text:
In August 2022, Forbes featured an article about super apps, which painted a gloomy picture of their future prospects on the U.S. digital market. The idea that an extremely successful e-commerce model that has taken over huge markets of Asia, Africa, and Latin America will fail to accumulate the same audiences in the U.S. seems reasonably odd and paradoxical.
In this article, we will debunk the arguments that speak against super apps’ potential and show how they are actually being incorporated by the American tech industry right now.
Coming off with a very bold statement, the Forbes observer claims that Americans don’t actually want super apps—narrow companies do. Well, let’s see what the statistical data has to say.
Recent studies by Statista and PYMNTS reveal that as of November 2021, around 67% of consumers in the United States were interested in having multiple digital experiences integrated into one super app.
The age distribution indicates that 35% of millennials are interested in a comprehensive channel for online banking and payment service, and 45% of them and 31% of bridge millennials want a convenience super app for groceries, health, work, social relationships, and the home.
The survey shows that super apps are sought after by the younger generation of users, the audiences who actively use technologies now and will continue to do so in the future.
The Economist Intelligence Unit report suggests that 61% of surveyed executives are sure that super apps will have a positive potential impact on their organization’s revenue over the next five years.
Finally, over 80% of surveyed experts think that super apps might become the dominant platform for digital commerce in five years, naming access to a more extensive customer network as a top benefit that super apps provide to their organizations.
That alone is enough to conclude that the demand for super apps is there and, what is more important, it is coming directly from the consumers.
Don't lose time. Download our free report to learn how super apps can benefit your unique business.
In Asia, super apps initially took off in part due to the region’s strict digital marketplace regulations. Left with little to no choice in their app stores, people jumped at the chance of having homegrown applications that hosted all the digital services one would ever need.
Now, Asian tech companies who followed the super app model are thriving: in 2021 Chinese WeChat made a revenue of $17.49 bn, Indonesian Gojek reached 170 mln users, and Singaporean Grab was operating in circa 400 cities with more than 214 million app downloads.
Asian super apps
In Latin America, where the digital market is rife with foreign applications and programs, super apps like OMNi and Rappi are taking over.
A Costa Rican super app OMNi launched in 2019 as a bike rental service in a region where people knew nothing about super apps and how they could be useful. In the year 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, it managed to become the country’s most popular app, extended across the entire Central American region, and added a neobank, a streaming service, taxi-hailing, healthcare, and food delivery services. By 2022 it will serve more than 60 million users across eight countries.
OMNI super app
Colombian super app Rappi started out in 2015 as a food and grocery delivery platform. However, in 2022, it now serves as a “deliver-everything” app, operates in 9 countries, is valued at $5.25 bn and even chased off Uber Eats from the region.
This proves the fact that a young super app can successfully compete with established tech giants, having an unprecedented efficiency and convenience as its main advantage.
Rappi super app
Launched in Togo in 2018 as a mobility service, today Gozem is expanding to eight countries, has more than half a million users and offers ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery, digital wallet, cashless payment, and healthcare services.
VodaPay, a recent super app from the country’s leading telecom operator, was designed to facilitate financial inclusion. It allows users to have a secure digital wallet, do online shopping, pay bills, buy water or electricity, send money and order food.
The app’s high adoption rate speaks for its success: 2.2 million downloads and 1.6 million users since its launch in 2021. Although the economic and technical development in the region is behind those of Asia and LATAM, the super app success scenario plays out pretty much the same: a high-frequency product layered on higher-value services brings millions of users to the app.
In Europe, a region that is very well familiar with advanced tech services, the idea of super apps is also taking root.
Glovo, a Spanish super app that launched in 2015, today operates in 26 countries offering food and groceries delivery, presents and drugstore goods, as well as an on-demand delivery. The company has recently crossed the $1bn valuation mark and became the second privately-held Spanish company to attain the “unicorn” status with 2.5 mln monthly active users and 50,000 active couriers.
Another European company Revolut, a UK-based neobank with more than 18 million users, 150+ mln transactions a month and a value of $33 bn, branded itself as a financial super app in 2020, adding to its financial and banking functionalities Revolut Stays, a new service for booking hotels. In 2023, it started expanding to the Middle East and Latin America, aiming to become the world’s biggest financial super app.
What unites all these diverse examples of super app gold rush is one common feature that makes supper apps so lucrative—they are convenient for the users. The only question left is whether they will manage to conquer new digital markets.
An ambition for a super app is shared and supported not only by its potential American users, but also the biggest tech companies out there.
In 2021, PayPal announced their ambition to develop a super app for advanced payment, shopping, savings, and finance management services. The app launched later that year and plans to keep on expanding its functionalities.
Uber and Walmart are also looking into the super app direction with their recent announcements of developing one-stop applications that will combine various services. While Walmart is preparing the ground for its financial services super app, Uber is chasing the winning strategy of many Asian super apps, adding to its mobility application a new product, Uber Explore, a service that allows its users to browse and book experiences.
During his Twitter acquisition campaign in the spring of 2022, Elon Musk directly mentioned a Chinese super app WeChat as a potential growth strategy for the American social media platform, saying that there was a real opportunity of creating a WeChat equivalent. What started out as just a messaging app, transformed into an almost all-encompassing digital ecosystem with circa 1 billion monthly users. Twitter, which has an audience of 217 million people and a massive public influence, can do the same.
“The coming of super apps to the U.S. is not just around the corner, it’s already here.”
The Forbes article mentioned users’ underpowered devices as a major reason for the boom of super apps in Asia: when a phone cannot handle 40 to 50 different apps, a super app is just the thing to the rescue.
The majority of American smartphones, however, are capacious enough to store and run multiple applications. The only question here is whether anyone really needs to store 40 to 50 apps.
On average, Americans use only 9 apps on a daily basis. These nine apps can be perfectly integrated into one super app, creating a clearer and more organized digital experience, and saving device battery, which might be attractive to users and companies that are conscious about sustainable development.
Super apps wrap the most vital services into a convenient interface which provides users with effortless daily interaction and the apps—a solid user base. While the average retention rate for an app is about 12% after 7 days, the WeChat super app’s day 7 user retention rate stands as high as 98.3%.
Having once entered their data and signed up, users don’t need to hoard various accounts and memorize multiple passwords on their devices, instead, they engage in a faster and more frequent interaction with the app.
As the web privacy control gets stricter, super apps remain a safe space that users can trust with their data. Super app presents an enclosed digital ecosystem where the data stays within the system and is used to generate a more personalized content so that both the users and the partners of the super app benefit. Such an approach helps minimize the risks of cyber fraud and identity theft, and, consequently, increases user trust.
Malaysian super app Grab, for example, is developing its own ad service, GrabAds, which asks user permission for tracking and does not transmit user information to third parties. The data is used to match companies to verified and interested users, resulting in a more efficient and targeted advertising.
All things considered, super apps present a great e-commerce model that is seeing a rapid rise all over the world. With a solid consumer demand and proven history of success, it is only a matter of time when the next super app to shake the world emerges in America.
If you think this super app could be you, give us a shout! Fill out a short form below and we'll follow you up with a quick strategy planning call.


text:
duBreton pork bets on organic and Certified Humane niche markets
In order to meet the growing demand for their pork, in September 2015 the company committed to raising 300,000 more crate-free pigs by the fall of 2018, requiring an investment of $30 million.
By Heren Lammers-Herps, Ontario Hog Farmer
The future is bright for the organic and Certified Humane pork niche markets. That's according to Vincent Breton, President of duBreton, a North American leader in the production and processing of ethically-raised pork, who thinks supplying this niche market could help save the family farm.
'A portion of consumers are concerned about what they are eating, where it came from and how it was raised," says Breton. "l think this trend will continue to grow" he adds.
According to Breton, about one quarter of the pork they sell is produced on their own farms. The other 75 % is produced by a network of about 300 family farms in Ontario and Quebec. By providing a niche product, Breton says family farms can avoid the challenge of competing with big corporate factory farms.
ln order to meet the growing demand for their pork, in September 2015 the company committed to raising 300,000 more crate-free pigs by the fall of 201 8, requiring an investment of $30 million. Breton says the company welcomes inquiries from independent farmers willing to embrace the Certified Humane or organic models.
The Certified Humane principles aim to allow the animals to engage in natural behaviours such as rooting and playing in order to reduce stress and improve animal comfort. Pigs are raised on bedding. No crates or antibiotics, are used.
While Breton admits that meeting third-party certification standards is a big investment, he says it is worth it because it gives the consumer confidence in the product.
DuBreton Pork worked closely with the Whole Foods specialty grocery store chain in developing their production practices. "We adapted ourselves to industry leaders like Whole Foods," he says, adding that duBreton was the first company in Canada to qualify for the Certified Humane status.
There are many different types of certification but Certified Humane is one of the ones required by Whole Foods, says Breton. "Certified Humane has some traction in the industry in the US and Canada," he adds.
Now duBreton is going beyond the specialty stores, selling their meat through the big grocery store chains, including Sobey's, Metro, lGA, Loblaw's and Longo's in Canada and Costco in the US. Breton points out that all of the big chain stores now dedicate part of their store to organic products.
ln total there are .1000 points-of purchase for duBreton Pork in North America. DuBreton also supplies Chipotle's Mexican Grill, a restaurant chain that promotes their commitment to sustainability and animal welfare.
DuBreton is a company with a long history. Vincent Breton is the third generation to lead the company which was founded by his grandparents, Napoléon and Adrienne Breton in 1944.Through the years, the business has grown and innovated, first by specializing in pork, then by adding feed mills, pork processing and value adding. ln the late 1990's they began making the switch to organic and humanely raised pork after one of their buyers expressed interest.
Breton admits the costs of production are higher for the Certified Humane and organic models. He estimates production costs are about 50% higher for Certified Humane and twice as high for organic production compared to commodity pork. According to information on the company website, duBreton "compensates farmers fairly for their product, without the highs and lows of pricing in the pork commodity market.
"DuBreton's main plant is in Rivière-du- Loup, Quebec. The company also has an artisanal bacon plant in New Hampshire. About 1200 people are employed in total.
Being in the organic and Certified Humane niche allows them to compete with the big US companies that are ten times their size, says Breton.
DuBreton's retail products include ham, bacon, sausage, pork tenderloin, ground pork, ribs and other cuts of pork under multiple labels. Some of the pork chops and tenderloin cuts come pre-marinated for customer convenience. They have multiple labels including the green label organic and Certified Humane pork which is raised sustainably on organic feed, with outdoor access, and no animal by-products, antibiotics or GMOs. Their blue label Certified Humane Rustic Farm Pork label is raised crate-free without antibiotics or animal by products.
The company uses a multi-pronged approach to marketing. For example, in conjunction with National Bacon Day, duBreton surveyed Canadians on their bacon preferences and launched a social media campaign using the Twitter hashtag #duBretonDelicious. Cooking videos and dozens of recipes are also available on the company website.

domain: news


text:
BY RIANNE PEREDO
Businesses in various industries in the Northern Mariana Islands have been affected by the global COVID-19 situation, as well as the recent executive order of Gov. Ralph DLG. Torres.
One struggling section is the hotel industry, as well as the food and beverage industry..
The Hotel Association of the NMI reported a 55% average occupancy rate among 11 hotels in February. In a March 12 release, those hotels had a less than 20% percent unweighted average occupancy rate.
Gloria C. Cavanagh, general manager of the Pacific Islands Club Saipan, said of the five restaurants within the hotel, only one is open. “It doesn’t make sense [to remain open]. People choose to go to a hotel restaurant for the atmosphere. We will be closing room service after this week [of March 23]; there are customers still here.”
PIC will continue to accept room bookings. However, amenities such as room service and water park access will not be included, as the latter is one of the facilities that will be temporarily closed soon, according to Cavanagh.
Wendi Herring, general manager of the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan, said most of the hotel’s restaurants have closed and only a few are offering take out services during limited hours of operation. “Unfortunately, we have also lost our resident buffet lunch and brunch business but understand the necessity to adhere to the guidelines imposed by the governor in order to keep our community safe.”
Fiesta Resort’s room occupancy is currently five, according to Herring.
Additionally, locally owned restaurants have also experienced challenges. Some have chosen to temporarily close, while others have remained open for take-out and delivery only.
Glen Hunter, owner and general manager of The Shack Saipan, a restaurant which offers breakfast and lunch, said he has noticed significant changes. “We have had a reduction in service and sales. I think all businesses are really feeling the pinch right now.”
Hunter also said customers have been practicing social distancing when making and picking up orders, but he is concerned about the future of his business. “Our tourism [industry] is so solely dependent on those from Asia. … I’m a little worried because it’s a global disaster and catastrophe.”
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce’s staff have been working remotely since March 17.
Velma Ann M. Palacios, president of the Saipan Chamber’s board of directors, said the organization has shifted its focus to assist its members and the community with resources and information. “Many Chamber members, like the rest of us, are adapting day-by-day as the landscape changes.”
The chamber is also anticipating assistance on the federal level.
“At this time, we are all waiting on the U.S. government to work through its stimulus package. This will hopefully provide relief to the unemployed workers the businesses can no longer afford to employ,” Palacios said.
The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering federal disaster loans for small businesses — which includes those in the NMI — suffering substantial economic injury since Jan. 31 as a result of the coronavirus, according to a March 21 release.
Eligibility for Economic Injury Disaster Loans is based on the financial impact of COVID-19. The interest rate for small businesses is 3.75%, while private, nonprofit organizations is 2.75%. The deadline for applications is Dec. 21.
Gov. Ralph DLG. Torres’s amended executive order for the Northern Mariana Islands, effective March 24, includes more restrictions for businesses.
The order includes limiting business hours from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., with the exclusion of clinics and pharmacies. Businesses may operate, but not open to the public after the designated hours.
Torres declared a state of significant emergency and state of public health emergency for the NMI on March 16, following the March 15 announcement by the government of Guam of three confirmed COVID-19 cases. Guam has 45 confirmed cases — which includes one death —as of March 26. mbj


text:
If you own a Lumia device that runs Windows Phone 8.1 in China, rejoice as Microsoft China has just rolled out the Lumia Denim update. The Lumia Denim update has rolled out to the the Nokia Lumia 520, Nokia Lumia 525, Nokia Lumia 526, Nokia Lumia 625, Nokia Lumia 720, Nokia Lumia 720T, and the […]
Whether you like the game or now, Candy Crush Saga is the hottest game on mobile and on Facebook, with millions upon millions playing the game around the world. It looks like more people will be playing the game, as it is now available for Windows Phone.
The World’s Sweetest Game […]
The “McLaren” prototype that is believed to be the Microsoft Lumia 1030 has been leaked a number of times in the internet. It is a massive device with an equally massive 50-megapixel rear-facing PureView camera. Although reports said that plans to further develop the device has been shelved, this doesn’t explain why it has been […]
Microsoft has confirmed with The Verge that it will be dropping the Nokia brand in its handsets and will be replacing it with “Microsoft.” So future handsets will carry the brand “Microsoft Lumia” instead of current Windows Phone handsets that carry the “Nokia Lumia” branding.
The Verge reports:
Microsoft started dropping hints about its […]
According to previous reports, Microsoft is planning to drop the “Phone” from its “Windows Phone” branding. This means that the Redmond firms mobile platform will simply be called “Windows” just like its PC platform. Now, Neowin has gotten its hands on leaked photos that seemingly confirms the software giant’s said plan.
Of course, […]


text:
APA group is lambasted by Chinese government officials, newspapers and social media users over guestbook
One of Japan’s biggest hotel chains has sparked fury in China after placing a book in guest rooms claiming that the 1937 massacre of Chinese troops and civilians by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing was a “fabrication”.
Chinese media and government officials lambasted the Tokyo-based APA hotel group for distributing and selling the book, in which its chief executive, Toshio Motoya, disputes Chinese claims that the Japanese imperial army killed 300,000 people after it invaded the eastern city in December 1937.
Related: China remembers Nanjing massacre
Link : Japan hotel chain angers China over book’s denial of Nanjing massacre


text:
FierceWireless has partnered with TV advertising measurement firm iSpot.tv to bring you a snapshot of the wireless industry's advertising spending and digital engagement. The results below are for the top five biggest spenders in the wireless industry from Jan. 1 through Feb. 14.
Since the start of 2016, wireless brands have bolted out of the gate, spending more than $420 million on ads that ran more than 62,000 times across national TV. Verizon takes home the spending title again based on the past six weeks, followed closely by AT&T. Bolstered by Super Bowl ads, T-Mobile closes in third place, ahead of Sprint and MetroPCS.
Check out how these figures copmare with August, September, and November.
Here are the top 5 spenders in wireless in terms of advertising during the first six weeks of 2016:
1. Verizon accounted for nearly a fourth of the industry's spend during this period, with eight spots shown more than 9,300 times on national TV; those airings had an estimated media value of $103 million. The spend was mainly on "A Better Network as Explained by Colorful Balls," an ad that strives to illustrate the Verizon network's superiority with, you guessed it, colorful balls. It generated nearly 4 billion impressions on TV since the start of 2016.
2. AT&T placed 22 spots that ran 12,600 times -- the most spots and airings of any brand in the sector -- for an estimated media value of $87 million. Although coming to market with a wide assortment of commercials, it placed the bulk of its spend behind "Your Network" and "Video Chat," which racked up more than 1.3 billion TV impressions. In all, the brand had just over 2.7 billion impressions on TV since Jan 1.
3. Although accounting for less than 20 percent of the industry spend, T-Mobile leveraged its Super Bowl 50 ads into a mammoth digital response, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the sector's online engagement during the period. T-Mobile ran 17 spots a total of more than 9,000 times on national TV, generating more than 1.2 billion impressions with an estimated media value of $83 million. Although T-Mobile spent most on its "Burning Data" ad, another commercial, "Drop the Balls," earned the most social response.
4. Since the start of 2016, Sprint has run 10 spots more than 10,550 times across national TV; estimated media value: $58.5 million. Of those airings, more than 3,000 ran during primetime, generating 2.4 billion TV impressions. Sprint continues to put the bulk of its budget behind "The Biggest Deal in U.S. Wireless History," which since Jan. 1 has generated more than 1 billion TV impressions.
5. MetroPCS again takes fifth place, having run 12 ads nearly 6,700 times on national TV; estimated media value: $27.5 million. T-Mobile's sister provider spent most on its "Breakdance" ad.
ISpot's data does not include co-promotions or local market data. Click here for more on iSpot.tv's methodology.
The company's software leverages proprietary audio and video fingerprinting algorithms to automatically identify and extract TV commercials, movie trailers and show promos.
In the last 30 days, the company tracked 710.2 million explicit interactions with TV ads across 101.5 million unique consumers. These interactions include video plays, searches and social activity. The company also analyzes online views across YouTube and iSpot.tv, searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo! and social activity on Facebook (including Facebook private views) and Twitter.
The company tags over 40 different dimensions of metadata, including brand, agency, actors, products, songs, moods, URLs and other pertinent data, to create its results.


text:
Chan Will Help Advertisers Reach One Billion Viewers Across 150 Countries By Expanding NBCU’s One Platform Global Offering Through Innovation, Integration, and Partnerships With Sky, Apple News, and More
LONDON, UK & NEW YORK, NY – December 19th, 2022 – Today, NBCUniversal announced Maggy Chan as Managing Director and Executive Vice President of Global Advertising and Partnerships, effective January 16th, 2023.
Chan joins NBCU with a 25-year career in entertainment and media. Reporting to Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Global Advertising and Partnerships, NBCUniversal, Chan will be based in the U.K. and work closely with the division’s local and national teams to continue developing One Platform into a global, unified advertising solution.
In her new role, Chan will work with the international advertising and partnerships team across EMEA, Asia Pacific, and U.S. to diversify and expand NBCU’s advertising partnerships, grow the company’s global reach, and, above all, help advertisers reach one billion viewers across 150 countries. Chan’s hire marks another step forward in NBCU’s blueprint for the global future of advertising. It builds upon a growing portfolio of partnerships with Apple News, RTL AdAlliance, Sky Media and more, which have quintupled in revenue over just five years.
In addition to expanding NBCU’s advertising partnerships, Chan will further enable marketers to leverage the company’s full offering by introducing advertising capabilities at a global level across One Platform—including ad technology, commercial innovations, insights, research, and more.
“This industry is constantly changing, and I’ve always admired NBCUniversal’s ability to shape that change through partnership. Having devoted my entire career to growing relationships, I’m so thrilled to lead a team that’s poised to break new ground, in new places, with new partners. I’ve long been passionate about bringing audiences around the world the content they love. And with NBCUniversal’s incredible network of partnerships and cutting-edge technologies, there’s no limit to how far and wide we can extend our reach.”
-Maggy Chan, Managing Director and Executive Vice President of Global Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal
“Partnerships power this business, period. A decade ago, we set out to become the leading partnership platform in advertising. Now, that ambition has become a reality. Our partnership commitment has made NBCU a partnership company—but we’re just getting started. That’s why I’m so excited for Maggy to leverage her global perspective to help us continue creating a platform, network, and ecosystem that’s fueling growth for every business. I can’t wait for her to become the BBC’s best gift to NBCU since The Office.”
-Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Global Advertising & Partnerships, NBCUniversal
Chan succeeds KC Sullivan, who became President of CNBC in August 2022. Chan most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer, Global Distribution at BBC Studios, including channels & streaming, overseeing international content sales, commercialization of World News TV Channel, and advertising sales across WNTV and BBC.com.
NBCUniversal is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience. NBCUniversal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment television networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, world-renowned theme parks, and a premium ad-supported streaming service. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.


text:
The Metaverse has received a lot of attention in the past year, including at the corporate, government and even mass level.For example, South Korea has introduced a policy to build a Metaverse city. At the corporate level, there are many big moves, such as Meta of the “All In” Metaverse, Nvidia and Microsoft that are actively deploying the infrastructure of the Metaverse, and domestic players include Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba.
Today, let’s take a look at the Metaverse layout of Epic, a foreign game company that became popular because of “Fortnite”.
About Epic Games
Epic Games (Epic) is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was first founded in 1991 by Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein, and released the first commercial video game ZZT that same year. Epic developed Unreal Engine, a commercial game engine that also powers its in-house developed video games, such as Fortnite and the Unreal, Gears of War, and Infinity Blade series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named “Most Successful Video Game Engine” by Guinness World Records.
In April 2021, Epic announced that it had received $1 billion in financing, mainly for the development of the Metaverse, and Epic’s valuation reached $28.7 billion. In August 2020, when it completed a $1.78 billion financing, it was valued at only $17.3 billion. In eight months, Epic’s valuation has risen by 65.9%. Earlier, Tencent acquired 48.4% of the issued share capital of Epic Games for $330 million in July 2012.
Epic Games released a 3D first-person shooter in 1998. In 2006, Epic Games announced the best-selling game “Gears of War” based on the Xbox 360 game platform, launched the Epic Games Store in 2018, the beta version of Epic Online Services in 2019 and the acquisition of social video application Houseparty, and 2020 Launched Epic Games Publishing in 2008.
Released in 2017, Fortnite is a third-person shooter. Different from traditional shooting games, in “Fortress Night”, players can build houses through collected materials to defend against enemy attacks, and even create their own islands and maps, precisely because of these innovative The gameplay has also changed the player’s perception of shooting games, and it has made many hardcore players addicted to it, so it has set many records of shooting games.
Apple has a recent lawsuit with Epic Games, so we can know some of Epic Games’ financial situation. Epic Games released a financial statement to the court, and Fortnite generated as much as $9 billion in revenue for Epic between 2018 and 2019. In April 2020, the well-known American rapper Travis Scott held a virtual concert in “Fortnite”. At the time, there were more than 12.3 million online players, a record. In March 2019, Epic Games announced that the number of “Fortnite” players was about 250 million; in May 2020, Epic announced that the number of “Fortnite” registered players had exceeded 350 million.
Fortnite online concert
Epic Games also released the game’s Unreal Engine. Unreal Engine was launched in 1998, and after several iterations, the latest version, Unreal Engine 5, was released in May 2021. Unreal Engine is the world’s largest and most advanced open real-time 3D creation platform. Provide game developers with the required core technologies, data generation tools and basic support. Unreal Engine provides game developers with a foundation for visual game design that can be used to build, test, and release games of all types. Many game companies such as Electronic Arts, Sony, Ubisoft, and Jiuyou use Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to develop some games.
The Epic Games Store platform is a game platform launched by Epic Games, referred to as EGS, and currently has more than 500 games, similar to the Steam game platform. The Epic Games Store platform provides over 300 million users with one-stop downloads for games. According to the financial report released by Epic Games, players will spend $700 million on the Epic Games Store platform in 2020.
Partnering with LEGO and financing the development of the Metaverse
On April 7, 2022, the nationally renowned toy manufacturer LEGO and Epic Games announced a partnership to develop a child-centered virtual world (Metaverse) with the aim of creating an immersive and creative digital world for children of all ages .
And on April 11, 2022, Epic announced that it had raised $2 billion in a funding round to advance the company’s vision of building virtual worlds and supporting its continued growth. Epic’s funding round includes existing investor Sony Group Corporation, as well as KIRKBI, the family holding and investment company behind The Lego Group. The two parties will each invest $1 billion in Epic. In fact, as early as July 2020, Sony invested $250 million in Epic.
In response, Epic CEO and founder Tim Sweeney said that as Epic reimagines the future of entertainment and gaming, Epic needs to work with partners who share Epic’s vision. Epic found this out in a partnership with Sony and KIRKBI. This investment will accelerate Epic’s work to build the Metaverse and create spaces where players can have fun with friends, brands can build creative and immersive experiences, and creators can build and thrive in communities.
Kenichiro Yoshida, Chairman, President and CEO of Sony Group, said, “As a creative entertainment company, we are pleased to invest in Epic to deepen Sony’s relationship in the Metaverse, a space where creators and users share time. It is believed that Epic’s expertise, including its powerful game engine, combined with Sony’s technology, will accelerate processes such as developing new digital experiences and virtual production programs in sports.
The Metaverse is a Trillion Dollar Opportunity
Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic, is perhaps one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Metaverse since Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg. Today, Fortnite has grown rapidly from a popular multiplayer game to an online space where people socialize and big-name musicians host virtual concerts. Competing with Microsoft’s Minecraft (Minecraft) and the Metaverse’s first Roblox game of the same name, Fortnite pursues a Metaverse vision of a virtual environment, hoping to be the first to eat the big Metaverse cake.
On November 18, 2021, Tim Sweeney stated that in the next few decades, the Metaverse has the potential to become a trillion-dollar part of the world economy. For Epic, Roblox, Microsoft, Meta and all companies interested in the Metaverse come Said that the next three years will be crucial. It’s a race to get 1 billion users, and whoever gets 1 billion first will become the standard-setting leader. And the Metaverse is an internet-like term that no company actually owns.
Tim Sweeney also revealed two strategic layouts of Epic in the Metaverse. The first is to expand Fortnite from a game with 60 million monthly active users to an experience that could reach 1 billion in the future. Then there’s Epic’s desire to use content creation tools like Unreal Engine, which is based on 3D graphics, to enable companies across the industry to render 3D in real-time. Epic is currently working to build a suite of digital assets that can be deployed into film and TV and real-time gaming, extending from high-end consoles to low-end smartphones. Tim Sweeney said that while he doesn’t believe specialized hardware such as augmented or virtual reality glasses is necessary to access the Metaverse, Epic is working with all designers and manufacturers of such devices.
Epic’s exploration of the Metaverse
In fact, Epic has already started laying the groundwork for a lot of the Metaverse in Fortnite. The smash hit multiplayer game is essentially a platforming space for the Metaverse concept. It’s a massive social space that’s now well beyond its original positioning as a fighting game. Players can create their own avatars and choose from a collection of skins for countless IPs. They use the game’s unique currency, V-Bucks, to buy items that only exist in digital space. Players gather to watch concerts, movies, and more in-game.
But “Fortnite” is still not a complete Metaverse, it is just a part of the Metaverse. Epic has also invested in Core, a creation platform that lets players build games and digital worlds, an investment that shows it still wants to continue to expand the reach of virtual worlds through player-built approaches.
It’s worth noting that Epic isn’t the only company taking this approach. Roblox, the first share of the big hot Metaverse, has gradually evolved from a children’s game to a comprehensive global platform. The way these two companies build and expand the Metaverse will put a certain amount of pressure on Meta, because they both involve users in the construction of the Metaverse.
In addition to allowing users to participate in the construction of virtual worlds, Epic has also introduced popular IPs such as Batman, Star Wars and Halo into Fortnite, making the skins or avatars of the entire world more diverse. This will also attract related IP fans to enter, and will also make the entire virtual world more vivid.
“Fortnite” game scene
Lowering the Barrier for Unreal Engine
Today’s mainstream game engines (third-party) include Epic’s Unreal Engine and Unity Engine. In contrast, the Unity engine is simpler and easier to use than the Unreal Engine, but not as technically as the Unreal Engine. This has led to the fact that Unity is currently the mainstream engine for mobile games (mobile games), while Unreal Engine is the engine used for relatively complex high-quality games.
Now Epic is lowering the bar for Unreal Engine to make it more popular. If you want to enter the Metaverse, you need to have more developers participate in it and build the Metaverse spontaneously, just like Roblox. The ultimate goal of Unreal Engine is to make content producers more efficient. Developing a game is a time-consuming, costly, and labor-intensive job. And an easy-to-use Unreal Engine can speed up game development. In order to achieve the above goals, Epic needs to spend a lot of effort to make the Unreal Engine easier to use and use, so as to attract more beginners to use it, so as to continuously create virtual worlds, attract more users to participate, and form a positive cycle.
Epic is doing this by partnering with other companies like Manticore Games. Manticore Games, the developer and publisher of game production platform Core, closed a $100 million Series C financing on April 1, 2022, to continue development of its user-generated game creation platform Core. The financing was led by XN, with additional investors including Vision Fund 2, London Venture Partners, Epic Games, Benchmark, and others.
Core is similar to the Unreal Engine version of Roblox. However, compared to Roblox, Core’s modeling is more detailed.Core hopes to leverage the high performance and expressive power of Unreal Engine to provide easy-to-use tools for developers who want to create more realistic and effect-rich virtual worlds. Similar to Roblox, the creation on the Core platform will be divided between the platform and the developers, encouraging more developers to create on the platform.
Embrace blockchain and NFTs
On November 11, 2021, Epic Games said that its Epic Games Store platform will welcome games that use blockchain technology. However, the premise is that these games need to comply with relevant laws, disclose their terms, and have appropriate age ratings. Compared with its rival Steam, Epic Games is ahead of the game platform in terms of blockchain technology. On October 16, 2021, game developer SpacePirate stated that its software platform Steam prohibits games from using blockchain technology and prohibits users from exchanging NFTs or Crypto in games.
Epic Games said it will set some restrictions to regulate blockchain trading activities. The Epic Games Store platform will also work closely with developers to learn more about how they will use blockchain technology in their games.
In January 2022, Tim Sweeney stated that blockchain technology and NFTs are the “most logical path” to a completely emerging Metaverse (virtual world), but are enduring due to factors such as transaction costs and the speculation that makes up cryptocurrencies today. The dream of a digital world may still be out of reach. In the coming decades, a new era of virtual presence will usher in the next great milestone that will mark people as a networked species.
Posted by:CoinYuppie，Reprinted with attribution to:https://coinyuppie.com/epics-metaverse-layout-made-famous-by-fortnite/
Coinyuppie is an open information publishing platform, all information provided is not related to the views and positions of coinyuppie, and does not constitute any investment and financial advice. Users are expected to carefully screen and prevent risks.


text:
The BA/Iberia merger, which was provisionally agreed back in November 2009, has finally been signed and sealed with the expectation that the deal will be completed by the end of 2010.
With both airlines’ recent financial struggles hitting the headlines, it’s thought that the merger will breathe new life into the brands, saving them a collective £350m a year. The partnership is also thought to be a wise one, as the carriers currently offer few overlapping routes globally.
Along with providing new hope for shareholders, employees and customers, the new company - International Airlines Group - will proffer a boost to UK civic pride by locating its flagship headquarters in London.
Under current proposals, both iconic brands will be retained running a total of 419 aircraft to more than 200 destinations around the world.
Leeds Bradford Airport is located on the A658 just outside the centre of Yeadon and is well sign-posted from the nearby A65, A660 and A6120. It's also clearly marked from the region's motorways - the M62, M1 and A1M.


text:
The Ford F-150 is the best selling pickup truck in the history of the world. By any measure, it is the perfect symbol for American attitudes about driving in the modern world. It’s big, bold, in-your-face styling appeals strongly to many American drivers who believe they have a God-given right to drive a 7,000 pound behemoth down to the local home improvement store to pick up a pound of finish nails while stopping for a latte along the way. Nothing says “Up yours” to treehuggers and climate change know-it-all’s like piloting an F-150 through the neighborhood.
XL Hybrids has a partial solution to the generally abysmal fuel economy of the F-150 — a plug-in hybrid conversion that bolts in directly to the powertrain of a many F-150 models including, 4 wheel drive versions. Once modified, the truck gets up to 50% better fuel economy while leaving the factory warranty intact. Slashing fuel costs by 50% is the sort of thing that gets fleet managers all jiggly inside. The conversion is a ship-through process. After the trucks leave the Ford factory, they are trucked to a conversion facility and then re-shipped to local dealers.
The conversion is intended for commercial fleet operators like utility companies who operate as many as 400,000 F-150’s in America. As Jo Borras of Gas2 points out, improving the fuel economy of 400,000 trucks by as little as 1 mile per gallon could save millions of gallons of gasoline over their lifetime.
Diesel Cheating At Ford?
Other news about Ford pickup trucks is not so pleasant. A lawsuit filed in federal court in Michigan claims diesel-powered F-250 and F-350 Super Duty trucks actually emit 50 times the permitted level of nitrogen oxide. The suit was brought by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, a national law firm that specializes in class action lawsuits. It alleges 58 violations of state consumer law, false advertising, and claims of racketeering. It also makes German supplier Robert Bosch a defendant in the suit. Bosch has extensive experience in diesel engine technology and has been implicated in the sweeping diesel cheating scandal that hit Volkswagen in 2015.
Ford tells Autoblog that all of its vehicles comply with EPA and CARB emissions regulations. “Ford vehicles do not have defeat devices. We will defend ourselves against these baseless claims, ” Ford says.
Diesel engines are still an important part of the light- and medium-duty pickup truck market. Ford has just added a diesel engine option to the F-150 lineup, a move that improves its highway fuel economy numbers from 26 mpg for the standard V-6 engine to 30 mpg for the diesel. Dodge also offers a diesel engine for its Ram 1500 that gets 30 mpg on the highway.
Whether or not Ford diesel Super Duty trucks comply with all applicable rules and regulations remains to be seen, but there can be little debate that diesel engines come with significant risk of emissions that threaten human health and the environment. Saving a few miles per gallon should not be an excuse for poisoning people or the atmosphere. Complaints about diesels spewing out huge quantities of nitrogen oxide emissions have been leveled against Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, Mercedes, Fiat, and General Motors. It’s hard to believe that all of those allegations are false.
Don't want to miss a cleantech story? Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.


text:
Vegetables to remain pricey for Mumbaikars until monsoon
Prices have escalated by almost 50 per cent in the wholesale market due to low production across Maharashtra, resulting in retail price rise of anywhere between 5 to 10 per cent
With vegetable prices touching new highs every week, respite from the price rise will remain a distant dream until the monsoon sets in. The wholesale and retail prices of vegetables have witnessed a steady rise this week.
Traders at the wholesale APMC market in Vashi said the rising temperature has resulted in low production of vegetables across Maharashtra. They claimed that the heat also spoils a significant amount of the harvest during transportation from farms to markets.
Amongst the worst hit vegetables is beans, which is currently available in the retail market for Rs 180-Rs 200 per kg. Prices of capsicum, cauliflower, coriander and leafy vegetables have also risen by almost 50 per cent in the wholesale market. This has resulted in inflation of price by 5 to 10 per cent in the retail market. Sridhar Khandarkar, a vegetable trader at APMC market, said, “The prices have gone up this week.
Production of vegetables in the state during summer has fallen by 50 per cent, resulting in shortage and price rise. Just two days ago, beans were sold for Rs 70-R80 per kg. But on Friday, the price spiralled to Rs 200 per kg. The price depends on the supply coming to the market. The quantity of vegetables supplied fluctuates during summer due to low production.”


text:
Meme stocks have been the talk since the start of this year, but there seems to be no formal definition of what it is
But there are characteristics that make a meme stock easier to spot
Meme stocks are usually stocks that rally out of the blue.
“These are stocks that have unusually high trading volume, stocks that have wild price swings, and of course, stocks that social media loves,” Lee said.
“So this definition isn’t set in stone, it could obviously change, it could expand. But we’ll see for now, this is the definition that I see most captures current stocks that we are seeing.”
What characteristics do meme stocks have?
AMC, GameStock, Nokia and Virgin Galactic cane spring to mind when you think of meme stocks
“I spoke with one of my sources this week, Matthew Tuttle. So he’s the CIO and CEO of total capital management. And I said, What constitutes a meme stock? What if it doesn’t have a fan base? Is it still a meme stock? And I think no one can really answer it,” Lee said.
Lee says she thinks it’s just consensus agreement, as there really is no formal definition, which makes it tricky.
“But also, I guess, makes just the stock market. So exciting.”
What meme stocks should you be watching?
There are several but today, let’s talk about two.
So first is software company and second is digital marketing firm, vinco ventures.
“So both these shares rallied so much this week. Support.com, I think in the past month is up around 220 percent. Vinco ventures is also up around 180%,” Lee said.
Both these two companies exhibit the four meme traits, but they also have a high short interest.
Could there be a GameStop 2.0?
“GameStop is GameStop is the main stock King,” Lee said.
However she notes that the stock market, especially the retail traders, are always after something different.
Then we have runner ups like AMC entertainment, we have hertz, Saba health, Blackberry, but the now support.com and vinco. I don’t think these two are necessarily the most popular companies.”
It remains to be seen if there will be another GameStop that really caught the attention of most of the world
“The amount of stocks shorted in those two companies are relatively small compared to the average trading volume before now it doesn’t seem like they will reach GameStop levels, but we’ll see it’s anyone’s guess.”
World’s second-biggest fashion retailer blames Russia for 89% profit drop
The Swedish fashion giant H&M says profits have dropped 89 per cent
They blame cost inflation, slow consumer spending and one-off expenses related to its exit from Russia.
Pretax profit in the period, the Swedish group’s fiscal third quarter, fell to 689 million crowns ($60.9 million) from a year-earlier 6.09 billion.
The Russian exit accounted for half of the decrease in profits, according to the retailer.
H&M announced a cost cutting programme that it predicted would result in annual savings of around 2 billion crowns, with savings expected to become visible in the second half of 2023.
How Disney beat Netflix at its own game
When it comes to streaming, there’s a new sheriff in town.
Disney+ has quickly become a major force in the streaming wars, adding over 14 million new subscribers in its latest quarter. That’s a big jump from the 3 million it had just three months prior.
In comparison, Netflix lost nearly 1 million subscribers in the same period.
So what happened? How did Disney+ overtake Netflix so quickly?
There are a few factors at play.
For one, Disney+ has a lot of content that people want to watch. As well as its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, the service has access to popular franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, and The Simpsons. That’s a big draw for people who are looking for something to watch.
In addition, Disney+ is much cheaper than Netflix. A subscription to Disney+ costs $6.99 per month, while a Netflix subscription starts at $8.99 per month. For people who are trying to save money, Disney+ is the more appealing option. Though Disney and Netflix have signalled they’re going to push up their prices.
Disney+ has been aggressive in marketing itself as the superior streaming service. The company has run a number of ads that compare its service favorably to Netflix. This has helped convince people to switch to Disney+.
The Disney effect
The Walt Disney Company launched Disney+ on November 12, 2019. The streaming service is available in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Puerto Rico.
As of the second quarter of 2020, Netflix had nearly 221 million subscribers across 190 countries.
What is the market share of Netflix? In the United States, Netflix has a market share of 37%. That means it is the most popular streaming service in the country.
When was Netflix founded? Netflix was founded on August 29, 1997, in Scotts Valley, California.
What type of company is Netflix? Netflix is a publicly-traded company. Its stock is traded on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol NFLX.
What is the headquarters of Netflix? The headquarters of Netflix is located in Los Gatos, California.
Disney is spending $1 billion per year on its streaming service.
What is the market share of Disney+? In the United States, Disney+ has a market share of 24%.
When was Disney+ launched? Disney+ was launched on November 12, 2019.
What type of company is Disney? Disney is a publicly-traded company. Its stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol DIS.
How much does Disney stock cost? As of August 2020, the price of one share of Disney stock is $115.76.
What is the headquarters of Disney? The headquarters of Disney is located in Burbank, California.
The world’s largest online retailer gives staff a pay rise
Workers at Amazon’s warehouse and transportation hubs are set to receive a pay rise
The world’s biggest online retailer says wages will increase to over 19 dollars, which is up from 18.
It’s part of a plan to help the company attract and retain workers in a very tight labor market.
Of course, the peak shopping season is also getting underway.
Amazon says the price increase will cost its company nearly one billion dollar in the next year alone.
The minimum for workers on an hourly wage will stay at 15 dollars.
Russia will formally annex Ukraine regions Friday
“These are the guys?” Putin’s Dad’s army
Chinese leader Xi Jinping makes his return to the public eye
Crypto.com accidentally transfers $10.5m to woman instead of $100
What is happening between SHIB and Vitalik? | TICKER VIEWS
Russia has cancelled itself. But the world should beware of poking the Russian bear￼
World3 days ago
Hurricane Ian barrels towards Florida
Business2 days ago
Apple hack? distressing and offensive language alert
Business3 days ago
The best airlines to fly ECONOMY in 2023
Ticker Views1 day ago
How close to a full scale nuclear war are we really?
Business3 days ago
Do Kwan wanted by Interpol over Terra collapse
Business2 days ago
‘Sorry’ – Optus hacker releases statement changing demands
Tech3 days ago
UK set to fine TikTok for breaching children safety
Business1 day ago
Optusdata hacker mocked on social media for clumsy attack


text:
El-Salvador was the first country to accept cryptocurrency for all kinds of transactions. along with that the government had also released the new digital wallet app, crediting $30 in bitcoin to every citizen of the country. The wallet supports both BItcoin and the country’s existing legal currency US dollars as well. In addition, 200 new cash machines were installed successfully in El-Salvador.
After making all this hype in the country, research was made to see how well president Bukale’s decision is working. And in a result, the count was not really high. The research made on 1800 households of El-Salvador purchases using Bitcoin through a digital wallet app is not up to the mark as expected.
After the government’s big push and a large number of people downloading the Chivo Wallet, the Bitcoin usage for everyday needs was considerably low in the country. The research released from the US National Bureau of Economic, was mainly concentrated on the banked, educated, young, and male population.
The bonus of $30 was actually insisted on for the adoption of a new digital wallet; a study found that many Salvodorans stopped using the wallet after spending the bonus given. Only 20% of survey respondents had actually continued the usage of the wallet even after spending the bonus amount of Chivo.
Factors Affecting Slowing Down the Big-Push
Some of the major reasons for this “low” is: Many companies of El-Salvadors have been slow in accepting bitcoin in the form of payment. As they are lacking in technical ability to do so, and the law also not being strictly enforced in the country is another reason. Only 20% of businesses accepted bitcoin and about 88% said they converted bitcoin balance as dollars from the wallet.
Further, the technical issues associated with the launch of the digital wallets were also considered a reason. But the main reason for not using bitcoin for purchases was Salvodorans preference for using cash. And some citizens reported trust issues with the Chivo system and Bitcoin as well.
Out of 64.6% smartphone users, more than half used cash to pay for their purchases before Chivo, 70% were not having bank accounts, and 90% of Salvodorans were not using mobile banking services also comes under consideration.
By this we can say accepting Bitcoin for tax payments is just not enough, large incentives should also be given on its adoption in the country for quick response to the acceptance. And the technical issues must be resolved at the time of launching to avoid the delay in its adoption.


text:
This account is pending registration confirmation. Please click on the link within the confirmation email previously sent you to complete registration. Need a new registration confirmation email? Click here
Don't miss out on morning nutrition. Cereal + milk = more nutrients children need each day. #StartWithCereal http://ow.ly/wnSQQ
Children consuming a cereal breakfast get more of the important vitamins and minerals they need. #StartWithCereal http://ow.ly/wnSZj
Cereal makes a great school snack. Choose one w/ 3 g of fiber to help kids get the fiber they need. #StartWithCereal http://ow.ly/wo0sF
For consumers on a quest for a convenient and nutritious breakfast, new research presented last week at the American Society for Nutrition's annual Experimental Biology conference shows how a cereal with milk breakfast is one of the best ways to start the day.
One study, sponsored by Kellogg Company, found U.S. children and teens that have cereal with milk for breakfast consume more of several vitamins and minerals compared to those who have other types of breakfasts.
"Unfortunately, skipping breakfast becomes more common as children grow into teenagers," said
Latha Devareddy, senior nutrition scientist at Kellogg. "Children who skip breakfast may be missing out on important nutrients in their diet, such as vitamins A, D, calcium and iron. This research shows how starting the day with a cereal and milk breakfast can help children get more of these critical nutrients."
Also, presented for the first time at this conference, research in
Mexico has shown the value of breakfast cereal for helping Mexican children get more of the nutrients they need.
"While most children in
Mexico eat breakfast, cereal is not as commonly consumed as in some other countries," said
Deisy Hervert, nutrition scientist at Kellogg and one of the researchers on the study. "Yet, Mexican children who had cereal for breakfast had higher intakes of 10 vitamins and minerals compared to children consuming other types of breakfast, or skipping the meal altogether."
Other research presented at the conference also showed how cereal can be consumed outside of the breakfast meal, as a snack at school, to help children get more fiber in their diet. In the study, children exchanged a typical school snack for a snack that provides fiber, such as cereal, resulting in an increase in fiber intake without a change in calories.


text:
Nissan has revealed its new Qashqai, which will arrive on UK roads this summer with a new hybrid powertrain replacing the diesel option, and a new design described by the company as “more muscular, sharp and modern”.
The Qashqai is the first car to get Nissan’s new hybrid E-Power powertrain, which offers 187hp through a 1.5-litre petrol engine that acts like a generator to power the battery rather than the wheels, which Nissan said leads to superior fuel economy and lower CO2, although it is yet to reveal emissions, economy or performance figures. It has though said that the E-Power gets the E-Pedal function seen in the Leaf, where the brake energy regeneration is enough to require extreme minimal use of the brake pedal in normal driving.
As well as the hybrid powertriain, the Qashqai will also come with a 1.3-litre petrol engine in 138hp or 156hp outputs, both getting 12V mild hybrid assistance that Nissan said takes 4g/km off the emissions figure. The system allows the car to shut off the engine when coasting to a stop at speeds below 11mph, as well as adding a small performance boost via energy recouped through regeneration.
The 156hp petrol model is the only one offered with the option of four-wheel drive, with the rest of the range front-drive only.
The company has sold more than three million Qashqais since it invented the crossover segment in 2007 with the first-generation model, and the new model is 35mm longer, 25mm taller and 32mm wider than its predecessor. It also gets the option of 20-inch alloy wheels for the first time, while on the inside the infotainment screen has grown to nine inches and supports wireless Apple CarPlay. Nissan claimed that its 10.8-inch head-up display is the largest offered in the class, and connectivity includes the ability to set the navigation by via home smart devices such as Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. The sat-nav system features the ability to update over-the-air, and features Google Streetview and fuel prices, as well as door-to-door navigation via the Nissan app.


text:
IKEA made fanfare last week with the news of the launch of their flagship store on Chinese platform Tmall. This is the first time in the furniture retail company’s 77-year long history that they have sold through a third-party seller and expectations were understandably sky-high.
The reaction from both Chinese social media and the press has however, been lukewarm. Numbers for an opening ceremony live-stream held on 11 March were disappointment. The 3 hour stream comprised of a Q&A session with CEO and President of IKEA China, Anna Maria Pawlak Kuliga, which was followed by a live-commerce session in which products and deals were introduced. Reports say that only only around 260,000 people watched this highly publicized broadcast, with just 6,000 transactions being made and a conversion rate to payment at 1.27%.
Outside of the live-stream broadcast, netizens were also disappointed by the Tmall store itself. Some of the main points have been summarized below:
Limited Products & Limited Stores
IKEA are only offering 3800 of their best selling items for the launch of their Tmall store. This represents less than half of a product range that spans more than 9500 items. Netizens felt that this wasn’t enough and with some of the items hardly selling, they have questioned the product selection made. Additionally, the launch is only available to consumers in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui.
No Free Shipping or Installation
Also causing discontent, was the lack of free shipping. Chinese consumers have become accustomed to free shipping after spending a certain amount of money. One netizen complained that for a sofa that cost 2799 RMB, they would have to pay 119 shipping fees. Some cheaper items have a 5.9 RMB price tag, but for delivery the consumer is expected to pay 9.9 RMB. There is also no service available to help with installation.
Lack of Digital Innovation
The launch version of the IKEA Tmall flagship store is noticeably bare-bones. The company promises 3D mockups of showrooms and AR/VR technology to help consumers get a better feel for products digitally, but this will not be coming until later this year.
No IKEA Magic
In this article in CNR, the reporter bemoans the lack of IKEA magic or the feeling of it being a special experience. IKEA are so good at creating a unique offline experience in their stores with the mix of unique products, store displays and the way you can really touch and understand the items. Online this is lost in translation, and the reporter thinks with IKEA’s offering at launch, there really is nothing differentiating the Swedish brand from other furniture retailers found on Chinese e-commerce platforms.
There are local players like Linsy Home(林氏木业家具) who not only offer the clean simply designed furniture that IKEA is famous for, but also go above and beyond to match the needs of local consumers. Linsy Home offer the same products to all their consumers nationwide and offer free delivery, free installation and after-service. This is what young consumers expect from flagship stores on ecommerce platforms.
“Times where you could just leverage your global brand name in China are long over”, explains Re-Hub CEO, Max Peiro. “Chinese consumers are extremely savvy and demanding, and local competition is fierce.”
- Overseas brands need to either go big or go home when they are launching their flagship stores on Chinese e-commerce platforms. Consumers have high expectations and expect a full product range and full services, especially from an overseas brand.
- Be special and innovate. Aside from IKEA, a number of other global retailers such as Lotte, Carrefour and Metro have failed to translate their offline experience well to the world’s of Chinese e-commerce and new retail. Local brands are making use of the latest technologies to create deeper connections with consumers.
“We see China as the most advanced retail market in the world,”Peiro adds. “Where global brands can test and develop innovative ideas that later can implement in other markets globally.”
- Understand local needs and listen to your consumers. China is still changing so quickly and young consumers have little attachment to your brand. Only those brands that understand consumers fast-changing desires and adapt to them, delivering relevant products and a superb experience, will survive in this hyper-competitive, fast-changing environment.


text:
There is no doubt that an economic recovery is unfolding. Since the beginning of the year, initial claims for unemployment benefits have been in general decline, falling from 900,000 per week to roughly 370,000 recently.
This drop in unemployment claims coincides with a steady increase in consumer confidence.
As measured by the weekly values of the Langer Research Consumer Comfort Index – which asks Americans to rate the national economy, their personal finances and the buying climate – it wasn’t until March and April that more households than not were convinced of the efficacy of both the vaccination program and the economic recovery.
(Note: the Langer index goes from 0 to 100, with values of greater than 50 representing net positive answers to the survey questions. We attribute the decrease in consumer confidence in the latest week to concerns over the spread of coronavirus variants.)
In the months ahead, we expect those jobless claims to continue their approach to traditional levels of 210,000 per week.
Once schools and businesses are fully open, families should be better able to balance child care costs and salary requirements, and we anticipate employment and wages to reach a new equilibrium.
At the same time, we anticipate consumer confidence to remain positive with improvements in the labor market and household sentiment leading to a commensurate pickup in spending and economic growth later this year.
For more information on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting midsize businesses, please visit the RSM Coronavirus Resource Center.


text:
- SCA Increases Ownership in Chinese Tissue Company
April 11, 2012 — SCA has acquired an additional 5 percent of the shares in Chinese tissue company Vinda.
SCA purchased the shares from Fu An, a company majority owned by the current chairman of Vinda. The purchase price for these additional shares was reported to be approximately US$88 million. SCA’s share in Vinda after the transaction will be 22.6 percent.
To read the full story, click here.
SCA Tissue is one of the three largest producers of away-from-home tissue products in North America, annually turning more than 750,000 tons of recycled paper into 100 percent recycled tissues, towels and napkins under the global Tork® brand of SCA. It is a division of SCA, a global consumer goods and paper company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In the United States, SCA Americas has more than 2,000 employees at eight manufacturing facilities, located in New York, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Alabama. For more information, visit www.SCA.com.
To return to ISSA News, click here.


text:
European and American bound exports through the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos will enjoy discounted charges, Mr. Olusegun Awolowo, the Executive Director/CEO, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has said.
He stated this in a webinar on fixing the broken supply chain: post COVID-19 survival strategies for non-oil exporters. He said this initiative would encourage exports from Nigeria and drive exports growth.
“A special discounted airfreight services from Lagos International Airport to London Heathrow Airport and transshipment road haulage services to 27 EU countries was recently introduced by the Council and partnering Free on Board Global Logistics Limited (FOBGL)” he said…
More details through:
Leave a Reply.
News Archive from before July 2018


text:
Hello, and welcome to the newsletter.
This week we have 7 stories, including Snapchat’s new group video calling feature - it’s a party on your phone - a useful jargon buster from Carat Global, how live-streamed shopping could be the next big thing, and what not to say at The Masters.
Snapchat has unveiled a new group chat feature, where up to 16 people can talk to each other at the same time, with video. It’s a direct copy of a feature that the HouseParty app introduced last year, and being Snap,there are funky sticker and AR effects too. It’s part of a broader trend for social apps to let people do things together, creating shared experiences (see also the HQ trivia game app), and you can see this helping to bring back some lapsed users, if their friends start inviting them to chats. (Expect a Facebook version in a few months!)
Snapchat’s first TV ad
This TV ad plays in the idea of Snapchat as a camera - and is a breezy skip through lots of the features. But… Many people will be asking ‘why do I find this all so unintuitive and hard to do?’ It’s a bit like seeing someone playing around on a guitar, and knowing that it looks great, but that you’d have trouble actually doing that yourself.
A useful jargon buster from Carat Gobal
Looking at different types of data (1st party - 3rd party) and more!
For the first time ever the number of apps in the iOS app store fell
It’s not quite the ‘app-ocalypse’, as it’s a small fall, and the real story is that it’s due to dormant apps being removed, and more apps falling foul of app store regulations and being classed as spam. Meanwhile the number of apps in the Android app store rose 30% last year, which suggests that companies are still making them, at least for Android users. More, I think, it’s a sign of how active Apple is in policing its ecosystem, while Android is much more laissez faire.
Target uses a voice coupon on Google Home
A really interesting use of smart speakers. Google Home speaker users had to say ‘Spring Into Target’ to their devices, to receive a $15-off discount when they made a voice order for something from Target when buying with the Google Home. It is basically a promo to get people to use voice ordering for the first time, and it’s an innovative use of the technology. It’s also an interesting idea for how you could use other media like press in conjunction with smart speakers.
A new idea from China - Shop Shops
Shop Shops is a new company from China that is essentially a shopping channel live streamed from an actual store, or if you watch YouTubers, a ‘Haul Video’ done live in a store which you can get involved with. Viewers can see the hosts in a physical store, talking about what they are buying, and also buy with them. Given the low cost of streaming video, it’s something that could be copied pretty quickly - for example how about watching someone shopping for new Star Wars toys?
To get an idea of how big a deal this is in China read this: A Chinese influencer Zoe Zhang live-streams on the Alibaba site Taobao, getting 40,000 viewers a week. Zhang shows off a new product every week, which she buys wholesale from the manufacturer and then sells on to her fans.
& finally - something to look out for at The Masters
The organisers of this weekend’s golf tournament in Augusta have reportedly banned fans from shouting ‘Dilly Dilly’, a catch phrase used in Bud Light ads.
Anyone caught using it will be ejected. There is a long history of sports events getting tough with the crowd promoting brands - remember the Dutch fans who wore branded shorts to a World Cup game - but this seems harder to police, and I’d imagine fans will have lots of fun with this, and other brand memes and promotions during this summer’s events.


text: Part of the reason Con-Ed got that rate hike is its terrific management. Its CEO, Kevin Burke, is a long-time utility executive who knows the in-and-outs of the regulatory regime. Unlike other utilities, Con-Ed's earnings are far less vulnerable to the possibility of climate change legislation like cap-and-trade, as it stopped burning coal decades ago and has in fact sold most of its electric generation business. Rather Con-Ed is focused on the most basic of utility businesses, transmitting and distributing, electricity, natural gas and steam to its customers. 3. AT&T ( T) (T): Along with Verizon (VZ) (which could just as easily have been on this list as it's just as good as a company and a stock, but AT&T won the coin toss) AT&T is dominating the wireless space, and paying you a 6.4% yield to watch it happen. We all know the iPhone has been a big winner for the company, bringing over new customers, who are paying for a more expensive, high-speed data plan. AT&T's U-verse television offering has also quickly reached 1 million subscribers, though both of these growth drivers are somewhat offset by the loss of traditional landlines, once the company's bread and butter. This isn't your old Ma Bell, but a super high tech company that is at the cutting edge of all things communications. Despite the losses in the plain old-fashioned telephone business, wireless customers are spending more per user than ever. And through cost cutting, the company's operating margin has been steadily climbing.


text:
Fate delivered the perfect package in the form of a prime photo opportunity.
A professional photographer by the name of Donreál was shooting on location in downtown Sanford when he was asked to take a photo of a UPS employee making a delivery.
The random encounter turned into a picture perfect post that has gone viral with 453K Twitter likes, to date.
Impressed by the result, Donreál asked the internet for any leads on identifying the photogenic delivery man, so that he can send him the photo.
The photographer tweeted:
"I was doing a photoshoot in downtown Sanford when this UPS delivery man kindly interrupted and asked for a picture."
"THIS IS THE BEST PICTURE OUT THE WHOLE PHOTOSHOOT!"
"can someone find this man so he can see this."
The internet became instantly smitten with the UPS man's infectious smile and the search was on.
Who IS HE?
It almost looks like a painting.
A fellow professional chimed in with accolades.
The internet wouldn't be the internet unless they pointed out the kooky.
Some keen observers of the photo couldn't help noticing the spooky specter looming around above the truck's UPS logo.
Do you see it?
Is it even a spooky demon?
People also expressed their concern for the driver's safety after noticing what they suspected were bullet holes.
But let's get back on track.
It looks like UPS has a model employee.
Even UPS was on board with the search.
Eventually, the viral photo made its way to the delivery man's wife.
His family identified the mystery man as Jermey Watkins from Southern Pines.
His wife, LeCarya Watkins, showed up with the receipts and proudly shared a juxtaposed photo of her "bae" in his uniform and in his Sunday best.
It turns out Watkins has a voice that delivers too.
People are now envious of LeCarya.
A feel good story like this is just what we need this holiday season.
This year, UPS forecasts record-breaking holiday shipments, with return deliveries peaking at 1.4 million packages on January 2 – a 26% increase from last year's peak returns day.
Matthew O'Connor, UPS senior manager for public relations, told Transport Topics:
"We estimate UPS will deliver more than 32 million packages per day in the U.S. and around the world, an increase of more than 50% over our regular daily volume."
That's a lot of packages!
Thanks for all you do, UPS drivers. And please drive safe on all your respective routes.


text:
DETROIT (AP) - Chrysler LLC said Friday its financial arm will get out of the auto leasing business by the end of the month because economic conditions have made leasing more expensive than buying, for both consumers and the company.
The move comes as Chrysler Financial is in the process of renewing a $30 billion credit line with banks amid a startling drop in values for leased trucks and sport utility vehicles that are coming back to automakers as leases end.
Chrysler Vice Chairman and President Jim Press said the company wants to allocate limited resources to retail incentives and financing.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


text:
HALSTON has announced this morning that it is set to launch it menswear offering, a concept first mooted two years ago. Unlike the women's business, which is produced in-house, the menswear line will be licensed out and distributed globally by Neema Clothing - which sold Halston in 2007 to its current owners - and will have its own design team and management structure.
"The brand is in a good place under the current management," Neema Clothing owner Jim Ameen told WWD. "Retailers are recognising it as a luxury player, and the launch of the women's Heritage line has been a resounding success, not to mention the addition of Sarah Jessica Parker [as president and chief creative officer] has been brilliant. We always planned to have the women's lines up and running before we launched the men's. Now it's time to plan for the future of men's."
The men's collection will launch in the coming year and will be designed by Studio Mauro Ravizza Kreiger - a design studio based in Asti, Italy, which has created pieces for Allegri and Loro Piana previously. Inspired loosely by the late designer's aesthetic, the brand asserts that it will however not interpret archive pieces as the women's heritage collection does.
"There will be no bell-bottoms," said Tom Wallis, Halston menswear's new president. "We took the DNA of Halston to create a collection that has roots in New York fashion, but is relevant for a global luxury consumer."
YOU SHOULD SEE: Marios Schwab's Halston debut...
YOU SHOULD SEE: What SJP will be doing at the label...
TODAY IN HISTORY: Which supermodel allegedly attacked a television presenter?


text:
You read that right.
ICYMI, stealth wealth dressing may just be the trend of the summer. From Gwyneth Paltrow to Katie Holmes, celebrities can’t stop swapping out their bedazzled gowns, monogrammed designer tops, and all-sheer everything for muted closet staples. One A-lister that proved she’s not hopping on the bandwagon any time soon, however? Eternal It girl Rihanna, who just debuted her version of “quiet luxury” by sporting a gigantic $1 million diamond … on her toe.
Earlier this week, the pop star detailed the newest addition to her jewelry collection by posting her second-ever TikTok video, simply captioned, “quiet luxury.” In the 30-second clip, Rihanna zoomed in on her feet as she walked to the tune of “I Love My Girlfriend” by RXKNephew while wearing black heels that featured blingy, crystal-embellished ankle straps.
While both the shoes (and Ri’s pristine white pedicure) were certainly eye-catching on their own, it was the singer’s impressive, pear-cut diamond toe ring that truly stole the show. According to diamond experts at U.K. retailer Steven Stone, not only does the toe ring look to be about 9 carats in size, but it’s estimated to boast a whopping $1 million dollar price tag.
“Rihanna is always impressing with her jewelry — just a few months ago, she wore $3.2 million worth of diamonds during her performance at the Super Bowl. Thus, it's no surprise to see her flaunting an enormous diamond on her toe during a recent night out,” diamond expert Maxwell Stone shared. “Having been around since the late 1400s, pear-cut diamonds have been worn by women for centuries. Because of their nontraditional cut, they're believed to symbolize the empowerment and independence of the wearer — making the cut the perfect choice for a global superstar like Rihanna.”
Stone concluded, “Based on the sheer size of the stone, I'd estimate the toe ring to be worth a staggering $1 million.”
Naturally, fans were quick to question whether the massive ring could secretly be doubling as an engagement ring from Rihanna’s longtime partner, A$AP Rocky, but for now, it simply serves as a reminder that Rih continues to be much more stylish (and much wealthier) than the rest of us.
For more InStyle news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on InStyle.


text:
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Era Software, the company that created EraDB to help enterprises manage hyperscale, cloud-native workloads, today announced the close of a $15.25 million Series A round led by Playground Global. This brings total funding raised to over $22 million; Playground Global is joined in this round by existing investors Foundation Capital, Array Ventures, and world-class angel investors. Era Software will use the capital raised to further accelerate product development, grow the team, and expand use cases. The company also today announced a private beta of its EraSearch Cloud product to bring its transformational log management technology to organizations as a managed service. Prior to its Series A, Era Software was known as EraDB, which will remain the moniker for the company’s novel time-series architecture.
“Playground Global is excited to partner with the team at Era because we believe that managing the ever-expanding data workloads of the future will require continual innovation at the infrastructure level,” said Peter Barrett, a founder and general partner at Playground Global who has joined the board at Era Software. “With this group of experienced executives and their deep technological insights, we are confident that the company will be an innovative force in the data infrastructure market.”
Era Software CEO blog post: Announcing Our Series A Led By Playground Global
Today, organizations are moving to modern, cloud-native architectures and are also faced with managing gigabytes, terabytes, and petabytes of new data every day. To help these organizations make sense of these exploding data volumes, Era Software has pioneered its EraDB architecture and is introducing verticalized products to support specific data workloads. On Feb. 10, the company launched EraSearch, a product for log management that is focused on helping companies move away from their expensive and complex Elasticsearch deployments. EraSearch can help these organizations reduce their hardware and operational costs.
No stranger to the world of time-series data, Era Software co-founder and CEO Todd Persen was previously a co-founder and CTO at InfluxData, where he helped engineer the InfluxDB time-series database. Now, Todd and the team at Era Software are creating tools to deal with the challenges of managing large volumes of data, with a particular focus on data that is becoming increasingly complex. In general, high-complexity data — including high-cardinality and high-dimensionality data — is emerging at a rate that far exceeds what traditional databases can handle. As a result, organizations are forced to pay exponentially-increasing costs for clunky, ill-designed, unscalable, and expensive solutions that not only put unnecessary tension on operating margins, but require a growing level of engineering infrastructure to manage.
“This is a huge milestone for us as a company and validation of the products that we’ve built. We continue to hear from businesses of all sizes that are looking to embrace a new generation of storage technologies like EraSearch that can deliver an easy-to-manage experience with a low TCO. We look forward to our new partnership with Playground Global and the opportunity to help enterprises manage and extract valuable insights from their ever-increasing data volumes,” said Persen.
EraSearch Cloud will allow companies to easily deploy log management infrastructure that is less complex, more performant, and extremely cost-effective even for long retention durations. By improving on a traditional decoupled storage and compute architecture, EraSearch is able to provide lightning-fast access to logs in real-time, while ensuring that durable copies of data always live within object storage, such as on Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), Google Cloud Storage (GCS), or Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. Available now, EraSearch dramatically reduces cloud hardware and operational costs. EraSearch benefits companies of all sizes regardless of their data volumes.
EraSearch Cloud is available in private beta. To get started with a free 30-day trial, sign up for the waitlist and reach out to our customer success team at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Era Software blog
Connect with Era Software
About Era Software
Era Software is the creator of EraDB, a novel time-series database architecture built on the core principles of decoupled storage and compute, a true zero-schema data representation, and flexible indexing powered by machine learning, all of which allow you to significantly reduce the size, cost, and complexity of your data while still giving you lightning fast queries across vast datasets. The company’s first verticalized product, EraSearch, incorporates these innovations into a familiar interface that is focused on serving the enterprise log management market. Find out more at www.era.co and www.erasearch.co.
About Playground Global
Playground Global invests in founders harnessing frontier technologies to build transformational businesses with multi-generational impact. Recognizing the promise in early stage entrepreneurs developing new solutions in artificial intelligence, automation, life sciences, next-gen compute, cybersecurity, aerospace, and beyond, Playground offers world-class expertise across a wide variety of business and technical domains to help companies achieve their potential. Learn more at playground.global.


text:
Hyundai seeks to buy all of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles which includes famous brands like Fiat, Chrysler and Jeep. Back in 2015, Ferrari, Volkswagen Group and General Motors were in the offing. However, Hyundai seems to be the one to take over FCA buyout. The transaction would help to boost finances for the company and will come at a time to allow FCA to be cash positive by the end of next year. Hyundai on the other hand was flush with cash to start the Genesis luxury brand and could buy out FCA. However, Hyundai is in the midst of company reorganization with CEO Chung Mong-koo likely to step down.
Both companies have declined to make any comment on the potential buyout.
9997 Total Views 1 Views Today
Mercedes-Benz CLA Unveiled | 2020
Mercedes-Benz has unveiled the second generation Mercedes-Benz CLA at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The new CLA looks larger than the outgoing model. The CLA will join the A-Class sedan in the lineup and will be priced slightly higher than the latter too. Mercedes-Benz has retained its swooping body shape with the new […]
Continental Trading Enterprises, the sole authorized distributor KIA Motors in Nepal marked 25 Years of KIA in Nepal. Company celebrated its silver jubilee and launched the new 4th generation KIA SPORTAGE in Nepal on 11th January 2019 at Hotel Annapurna, Kathmandu. Kia Sportage is the longest running nameplate under KIA brand since 1993. It is […]
Jagdamba Motors Pvt. Ltd., the sole authorized distributors TVS vehicles in Nepal, has announced “TVS Grand Exchange and Finance Mela”, starting from 9th Jan till 12 th Jan 2019 at Bhrikutimandap. The four-day event offers exchanging of any brand of old motorcycles/scooters for brand new TVS motorcycle/scooter. The event also offers benefits like, 20% downpayment […]
TATA NRG LAUNCH- THE YOUNGEST COMPACT UTILITY VEHICLE
Tata Motors along with their sole distributor for Nepal, Sipradi Trading Pvt. Ltd, announced the launch of its newest addition to the passenger vehicle family The Tata NRG. Keeping the growing aspirations of customers in mind, Tata Motors has introduced an SUV inspired vehicle, positioned as Nepal’s Youngest Compact Utility Vehicle (CUV). With its class […]
IMS Motors Pvt. Ltd., the sole authorized distributor Ssangyong in Nepal is organizing “Ssangyong New Year Mega exchange offer” starting from 30th Dec till 15th Jan 2019. Under this offer, customers can exchange any old vehicles for a new Ssangyong vehicle with the cash discount up to 4 Lakhs. Further more the event also offers, […]


text:
It turns out it wasn’t your average “sell the news” event.
While bitcoin set a new all-time high of $7,879 in the aftermath of affirmation a controversial software proposal had been scrapped, its price fell just as quickly, erasing gains to hit a low of $7,070. But for analysts, the $1,000 range was a case of bitcoin’s traders pricing in complex news: a group of miners and businesses would no longer seek to update bitcoin’s software or otherwise form their own cryptocurrency.
In this way, market observers admitted the charts showcased something that hasn’t been seen since September when China moved to ban ICOs and shutter its crypto exchanges – an unexpected shock.
As profiled by CoinDesk, the software proposal called Segwit2x, had been expected to be introduced to the network in mid-November, and many new buyers were said to have been allocating capital into bitcoin in anticipation of a split, thinking new coins would be created.
Yet, with the prospect of a quick dividend off the table, a look at cryptocurrency pricing service CoinMarketCap reveals a sea of assets in the green, as traders moved elsewhere in the market.
“Everyone was selling alts [alternative cryptocurrencies] and buying BTC. Now we are unwinding that,” said BTC VIX, the organizer of bitcoin trading group Whale Club.
Others, like Nejc Kodric, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp, noted it appears the news resulted in dissatisfaction for those thinking they could win big with a quick purchase before a split.
Kodric told CoinDesk:
“I think 2x was a big cloud of uncertainty which now went away … some like it, some were just in it for the airdrop.”
Others suggest it simply could have been the case that any development in the market was enough to spook new buyers.
Driven to bitcoin by its now nearly 700 percent gains on the year (or the news that major derivatives companies are looking to the market to launch new products), they simply may have lacked the ability to make a strong determination of how they felt about the event.
Such a view was put forward by Tim Enneking, managing director of the hedge fund Crypto Asset Management.
“I don’t think most people understood enough about the fork to understand the implications,” he said.
Still, with the market rally cooled, there were also attempts to determine how the news could reshape the relationships between available blockchains with publicly traded tokens.
Amos Meiri, CEO of Colu, a startup seeking to encourage the business adoption of local cryptocurrencies, noted the decision is likely to push startups that were inclined toward the Segwit2x proposal, to other options.
Still, even while he was against the measure, Meiri acknowledged that, for many of his bitcoin business peers, the scrapping of further Segwit2x scaling is cause for concern for which those businesses could actively seek other solutions.
For instance, on Twitter, there was talk about what the move could mean for litecoin and bitcoin cash, both blockchain communities that appear to define their protocol as a vehicle for peer-to-peer payments, though neither rose very much on the day. Bitcoin cash, created after an August fork of the bitcoin blockchain was down roughly 5 percent, while litecoin, which launched in 2012 to offer merchants faster payments, was up just 0.21 percent.
However, there are those who believe these cryptocurrencies may soon become more valuable to a new group of users disenfranchised with the state of bitcoin.
Jake Smith, manager of Bitcoin.com, an interactive web portal for cryptocurrency, called today’s events “great news for bitcoin cash.”
“Businesses will start flipping. High fees hurting a lot of businesses,” he continued.
As such, the statements set up for what could be further price discovery in the market ahead.
Ping pong ball image via Shutterstock.
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at [email protected].
Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.
Published at Wed, 08 Nov 2017 21:45:21 +0000


text:
D23 just revealed the lineup of member-exclusive events for 2022 and shared the news that in-person events will be returning to Disney’s official fan club next year! After more than a year of virtual screenings and panels, we are thrilled to see the return of in-person events, and the lineup looks like there is something for every kind of Disney fan.
D23 EXPO 2022: The Ultimate Disney Fan event will take place September 9, 10, and 11 2022 at the Anaheim Convention Center. At this event, fans will learn all of the latest news from Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and more and see a first look at plans for the Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary celebration. Panels and presentations will also be livestreamed so fans can take in all of the latest news from home on all things Disney including film, television, streaming, theme parks, live entertainment and more. Tickets for the D23 EXPO 2022 go on sale January 20, 2022.
During the WALT’S MARCELINE event, members will have the opportunity to explore Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri and see the inspiration for Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. firsthand. During this limited capacity, full-day event, members will also be able to enjoy local eats and speak to special guests.
On January 24, 2022 members can celebrate the life and legacy of Walt Disney Archives founder an Disney Legend Dave Smith during his Disneyland window ceremony. A special presentation just for D23 Gold Members will also take place during park hours.
2022 marks the 50th anniversary of ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks!’ D23 members can celebrate the occasion where the film was created, at the Walt Disney Studios lot, with screenings and displays from the Walt Disney Archives.
‘Star Wars’ fans will be able to enjoy a D23 member-exclusive Galactic Member Mixer during the Star Wars celebration in May 22 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
In 2022, Guests will be able to return for in-person events at the Walt Disney Studios, and D23 members will be able to explore the studios on an official tour. They will also see the Walt Disney Archives and Walt’s office suite.
Additional milestone anniversary events will be planned, both virtually and in person for films like ‘Lilo & Stitch’ (20th anniversary); ‘Hercules’ (25th anniversary); ‘Aladdin’ (30th anniversary); and ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ (30th anniversary).
Disney Theatrical will host exclusive D23 nights just for members with special member tickets and Q&As with cast members at shows around the country including ‘The Lion King,’ and ‘Frozen.’
A new virtual event series will debut in 2022 featuring Disney Imagineering milestones from parks around the world.
And, last but certainly not least, signature events will take place around the country in the form of traveling exhibitions, exclusive movie screenings, and more throughout the year!
Complete details for all of the above events will be announced as we get closer to them, and details will be shared when available at d23.com/events.


text:
A senior commercial property agent has been named top Leicestershire dealmaker for the third time in five years after securing scores of property deals over the past 12 months.
Alex Reid, a director at Mather Jamie, in Loughborough, has won the Estate Gazette’s dealmaker award for the 2017/18 financial year, after securing more property deals than any other agent in the county.
He previously won the award in 2013/2014 and 2015/2016.
Over the year Alex secured more than 60 deals in the county, including leading software name TBA Leicester’s expansion into Lancer House in Scudamore Road, and the recent sale of former toy store Geoff’s Toys, in Loughborough town centre.
Alex, who joined the business in 2002, said: “This award reflects superbly on our firm, which continues to expand while leading the way in East Midlands property.
“I’m very proud to have been named Dealmaker by Estates Gazette for the third time in the last five years.
“After more than a quarter of a century in business, we continue to achieve a high level of sales and lets for our clients, thanks to the hard work and expertise of our entire team.”
Mather Jamie markets a range of industrial, office, investment and retail premises and manages 200 commercial properties and 11 business parks.


text:
Media Awards 2020
Updated: Jul 8, 2020
The Media Awards is a platform for the continued development of the Irish media industry through recognition, internally and externally, of economic impact and business results for brands investing in media on the Island of Ireland.
Now in their ninth year, the Media Awards celebrate excellence and best practice in media buying, planning and research as well as the media brands and people who make up the industry.
Following a consultation with the industry and other key stakeholders, the Media Awards 2020 have been revamped with new look, new categories as well as an overhaul of the judging process.
The independent chairman of the judging panel for Media Awards 2020 is Peter McPartlin, one of the most experienced media professionals in the industry. McPartlin has over 40 years’ experience in the Irish advertising, media and marketing industries, working with some of the country’s largest agencies and media companies.
Judging phase 1 was over and the shortlisted companies were announced on 24th Feb 2020.
Judging phase 2 took place on 4th and 5th March 2020 in Alchemy Event Management office in Dun Laoghaire. All the shortlisted companies presented their work to the judges in a 15mins presentation.