased by 4.5%. Private companies have collectively increased their revenue by 10.2% whereas Government controlled companies have registered 6.6% increase in revenues.
Just for facts, 38% of all revenues made by top 500 companies is being controlled by Govt. companies.
Manufacturing continue to be the strongest and the most powerful niche among the top 500 Indian companies as 298 out of 500 companies are manufacturing, controlling 67% of the overall revenues. Services companies are making their presence more prominent as their count has increased to 143 and they collectively control 27.7% of overall revenues, compared to 26.3% in 2013.
The report observes, “Manufacturing then, definitely needs a helping hand and ‘Make in India’ could just be the ticket. The specific pain points that need to be addressed include the issue of retrospective taxation, labour and foreign direct investment”.
But Oil Prices Are Still High In India
Last year, IOC made revenues of Rs 4,20,287 crore, thereby increasing their percentage by 19% this year. Similarly, Reliance Industries had revenues of Rs 3,67,539 crore in 2013, which has increased by 20.8% this year.
This cements the fact that India’s top Oil companies are increasing their revenue, at a time when crude oil prices globally are coming down. If despite a stronger rupee against dollar, oil companies are increasing their profit, why the advantage is not being transferred to the end users?
As we can observe from this chart (source: LiveMint), the petrol prices in India are continuing to be highest in the world.
In the last 18 months, the prices of crude oil (raw) has come down by 23%, but the actual decrease in retail rates have only been 4%.
In this chart (source: LiveMint), we can see the price build up of Petrol in India, and observe how oil companies are making their money:
To understand better, here is a mark-up price comparison of oil as observed in price charges of different oil companies. Markup is the difference between the price of raw oil, as compared with the price which oil companies charge to dealers.
Despite low prices of raw oil, December saw a boost of 14.99% in the overall prices, which these companies are justifying as marketing expenditure, delivery and inland freight charges.
Here is a possible scenario now, if oil companies continue to stick with their plans of increasing their profits (source:LiveMint):
As per the research done by LiveMint, even with 5.2% increase in markup (which is the global norm), retail prices should be lowered by Rs 6 compared to the current oil prices.
Considering that India’s biggest company is a state-run oil company, there should be a debate as to how much profit does a government run company decide to have, at the expense of its citizen’s well being.
[All graphs created by and copyright of LiveMint]


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Penneys has been offering us some brilliant beauty bargains this year.
From the exclusive Cocoa Brown Rose Gold oil to their unreal selection of PS…Pro makeup products that launched earlier this year, our beauty bags are at peak bulging point at this stage.
But thankfully the budget retailer has come up with a nifty little solution to our problem.
Penneys have just released a range of makeup boxes which wouldn’t look amiss in a professional makeup artists collection.
The beauty boxes comes in a silver and rose gold colour and contain various compartments so you can have your entire makeup collection organised and in one place.
The boxes are retailing for €25, which is an absolute steal in our eyes.
So now you can continue collecting those brilliant Ps…Beauty products without getting guilty when your makeup bag wont zip up.


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The Douglas County Health Department said Tuesday that people should wear masks in public.
“Wearing a homemade mask in public helps reduce the spread of COVID-19,” Douglas County Health Director Adi Pour said.
She called it “especially important when you reach out for help from first responders,” and when going to grocery stores and other retail outlets.
Pour said she was following the guidance from national public health officials on wearing masks.
“Remember, my mask protects you, and your mask protects me,” she said.
The department also said youth sports games and practices are banned in Douglas County. Such activities “cannot be held at this time because they violate directed health measures limiting the size of gatherings and mandating six feet of separation,” the department said in a press release.
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A man receives a nasal swab in his vehicle while receiving RPP testing at a drive-thru testing clinic at Bryan Health's LifePointe Campus in Lincoln.
"The expectation still is we want to loosen things up as soon as possible," Ricketts said Tuesday about statewide directed health measures limiting crowd sizes and encouraging social distancing, "but it's going to take some time."
State Sen. John Stinner of Gering said that property tax relief and business tax incentives "have to be shoved aside" in light of economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But Gov. Pete Ricketts and Sen. Lou Ann Linehan said it was "way too premature" to declare hopes for property tax relief dead.


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The New York Times’ Innovation report was meant for Times employees alone, but since a handful of media outlets published the leaked document last week, it has reverberated throughout the news and business sides of the publishing industry — and resonated with those who see their own organizations face the same struggle to adapt to the digital age. Here’s a sampling of (anonymous) reactions:
“You never know how dysfunctional a place is. It’s the wild west, even for The New York Times. On the one hand, I’m sure there’s some collective schadenfreude. On the other hand, at least they’re experimenting.” — Magazine editor-in-chief
“An extremely useful document. We should thank the New York Times for doing months of expensive work for the rest of us! Most of us are ahead in some areas and behind in others.” — Magazine editor
“I don’t think it has much however to do with how big or small the operation is. Meaningful change is developed over time and the pain points are to be expected. The only other path that can lead to quicker change is what Time Inc. is proposing by aggregating the content of others and packaging it as your own innovation. But the market sees it as a shortcut that lacks the authority and credible voice of the original brand.” — Newspaper sales executive
“None of it is surprising. It’s painfully obvious. If you’re in the trenches, it’s less shocking than if you’re not. It all resonated. The conversation about being behind in tagging and structured data practices … everybody’s trying to figure out structured data.” — Magazine digital exec
“I’ve faced the same issues, but with inferior brands, and lost the fight. Their brand is unique, though. So the good news is that if they do the work, and keep hiring digital-first thinkers, the next generation will trust and value the New York Times. And by the way, if war broke out or a disaster hit a place where I had family or friends, I’m not sure I’d be interested in news feed content from a disruptive but thinly staffed news publisher, whose only concern is getting it first.” — Digital sales exec
Publishers speak out on the state of the media business at the Digiday Publishing Summit
With the calendar flipping to spring, do publishers feel like the economic conditions are starting to thaw or do they expect the second quarter to be similarly frigid?
How Forbes and The Daily Beast are consolidating diverse revenue streams to create the highest value audience
Forbes and The Daily Beast have shed the silo-model when it comes to how their revenue teams operate.
How BuzzFeed’s Creator Score is grading the impact of its creator network
BuzzFeed's Creator Network is a primary focus in 2023 for the publisher, and its campaign grading tool is being used to prove out its ability to create successful ads.
SponsoredHow critical data pillars will increase brands’ confidence in CTV
Mario Diez, CEO, Peer39 With every quarter, the balance of TV viewership slips away from the traditional linear model and more towards connected TV. Less than half of the adults in the U.S. subscribe to cable or satellite, and fewer than half of the households watched linear TV daily in the second half of 2022. […]
In graphic detail: Google’s Ads Safety Report shows suspect ad activities are on the rise
Google's ad transparency efforts detail how bad actors necessitate further investment.
Media Briefing: Publishers share their biggest challenges and opportunities at the Digiday Publishing Summit
While Q1 ad revenue, sales cycles and payment windows appeared to be equally bad across the media industry, bright spots arose around consumer revenue streams, new tech experimentation and traffic patterns.


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Pencils, notebooks, backpacks - America is ready to go back to school, and retailers can't wait. And can you blame them? Back-to-school is the second-largest shopping period of the year, topped only by Christmas. After a sluggish year of sales so far, back-to-school sales are in full swing, with stores and companies pulling out all the stops to bring in customers. So what crazy marketing tactics will you find this year?
In Pictures: 6 Ways To Fund A College Education
Chasing Millennials and Generation Y
If you think back-to-school shopping is just about erasers and lunch boxes think again: these days, it's all about the tech gear. Millennials (those born around the year 2000) and college-bound Generation Y students are accustomed to carrying cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices - and retailers are vying for those high-priced purchases. Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) is directly aiming for the college crowd: any college student, faculty or staff member who buys a Mac gets a free iPod Touch through September 7, 2010. (Check out some of the best financial apps your can get for your smartphone in 5 Financial Apps Worth Buying.)
In a similar attempt to attract a young, tech-savvy crowd, JCPenney (NYSE:JCP) is hoping to connect to teens with a marketing campaign focused on online interaction: kids can post their latest purchases online, and browse new looks from their mobile devices.
Competition is heating up among e-reader merchants as well, with prices on the Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) Kindle, Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) Nook, and Sony (NYSE:SNE) E-Reader continuing to drop. Times may be tough for parents, but retailers count on them opening their wallets when it comes to buying their kids the latest gear.
It's Free! Well, Almost Anyway
We all love a freebie, and retailers bank on that in their marketing ploys - just look at American Eagle's (NYSE:AEO) latest marketing tactic. As long as you try on a pair of their jeans, you get a free smartphone, like the Blackberry (Nasdaq:RIMM) Curve or LG Ally. There is a catch, however: to get this freebie, you have to sign up for a two-year service plan, which is anything but free. The offer started July 21 and will run through the end of September.
Motorola is hoping to cash in on back-to-school tech buying by giving away its Motorola (NYSE:MOT) Charm, a phone geared toward texting. For the younger crowd, Toys "R" Us (NYSE:XKE) is giving away a free lunch kit when you buy a backpack.
So why all this free stuff? Retailers know that once you're in the store, you're more likely to spend your back-to-school dollars there. Plus, most discounted or free tech gear comes with service plans, pricey accessories and the like - all at a nice profit to the retailer.
There's nothing like a sale to create a sense of shopping urgency among consumers, and retailers know it. Staples (Nasdaq:SPLS) rang bell at the Nasdaq stock exchange July 14, declaring it the beginning of the back-to-school shopping season; the retailer aims to lure customers in with its penny and dollar sales, with hopes that they'll stick around to buy pricier laptops, service plans and other office gear. (Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's a deal. Read Attention Discount Shoppers: Don't Buy Just Because It's On Sale.)
Apparel retailers like Kohl's (NYSE:KSS) and Sears (Nasdaq:SHLD) have slashed prices to entice parents to buy their kids' apparel in the stores. To put more pressure on these merchants, online retailers are competing with brick-and-mortar stores even more this year, offering free shipping and discounts that make competition for consumer dollars fiercer than ever, which is great news for shoppers looking for a deal.
Forget the Tax
To give consumers a break (and increase brick-and-mortar store sales at the same time), many states are offering weekends where shopping is free of sales tax. These sales tax holidays are mostly limited to the Eastern part of the country, and sometimes have limits on the items and amounts you get a tax break on. Still, when you're buying junior a laptop and gear for college, no sales tax is a nice break, and one that consumers are likely to take advantage of. (For more tips, see 12 Ways To Shop Smarter.)
The Bottom Line
With the 2010 back-to-school season just beginning, the verdict is still out on how successful these marketing tactics will be. Some analysts predict a spike in sales from pent-up demand; others say that joblessness and a closed-wallet mentality will make this shopping season disappointing. With spending expected to be highest in August at 41%, only time will tell how retail sales numbers will pan out. Until the end of back-to-school deals in September, take advantage of these marketing tactics to save yourself some money.


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Sweden Rebrands Itself To Forge A New National Identity
Creative agency Soderhavet created a new identity including a new flag and font for the European country.
The government of Sweden unveiled a new global branding identity for the country to combine the Swedish ministries, agencies, and businesses under one unified look.
The new branding identity centers on the Swedish flag and the country's name in Swedish, “Sverige.” A translation of the country's name appears in a smaller font, depending on where the branding appears. A new font called Sweden Sans was also designed exclusively for the branding project.
Stockholm-based creative agency Söderhavet was hired to design the new branding elements. The branding project was commissioned by the Council for the Promotion of Sweden (‘Nämnden för Sverigefrämjande i Utlandet’, NSU), which includes five government agencies: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Visit Sweden, the Ministry for Enterprise, Energy and Communications, Business Sweden, and the Swedish Institute.


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While Windows 10 ARM seems to be the future of Windows on Mobile and it’s a big deal for Microsoft, but unfortunately, the software giant is not allowing Windows 10 Mobile devices to upgrade to this version of the OS. It’s clear that current Windows Phones will not be upgrading to ARM in any way, but the developers have somehow managed to hack the Lumia 950 XL and successfully booted Windows 10 ARM.
The developers have shared a guide which allows users to install Windows 10 ARM on Lumia 950 XL. The process is complex but it has been explained in plain English. It’s worth noting that after ‘upgrading’ to Windows 10 ARM on a Lumia 950 XL, the important features such as WiFi, Cellular data, Bluetooth, Accelerated graphics, USB-C host, Battery meter, automatic orientation, automatic brightness, camera and microphone won’t work.
“This project involves a great complexity and fixing/creating drivers and getting everything working takes a lot of time and effort,” a developer said.
The unreleased operating system can be installed on Lumia 950XL (RM-1116 059X4S5 Dual SIM and RM-1085 059X4T0 Single SIM). But the installation is not guaranteed even if you have one of these models.
Interestingly, the developers are also planning to dual boot Windows 10 ARM and Windows 10 Mobile on Lumia phones.
As noted above, you can install full Windows 10 on your Windows Phone but most of the features won’t work, and it would make your handset unusable for daily usage. Of course, the platform on unsupported Lumia 950 XL isn’t as snappy and responsive as you’d expect it to be in a perfect world. But it’s “the phone that can replace your PC,” that means you can run Google Chrome, full Office suite and more.
It’s an experimental project for testing purposes only, and it’s certainly something that you can live, at least for experimental purposes but it’s buggy. If you’re interested, you can download the Word document from here and learn more about the guide.
Microsoft itself has abandoned phones, and Windows 10 Mobile operating system is in maintenance mode with no feature updates in radar. The report suggests that a new kind of mobile device is on its way to the market, and Microsoft will be launching it as soon as this year.


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Closure of Debenhams stores in Suffolk and north Essex confirmed
- Credit: Archant
Debenhams branches in Suffolk and north Essex are to close after the firm's buyout by online-only retailer Boohoo did not include its stores.
Boohoo has confirmed it has purchased the Debenhams brand and website for £55million, with the deal excluding the company's 118 stores and workforce.
It is expected the branches in Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Colchester will not reopen after the coronavirus lockdown.
Boohoo has said it will relaunch the Debenhams brand as an online-only venture next year.
It was announced late last year that Debenhams was in the process of winding down operations after JD Sports' takeover bid of Arcadia - which houses stalls in department stores - failed at the last minute.
Administrators for Debenhams said they would begin looking to sell off parts of the 242-year-old business.
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Boohoo said the deal represents a "fantastic opportunity" to target new customers and launch into the beauty, sports and homewares market for the first time.
A spokesman said: "The group intends to rebuild and relaunch the Debenhams platform, helping further the group's stated ambition to lead the fashion eCommerce market, and grow into new categories including beauty, sport and homeware."
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Boohoo chief executive John Lyttle said: "The acquisition of the Debenhams brand is an important development for the group, as we seek to capture incremental growth opportunities arising from the accelerating shift to online retail."
Founder and executive chairman, Mahmud Kamani, added: "Our acquisition of the Debenhams brand is strategically significant as it represents a huge step which accelerates our ambition to be a leader, not just in fashion eCommerce, but in new categories including beauty, sport and homeware."


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Oliver Zipse, CEO of BMW
German car manufacturer, BMW, has announced that it has increased orders for battery cells from $14.2 billion to $23.8 billion to match the increasing demand for electric cars, which accounted for over 11% of the company’s deliveries during the first half of 2021.
Oliver Zipse, CEO of BMW, stated that the cells are being ordered for a range of electric vehicles being produced by the manufacturer, such as i4 sedans and iX sport utility vehicles. The company also stated that it is planning to transition to a new generation of batteries by 2022.
“We’re following the market. The first half has shown that we’re growing and gaining market share. We’re right in the middle of electrification,” he said.
Due to a shortfall in the production of semiconductors, that have highlighted vulnerabilities in the supply chains of car manufacturers, companies such as BMW have responded by evaluating their growing number of electric vehicle sales.
Considering these challenges, it is critical for carmakers to secure access to raw materials, such as cobalt and nickel, in order to keep up with the increasing demand for electric vehicles.
With regards to the shortfall, Zipse stated, “We said some weeks ago that the second half would be more difficult.” and added that, “It’s more difficult and the problem is here to stay for many months.”
Energy Capital & Power – Africa’s leading energy event organizer – will host the Africa Energy & Mining 2022 Conference & Exhibition, which will be held in Johannesburg on March 29-31.To learn more about the Africa Energy & Mining series and the post-COVID-19 energy and mining landscape in Africa, please visit www.aem2022.com. For sponsorship or exhibition opportunities, please contact [email protected].


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Vail Resorts sold 2.1 million Epic Passes for 2021-22 season after cutting prices by 20%
Resort operator reports a 76% increase in pass sales from 2019-20, which is about 900,000 more tickets and passes purchased in advance.
Vail Resorts thrills investors with lower-than-expected coronavirus losses
The operator of 34 North American resorts on Thursday reported declines in income, revenue and visits. But the losses aren’t as bad as investors anticipated, so the company’s stock price hit an all-time high.


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Dog-Ear Webpages in Firefox Wish there was a way to mark a spot on that website? Now you can, with Dog Ears for Firefox. Veronica has more on today's Tekzilla Daily.
Running time: 86 seconds
Ronny Golan on HIRO Media's Ad serving in Downloadable Media Although paid downloads have become a big business, thanks largely to Apple's iTunes, advertiser-supported downloaded videos are only now beginning to emerge. Big hurdles exist: The biggest issue is how to change downloaded ads in a video which has been saved to a device. The other is how to track the usage of downloaded media which are shared with others.
HIRO Media, an Israeli-based start-up, has a solution for ad serving into downloaded media. Co Founder Ronny Golan Explains.
Running time: 186 seconds
Roku Readies Pay-Per-View System for Small Publishers
While Netflix, the MLB.com and Amazon have sophisticated payment systems in place on the Roku platform, smaller publishers have few options to generate subscription or pay-per-view payments. Beginning early next year, Roku will introduce a pay-per-view system for any publisher using the Roku platform, says company spokesperson Brian Jaquet in this interview with Beet.TV.
Running time: 473 seconds
Max Haot on Livestream's High Average Video Viewing Time Livestream, the New York-based live webcast platform had 2.9 million unique viewers in the United States in October, consuming 137 million video views, according to comScore. Max Haot tells Beet.TV in this interview that the average viewing time for these videos was sixteen minutes, rivaling the engagement for long form videos such as Hulu.
Running time: 322 seconds
Erin McPhearson on Yahoo's Big Online Video Plans Yahoo will significantly increase its original video offering in 2011 with a new business show on Yahoo Finance, scripted entertainment programming and with news video in a number of vertical areas, say Erin McPhearson, VP and Head of Originals and Video Programming for Yahoo.
Running time: 402 seconds
Microsoft's Mark Kroese on Advertising Options for the Xbox Live Microsoft's Xbox LIVE has some 23 million subscribers with two million watching concurrently.
We spoke recently with Mark Kroese who heads up advertising for entertainment and devices at Microsoft. He explains, and we demo, the various advertising opportunities on the "network," including in-game product placements, micro-sites, and video ads.
Running time: 256 seconds
AP's Jim Kathman on the IOC's Media Restrictions in Beijing 2008 There might be a record number of video cameras in Beijing this summer, but the vamped up restrictions on digital rights the International Olympic Committee announced earlier this week will leave squadrons of TV teams and citizens journalists with a lot less to cover.
I visited the global headquarters of the AP in Manhattan to interview Jim Kathman, Global Director of Sports Products, about AP's 2008 Olympics coverage.
Running time: 193 seconds
Daniel Heaf on the BBC's Content Vertical Acquisition Strategy The digital properies of the BBC Worldwide have been quickly growing, up 18 percent over the past twelve months to 65 million unique visitors in October, according to comScore.
With this growing footprint, the BBC is evaluating content acquisitions in "rich verticals," says Daniel Heaf, Director of Digital for the BBC Worldwide in this exclusive video interview with Beet.TV.
Running time: 275 seconds
Lauren Rich Fine on Business Models for Online Newspapers
Lauren Rich Fine, former longtime newspaper analyst for Merrill Lynch, and now research director for ContentNext Media, parent of paidContent, tells me that some newspapers will be able to charge for selected, premium content, but not many can charge for full, recurring subscriptions.
Running time: 335 seconds
Kasian Franks on SeeqPod's Multimedia Search Engine The multimedia "playable" search engine SeeqPod has attracted 5.5 million unique monthly visitors over the past year. Through affiliate and API that number will likely double this year, according to the company's spokesperson. With more and more Internet users searching for multimedia content like video and songs, SeeqPod CEO Kasian Franks recognized the need for a multimedia search engine. Seeqpod's search results, or 'discovery results', can be watched or listened to.
Running time: 209 seconds
Dana Perino on President Obama's Online Strategy Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary to President George Bush, thinks that President Obama's use of online video for his weekly addresses is "great." Perino, now a Fox News commentator and public relations executive with Burson Marsteller, was in New York today as speaker in Federated Media's media and marketing conference.
Running time: 276 seconds
Quincy Jones III on QD3's Street Music Videos for Web Mashups Quincy Jones III, has evolved his music production business QD3 to focus on online video. He told Beet.TV he plans to bring the company's collection of 3000 hours of video documentary footage of urban performers to the Web later this year. He sees a business opportunity in mash-ups, where his firm is paid for usage. He explains why video story telling is essential for artists connecting with audiences.
Running time: 160 seconds
Chris Hock on BlackArrow's Advertising in Video on Demand As time-shifting viewing habits of cable TV by consumers increases, there is a big challenge to the cable operators and programmers how to insert relevant advertising in to the programming. BlackArrow, a San Mateo-based company, apparently has a solution. The company has been heavily funded by some key strategic investors including Cisco, Comcast, Intel and top VC's Mayfield and Polaris. VP Chris Hock has more.
Running time: 292 seconds
CNN's Alex Wellen on Complementing TV Debates with Online Experience
CNN has planned an online experience that complements rather than reproduces the televised broadcast of the presidential debates, according to Alex Wellen, Deputy Political Director of CNNPolitics.com. As more and more viewers are watching the broadcast with their laptops close at hand, real-time reactions from CNN analysts, the People Meter, and scorecards have become an important soundboard for the candidates statements.
Running time: 222 seconds
BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis on the Need to Reinvent Online Video Big media companies need to stop imitating traditional television formats in online video, according to BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis. There's no reason to do stand-ups and b-roll when the Internet provides the opportunity to reinvent the entire format, he says. "I think in four years from now we'll see utterly different video online," he told Andy in an interview at the TimeWarner Politics 08 Summit. He also discusses the impact of YouTube on the blogosphere on political processes.
Running time: 200 seconds
Chatroulette's Andrey Ternovskiy on Online Video
"Video is not boring," it is dynamic and useful as social medium, says seventeen year-old Andrey Ternovskiy, the creator of the international phenomenon Chatroulette. The site allows strangers to randomly meet others via Web cam in real time.
Running time: 109 seconds
Craig Newmark on Craigslist and the Death of the Newspaper
Caught up with Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist immediately after his panel organized by iWantMedia in Manhattan. He told me that while his company has had "an effect on newspapers," the notion that it has killed newspapers is "urban legend."New York Times media columnist David Carr was on hand at the event. After I spoke with Newmark, I asked David if Craig killed newspapers. He said the list shot the backend of newspapers" but didn't blame him.
Running time: 69 seconds
YouTube Music Sensation Merton on His T-Mobile Campaign
Merton, the American singer/piano player, whose videos on YouTube have garnered over 20 million views, has found a way to parlay his fame into a paying gig with a series of piano improv performances at several U.K. airports and other public venues, sponsored by T-Mobile.We spoke with him recently at the New Tee Vee Live conference.
Running time: 221 seconds


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The Road Ahead: Stuff A Bus for Children in Care
SPONSORED: The Regional Transportation Commission is teaming up with KOLO Cares and Washoe County to hold the 5th Annual Stuff A Bus for Children in Care. The event is a chance for people to donate a variety of items to children in foster and adoptive care. The event will happen at the Sparks Target near The Legends at Sparks Marina, November 3, 1:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Winter is right around the corner, so affected children need brand new, never-been-used winter items including boots, jackets, hoodies, socks, blankets, and more. Cash and gift card donations are also appreciated. Washoe County has about 630 local children in foster and adoptive care during any given year. There are people in our community who can’t foster kids but they still want to help out, so this event is a great opportunity.
Foster and adoptive parents volunteer for a huge responsibility when they choose to bring a child into their homes. The price of goods has risen quite a bit over the past few years, including the cost of food and clothing. Some of the most impacted by these increased prices are foster families.
Copyright 2023 KOLO. All rights reserved.


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Electric truck start-up
reported fourth-quarter results Thursday afternoon. Sales and the bottom line missed Street expectations.
That’s not as big a deal as guidance, which looks light, too. Rivian (ticker: RIVN) stock was tumbling in after-hours trading.
Rivian reported a loss of $ 4.83 a share on sales of $ 54 million. Wall Street had expected a loss of about $ 2 a share on sales of $ 64 million.
Sales and earnings, however, do not matter all that much right now. Rivian just started shipping vehicles. Investors and analysts are more interested in the production ramp-up at the company’s plant in Illinois.
The company delivered 920 vehicles in the fourth quarter. Rivian reported about 83,000 preorders as of Tuesday, up from some 71,000 in December.
Rivian plans to ship about 25,000 vehicles a year, compared to Wall Street’s projection for about 40,000 vehicles.
The production ramp is simply moving slower than expected. Rivian has made 2,425 vehicles, again as of Tuesday, with 1,410 of those produced in 2022. Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh was projecting first-quarter deliveries of about 4,000 units. That estimate looks like a stretch now.
Management pinned the slow ramp on supply-chain issues. “We need to go speak to and push harder on [suppliers] to make sure they’re ramping up as fast as the rest of our production line, ”said CEO RJ Scaringe on the company’s conference call. “But ultimately our ability to ramp this year will continue to be gated by the supplier ramps.”
Rivian stock was down almost 13% in after-hours trading. The stock closed down about 6.4% in regular trading. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
finished about 0.4% and 0.3% lower, respectively.
It was a tough day for many electric-vehicle producers.
(TSLA) shares dropped about 2.4%.
(NIO) American depositary receipts finished down almost 12%. Oil prices have fallen about 14% over the past two days, perhaps easing fears that gasoline prices would continue their march higher. High gas prices make EVs look more attractive at the margin, compared to traditional vehicles.
Investors should brace for stock volatility Friday. Options markets implied Rivian stock would move about 18%, up or down, following earnings.
Moves like that may be hard for investors to stomach, but the expectation for volatility after the Rivian earnings report probably won’t come as a surprise. Heading into Thursday, Rivan stock has moved more than 4%, up or down, in 11 of the past 13 trading sessions.
What’s more, as of the close of trading Thursday, Rivian stock is down almost 60% year to date, and is off almost 77% from a record high of almost $ 180 a share. Inflation, rising interest rates, and the Russian-Ukraine war have sapped some investor willingness to hold richly valued high-growth stocks.
Rivian qualifies as one of those. Shares trade for roughly 12 times estimated 2022 sales.
Rivian itself deserves some blame for recent stock declines, too. Early in March, shares dropped 13.5% after the company tried to raise prices for its vehicles for existing reservations. The company reversed its decision a day or two later.
Management said on their earnings conference call that the company did reservation cancellations after the pricing action. But after price increases were rolled back on existing reservations “we got massive reinstatement requests and more than half of our customers requested to reinstate,” added Scaringe.
Overall, it looks like a tough quarter for a company that is going through some initial growing pains.
Corrections & Amplifications:
Rivian shares trade at 12 times estimated sales. An earlier version of this article said it traded at 12 times estimated earnings.
Write to Al Root at email@example.com


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Jaya upset as photogs call Aishwarya by her name
26th October 2013
Media has been calling her by her first name at various interviews and continues to do so, but seems like this is not going down well with hubby Abhishek and Mom-in-law Jaya Bachchan
Last year at a fashion event, Abhishek was sarcastically seen lashing at a journo to his wife Aishwarya when the lady called her Ash.
At a recent event too, where the two were announced brand ambassadors of a kitchenware brand, Abhishek made it clear that his wife be called Aishwarya and not Ash.
However, mum-in-law Jaya went a step ahead.
At Subhash Ghai's bash for his wife Rehana, when photogs wanted the Bachchan Bahu to pose for them, they called her by her first name. When senior Mrs. Bachchan heard it she said, "Kya Aishwarya Aishwarya, tumhari class me padhti thi kyaa?" (Why are you calling her Aishwary? Was she your classmate?)
Oops!!! Guess the media should have also been told what she should be called.


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From Software showed a trailer of their new game that they’ve developed. There have been rumors about the new Dark Souls game and has been officially revealed at the Microsoft conference at E3.
So far the only thing we’ve seen is only a CGI trailer, which shows no gameplay. From Software also recently released Bloodborne, which was critically well received by journalists. From Software is known for creating Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne.
Stay tuned for updates for this game during E3.
Update: Check out the Trailer.
Share your thoughts in the comments below.


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Vivo’s iQOO is best known for high-end devices. iQOO, sub-brand from Vivo, has launched the 7 phones in 2019. Now at the start of 2020, the company is planning to bring another iQOO phone. A new certification from China’s 3C certification agency revealed a phone with the V1950A model number. According to the rumours, this could be the Vivo iQOO 3 5G. The model has also appeared on the IMEI database earlier.
Vivo iQOO 3 5G Passes Certification in China with 44W fast Charging
The certification revealed that the phone will come with 5G connectivity. Moreover, it will come with 44W fast charging. The listing does not reveal much about the device. But according to some rumours, the phone will come with the Snapdragon 865 chipset alongside the X55 5G modem.
Moreover, the phone will come with at least four cameras on the back in my opinion. Also, the phone may come with dual selfie cameras.
Surely, we will get more information about the phone in the coming days. As the Mobile World Congress is going to held next month. So, there are chances that the phone will launch then.


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Target On Wednesday, it missed quarterly sales expectations and cut its full-year forecast as it again struggled to persuade buyers to buy more than needed.
The big-box retailer cut both its full-year sales and profit expectations. Although some senior economists dismissed calls for a recession and government data showed inflation cooling, Target offered a more gloomy outlook.
The company said it now expects comparable sales to decline in the mid-single digits for the full fiscal year and earnings per share to range between $7 and $8. Previously expected comparable sales are expected to range from a low-single-digit decline to a low-single-digit increase, and earnings per share are expected to be between $7.75 and $8.75.
Struggling shares of Target rose 3% on Wednesday despite a soft forecast as second-quarter earnings beat expectations and inventory levels improved. Investors also had low expectations for the company, which was reflected in the sharp drop in share prices heading into Wednesday this year.
CEO Brian Cornell said in July that Target’s sales and store traffic were improving. However, the company said it was wary of trends in the second half of the year, including rising interest rates, student loan repayments due this fall and everyday items still becoming more expensive.
“As we look at the consumer landscape today, we recognize that the consumer is still facing the same levels of inflation that they’re seeing in food and beverages and household items,” he told reporters in a call. “So it eats up a bigger chunk of their budget.”
Here’s what Target reported compared to Refinitiv consensus estimates for the three-month period ended July 29:
- Earnings per share: $1.80 vs. $1.39 expected
- Revenue: $24.77 billion, expected to be $25.16 billion
Sales slide after Covid hit
Target’s struggles to capture shoppers in the face of inflation have dragged down the company’s stock. As of Tuesday’s close, the S&P 500 is up 15%, but its shares are down 16% this year. Its shares hit a 52-week low of $124.96 on Tuesday, nearly halving from their pandemic peak.
The target’s problems continued in the most recent three-month period. Total revenue was down about 5% from $26.04 billion a year earlier.
Comparable sales, a key indicator that tracks sales online and at stores open at least 13 months, fell 5.4%. That’s a steeper decline than the 3.7% decline analysts were expecting, according to StreetAccount’s consensus estimate.
Comparable store sales were down 4.3%. Digital comparable sales were down 10.5%
Cornell said sales softened through June before rebounding in the second half of May and July. He said the Fourth of July holiday and the competing Target Week during Amazon Prime Day helped boost results.
Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke told reporters that it’s hard to say which factors had the biggest impact on Target’s slower sales. Among them, customers continued to pay more for food, energy and rent while buying less clothing, home decor and other non-essential items. compared to the company’s sales decreased period a year ago, when steep discounts helped clear excess inventory and boosted purchases.
And Target faced backlash at the end of May for its collection of products celebrating Pride month, including some items it later pulled after threats were made against employees. The decision to remove certain items drew more criticism.
Cornell said the “negative reaction” to Target’s Pride collection had a significant impact on sales. But he defended the company’s response, saying Target had “seen things go back to normal” in June after it removed some items out of concern for employee and customer safety. He said the collection will continue for Pride month and other heritage months.
Return to higher profits
Even as sales slumped, the retailer’s profits rebounded. Target’s fiscal second-quarter net income rose to $835 million, or $1.80 per share, from $183 million, or 39 cents per share, a year earlier. It beat analysts’ expectations.
In the previous quarter, the retailer’s quarterly profit fell nearly 90% as it struggled with a backlog of unsold merchandise. It took aggressive steps to cancel orders, mark down prices and clear inventory as customers bought less popular pandemic categories and became more frugal due to inflation.
Fiddelke highlighted Target’s success in reversing some of these trends.
“We’ve talked about this year being a really important year in terms of growing the profitability of the business, and for the team to take a big step forward despite softer-than-expected sales in the second quarter is a really big step forward on that trip,” he said.
In addition to company-specific measures, the discounter said it also benefits from lower prices, cheaper freight costs, reduced supply chain and online fulfillment costs, and lower retail prices. But he said higher shrinkage hurt profits, partly due to organized retail crime.
At the end of the quarter, inventory decreased by 17% compared to the previous period. Lower inventory also reflects a 25% year-over-year decline in discretionary categories, Target said.
Over the past year, Target has shaken up its product mix to lean toward high-frequency categories like groceries and household necessities. The company said growth in these areas helped offset declines in discretionary categories in the fiscal second quarter.
Christina Hennington, Target’s chief growth officer, said some items still convince customers to open their wallets, such as brightly colored Stanley tumblers, Barbie-themed merchandise and retailer-owned Taylor Swift vinyl.
Beauty also brings income. At Ulta Beauty at Target, it said sales in mini-stores in its stores more than doubled from a year ago. Sales of other beauty products grew by double digits. Snacks, sweets and beverages, meanwhile, drove growth in Target’s food and beverage category.
As Target tries to boost sales for the rest of the year, the retailer said focuses on offering affordable prices, stocking frequently purchased items, and capitalizing on key seasons like back-to-school.
“We’re going to play the long game,” he told reporters on a call. “We’re not carrying our range for a moment, but we’re going to address what Target does.”


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Navi Mumbai: Homemakers are having a very difficult time as after the onion and potato, the price of vegetables has skyrocketed. Most of the vegetables are being sold over Rs 80 per kg in the retail market as the supply dipped in the wholesale market. The excessive rainfall during September damaged the crop, resulted in poor supply.
While the festival is already underway, most of the vegetables are being sold above Rs 80 to Rs 100 per kg in retail. Cauliflower is being sold at Rs 100 per kg while brinjal at Rs 80 per kg in the retail market. Other green vegetables are commanding above Rs 80 or Rs 100 per kg. There is almost a 100 per cent rise in vegetable price from the beginning of the month. Even the price of leafy vegetables has also quadrupled.
As per the traders at APMC, the crops damaged due to heavy rainfall in September and the quality also affected. “The heavy rainfall severely damaged the crop and now we are getting in the market are either very costly or not of good quality,” said Rajendra Mandalik, a trader at the APMC. He added that there will be no respite for at least a fortnight. “The price will come down only after new crop will start arriving in the market which will take at least from a fortnight to one month,” added Mandalik.
If we compare the price of vegetables from the first week of October and today, there is at least 100 per cent rise in prices. Cauliflower, which was available between Rs 30 to Rs 40 per kg last week, is now available at Rs 100 per kg. Even tomato which was between Rs 20 and Rs 30 per kg in the retail has reached Rs 60 per kg.
Surpiya Rai, a Nerul resident says that she is depending upon soybean and whole pulses. “Normally, green vegetables are available at a very low price during this period. However, at present, most of the vegetables are very costly and it is difficult to manage the monthly budget,” she said.
On October 24, APMC received 482 tempo and 63 trucks laden with vegetables. According to traders, if we look at the number of vehicles entered in the market, it seems it is normal. However, the fact is that the quality is not good and the shelf life of vegetables arriving in the market is poor. “Many of the vegetables are missing completely in the market or very little supply. And whatever is coming is not of good quality leading to price rise,” said the trader.


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It wasn’t long ago that Disney (DIS) stock was mired in underperformance and critics had basically cast the company aside because the traditional cable model is dying. For years, I’ve sung high praises of Disney, not because of its distribution but because of its best-in-class content and the multi-tiered ecosystem that management has built. Heck, a few summers ago, I wrote this piece while I reported live from Disney World that the sky was indeed not falling. It’s this ecosystem that makes Disney unique in the media space and a really easy stock for me to own. The way I see it, no other company can better monetize its content-related intellectual property. And with the Disney+ streaming service on the way, we’ll see yet another avenue of monetization added to the Disney ecosystem. I suspect this will not only lead to increased revenues and earnings, but a sustained higher multiple on shares as well.
Disney recently reported earnings, yet it appears that the company’s Q2 was fairly inconsequential. Revenues were up 3% and comparable earnings were down 13%, yet that wasn’t the focus. I say comparable because the company’s diluted EPS was actually up 81% y/y coming in at $3.53/share, yet management instead focused on the $1.61 figure that excluded one-time items. This makes sense, because that $3.53 comparison would have been nearly impossible to beat a year from now.
This was the first quarter that Disney reported with the newly acquired Fox assets tallied in, yet it’s too soon for those to have really made an impact yet. The Twenty First Century Fox segment added just $373 million in revenues and $25 million in operational earnings. These results will obviously be much higher in the future. But the focus wasn’t on the financial impacts in the short term, but instead, the great things that Disney CEO Bob Iger had to say about the perceived value of the Fox assets long term and the tremendous talent that was bought over in the Fox deal that now operates under the Disney umbrella. Although Fox isn’t yet contributing much to DIS’s balance sheet, in the Q2 conference call, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy highlighted the company’s plans to deliver at least $2 billion in synergies in the first 2 years of the deal and said they remain on track.
The market seemed to shrug off Disney’s earnings and continue to focus on the streaming upside. This has been the case for about a month now. Disney highlighted its streaming ambitions during its annual Investor Day presentation back on April 11th, and ever since, the market has had an insatiable desire for DIS shares.
During that presentation, Iger and Co. broke down the company's streaming plan. Disney’s streaming service will be called Disney+, and it is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of 2019. The service will be priced at $6.99/month and offer content from 5 Disney brands: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic.
Management also highlighted the unparalleled success of these brands. Since 2006, the Disney and Pixar brands have produced a combined 22 films that averaged $690 million apiece at the box office. Since 2009, Marvel had produced 18 films with an average of $960 million at the box office (and it’s important to remember that the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame is not included in these statistics, since it was launched after the Investor Day presentation). And since 2012, the Star Wars brand is responsible for 4 films, which have averaged $1.2 billion at the box office. All in all, since 2006, Disney’s studio segment has produced 44 films that have earned a cumulative $37+ billion at the box office, which is good for an $850 million per film average. Disney has producing highly entertaining, highly profitable content down to a science. No other studio can match these success rates.
Disney+ has most of the hype surrounding it, but it’s not the only streaming effort that the company has embarked upon in recent years. It’s clear to Disney brass that the company needs to diversify its distribution channels to meet the wants and needs of consumers, and last year, this idea spawned the ESPN+ app. Since then, the ESPN+ digital platform has continued to show strong growth. The platform now has over 2 million subscribers, and management noted that growth remains high as it adds content. Disney wants sports fans to view ESPN+ as a "must-have" accessory.
Hulu appears to be the third leg in the stool that will make up the Disney streaming strategy. Hulu currently has more than 25 million paid subscribers in the U.S., and after the Fox deal, Disney now owns roughly two-thirds of this platform. AT&T (T) recently sold off its small stake in Hulu, and there are rumors that Disney is in talks with Comcast (CMCSA) to buy that company’s stake, giving it sole ownership. Hulu is where users will find much of Disney’s non-sporting related, adult-oriented content, and assuming that it will retain partnership with Time Warner and Comcast, Hulu has the power to rival Netflix (NFLX) in terms of content production.
It certainly won’t be cheap for Disney to produce all of the original content required to drive long-term interest in its streaming platforms. However, CEO Bob Iger has said in the past the Disney won’t have to spend nearly as much as rival Netflix, which bodes well for his company’s bottom line. Furthermore, Disney has the advantage of already being a cash cow of a company. It will be able to use the cash flows from other operations (and the existing cash flows produced by more traditional distribution outlets) to help its streaming platforms flourish.
I really like Disney’s approachable pricing strategy in this regard. ESPN+ only costs users $4.99/month and/or $49.99/year. As stated, the Disney+ service won’t cost much more at $6.99. Combined, this is still well below the monthly price that Netflix charges. In a day and age where skinny bundles continue to grow more and more expensive, the Disney services should look like true bargains, allowing it to quickly and easily gain a foothold in this ever-important area of the media space. This is especially nice, because while I’m excited about the company’s streaming potential, I’ll be the first to say that management missed the original boat when it came to streaming and they certainly have a lot of catching up to do.
But right now, Disney’s content reaches more than 100 million households in the U.S. Iger has recently talked about his company’s ability to spread awareness and excitement about the upcoming launch with the existing distribution in place. This advertising reach is something that no other streaming play can match (Amazon (AMZN) can come close with its Prime members, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare Disney+ to Amazon Prime Video in terms of the content; Disney has that game won by a wide margin). I suspect that Disney will do all that it can to leverage the existing eyeballs on its traditional media sources while they last. I think this will ensure an orderly transition from traditional distribution to OTT as time moves on.
Streaming services remains a highly competitive market. Yet, this market is so large, that there appears to be more than enough room for a handful of players to succeed. With the Fox assets under its belt, Disney now has by far the world’s largest film studio and a very impressive content library. During its Investor Day presentation, the company used a few slides to note the exceptional size of the OTT market. The company states that in 2010, the global streaming viewership was at 20 million hours. This global figure is expected to grow to 1.2 billion hours by 2020, meaning that streaming consumption has posted an annual growth rate of ~50% over the past decade. Improving technology and internet penetration should continue to serve as fuel for this secular trend.
This is especially the case in emerging markets, where Disney is focused on building brands and taking market share. For instance, the Fox acquisition helped Disney make a strong entrance into the Indian market via its Hotstar platform, which can be a strong growth engine for the company moving forward. The 5G revolution is expected to play a large role in the increased demand for streaming content as well.
I really like the Hotstar app. It basically combines streaming content with interactive gaming (and potentially gambling) and social media. To me, this type of platform represents the media consumption of the future. In the past, I’ve written about why Disney might want to consider acquiring a social media platform like Twitter (TWTR). I think that ship has sailed, because Twitter’s market cap is much higher now than it was when I discussed that potential option for Disney (Disney’s debt is also much higher now after the Fox acquisition, and I don’t see the company making a bit M&A move anytime soon while it's focusing on repaying debt). But the Disney streaming service (formerly BamTech) is a great streaming platform, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the social aspects of viewership implemented in Disney’s OTT universe, especially with the ESPN+ app assuming sports gambling becomes legalized/less taboo (which I think is the way we’re heading).
In short, it appears that Disney has hitched its wagon to a very attractive secular growth trend and has assets in place in many of the world’s largest markets. It’s clear why the market is willing to place a much higher premium on shares. Right now, at $131/share, Disney is trading for ~20x forward earnings expectations. This is well above the market multiple, yet it’s still below the company’s long-term trailing 12-month average multiple of 20.6x.
(Source: F.A.S.T. Graphs)
To me, the 3-year consolidation that we saw from 2016-2018 turned this company into a coiled spring, and I still don’t think shares are overvalued. Disney isn’t expected to post much (if any) EPS growth in 2019 or 2020 as it invests heavily in OTT services, so if the share price rises much higher, it will likely be a few years before the bottom line results help to justify the company’s valuation. However, it’s worth noting that the other digital media players all trade with much higher multiples than Disney still, and while I don’t ever think DIS will trade with a sort of speculative, high-growth technology sort of premium, I do think that it can compete with the big tech names who’re trying to take market share in the streaming space, and because of this, I don’t think that a 22x-25x multiple is out of the question.
Personally, I wouldn’t be buying Disney shares at those levels, but that’s because I already have such a large position (Disney is my second-largest holding, making up ~6.5% of my portfolio). The sentiment surrounding shares has surely turned, and now I suspect that the prior $120 resistance level will turn into support. Around that $120 area, I think the stock gets really interesting for long-term investors.
With that in mind, even near all-time highs, I think DIS stock has relatively small downside when you think about its short-term growth prospects. The company is set to have a record-breaking film year in 2019 (Avengers: Endgame is on its way to becoming the highest-grossing movie ever on the big screen), and with the streaming launches on the horizon, I think this magical run-up could just be getting started.
The article was previously published for members of The Dividend Growth Club.
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Disclosure: I am/we are long DIS, AMZN, T. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.


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Total U.S. retail sales rose by 0.8% last month, exceeding economists’ forecasts, but down slightly from February’s 1% gain.
The continued rise defied expectations of a slowdown in spending caused by higher gasoline prices… although some economists note that lower home-heating bills due to unseasonably warm temperatures offset those higher costs.
As a result of sustained strength in consumer spending, economists are fine-tuning expectations, as the data suggests the economy may not have slowed as much as feared in the opening months of the year.


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Big tobacco's PMI makes another pharma foray with Vectura deal
Tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) has doubled down on its move into the pharmaceutical sector, following up its recent acquisition of Fertin Pharma with a deal to buy Vectura for around £1 billion ($1.38 billion).
PMI is paying 150 pence per share for Vectura, trumping a 139 per share offer from private equity firm Carlyle Group agreed in May. The UK pharma company says it has now withdrawn its recommendation to shareholders to accept that deal.
Last week's $820 million agreement with Fertin – a manufacturer of nicotine gums – was within PMI's focus of tobacco and nicotine products – and part of the company's strategy to make 50% of its revenues from smoke-free products by 2025.
Buying Vectura is a very different move, billed by PMI as a way to "leverage its capabilities in life sciences, product innovation, and clinical expertise". It also signposts a long-term strategic shift for PMI as it faces declines in tobacco smoking in big markets that are not being replaced by a shift to nicotine vapes.
Vectura has one characteristic that puts it very much in PMI's orbit – it focuses on the development of respiratory drugs, which the tobacco company says matches up with its focus on inhalation and aerosolisation devices.
In February, PMI said it wanted to make at least $1 billion in net revenues from areas adjacent to its current nicotine-based business – including respiratory drug delivery and 'selfcare wellness' – by 2025.
The company made $70 billion in sales last year, down from $78 billion in 2019, while Vectura's turnover was around $245 million.
Chief executive Jacek Olczak said PMI has the "commitment to science and the financial resources to empower Vectura's skilled team to execute on an ambitious long-term vision".
Vectura is in the midst of a business restructuring that has seen it pivot away from developing its own respiratory therapies and towards an outsourcing model in which it provides contract development and manufacturing services to other biopharma companies.
Most recently, it partnered with UK startup Inspira on a project to develop an inhaled therapy for COVID-19 based on a plant-derived compound that is due to start clinical trials next year.
Shares in Vectura – already riding high in the wake of the Carlyle agreement – leaped another 13% in early morning trading and are up around 50% on the start of the year.
PMI reckons that by deploying Vectura's inhalation expertise and Fertin's oral delivery platforms it can build "a pipeline of products across a broad range of sectors" in the prescription drug and over-the-counter (OTC) categories.
Vectura's efforts to develop its own therapies met with mixed results, and the company was hit particularly hard in 2018 when it abandoned phase 3 drug candidate VR475 for severe uncontrolled asthma.
The Chippenham-based company has an asthma drug on the market called Flutiform (fluticasone propionate/ formoterol fumarate) which is sold by Mundipharma, a generic version of GlaxoSmithKline's Advair (fluticasone propionate/salmeterol) partnered with Hikma, and other inhaled and non-inhaled products that generate royalty streams.
It also gets royalties on sales of GSK's Ellipta range of respiratory drugs which amounted to £13 million in the first quarter of this year.
PMI said it will fund the transaction with cash and expects it to close in the second half of this year.
Image by Ralf Kunze from Pixabay


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HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – With the biggest shopping weekend of the year underway, local officials are encouraging residents to shop local.
Havre Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Julea Robbins says to help support this effort, her office has created a receipt sweepstakes.
“It’s pretty simple. When you go out and shop at a Chamber member business, take a photocopy or a photo of your receipt. Drop it off at the Chamber, send it in via email, or send it to our Facebook page, and you’ll be entered to win some local merchandise, which is pretty awesome.”
This promotion runs through December 7th, with additional incentives possible for those that post a picture of the merchandise and tag the Chamber on social media.
Chinook Chamber President Daniel Dahl says he also wants people to shop local.
“It’s probably the best thing this year for that. We rely on Amazon and Wal-Mart and all these stores all year long because they were open. Our stores are still open so lets support them by shopping local this year.”
So when you are doing your holiday shopping, remember that you can help out the local community if you shop local.


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Roku is thinking outside its set-top box in an attempt to bring more Internet video to flat-panel televisions.
South Korea's Samsung Electronics will this year focus on developing new products and tapping into new businesses to get ahead of competitors amid the global economic slowdown, its chairman said Monday.
Every year gadgets and their accessories are the hot gifts to give and get.
(AP) -- Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire tablet, which started shipping this week, costs $201.70 to make, a research firm said Friday. That's $2.70 more than Amazon charges for it.
As shoppers gear up for another mad holiday scramble, smartphones and tablet computers are emerging as Santa's electronic helpers.
Electronics sales are set to light up an otherwise dreary US holiday shopping season, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.
Thousands of US libraries on Wednesday began lending digital books over the Internet for reading on Amazon's popular Kindle devices.
US videogame publishing titan Electronic Arts is merging blockbuster titles with social play, popular new gadgets and downloadable content in a changing world of interactive entertainment.
US consumers are more likely to buy a smartphone than any other electronic gadget this year, according to a new survey.
After spending last week at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a common question is: What was the best thing I saw at the show?


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Patel: It's now up to businesses, workers and consumers to curb COVID-19 spread
Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel said that the hard lockdown was a 'blunt instrument' but one that bought valuable time for the government.
CAPE TOWN - As the country prepares to move to level 3 from Monday, Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel said that this was the most significant reopening of the economy since lockdown began 63 days ago.
The easing of restrictions is expected to see around eight million people return to work, almost the entire workforce of the country, and includes an end to the ban on alcohol sales and religious worship, which will be allowed from Monday.
Patel said that key sectors of the economy, including retail stores, would be able to operate at full capacity, with only some exceptions.
Ebrahim Patel said that the hard lockdown was a "blunt instrument" but one that bought valuable time for the government.
While the lockdown helped contain the spread of the virus, it also inflicted huge damage on the economy and people’s livelihoods.
Patel said that lockdown evels 4 and 5 were about keeping most people at home. Now there’s a change.
"Level 3, instead, is based on most South Africans being at work – that’s the big shift in level 3. And the shift is therefore to a more flexible and collaborative set of arrangements, including regulations that enable businesses to do more."
Patel said that it was now up to businesses, workers and consumers as he warned that the number of infections was still likely to rise.
"So the focus does shift to businesses and workers, to consumers taking careful measures to avoid or limit the spread of the virus."
WATCH: SA lockdown level 3: sale of alcohol, religious gatherings and schools open
For official information about COVID-19 from the Department of Health, please click here.


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“Another year, another Assassin’s Creed,” said one of my close friends last year around this time. He had obviously become quite exhausted of the franchise, and I couldn’t blame him: following the release of Assassin’s Creed II, it felt like the yearly installments of the game were beginning to diminish in quality with every release. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood seemed a bit forced, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations was probably the most forgettable title of the series, and Assassin’s Creed III struggled to deliver an experience that was as captivating as its core mechanics. Something needed to be done soon to uphold the high standard of action/adventure gameplay that the second game set, or else many would be writing off the series as yesterday’s flame.
Then Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag came along, introducing a plethora of new elements, a robust open world, and an overall new direction for the franchise. This game not only brought the Assassin’s Creed series back to prominence, but it set a precedent for the future of the AC games. A future that has arrived now, with Assassin’s Creed: Unity just a little under a month away.
Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with the game’s creative director Alexandre Amancio for a chat about what’s to come when the game releases this November. Take a look in the video above.
For more on the Assassin’s Creed franchise, check out today’s episode of Nerdist: Play.
Are you excited for Assassin’s Creed: Unity? Let us know in the comments, or chat with me about it on twitter @Malik4play.


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For the last six months, The Economist has centered its social media strategy on driving people back to its site to subscribe, and its efforts are bearing fruit.
Since changing its social media strategy to drive traffic from social media back to its own pages where people can register and, ultimately, subscribe, the publisher has grown monthly referral traffic from social media platforms by 180%. Now, about a third of its site traffic comes from social platforms, said Kevin Young, head of social at The Economist, although he was unwilling to share specific figures on how many subscribers this is driving.
The change in focus comes as more publishers favor the regularity of direct reader revenue to the volatility of a digital ad market in flux, battered by disappearing third-party site-tracking cookies, tightening privacy regulations and threats from Google and Facebook’s abundance of logged-in audiences. Now, publishers are pulling every lever to reach core strategic goals. For the Economist, which has always charged for content and so has long ago converted its core cohort, the challenge is sustaining growth and retention.
This growth in referral traffic is thanks largely to increasing team size, content output and taking a more granular approach to how it resurfaces popular content on social platforms with subscriptions in mind. Previously, The Economist’s approach was to share more content on social media rather than to focus on the content that drove most visits to site.
“The goal has been to better showcase our journalism on social media by bringing together content and talent from across the newsroom and move towards a more fully integrated digital strategy,” said Young.
Instead of different editors publishing to different platforms, the publisher has combined its 10 social editors to all work across all platforms. Another 10 staffers have social posting as part of their wider remit.
While creating content that’s bespoke for each platform and tailored to its audience has been the recommended approach for years, there was more The Economist could do to differentiate the content published on each platform. Teams working across the publisher’s data, graphics, photography, video and radio departments collaborate to create more tailored content. One result of this is “Weekend Reads” on Instagram Stories, which it launched in April, showcasing six of its best articles each Sunday using images, illustrations, graphics, audiograms and slideshows, to encourage repeat visits.
“The quickfire nature and regular slot for this Instagram Story are designed to encourage repeat visits and build loyalty among our followers,” said Young.
The Economist is looking more closely at content that has performed well, for instance, its Leaders and Briefings sections, which cover the week’s five most important stories and a deep dive into a specific topic, respectively. The Climate Issue briefing has brought in the most subscriptions from its digital output over the past six months.
“Such data can help to inform our decisions on which articles we reprise, or put into higher rotation when scheduling social output,” said Young.
Instagram, where The Economist has 4.4 million followers, the lowest of all its social platforms, has been a key focus. The publisher began ramping up Instagram posts in earnest in April. Since September, The Economist publishes around 50 posts a week, in March this was closer to four, according to data from SocialBlade. This has led to an uptick in more than a million followers in the last six months. In October, the Instagram account pulled ahead of LinkedIn for monthly referrals for the first time.
As you’d expect, as the follower count has grown the engagement rate (how many people like and comment on posts) has gone down from 0.52% in December 2018 to 0.28% this October, according to CrowdTangle stats. The Economist’s most engaging post, with 134,000 likes and comments according to SocialBakers, was a contest to pick this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Award.
While softer metrics like follower and engagement rates can be a good proxy for loyalty, ultimately driving people to its site where they can subscribe is the end goal.
Previously, The Economist’s approach has been to share more content on social to warm users up, believing its journalism to be its strongest selling point. It has 1.6 million digital and print subscribers, of these 790,000 have a digital subscription, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. In a more competitive subscription landscape, social media content is playing a more strategic role and driving subscribers. The Economist is also using YouTube to drive subscribers, as part of a project funded by Google’s Digital News Initiative, where the video narrative points people back to the Economist, where they can subscribe, to hear more.
Media Briefing: What Axios’ sale says about the valuation of digital media companies
In this week’s Media Briefing, senior media reporter Sara Guaglione looks at what Axios's sale to Cox Enterprises signals about the current investment market for media companies.
Amid gloomy forecasts can ad tech weather the storm?
The recent Q2 results suggest there is more resilience and runway in the ad tech sector. But how long before push comes to shove?
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Jordan Shlacter, head of research, Activision Blizzard Media Entertainment choices have never been more abundant, and gaming has emerged as one of the biggest winners in the battle for audiences’ attention. While gaming’s exponential growth has been well documented — there are currently nearly 3 billion gamers worldwide spanning a diverse set of demographics, interests […]
La razón por la que Google y Samsung se asociaron con la personalidad de TikTok Addison Rae para una campaña nostálgica de los años 90
Este verano, Google y Samsung han lanzado su último esfuerzo de marketing conjunto, en el que los gigantes de la tecnología y el hardware aprovechan la nostalgia de principios de los años 90 y utilizan a la TikToker Addison Rae como musa de la generación Z. En su nueva campaña publicitaria con Rae, Google cuenta […]
Las publicaciones invierten en más reporteros especializados en criptomonedas
La semana en que el mercado de las criptomonedas se desplomó a mediados de junio, Fortune envió a Jeff Roberts una oferta para convertirse en su editor de criptografía y supervisar la creación de un equipo de periodistas. Estas circunstancias llevaron a la redactora jefe de Fortune, Alyson Shontell, a hacer una pausa y a […]


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We are delighted to announce that Lemberg Solutions has been recognised as a leader in consumer and enterprise app development markets. The research was conducted by SourcingLine - a US research firm focused on IT and digital marketing services.
"There are a number of core skills and capabilities that cut across both consumer and enterprise applications. But at the same time, there are nuances to each market," stated Tim Clarke, Senior Analyst at SourcingLine. "Consequently, you will see a mix of firms in each piece of research.”
Recently, Lemberg Solutions has been featured on the Leaders Matrix of the UK Top Mobile Application Developers by SourcingLine, and was also named as leading Drupal development firm (please note that this research is still in progress).
As SourcingLine's representatives say, their effort to identify the top mobile developers will be ongoing and they encourage firms with a proven record to apply to participate in updates to their research. Upcoming publications will highlight firms in gaming, UX/UI, sales enablement, and educational mobile apps.
One of the keys to Lemberg’s success is positive clients’ feedback, and we’d like to say a huge thank you to our clients and partners who took part in the interview process for SourcingLine.


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Rihanna finally unveiled her much-anticipated Fenty luxury clothing line with LVMH at an intimate preview in Paris on Wednesday. Dressed in a shoulder-padded white blazer dress and nude strappy heels from the first collection, dubbed "Release 5-19," the fashion mogul revealed the inspiration behind the looks.
"It's about creating a style for women that makes them feel strong yet beautiful," she told the New York Times
. "So in my case, and for this particular drop, that is making pieces that embrace my shape, but also make my waist look small."
Ahead, see every look from the first drop. The collection will be available online starting Friday, with prices ranging from $200 to $1,100.
Getty Images for Fenty