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The Pixies already have released their first new album in 23 years on CD and vinyl (both on 12-inch and across three separate 10-inch EPs), and as a digital download, but now comes the most retro format of all: an ultra limited-edition cassette release of Indie Cindy.
The Pixies roared back into record shops this spring with Indie Cindy, their first album in more than two decades, and now, thanks to the fine folks at PIAS America, we’ve got copies of the limited-edition, hardbound 2CD release of the album to give away to three lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs readers.
With the Pixies’ first new album in 23 years out this week, the band — Black Francis, Joey Santiago and David Lovering — sat down to discuss Indie Cindy track-by-track, an interview that’s been packaged as an 18-minute video that you can see here.
This week’s new releases include the brand-new studio album from the Pixies (‘Indie Cindy’), plus a four-disc box set from The Sound, a reissue of X’s ‘Under the Big Black Sun,’ the documentary “The Rise and Fall of The Clash,” the U.S. release of Prefab Sprout’s latest album and an Inspiral Carpets reissue.
Due out next week, the Pixies’ first new album in 23 years isn’t exactly new, given that its 12 tracks each have been released via a series of three EPs over the past seven months. Nevertheless, the band today premiered Indie Cindy via streams at NPR and the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper.
The Pixies’ forthcoming album Indie Cindy collects the 12 new songs the band released over the past year via a series of three EPs, but fans who buy the pre-release vinyl edition of the album today at participating Record Store Day retailers are in for a surprise: a 13th new song, “Women of War.”
The Pixies are busy this spring with a steady diet of touring — not to mention the upcoming release of their first album in eons — but frontman Black Francis has found time to engage in a more literary endeavor, this week publishing his first novel, “The Good Inn,” co-authored with Josh Frank.
Ten years ago, the Pixies used Coachella to formally launch their comeback, so it’s fitting the band returned to the festival this weekend as a very late addition, playing a 15-song, 50-minute set that featured old favorites and a handful of tracks that will be included on upcoming album Indie Cindy.
The schedule for the webcast of the first weekend of the Coachella festival — running this Friday through Saturday — features a number of great acts, including Bryan Ferry, Pet Shop Boys, The Afghan Whigs, The Cult, Fishbone, the just-added Pixies and more.
The new Pixies music keeps flowing, and, following the instant-release of a new EP and the announcement of a new album compiling the band’s recently released material, the Pixies also have a debuted a music video for the song “Snakes,” which appears both on EP3 and Indie Cindy.
The Pixies today announced the release of the third in their series of self-released vinyl-and-digital EPs over the last seven months, and now will compile all 12 new songs released since last summer’s “Bagboy” digital single as a full-length album that will make the band’s new music available on CD.
Having just wrapped up their North American tour, the Pixies this morning took the opportunity to debut yet another new music video — this time for the song “Greens and Blues” off the band’s EP2 — and fleshed out its world tour with dates in South America, Europe and Japan — plus a lone U.S. appearance.
The Pixies’ current U.S. tour took the band through Washington, D.C., recently, which afforded the group a chance to stop by NPR’s offices to perform a stripped-down “Tiny Desk Concert” — footage of which has just been posted by the public-radio giant.


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5 Lessons Marketers Can Learn from the Popeyes/Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich Twitter Wars
Marketing and PR professionals marveled at how Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen turned an online duel with rival Chick-fil-A into $65 million in “free” advertising this past August when its sassy Fried Chicken Sandwich battle went viral on Twitter—and led to a complete sell-out of the sandwich in all 2,400 Popeyes stores across the U.S. Not since Wendy’s lambasted rivals McDonald’s and Burger King with its “Where’s the Beef” TV spots has brand vs. brand combat so entranced consumers.
It started when Chick-fil-A—in response to Popeyes’ launch of a new chicken breast sandwich—sent a tweet insisting that it had created the chicken sandwich (“Buns + Pickles + Chicken = All the [heart] for the original”). Popeyes responded with a two-word tweet: “Y’all good?” And the feud began, spilling out from social media into the chain’s brick and mortar stores. One Chick-fil-A store posted a sign that said, “FYI: We Don’t Run Out of Chicken Sandwiches,” while Popeyes slammed back with, “FYI, People Need to Eat on Sundays” (a poke at Chick-fil-A’s faith-based schedule). Craziness ensued—consumers claimed that DoorDash and Uber Eats delivery people were devouring their Popeyes sandwiches, and one sandwich was being auctioned off on eBay for $4,316.
Although the organic social campaign wasn’t without its bumps—long lines for sold-out chicken sandwiches led to exhausted employees working overtime until headquarters made the decision to suspend the sandwich—the New York Times cooed “a two-word tweet had turned the chicken sandwich rollout into the most successful product launch in the company’s history.”
So what can marketers like you learn from Popeyes’ online victory?
#1 – It’s Not (Just) About Total Followers, It’s About Follower Engagement
The Popeyes Twitter channel (with only 182,000 followers compared to Chick-fil-A’s 1 million) used a David vs. Goliath strategy to crush its rival thanks to a far more engaged social following. Popeyes’ initial tweet received 325,000 likes and was shared 5,200 times, far outperforming Chick-fil-A’s tweet.
For those obsessed with follower counts, in the wake of Popeyes’ viral triumph, its Twitter following shot up by 60% (compared to Chick-fil-A’s anemic 4% boost during the same period), adding more than 25,000 new followers for Popeyes, according to Thinkum data tracking.
But Popeyes’ engagement with its followers continued, even as Chick-fil-A moved on from the Chicken Sandwich Battle to promote its Waffle Fries and Grilled Chicken Nuggets. Popeyes maintained its momentum by owning the social field and posting a lively 50-second video documenting the excitement that engulfed Popeye’s chicken sandwiches. It kept its followers engaged, which turned what could have been a single tweet into a full-on social campaign.
#2 – Act at the Speed of Social Media
Barely 15 minutes elapsed from the time that Popeyes marketing executives learned that rival Chick-fil-A had dissed its chicken sandwich on Twitter to the moment that Popeyes tweeted out its response.
Far too many corporations would have double-checked possible responses with in-house legal counsel, debated the risks of responding to a competitor on social, confirmed actions with their CEO and executive team, and perhaps responded within a day or two—but that’s not the timing for a conversation! What’s clear from the Chicken Twitter Wars is: Popeyes’ internal team knew its brand tone and social media protocols in advance, and were ready to respond like lightning when a social media opportunity arose.
#3 – Let Go of Control on Social (Within Reason)
Popeyes welcomed it when newspapers and local TV news outlets around the country (such as USA Today, as seen in the image at right) held their own taste tests of Popeyes vs. Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches, even though there was no way to predict who would come out on top. Even better, Popeyes implicitly urged the American public to perform their own taste tests of the two sandwiches, with dozens of consumers immortalizing their evaluation on social media. Notably, the chain’s African-American fan base responded spontaneously, celebrating their affection for the brand.
Popeyes didn’t try to control the tsunami of social posts with pre-manufactured memes or shareable content. Rather, they let consumers fly with their own grainy, messy, hilarious, sandwich-chomping posts. They trusted their fans on social.
#4 – Make Your Social Channels Reflect Your Humanity (Because You Are Human, Aren’t You?)
Face it, most social media posts from risk-averse corporations feel as human as an IRS form. Not Popeyes, whose social media tone is witty, snarky and sardonic—in other words, flagrantly human. Example: “Chicken. Brioche. Pickles. New. Sandwich. Popeyes. Nationwide. So. Good. Forgot. How. To. Speak. In. Complete. Sandwiches. I mean, sentences.”
When Wendy’s social media team tweeted out its own fighting words, “Y’all out here fighting about which of these fools has the second best chicken sandwich,” Popeyes slammed back “sounds like someone just ate one of our biscuits. Cause y’all looking thirsty.” Incredibly, Chick-fil-A went radio silent on Twitter after its initial tussle, leaving the social media field to Popeyes fans (“I can confirm, without a fraction of a doubt, that this is a chicken sandwich fit for a God,” said one fan, a tweet shared by Popeyes. “The hype is real 10/10 @PopeyesChicken.”) When celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse tweeted out “it’s time to try out this @PopeyesChicken sandwich,” Popeyes’ social team high-fived him with a single-word Tweet, “Bam!!”
#5 – Prepare For Success While Your Brand Gets Ready for Disaster
Our public relations firm, like many of our agency competitors, prepares clients for catastrophes—product recalls, federal investigations, consumer boycotts, layoffs, litigation and other crises that businesses may expect to endure. But the aftermath of the Popeyes chicken sandwich wars suggest that brands should also consider preparing for the pain and stretch marks that come with unexpected success.
Sure you might be ready to respond if an advocacy group called for a boycott of your brand. But if Kim Kardashian were to suggest to her millions of followers that they should buy your product, would you be ready to scale up fast? In Popeyes’ case, the franchisees themselves referred to the chaos in-store as “mayhem,” with the New York Times reporting on “sometimes hostile interactions with impatient customers” who waited in long lines for a sandwich that sold out. To its credit, Popeyes is now using its social channels to urge fans to download its free Popeyes Chicken App, so “you’ll never have to wait in line for your favorite chicken again.”
Was the Popeyes marketing team utterly brilliant or just lucky that their social media response to Chick-fil-A resulted in a multi-million dollar victory for their restaurants? Would your brand feel comfortable engaging online with your biggest competitors? And, most importantly, which chicken sandwich is your favorite—Chick-fil-A or Popeyes? Send us a comment or an email at email@example.com and let us know.

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When Geist couple Marisol and Chad Buchanan say they operate a procurement strategy consulting company, many people don’t know what that means.
“In layman’s terms, we help businesses get better pricing and reduce the risk with their suppliers and improve all of their processes by leveraging technology for automation and controls,” Marisol said.
The couple started their company, Premikati, in 2009. A lot of what the couple did revolved around ensuring companies had the right technology to operate as efficiently as possible and also ensuring they were making the right purchases from the right suppliers.
In 2015, Premikati became an SAP Ariba partner. In 2016, it became one of only five business process outsourcing firms to own and operate Ariba software worldwide. The distinction allowed Buchanans to extend Premikati and offer Premikati Marketplace, which offers a less intensive version of Ariba software for smaller companies that may not be able to afford Ariba software.
“There’s this huge gap for mid-market companies,” Marisol said. “There’s not a lot of solutions for them to have those best-in-practice procurement processes. They can’t afford Ariba. Because of the BPO part, we came up with the idea to help small and midsized companies – any company below $1 billion in annual revenue. The Ariba network has $2.7 trillion in spending across the world. It’s 10 times bigger than Amazon. So, we have access.”
Premikati provides an access avenue to mid-market businesses.
“We are giving companies access to that network,” Marisol said. “Ariba did an analysis of their large-buying organizations. We are talking Disney, Anthem, Lilly, Roche, all these big-fortune companies. What are they spending money on and how can we help them out so they are not dealing with so many suppliers? So, they went off and found about 15 million items (businesses use) that they went off and pre-negotiated these 15 million items with 140 vendors.
“Items that have anything to do with business, anything from janitorial supplies to office furniture, coffee filters, computers, software, books, anything you need to run a business, they went off and pre-negotiated, and Ariba has the contract with the supplier and they have that price they negotiated.”
The annual cost for most businesses to access Ariba software is between $100,000 and $1 million. The Buchanans recognized small to midsize companies can’t afford that, so they found a way to make it accessible to smaller companies.
“Ariba is very expensive. Normal businesses making (less than $1 billion) in annual revenue can’t afford that,” Marisol said. “This inspired us to innovate a way to give them awesome pricing with real procurement software and analysis. Since we own and manage the software and can have an unlimited number of customers accessing the marketplace, this takes the headache out of implementing a technology while driving down the price for users.”
The cost is then reduced to $30 per month, per person, with a minimum of 20 users per company.
Chad said most times, small businesses often don’t need all the robust offerings on Ariba’s software and can adequately function with the version Premikati Marketplace offers.
“(The Ariba) software is extremely robust and more robust than most small businesses need, but some of these small businesses grow up to be bigger businesses,” Chad said. “(Premikati Marketplace) is really meant to be step one. It gives the most important features of Ariba for a low price and low implementation.”
For more, visit premikati.com.
Premikati Marketplace and Amazon for Business
Chad Buchanan said some businesses insist they don’t need a different marketplace for business purchases because they already use Amazon for Business. However, Amazon for Business recently became part of the Premikati Marketplace, in addition to the Ariba software already offered.
“That means that if you wanted to come on our marketplace, you have access to everything Ariba negotiated on prices,” Chad said. “But now there’ll be a separate tile you can click so you can look at everything Amazon for Business (offers) and you decide which is cheaper. You have the ability to choose who you want to buy from. You have the ability to compare.”


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In October, after years of regulatory ambiguity and antagonism toward the e-cigarette industry, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally granted its first-ever authorization for e-cigarette products to be marketed and sold in the United States.
While its decision should be applauded, the agency could be doing much more to promote vaping as a harm reduction measure for smokers.
While other countries — like the U.K. and Canada — have successfully integrated e-cigarettes into their tobacco harm reduction strategies, America has moved slowly to lift regulatory hurdles. Last September, more than 500 companies submitted some 6.5 million applications to the FDA seeking authorization to sell their vaping products in the U.S. market. More than a year later, after failing to meet a court-ordered deadline, the FDA has approved just three products — raising doubts about the e-cigarette industry’s legal status.
To those following the data closely, the FDA’s reluctance to recognize the public health benefits of e-cigarettes is puzzling, especially when set against the backdrop of the more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States caused by smoking.
Numerous studies indicate that vaping is an effective smoking cessation aid. In a controlled experiment, the gold standard in scientific research, British researchers recruited about 900 smokers and randomly assigned half to use e-cigarettes and the other half to use traditional nicotine replacement products. Among e-cigarette users, 18% had stopped smoking after a year, while only 9.9% of those using nicotine replacement therapy had quit — making e-cigarettes nearly twice as effective as FDA-approved smoking cessation products.
Steve Pociask – ACI – 2021-11-12.


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Microsoft announced its list of Games with Gold today with a pair of games for the Xbox One and 360 each.
Latest Articles From Sunset Overdrive
The idea that Sunset City—the locale of Sunset Overdrive—is someone’s personal carnival is a metaphor that works pretty well; especially since the world is full
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Embrace the ridiculous and prepare yourself for the Awesomepocalypse! Insomniac Games surprised everyone at E3 2013 with their announcement of Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive.
OK, so, I may not be in Los Angeles for this year’s E3, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to talk about what’s happening
Insomniac Games have been showing off a lot of their upcoming Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive. Today, they did that again with another gameplay trailer.
Nearly a year after it was announced at Microsoft’s E3 presentation, Sunset Overdrive finally has it’s first gameplay trailer. The game takes place during a
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Whether you're an existing Pinterest user or simply a shopaholic, Fancy has tons of items that you should see. Plus, a potential discount through Fancy's built-in shop should make the app worth considering.
A single home button has long pulled double duty when it comes to multitasking on your iOS device.
Khail and Ashley talk about the realities of flying cars, Forever 21's cool "Thread Screen" installation and how conservationists are using tech to help stop rhino poachers.
We're still not sure about the whole "everyone gets a flying car" thing, but we do really like the updated look Terrafugia revealed this week for its TF-X prototype. If you're going to sit in sky traffic, we always say you should do it with style.
In a bid to make the Web a safer place, Mozilla's security team proposes making encrypted connections necessary for using new Web technologies. Google's Chrome team has a similar idea.
The next Apple TV won't support 4K, diversity comes to emoji with iOS 8.3 and the first Apple Watch reviews are lukewarm.
The $3100 Electrolux EI28BS80KS4A delivers underwhelming performance and frustrating features.
Google has turned Google Maps into a fully playable game of Pac-Man you can tackle right now. Amazing.
Join Bridget Carey and Jeff Bakalar as they break down day one's biggest headlines in product announcements including home security cameras, smart appliances, and the future of the Palm and Walkman brands.
NASA's new countdown clock for space missions is a lot like a football stadium display and way more advanced than the old analog one it's replacing.


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Tag - LinkedIn
An earlier breach of LinkedIn's servers has been revealed as bigger than first thought, years after the event took place. A breach of the work-focused social network in 2012 was thought to have affected 6.5 million accounts, but it has recently come to light that details for approximately 167 million accounts were advertised for sale on a 'Dark Web' site, with the seller offering the entire collection for five bitcoins, worth just $2,200.
[Updated with some families of deceased filing letter supporting court order] The expected amicus curae briefs from Silicon Valley companies supporting Apple in its encryption battle have arrived. The first filing, according to reports, is a combined effort from Airbnb, Atlassian, Automattic, CloudFlare, eBay, GitHub, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Mapbox, Medium, Meetup, Reddit, Square, Squarespace, Twilio, Twitter, and Wickr.. A separate supporting brief was also filed from original and current iPhone launch partner AT&T. Additionally, a combined letter from some of the families of victims has also arrived, supporting the court's order mandating unlocking of the iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
The business social media service has updated its iPhone app to LinkedIn 9.0.0, and even if you haven't ever used it, you already know exactly how it works. For this new update is a huge revamp that doubtlessly took the company a lot of work -- once they'd spent 10 minutes looking at Facebook. We all look at Facebook, but we don't make so many notes. Seriously: open the new LinkedIn app, and for a moment you'll think you've tapped on Facebook instead.
A new post from Apple Retail Senior Vice President (SVP) Dame Angela Ahrendts on her LinkedIn blog offers a simple holiday message and song with a theme of peace, saying her message for the season was simply "let peace begin with me." Ahrendts said she was inspired by a recent re-hearing of a song she used to play on piano, a rendition of "Let There Be Peace on Earth" by B.J. Thomas. The song, originally written by Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller in 1955, offers an inspirational message of unity.
Professional networking platform LinkedIn has discontinued its InMaps visualization tool. Citing the need to focus on new ways to visualize users' professional network, InMaps officially retired September 1. The feature was first launched in January 2011, and allowed for viewing different clusters in one's network and color code them as to see where crossovers and separations appeared.
LinkedIn, the social platform for professional networking, has released a redesigned version of its LinkedIn Contacts app for iOS. LinkedIn Connected offers users relevant updates about people in their networks, and notifications about job changes, birthdays, and more. The revamp includes the same features as the previous release, with a focus on relationships. LinkedIn Connected is free to download.
Uber has announced a new pilot service, uberFamily, launching first in New York City. The cab-hailing service is offering users vehicles that are equipped with car seats for children. The seats will be installed by those who are trained and certified to do so, and accommodates children aged one year and up. Available for a $10 surcharge, those interested in trying out the service in the New York City area must enter "FAMILY" as a code in the app to access the option.
Apple has joined a list of companies that have agreed to donate $500,000 apiece to a San Francisco anti-poverty charity, SF Gives, two sources tell Fortune. In all about 15 companies have signed up for the initiative so far, including Google, Zynga, and LinkedIn. SF Gives was started by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Tipping Point CEO Daneil Lurie; the goal is to have 20 business sign up by Wednesday, leading to a total contribution of $10 million. That money in turn will be donated to local charitable programs.
A group of tech companies have released more information about government requests from the NSA and other agencies for user information, as part of their transparency reporting programs. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Microsoft have all posted more statistics online for these Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests, following an agreement between the companies and the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
Eight tech giants, including industry competitors Apple, Google and Microsoft, have joined forces to demand reforms to the US government's surveillance tactics. In an open letter sent to President Barack Obama and members of Congress, the companies argue that current surveillance practices, as detailed in ongoing leaks from former National Security Agency staffer Edward Snowden, have created an imbalance "too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual-rights that are enshrined in our Constitution."
Now AAPL Stock: 92.04 ( -1.36 )
Twitter stickers slowly roll out to users
Twitter has introduced "stickers," allowing users to add extra graphical elements to their photos before uploading them to the micro-blogging service. A library of hundreds of accessories, props, and emoji will be available to use as stickers, which can be resized, rotated, and placed anywhere on the photograph. Images with stickers will also become searchable with viewers able to select a sticker to see how others use the same graphic in their own posts. Twitter advises stickers will be rolling out to users over the next few weeks, and will work on both the mobile apps and through the browser. http://bit.ly/29bbwUE
French show carries on with iPhones
Following a prolonged power loss in a French TV studio, the crew was able to use a combination of limited studio lighting and a number of iPhones to continue taping the Saturday episode of talk show On n'est pas couché ("We're Still Awake"), using the resulting footage in the first edited episode. The Plus-model iPhones used for the impromptu shoot completion were either iPhone 6 Plusses (which shoot in 1080p) or 6s Plus models (which can shoot in 4K). The decision to use the iPhones to complete the show was made after a power outage at France 2's studio stretched to more than three hours. http://bit.ly/299wqDt
Scrivener for iOS to arrive in late July
For some long-time Scrivener users, to quote Paul Simon, "these are the days of miracle and wonders." As it marks its 10th anniversary in business, developer Keith Blount has announced that the long-awaited iOS version of his creative-writing tool Scrivener is to be submitted to the App Store, following strong praise from beta-testers. The program, expected in late July, will sell for $20 and work with both the iPad and iPhone. When we interviewed Blount last January, he added that Scrivener 3 for Mac would follow along shorty afterwards. http://bit.ly/2901XLE
WhatsApp now handles over 100M calls daily
WhatsApp is celebrating that it is being used for over 100 million calls every day. In a brief notice, the Facebook-owned messaging platform advises the voice-calling feature it rolled out to its users last year now deals with an average of over 1,100 calls initiated per second. Earlier this year, it increased the security of its calls and other messages, by introducing end-to-end encryption on all platforms. http://bit.ly/292HqCX
Adele's '25' album now streaming
Recording artist Adele has "pulled a Kanye" after saying that her current album "25" would not be available for streaming. The seven-month-old record, which has yielded a number of hit singles, is now available for streaming on all the major streaming services, such as Apple Music and Spotify, as of today in most major markets, with worldwide distribution to come. Reportedly, the singer had demanded streaming be limited to paid subscribers -- a condition that has hurt some streamers with artists, who aren't paid royalties for free or trial listens . Apple pays performers its normal royalty rates during its free trial, avoiding the issue -- and having repeated success in both signing up exclusives and placing those exclusives into the top of the charts. http://ti.me/28U7NOu
SanDisk iXpand case has battery, storage
A new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s case from SanDisk appears to be the "holy grail" of accessories: a stylish and protective case that offers both extra storage as well as the option of extra battery power as well. The iXpand Memory case offers either 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB of additional storage incorporated into the case, and an optional add-on battery pack (sold separately) adds up to an extra day or more of charge. Through the associated iXpand app, camera photos and videos can be automatically stored on the extra storage, optionally password-protected, The cost for the case is (in order of storage capacity) $60, $100, and $130. The battery pack's release data has not yet been announced, but the add-on should retail for an additional $30. http://bit.ly/291epHu
Fifth Hong Kong store to open June 30
The 46th official Apple store in what the company calls the "Greater China" region will open at 10AM local time in Hong Kong's New Town Plaza in the Sha Tin district on Thursday, June 30, according to a new page on Apple's retail website. Despite slowing growth due to economic turmoil in China, the country is still Apple's fastest-growing market. The new story will be the fifth for Hong Kong, a lucrative market for Apple thanks to the high concentration of wealth there and a thriving "gray" market. Normal store hours for the new store will be 10AM to 10PM every day. http://apple.co/291diaT


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Music Fans May Not Want to Pay -- But Apple Music's Launch Signals a Broader Media Strategy
Apple Inc. sign displayed at the Yerba Buena Center before the start of the the company's Spring Forward event on March 9, 2015 in San Francisco, California.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A key impediment to digital music growth has been Apple's avoidance of the music subscription model. That era officially came to an end Monday when Apple announced Apple Music, an overhaul of the Beats Music service it acquired last year and the company's successor to the groundbreaking iTunes Music Store.
Unfortunately, the introduction of Apple Music lacked a "wow" moment that would suggest Apple will push the subscription music market forward. The company tweaked, rather than reinvented the existing subscription product. Regardless of the on-stage bluster, Apple Music follows familiar formulas established by its predecessors. The safe course might end up being the best course, but there should be little doubt Apple hasn't taken an ambitious tack.
'All Boats Rise': Jimmy Iovine & Eddy Cue Explain Apple Music, Working With Labels, Pricing
Wall Street investors showed a typical knee-jerk reaction. Shares of Pandora, an Internet radio service that barely swims in the same pool as Apple Music, dropped 4 percent Monday and fell another 5.2 percent in Tuesday morning trading, although it had recovered slightly by midday. RealNetworks, part owner of subscription service Rhapsody, fell 3.6 percent on Monday.
Morgan Stanley analysts had a more tempered reaction. In a note released Tuesday, the analysts called Apple Music "a more robust pay service" than its competitors. The note argued Apple Pay "clearly packs more value" into the subscription model by adding such features as Beats 1 (a global radio service that introduces on-air personalities into a model that has avoided all association with traditional radio) usability through Siri (Apple's voice recognition and search service), music videos and integration with consumers' Apple purchase history. Apple's family-plan pricing $14.99 for up to six people (more generous than competing services' family plans) adds additional value.
Apple Music: We Still Have Some Questions
But Morgan Stanley doesn't believe Apple Music will drive paid subscriptions to "mass-market ubiquity." The company conducted a survey earlier this year that revealed roughly 30 percent of respondents showed interest in paid music services, and only one-third of that group (or roughly 10 percent of all respondents) showed interest in a $10-per-month price. Russ Crupnick of MusicWatch puts the ceiling on the U.S. music subscription market at 35 million people. His figure is far from mass-market ubiquity, but about three times greater than current U.S. subscriptions.
Combined with the popularity and high customer satisfaction of free music services, this lack of interest in paid music services led the analysts to believe "free music will drive the lion's share of audio consumption over the long-term." In addition, Morgan Stanley believes digital streaming advertising will grow faster than digital subscription revenues. In other words, Apple doesn't appear to have created either a Spotify killer or a Pandora killer.
Apple Unveils Streaming Service, 24-Hour Worldwide Radio Station
The deeper meaning of Monday's announcement could be the shift in Apple's approach to digital media. For years Apple stood firmly against subscription music, and now it's playing catch-up to Spotify and other services. It lags behind Netflix in paid video streaming, if it ever enters the streaming video race. Its launch of the News app followed a less-than-sterling Newsstand rollout, as well as similar app Flipboard by some years. A FBR Capital Markets analyst called streaming music "the top of the iceberg for Apple" and predicted the company will announce a television subscription service later this year.
In all fairness, Apple could have had grander ambitions. Subscription music products are only as progressive as rights holders allow. New features could be rolled out over time. Until that happens, Apple will need some brute force to make subscription music succeed. Spotify doesn't have hundreds of millions of existing customers. Tidal can't market itself inside physical retail stores in 16 countries on five continents. Rhapsody didn't have global revenue of nearly $183 billion last year. Apple may not have the best product, but it has the most resources -- more than any company in the world, actually.


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The first Bronx born baby of 2011 was showered with gifts by a generous children’s store in Melrose.
Sergio Martinez, the first baby born in the Bronx in the new year at St. Barnabas Hospital, and his mother, Kiara Suron, are from the Fordham area.
After the baby was born, Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. contacted Youngland Kiddie Shop on 2922 Third Avenue to notify them of the news. When they contacted Youngland, they were asked to make donations for the tiny celebrity. Youngland specializes and sells goods for babies and young children such as clothes, strollers, cribs, toys and more.
When Youngland’s general manager, Mario DeGiorgio, found out that no other store was doing anything to celebrate Sergio’s timely birth, he immediately wanted to help. He was disheartened to learn that nobody else offered to give presents to the baby in celebration of his birth.
“We found out that this was the first baby born in the Bronx for 2011 and we wanted to do something very special for him,” DeGiorgio said. “We heard nobody was doing anything for the baby and we couldn’t let him go unnoticed. It was our pleasure to help this baby and his mom get on a great start to the new year.”
On Tuesday, January 18, Kiara Suron was invited to come to the Youngland store to pick out items for the baby. Unfortunately, she was not able to bring baby Sergio due to inclement weather. However, store associate Valerie Vincenci was more than happy to bring Suron around the store to choose items for her son.
DeGiorgio came up with a list of items that the baby would need and Suron picked them out on her own. Shechose from a large selection of strollers, cribs, cradles, blankets, toys and numerous clothing items for her son.
After she was finished, Youngland employees helped her place everything into carts and shopping bags.
Suron shopped with a big smile on her face the whole time and could not express how grateful she was for everything Youngland did for her.
“I was not expecting such a large and wonderful donation for my son,” said Suron. “When I found out about a week ago, I couldn’t believe it. I cannot begin to say how very happy I am and grateful for everything Youngland has provided for us.”


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Ingram Micro New Zealand has been overrun by rodents, with a plethora of cute and cuddly beavers making a temporary home at the distributor this week.
The beavers – genus Castor, if anyone is interested – are now on their way to resellers around New Zealand as part of the distributor's HP Whistler promotion.
The promotion, which runs through until the end of November, will see eight lucky resellers winging their way to British Columbia for a week of adventures at Whistler in February.
Included on the agenda will be skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, bob sledding and zip-lining.
The promotion, which is open to HP commercial PC resellers, has been very well received, Ingram Micro New Zealand's Luke Mitchell says, with plenty of customer engagement and good sales.
With just one month to go, Mitchell says the eight available seats are still anyones to grab, with the competition ‘very close' and placings moving around drastically every week.
As to those beavers, Mitchell says “Beavers are the national animal of Canada.
“We though it was fitting as a reminder that there is only one month left – and it's something a little bit different, quirky and fun.
“We had the beavers branded with the promotion name and HP and Ingram logs and sent them out with the Destination Whistler postcards, handwritten with a note and their placings.
Expect to see those furry critters popping up on LinkedIn over the coming days, with Ingram Micro offering small gifts to anyone posting a picture of their HP Beaver on LinkedIn with the hashtag #HPDestinationWhistler.


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Billionaire investor Howard Marks, the co-chairman of Oaktree Capital, predicts there won't be a recession in the U.S. for another two years.US Economyread more
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This year's North American International Auto Show in Detroit was tamer than usual, with only a handful of big-name debuts making headlines. With less competition, the cars that did launch in Detroit had a better chance of making a splash. Here are the winners and losers from one of the industry's biggest annual shows.
Toyota spent years hyping the Supra. The company had teasers, concept designs and press drives for camouflaged prototypes. There were leaks and renders, showing off almost everything about the Supra before its launch Monday. Supra fatigue was becoming a serious concern, as it's hard to maintain that level of excitement without getting impatient and bored.
Yet Toyota still got the most attention at the show, a testament to the dearth of exciting reveals and the attention-grabbing power of the Supra name. Plus, at a lick under $50,000, it's expected to cost significantly less than the BMW Z4 with which it shares a platform and interior.
The three-row SUV market is deeply competitive and highly important to automakers. Add in the Explorer name — an iconic model that has sold millions since it helped kick off demand for SUVs — and a Police Interceptor model that massively outsells Ford's Taurus Police Interceptor, and it's not a stretch to say this is one of the most important models in Ford's lineup.
But the current Explorer is capital-O Old. It hasn't had a full redesign since the current body style debuted in 2011. Even then, the Explorer wasn't a benchmark for the class. But it's been overdue for a major refresh.
That's what Ford offered last week, during a preshow launch event at Ford Field. Not only is the Explorer getting a top-to-bottom redesign, but it's also switching to a rear-wheel drive architecture shared with the Lincoln Aviator. That allows for more attractive proportions, a clever hybrid option and a more dynamic ST model.
Horsepower battles are still being waged in Motor City. A few years after Dodge introduced its insane 707-horsepower Hellcats, Ford is finally firing back with a 700-plus-horsepower rocketship in the form of the Mustang Shelby GT500.
Since the Blue Oval already offers a high-revving, demonic Shelby GT350 for track work, we were expecting to see a brawny straight-line cruiser. But the GT500 isn't some muscle car of yore; its 5.2-liter supercharged V-8 and dual-clutch transmission are built to handle high-intensity driving all day. Plus, it looks fantastic.
In the war being waged in the heavy-duty truck segment, Ram came out on top in Detroit. Ford, GM and Ram keep one-upping the stratospheric torque levels of the trucks that exist today. After years of climbing from 600 to 700 to 800-plus foot pounds of torque, Ram drops the mic in Detroit with a mind-boggling 1,000 foot pounds.
Torque is the twisting force of an engine, or its ability to pull the truck and any additional weight. It's an important metric in the heavy duty market, as a high torque suggests a truck can handle massive trailers or payloads without getting bogged down.
More than that, though, the Ram HD is a complete redo of one of the big three segment stalwarts. Much like last year's Ram 1500 redesign, it offers more luxury and comfort options without losing out on payload or towing. Also, it has the most advanced suite of active safety gear on any heavy-duty truck. Ram claims the automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control will work with a full 30,000-pound trailer in tow.
The biggest loser of the show is unquestionably Nissan's Infiniti QX Inspiration concept car. Even if the debut had gone off without a hitch, Infiniti has a bad habit of debuting lots of concept cars and few production vehicles at shows. Another all-electric show car without a production variant is tired and uninteresting at this point. Either make an electric car or don't.
The reason it's the biggest loser, though, is that the QX Inspiration failed to drive onto the stage for its debut. We don't know what happened, but we know that some Infiniti company reps were visibly upset the thing wouldn't start. They even had a hard time pushing it onto the show floor.
Cadillac was caught with its pants down when the crossover craze took over. The brand invested heavily in creating a portfolio of sports sedans with class-leading dynamics, but consumers wanted SUVs. Cadillac only offered the Escalade and the XT5, while Mercedes offers seven separate SUV body styles from the boxy G-Class to the fastback GLC Coupe.
To fix that, Cadillac has launched the XT4 and XT6. The XT4 came out last year to decent reviews and solid sales, while the XT6 bowed at Detroit. It's a good product to have, but it seems like too little too late.
Underneath, it's basically a GMC Acadia. It has the same 3.6-liter V6 that's done propulsion duty in countless GM cars and it doesn't offer Super Cruise, the company's class-leading driver assistance technology. Steve Carlisle, in the press conference, referenced GM's goal of creating a future with zero emissions, zero crashes and zero congestion.
A great goal, to be sure, but we don't understand how a middling six-passenger SUV without an electrified powertrain option or the company's flagship driver assistance technology gets them closer to that.
If it's true that sedans are being killed, warmed-over milquetoast options like the Volkswagen Passat are prime suspects. VW's goal to increase sales in America has resulted in more cost cutting, less interesting products and totally forgettable styling.
VW makes a markedly more refined Passat for the European market, but Americans want cheaper and bigger options. That means we get this, something so uninteresting that I forgot it debuted by the next morning.
A loser list for this show would be incomplete without mentioning that Detroit auto show itself was a dud. The show floor was significantly less bustling than last year, with many automakers opting to skip.
The auto show market, in general, seems to be shrinking, but it doesn't help Detroit that the Los Angeles Auto Show and Consumer Electronics Show are sucking up more and more debuts. In 2020, NAIAS is moving to June to help get some exhibitors back and boost attendance. That's a good idea, as it's getting harder to justify trekking to Detroit in January for a show that so many automakers won't attend.


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Having right-sized the ship, 4Front Ventures (4Front Ventures Stock Quote, Chart, News CSE:FFNT) is primed for a strong H2 2020, according to Beacon Securities analyst Doug Cooper, who reviewed the cannabis company’s latest quarterly results in an update to clients on Tuesday.
Arizona-based 4Front is a US multi-state operator and retailer with over 25 cannabis brands and operations in Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Michigan and Washington state. The company released on Monday its fourth quarter 2019 financials along with preliminary results for the first quarter 2020.
The Q4 saw sales of $17.5 million and marked the third consecutive quarter of growth (from $14 million in the Q2 and $16.9 million in the Q3), while EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $5.8 million. The Q4 results included a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $146.3 million related to the timing of the close of the Cannex transaction which was affected by higher industry stock prices at the date of the merger, according to the company. (All figures in US dollars except where noted otherwise.)
As for 4Front’s business, management reported robust consumer demand across all its operating markets despite the COVID-19 pandemic, with all states in which the company has business having declared cannabis operations as “essential businesses.” As well, 4Front said its expansion plans are underway in Massachusetts and Illinois and that business remains on pace to be cash flow positive in the second half of 2020.
“Entering 2020, we have been laser-focused on leaning out and replicating our low-cost cultivation and production model in targeted states,” said Leo Gontmakher, CEO, in a press release. “The work our team has done over the past six months to focus our business model, streamline our cost structure and fortify our balance sheet has set the stage for us to accelerate growth across our core markets.”
In his update, Cooper wrote that more significant than the Q4 results were the preliminary Q1 numbers, which are indicated to be $23.8 million in sales, up 36 per cent sequentially and driven primarily by the start of rec sales in Illinois (as of January 1).
“Aside from the continued system sales growth and narrowing EBITDA loss, which is clearly positive, the last few quarters have been about the restructuring of the organization, which we highlighted in our May 27, 2020 note, ‘Major Restructuring Dramatically Improves Outlook.’ Such restructuring streamlines its operations in terms of geographic focus and headcount and dramatically improves its balance sheet. All of these should help the company become cash flow positive in 2H20 and provide significant operating leverage as it heads into FY21,” Cooper said.
Cooper called 4Front’s balance sheet much improved, with potential for further non-dilutive and accretive improvements, and pointed out that the company’s near-term capex projects in Massachusetts and Illinois are fully funded.
As well, the analyst said that Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois and California are all markets that offer excellent opportunities for growth, with likely strong pricing for the next few years especially in IL and MA, given the demand/supply imbalance.
With the update, Cooper has maintained his “Buy” rating and C$2.00 target, which at press time represented a projected return of 245 per cent.
Looking ahead, Cooper thinks 4Front with generate fiscal 2020 system sales and adjusted EBITDA of $101.5 million and $9.8 million, respectively, and fiscal 2021 system sales and adjusted EBITDA of $180.5 million and $50.1 million, respectively.
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The curved display that could turn your ENTIRE PHONE into a screen
- A prototype smartphone designed to showcase the next-generation technology was created by Japanese company SEL
- It is made from lightweight C-Axis Aligned Crystal (CAAC) material
- CAAC can be bent without losing picture resolution and allows for photos to curve around the handset and rolling text to be displayed down its sides
Scientists have created a new type of material that can be used to create curved smartphone screens that allows pictures and words to be displayed round corners.
The lightweight and durable C-Axis Aligned Crystal (CAAC) material means there is no longer any need for wasted space on phone screens.
The prototypes, created by a Japanese company, even allow rolling information to run down the sides of a smartphone.
The lightweight and durable C-Axis Aligned Crystal (CAAC) material was used to create this prototype smartphone, which has icons down its sides and allows images to 'spill' round its corners. It also allows for rolling text down its sides (pictured right)
Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) showed off its new technology at the FPD 2013 electronics trade show in Japan.
Many people have predicted that phones of the future will have curved screens and the crystal-based material means that it is possible to make side-roll and top-roll OLED displays that allow pictures and words to 'spill over' the phone's edges.
The CAAC material is less than 100 microns thick and is currently the 'only technology that can display a picture on bent edges,' according to SEL.
The CAAC material is less than 100 microns thick and is currently the 'only technology that can display a picture on bent edges,' according to SEL. A message alert is displayed on the top curve of the phone (pictured left) while the home button is conveniently located on the side of the handset (pictured right)
Amazingly, the company says that bending the material has no effect on the picture quality of the prototype and it believes it will be used to create the next generation of wearable devices, Diginfo.com reported.
The company has developed bendable lithium ion batteries to go with its bendable new material, allowing for a sleek watch-like prototype device.
In a test where the battery was repeatedly bent with the wear-and-tear expected in a wrist device, it could be put on and taken off over 10,000 times.
SEL believes CAAC will be used to create the next generation of wearable devices. The company has developed bendable lithium ion batteries to go with its bendable new material, allowing for a sleek watch-like prototype device to be developed (pictured)
SEL has also created the largest plastic substrate OLED display, which measures 13.5 inches and a resolution of 326 PPI.
Yoshitake Yamamoto, from SEL, said the CAAC material is very reliable and allows for high resolution to be achieved in large displays.
'One feature of CAAC is, it doesn't break easily, because the crystals are continuously aligned. So, it isn't damaged much even if it's bent...this is the only technology that can display a picture on bent edges,' he said.
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Donald Trump Suggests Post-Election China Deal Might Be Better
- Massive tariffs continue to be issue
- More tariffs coming December 15
- Trump suggests might be best to wait until after election
- “Risk-off” trade-in reaction
It’s been stealing the headlines for months, the United States and China deal has been levying massive amounts of tariffs against each other in what has effectively been a running trade war. Billions of dollars of tariffs have been collected by each country, with a seemingly unending amount of drama surrounding the entire situation.
Beyond that, the situation is compounded by the fact that the two economies are relatively intertwined. One thing that is lost in the fray though is that the United States economy measured by GDP, is roughly 13.5 times the size of China’s, so quite often what we have seen has been an overreaction by Chinese comments.
Donald Trump isn’t exactly hesitant to fire off an errant comment. That is one of the things that markets are learning on right now, that perhaps the reaction is overdone. There are more tariffs set to be levied against Chinese goods on December 15, and markets are starting to focus on whether or not that comes to be.
Trump suggests post-election deal may be the best route
Donald Trump suggested the post-election time frame which might be the best for a Chinese deal would be in November 2020 or later. That has created market reactions, as algorithms start trading the “risk-off” trade, buying gold, selling anything that’s remotely tied to the Chinese trade. This includes the recently strengthening New Zealand dollar, and treasuries. It’s obvious that algorithms are still monitoring headlines and placing trades based upon it.
Like it or not, Donald Trump’s Twitter account, and in this case, a comment made to a reporter in London, control what happens with the S&P 500 and other markets around the world. This is simply a matter of psychology, and it will be interesting to see how long this reaction continues because it is not a scenario that seems to be as long-lasting as it was months ago.
Ultimately, this could cause a bit of a pullback in several of the stock markets around the world, but more importantly in the American indices. Those indices are a bit overbought, and this type of noise can give traders an opportunity to pick up a bit of value before the so-called “Santa Claus rally” on Wall Street. Beyond that, whether or not there is a US-China deal between now and the end of the year is a question that people have been asking, but that there are no signs of yet.


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American Legion to reopen
Commander says post restructuring, won't sell building
GALESBURG — After closing suddenly July 20, the Ralph M. Noble American Legion Post 285 plans to reopen in the near future.
The post reversed its decision after 50–60 members showed up to an Aug. 4 meeting.
"They expressed that they did not want to sell the building," Post Commander Tim Roll said. "The majority has spoken. We're not selling the building."
The post has been struggling financially lately. It lost its video gaming machines earlier this year due to unpaid state taxes, causing a significant drop in revenue. The Legion also has seen declining membership, post leaders said.
To straighten out the post's financial situation, the Legion has a new accountant and finance officer, Roll said, as well as a business committee.
"We are in restructuring right now," Roll said.
The unpaid taxes are "being resolved," Roll said, and the post is "dealing with the state at this time" regarding its video gaming license.
It also lost its liquor license, which Roll expects to be resolved soon.
"There's a hold on the liquor license from the state. As far as I know, the liquor license will be renewed anytime. ... Everything's in place for that to be renewed," Roll said. "We should have something here very soon."
As it reopens, the post plans to start out slowly, with it first restoring the Hamburg Fry, though it hasn't set a date for when that will begin.
"We definitely plan on starting up with the burger fries and going from there," Roll said. "The business committee and myself, we're meeting again next week, and we'll have hopefully more things hashed out."
The post will also honor all contracts it currently has, Roll said.
To help the American Legion as it restructures, the post set up a gofundme.com fundraiser that the public can donate to. It has a $53,000 goal.
"We're accepting donations from the community to get us completely, 100 percent operational," Roll said. "It's going to take a little more funding than we're able to pull in right now."
Ben Zigterman: (309) 343-7181, ext. 255; firstname.lastname@example.org; @bzigterman; m.me/bzigterman


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Welcome to the wonderful world of stability. At least that’s how many metal fabricators see their business.
In the inaugural Forming & Fabricating Job Shop Consumption Report from the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, 43 percent of fab shops surveyed indicated that the business outlook is positive and 42 percent said stable. Only 15 percent declared it negative.
It seems like it’s been this way for a while. The metal fabricating markets have been improving, but the economy isn’t firing on all cylinders as of yet. Uncertainty associated with government regulation, natural disasters, and terrorism has been somewhat to blame, but this general feeling of unease has gradually become the new norm.
What if this is the best we can expect in the near term?
Some pundits have floated the idea that we may have already entered a period of stagflation, when tepid economic growth and high unemployment numbers coincide with inflationary pricing on goods. Not all agree, however, because they think that overall inflation has been held in check. Even though food and gas prices typically aren’t considered as indicators when determining inflationary trends, the average American consumer has seen some pretty dramatic price hikes in those area in recent months.
At the very least, the U.S. economy has hit a period of stagnation—even as the automotive and energy industries thrive. The latter may have more of a chance to make a long-term positive impact on the U.S. economy; the automotive industry is simply riding a wave of replacement purchases because the average age of a U.S. vehicle has now reached an amazing 11 years old.
Ask economists and they will tell you that a true economic revival in this country is dependent on consumer spending. Well, the economic boom of the 2000s—and some might argue even before—was built on borrowed wealth: As home prices rose to astronomic levels, homeowners borrowed against them, giving them funds to luxuriate. Some estimates have the U.S. residential market losing about $4 trillion in value after the real estate bubble popped.
Simultaneously, job and wage growth has been tepid in the U.S. With the new focus on trying to trim government, public employees are or will see the squeeze on their own paychecks. That is not taking into account the thousands of retired public employees that likely will see some sort of change in their retirement benefits as municipalities come to grips with the burden of trying to cover pension obligations that they ignored for years.
Meanwhile, families have to cope with rising education costs and plan more aggressively for any chance at a comfortable retirement. They’ll have to carry more of the burden for health care in the future as well.
Betting on the U.S. consumer to pull the economy back to GDP growth levels higher than the 3 percent needed to generate consistent job growth is like betting on a horse that has run two races prior to running the main event on the same day. The horse and the consumer are tapped out.
Until housing prices rise or the emerging economies of the world catch fire again, this may be the best that it is going to get. Of course, that all changes with the emergence of some major problem like this.
The FABRICATOR is North America's leading magazine for the metal forming and fabricating industry. The magazine delivers the news, technical articles, and case histories that enable fabricators to do their jobs more efficiently. The FABRICATOR has served the industry since 1971.


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NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp named former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta as chief executive of the MySpace online social network on Friday, replacing co-founder Chris DeWolfe.
News Corp has been trying to revive MySpace as its revenue growth has slowed and as Facebook has surpassed MySpace in the number of worldwide users.
Van Natta, former chief operating officer at Facebook, will be based in Los Angeles and report to Jonathan Miller, News Corp's chief digital officer, News Corp said in a statement. His appointment is effective immediately, it added.
He now is chief executive at Playlist Inc, an online music company. Previously, he was vice president of worldwide business and corporate development at online bookstore and retailer Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O).
Van Natta, 39, did not return a telephone call seeking comment. DeWolfe, who was swept aside as Murdoch shakes up News Corp's digital operations and other parts of his company, was not available for comment, a MySpace spokeswoman said.
News Corp shares rose 23 cents to $7.90 on the Nasdaq stock market. (Reporting by Robert MacMillan; Editing by Andre Grenon)


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Anheuser-Bush, the parent company of Bud Light, is looking to smooth things over with the nation’s corn growers after airing Super Bowl commercials with the slogan “brewed with no corn syrup.” A representative of the beer giant emailed the National Corn Growers Association on Sunday night and the two sides met face-to-face on Monday. The olive branch comes after a series of ads promoting the fact that Bud Light is sweetened with rice rather than corn syrup.
After the ads ran, the NCGA posted a tweet saying, “America’s corn farmers are disappointed with you… thanks Miller Lite and Coors Lite for supporting our industry.” They also mentioned that the NCGA office is “right down the road! We’d love to discuss the many benefits of corn! Thanks, @MillerLight and @CoorsLight for supporting our industry.”
The NCGA says the ad gives people the impression that corn is a bad ingredient. An Anheuser-Busch spokesman says, “The ads were simply meant to point out a key difference between Bud Light and other light beers on the market.” The NCGA says corn syrup has gotten a bad rap because of the nation’s obesity epidemic.
Miller Lite jumped into the conversation on Twitter by thanking Bud Light for including them in one of their Super Bowl Commercials.


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This insanely colorful, magical drink below? Oh, it's just a UNICORN FRAPPUCCINO.
The drink not only changes colors, but it also changes FLAVORS as you drink it.
So what's actually in this multi-colored wonder? According to Starbucks, the drink is made with a cream Frap base. It gets its extreme color from the layers of purple mango syrup and sour blue syrup.
In a statement to USA Today, Starbucks highlighted the drink's color-changing capabilities.
Starbucks employees who've tried it say it's a little bit sweet and a little bit sour.
If all that sounds good to you, you better head to the 'Bucks soon — it's only available from April 19 to April 23.
Now go forth and frapp happy.


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Norwegian Joy completes first preview cruise from Shanghai
After maiden calls to Singapore, Qingdao, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Norwegian Cruise Line (Norwegian), welcomed its newest cruise ship, Norwegian Joy, to her new home port of Shanghai, China. The arrival of Norwegian Joy to Shanghai marks a significant milestone for the storied cruise line as it enters the Chinese cruise market. Norwegian Joy was engineered in Germany and designed for China.
“Norwegian Cruise Line is extremely proud to welcome the newest addition to our fleet, Norwegian Joy, to her home port of Shanghai, China” said David Herrera, President of NCLH China. “Norwegian Joy’s arrival demonstrates our commitment to the Chinese cruise market. She was custom-built with Chinese cruise guests in mind.”
From the first race track at sea to the innovative virtual reality experiences available at the Galaxy Pavilion to the 28 local and international dining options, Norwegian Joy has an abundance of features that appeal to the modern Chinese family, including staterooms especially designed for multi-generational families traveling together. An international standard of entertainment is easily accessible, with Las Vegas-style performances, as well as a wide variety of luxury shopping options. With this incredible ship, Norwegian’s signature onboard experience has been expanded and customized, adding exciting features, services and amenities that combine both the East and the West to deliver a “First Class at Sea” experience.
On a preview voyage that departed from Shanghai on June 10, Norwegian Cruise Line welcomed more than 1,700 VIP members and guests of Alibaba Group (Alibaba), the world’s largest online and mobile commerce company, for a four-day preview cruise.
In welcoming Norwegian Joy’s passengers, Herrera also emphasized, “It was our distinct pleasure to welcome Alibaba’s members and guests to enjoy a ‘First Class at Sea’ experience on Norwegian Joy during this preview cruise. The voyage marks the latest step in our recently announced partnership with Alibaba and supports one of its main objectives, which is to promote, develop and expand awareness and attraction of cruising among Chinese travelers.”
Norwegian Joy’s voyage with the Alibaba Group departed from Shanghai and called on the Japanese port of Kochi before returning to Shanghai yesterday. The ship’s christening ceremony will take place on June 27 in Shanghai, featuring the ship’s Godfather, ‘King of Chinese Pop,’ Wang Leehom. Year-round voyages on Norwegian Joy from Shanghai begin on June 28 with a season of sailings from Tianjin from August 26 to September 15.


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John Bennett, from the family behind Brophy Bros., On The Alley, Benchmark Eatery, and Farmer Boy, offers some thoughts on the local restaurant workforce and how it has been affected by the pandemic:
To Those We Wish To Serve
Santa Barbara’s restaurant industry, having suffered an almost fatal blow from the pandemic quarantine, is now dealing with lingering side effects. Even as restaurant sales are rebounding from the pandemic-hammered levels of a year ago, Santa Barbara full- service restaurants are struggling to ramp back up because they can’t recruit enough employees. Even with 1.8 million restaurant workers displaced by the crisis since February 2020, the local full-service restaurant industry’s labor crunch is in full force.
I assure you that full-service restaurant operators understand that service will be more important than ever as guests unleash their pent-up demand for enhanced restaurant experiences. They’re going to want to be waited on, pampered, and served an experience they could never recreate at home. And it will be up to restaurants to deliver, because even as that pent-up demand fuels dine-in traffic, customers will remain aware of the convenience we delivered during the pandemic. They’ll know how to dial up delivery, order-ahead, pickup, shop curbside, and all those channels that kept them afloat during COVID. They will not be happy when they return to dine-in if the experience is not as satisfying. The loss of an experienced workforce is, therefore, a side-effect of the pandemic.
Many in the community may be wondering, “What happened to all the wonderful servers we came to know and look forward to seeing again? Where did they go?”
1. While restaurants were furloughing their whole workforces, employers in other industries kept hiring. Businesses like supermarkets, e-retailers and fulfillment warehouses scarfed up the former busboys, servers and kitchen workers, who welcomed the relative safety those fields afforded.
2. Rival industries tried to lock in their employees by raising pay. Target, for instance, temporarily raised its standard pay to $15 an hour, and Amazon increased its starting wage to the same amount.
3. Because restaurant workers are more exposed to the COVID-19 virus, hospitality occupations became less and less attractive.
4. Women, the very backbone of the restaurant business, fell out of the workforce due to child-care issues and school not being in full swing.
5. The extension of the enhanced unemployment benefits of $300 until September 6th enabled restaurant employees to wait a little longer before jumping back in.
6. College being held remote and not on campus removed most of the UCSB students from our labor force.
Restaurant work has been the mainstay employment for Americans in transition since the end of World War II. They have been attracted to the flexible hours, high hourly tipped income, the entertainment atmosphere and the magic that comes with being of service. They will return but unfortunately, it’s not likely until after the summer. We hope the guests are aware of this struggle and show some empathy for the workforce carrying the load.


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Facebook has begun loosening rules that prohibit publishers from posting overly commercial videos without paying Facebook to promote it, according to top publishing sources who are working with the social network on the policy change.
Videos that advertisers pay to produce or sponsor are technically not allowed to appear as organic content on the social network. Facebook has been known to remove clips from publishers that feature brands — either those that the publisher has made on behalf of the brand or editorial videos that contain overt product placement.
However, new rules have enabled select publishers to post branded videos with “sponsored by” messaging.
“Facebook is starting to allow brands to have more integrations into content that before was very frowned upon, a no-go,” said one top publisher involved in the beta testing of the new policy. For now, Facebook is not taking a cut from the outside deals that publishers bring to the platform, according to the sources. Facebook declined to comment for this story.
During the Super Bowl, Facebook launched Sports Stadium, a hub for conversation around the game. This is where people got their first glimpse of one new sponsorship look, with Fox Sports posting video clips that said “Presented By GoDaddy.”
Some of the videos had a chyron — an electronic sticker — of GoDaddy’s logo plastered on them. Other videos had a full-screen GoDaddy logo plastered after the clip, a type of post-roll.
“The ‘presented by’ stuff has always been a tough one for Facebook. For a while, it was 100 percent against policy to run co-sponsor messages,” said Chris Gomersall, CEO of Atomized, a digital content management agency. “It’s the company trying to limit the amount of bad ads.”
On top of the obvious branding in the Fox Sports content, Facebook is also starting to let premium publishers post their native video ads, or branded content.
Publishers like Vox Media, PopSugar, BuzzFeed and many others rely heavily on native video content for revenue, and would benefit from being able to sell the extra audience that Facebook provides.
PopSugar is a publisher that bases much of its business on so-called native video ads. The lifestyle publisher is not part of this policy test group, but it does count on Facebook as part of its distribution strategy. It could benefit if sponsored video content were given the green light.
“Over 80 percent of PopSugar’s video revenue is from native and editorial formats,” said David Grant, president of PopSugar Studios, adding that’s where the real growth in the business is.
The policy tweak seems to be an incentive to attract premium video makers, which is a goal for Facebook as it tries to compete with YouTube for higher-quality content. Along those lines, Facebook needs to give publishers and video creators more ways to make money from posting to its social network.
It should be noted that while publishing paid video content organically has been against the rules, Facebook’s policing could be lax, and publishers mostly regulate themselves in this area. So, it’s not uncommon to see borderline commercial content appear in the feed.
The review of the policies is really a way to think about bringing this type of promotion into the light. Facebook could even help measure the performance of the branded videos, sources said.
Facebook has been wholly opposed to interruptive pre-roll ads, which have been a big moneymaker for creators on YouTube. So it’s trying to come up with other solutions. It recently expanded its Anthology program, a partnership with publishers to sell advertisers on highly produced video ads.
Facebook also developed a suggested videos feed that takes users to streams of content from publishers and splits revenue from ads served between posts.
However, Facebook is not rolling out anything truly scalable anytime soon, according to the sources. That’s why easing up on posting branded content could be a key benefit to publishers.
More in Media
Adalytics Research asks, ‘Are YouTube advertisers inadvertently harvesting data from millions of children?’
Publishers’ Q2 earnings reveal digital advertising is still in a tight spot, but digital subscriptions are picking up steam.
Experts reflect how the failures of social media and online advertising can help the industry improve the next era of innovation.
Ad position: web_bfu


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By Rob Boffard, Business reporter, Vancouver | November 30, 2015
Elana Rosenfeld was not even remotely prepared for her first wholesale orders.
Kicking Horse Coffee, a Canadian firm she had started with her partner Leo Johnson was getting some orders from gourmet stores in Calgary, Alberta, 172 miles (277km) away from their base in the tiny town of Invermere in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains.
They didn’t have any cardboard boxes to pack the coffee in, so they scoured the town’s lone back alley for any they could use.
When they’d finally taped the package shut, they took it to Skinny’s Shoe Repair – the spot where the Greyhound buses stopped in Invermere – and put it on a bus to its destination.
That was in 1996. Since then, Kicking Horse Coffee has become one of the biggest retail success stories in Canada, its distinct black packaging appearing in grocery stores and cafes across the country, as well as in the US.
The company is tight-lipped about its finances, but expects to roast more than 1.3 million tons of coffee this year and has over 85 employees.
And in 2012, marketing research firm AC Nielsen ranked it as one of the top ten commercial brands in Canada, alongside national stalwarts like bakery chain Tim Hortons.
To continue reading this article, please click on the link below:


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Under Armour Inc. announced a number of executive moves designed to streamline the company's strategic and operational initiatives and support the company’s long-term global growth plans.
previously reported in October, Brad Dickerson, Under Armour's chief
operating officer and chief financial officer, will step down in
February to join Blue Apron, a leading recipe and fresh ingredient
Kip J. Fulks, previously the company's
president of footwear and innovation, has assumed new role to focus on
key development areas in the company's business. His initial focus will
turn to marketing in the acting role of chief marketing officer.
B. Stafford will continue to serve as chief merchandising officer and
has taken on an expanded role to oversee the company's footwear and
innovation groups. Stafford will oversee all aspects of the company's
product and product development for apparel, footwear and accessories,
including innovation, design and merchandising. Stafford will also be
responsible for oversight of the company's new category management
group, which will be led by Adam Peake, former executive vice president
of global marketing, who has been appointed executive vice president,
Peake will replace Terdema Ussery, who is
no longer with the company. Stafford will also oversee the sourcing,
planning and development functions within the company's supply chain.
Ussery, the former president of the Dallas Mavericks, had been hired in
July to steer an effort to a sports category focus organizational
structure that focuses on the needs of end consumer.
Karl-Heinz Maurath, previously the company's president, international,
has assumed the role of chief revenue officer. Maurath will lead all
global sales channels, including global wholesale, retail stores and
e-commerce, for all of the company's regions, which include North
America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin
America. Maurath will also assume responsibility for certain supply
chain functions, specifically global logistics.


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On Tuesday, January 19, ATNF organised a webinar for investors´ to present the 2016 Global Index results, highlight where progress has been made and where gaps remain since the 2013 Global Index was published. More than 30 investors´ have joined the webinar.
On August 25 ATNI participated in GAIN and CII consultations on Business models for securing nutritional outcomes in Delhi, India.
“Unicef UK and Save the Children welcome the Access to Nutrition Index report on the marketing of breast-milk substitutes, which puts much needed figures and hard data onto the global situation around the marketing of breastmilk substitutes, an industry worth $50bn in 2014 alone.“ C
Today the 2016 Global Access to Nutrition Index is launched. The Global Access to Nutrition Index ranks 22 largest food and beverage companies on contributions to tackling obesity and undernutrition; Unilever leads the 2016 ranking. World’s largest food
“Good quality data support accountability, and accountability is the glue that connects commitment to action and to impact” – Lawrence Haddad
The Access to Nutrition Index rates food and beverage manufacturers´ nutrition-related policies, practices and disclosures worldwide on a recurring basis.
Access to Nutrition Foundation
Arthur van Schendelstraat 650
3511 MJ Utrecht
+31 (0)30 410 09 16


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Asymco analyst Horace Dediu does a very good job of dissecting the Apple financial data released publicly to discover trends and tidbits of information. Today Dediu looked into Apple's international retail strategy and pulled out some tasty nuggets about Apple Stores.
Apple's rate of store openings is surprisingly slow, but Dediu goes on to point out that sales outside of Apple's retail channel are a much higher portion of the total than they were in 2007. The percentage of sales from Apple Stores has actually dropped from 17 percent in 2007 to 12 percent in 2012.
Dediu points out that while, currently, most Apple Stores are in the Americas, the company's strategy is to open more stores in other markets. Whereas almost 80 percent of store openings in 2007 were in the US, that number shrunk to about 15 percent in 2012. Dediu notes that, "It would seem reasonable therefore to expect that the priority for most, if not all, future openings should be outside the US to address the current sales/retail presence imbalance and to accomodate the bulk of future growth."


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In technology and media circles, the running conventional wisdom says there’s little upside for companies still selling paper books and movies and music on plastic disks.
In a report Thursday, analyst Doug Anmuth noted that this segment still accounts for about 90% of total media industry sales, and the e-tailer has a distinct advantage as more physical media sales move to online channels and away from bricks-and-mortar retailers. He also notes that Amazon remains disadvantaged in sales of digital music and movies next to Apple’s popular iTunes store, but added that those two categories currently account for less than 10% of the U.S. media industry.
“Though several physical media categories are shifting towards digital, we think it’s important to remember that the physical media opportunity ahead of Amazon remains a large one that Amazon is well-positioned to take share in, despite fears of Amazon’s relative weakness in some digital media categories such as music, games, and video,” he wrote.
Anmuth acknowledges some current weakness in Amazon’s Kindle business, lowering his unit projections for both the e-reader devices and Kindle Fire tablet by 33% and 25%, respectively, for 2012. He predicted new versions of the Kindle Fire later this year that will continue to appeal to customers with a low price point relative to other tablet devices on the market.
“We continue to think Amazon’s investments in Kindles and Prime are appropriate and will pay off through greater customer loyalty and increased product sales,” he wrote, maintaining an overweight rating and $210 price target on Amazon’s shares, which were trading up 0.7% at $195.33 early Thursday afternoon.
- Dan Gallagher


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Fortinte has eclipsed the previously reigning PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and now PUBG believes that success has come at the expense of their copyrights. So here comes the lawsuit!
While “PUBG” popularized the current battle royale genre first, it now finds itself in “Fortnite’s” considerably larger shadow. “PUBG” has reportedly sold over 30 million copies since launch, but its player base on PC is dropping, according to IGN. Meanwhile, “Fortnite” is currently the largest free-to-play console game of all time, and it’s dominating PC and mobile as well. It made five times “PUBG Mobile’s” first week revenue on iOS, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. It’s also currently the most-watched game on Twitch and YouTube.
Even PUBG power player and Twitch star Dr DisRespect acknowledges the Fortnite Effect:
• PUBG Corp. Sues Epic Games for Copyright Infringement (Variety)
Ten years ago, Apple released the Ipad. I was in a hotel room in Seattle, jetlagged and awake at 4AM while my wife and daughter slept.
Last year, the EU adopted the incredibly controversial Copyright Directive (it passed by only five votes, and afterwards 10 MEPs said they'd got confused and pushed the wrong buttons!): now, EU member states have to create rules that require online platforms to filter all user-generated content and block it if it matches a secret, unaccountable […]
Back in 2017, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approved the most controversial standard in its long history: Encrypted Media Extensions, or EME, which enabled Netflix and other big media companies to use DRM despite changes to browsers extensions that eliminated the kinds of deep hooks that DRM requires.
Entrepreneurs looking for new avenues to reach customers may not have considered one of the fastest-growing content mediums today: podcasting. And we don’t mean just dropping an advertisement for your product or service in the middle of a popular show. Right now, there are about 850,000 active podcasts reaching 165 million Americans. Those listeners are […]
Twitter rants and various online ugliness aside, social media has actually grown up a bit over the past 15 years. In general, users are warier of their interactions on platforms like Facebook or Instagram — and marketers have taken note. In fact, if you felt retailers you saw on social media were only looking to […]
Virus quarantines and shuttered restaurants sent millions of Americans back to their homes, only to rediscover the joys of firing up an oven and cooking something special for themselves. Whether by desire, necessity, or both, many of us have certainly been spending more time in the kitchen these last few months. And we haven’t just […]


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How the new tech toys are driving the streaming rocket
Music streaming isn’t skyrocketing just because Spotify and Apple Music are offering more deals to entice users or it’s attracting those who found the downloading process too difficult.
The increased adoption of new tech toys as wireless earbuds and smart speakers are also playing a significant role in the up-take in both Australia and the US.
A new Consumer Technology Association (CTA) mid-year report US Consumer Technology Sales and Forecasts, predicts that music streaming services will generate $8.4 billion in the US alone this year, a 33% spike over 2018 revenue in the world’s largest music market.
ARIA’s upcoming mid-year report will provide a better idea of how much streaming revenue now dominates the A$526 million Australian music market. It was 71.4% in its last report.
One independent forecast expects revenue to grow at an annual rate of 3.2% between 2019 and 2023, and a value of $335.5 million by 2023.
There are no Australian sales figures for wireless earbuds. But the CTA forecast expects a 46% rise to $2 billion, and double-digit growth over the next few years as US consumers pick premium audio experiences featuring true wireless technology.
Australian take-up of smart speakers leaves the Americans far behind. it was 29.3% of the adult population (or 5.7 million) to about 26% in the US by the end of 2018.
That’s according to Voicebot and digital agency’s FIRST’s 2019 Australia Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption Report which also noted that 80% of Australian smart speaker owners use their devices monthly; over 46% (or a very impressive 2.6 million) use them on a daily basis.
Matt Ware, head of operations at FIRST commented on the figures: “Although the headline number seems high, when you think about it there is a lot of interest in Australia in new technologies. Adoption of smartphones in Australia is higher than in most other countries and use of digital payments is around 70% with one of the highest uses of contactless payments in the world according to a study done by Visa.
“When considering this context, it isn’t surprising that Australians would be interested in smart speakers as a device and digital assistants as a whole.”
But in America after rapid adoption of AI-enabled, voice-controlled smart speakers, and increased voice integration in other devices such as TVs, soundbars and smart home devices, smart speaker sales will level off in 2019 to 35.2 million units (1% up over last year) and $3 billion in revenue (1% down).
Video skilled the radio star
The new devices are also making an impact on video-on-demand and gaming streaming.
In Australia, with the sixth highest penetration in the world, 10.2 million pay for SVOD with Netflix Australia at 5.3 million subscribers, Stan at 1.4 million, YouTube Premium at 1 million, Amazon Prime Video at 600,000 and Foxtel Now at 500,000.
The US spend is tipped to jump by 25% to $17.7 billion.
In terms of video streaming, live TV streaming and exclusive content through subscriptions will push US consumer spending on video streaming services to $17.7 billion in 2019, up 25%.
Australia is ranked number six in terms of video streaming penetration rate, after the United State, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
An April 2019 survey from AMPD Research showed that 10.2 million Australians pay for SVOD services, with Netflix Australia with 5.3 million subscribers, Stan at 1,4 million, YouTube Premium at 1 million, Amazon Prime Video at 600,000 and Foxtel Now a 500,000.
Gaming too has benefitted from a shift toward cloud-based streaming models, subscriptions and growing in-game purchases.
Two months ago, the Australian Interactive Games & Entertainment Association revealed that in 2018, Australians spent $4.029 billion, a rise of 25% of the year before.
Digital sales generated $2.85 billion and physical retail sales were $1.17 billion, a slight increase of 0.2%.
The in-game digital purchase segment shot up a staggering 190% year-on-year, while digital full game revenue was also up by 20% on 2017 sales
Within overall digital sales, mobile is still one of the largest categories, posting 11% revenue growth. Retail sales were bolstered by console accessories sales, up by 19%
Over in the US, gaming revenue is expected to grow by 11% this year to $38.9 billion.
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.


text:
Ports in firing line for unfair practices
EUROPEAN ports still face the threat of fines from competition authorities, despite their failure to introduce a new ports directive, according to Matthew Levitt of law firm Lovells, writes Sandra Speares in Athens.
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(The Hosting News) – Today, SuccessFactors, Inc., the global leader in business execution software, announced its 10-year anniversary as well as its key milestones in the cloud. SuccessFactors is also introducing a bold new brand identity to reflect its evolution over the past decade, as well as the creation of the SuccessFactors Foundation, a community service initiative to empower future leaders.
“Ten years ago, we set out to build a new kind of company and a new kind of software, delivered through a revolutionary fast-to-results cloud platform, to run companies much better by driving mutual accountability in the organization and tapping into the magic of people, through business applications, that allows both managers and employees to collaborate and communicate efficiently on direction, responsibility, rewards and careers. Today we are very proud of the trusted brand we have built to transform our customers’ organizations through their people and in turn, help their people transform their organization,” saidLars Dalgaard, co-founder and CEO, SuccessFactors. “We’ve maintained a culture of extraordinary passion, commitment, love and results. We have grown almost 100 percent in compounded annual growth rate for a decade, and it feels like the platform and many firsts we have offered customers every year, has put us in a situation to accelerate our impact on the 3 billion people in today’s workforce, and through that make it a better world to live in. SuccessFactors has a real chance to help the world put the heart back into business, hold everyone accountable and deliver better, and execute strategy faster.”
Key Milestones in SuccessFactors’ 10 year history are significant and testify to the company’s continued innovation and commitment:
- May 2001: Lars Dalgaard founded SuccessFactors.
- September 2001: SuccessFactors launched its first product; Performance Management.
- October 2006: SuccessFactors launched the first complete suite of integrated, on-demand HCM applications.
- November 2007: SuccessFactors announced its initial public offering amidst a choppy market.
- June 2009: SuccessFactors announced the largest cloud deployment in Europe at Siemens AG with more than 400,000 users.
- September 2009: SuccessFactors created the Business Execution (BizX) category and redefined the market.
- February 2010-April 2011: SuccessFactors made five game-changing acquisitions (Inform, CubeTree, YouCalc, Jambok, and the pending Plateau acquisition).
- February 2010: InformationWeek Declares SuccessFactors ‘The Future of Business Software.’
- May 2010: SuccessFactors announces the world’s largest cloud deployment with 2 million end-users at a single customer.
- April 2011: SuccessFactors becomes the first company to announce plans to list and trade shares on NYSE, EuroNext Paris and Deutsche Boerse.
- April 2011: With the potential acquisition of Plateau, SuccessFactors becomes the first and only company with an HCM suite across all pillars – performance, compensation, recruiting and learning – sitting on a HR system of record, powered by analytics, and delivered as SaaS.
- 2011: From initial estimates, SuccessFactors and Plateau’s potential combined companies will have more than 10 million users in the cloud.
Unlike many other cloud companies, SuccessFactors was built from day one for massive deployments and can be used by virtually anyone in a company. As one of the most widely deployed cloud-based business software solutions in the market, the company has continued to build on its initial Performance Management product released in 2001 and now offers 20 modules across its BizX Suite, with five major product updates and releases every year.
More than Skin Deep: SuccessFactors’ Updated Brand Identity: It’s Time to Love Work Again™
SuccessFactors will unveil a bold change to its corporate identity at its SuccessConnect San Francisco event, beginning onMay 10, and reflects the company’s evolution over the last decade. The brand and visual change incorporates the overall growth, maturity, and expanded portfolio and capabilities of the company, but also makes a statement around the “human-ness” of doing business, with people at the heart of it all. Core brand elements and rationale behind it include:
- Empowering: SuccessFactors helps companies draw out the passion in their employees to “get stuff done”, grow and win.
- Proven: SuccessFactors puts a huge emphasis on creating software that is easy to use, and that friendly, accessible nature is now better reflected in the company’s corporate brand. SuccessFactors’ software can be used by virtually any person, in any type of company, in geographies around the world.
- Visionary: SuccessFactors started its journey as a cloud company and continues to listen to its customers and develop and deliver new capabilities and innovations.
“SuccessFactors’ new branding acknowledges that people are at the heart of what gets done in companies, and in turn our own passion around making our customers successful,” said Darryl Dickens, CMO, SuccessFactors. “It demonstrates the power of an aligned, empowered workplace, which is what truly fuels a business and its success. It also builds out a new set of icons and visual language to represent our products, services and solutions as we continue to grow and scale our business.”
SuccessFactors Foundation: Empowering the Future Leaders of Tomorrow’s Workforce
Today, SuccessFactors also announced the SuccessFactors Foundation, a new corporate social responsibility (CSR) program designed to allow its employees from all levels, departments and regions to be more involved in the community and organizations in need. The SuccessFactors Foundation partners with Junior Achievement Worldwide and Ashoka Youth Venture Program, two organizations focused on inspiring young people to work toward their own economic success and lead social change. Recognizing that today’s youth are the future leaders of tomorrow’s workforce, the program sets out to support SuccessFactors employees to commit their own time and energy to empower these future leaders and bridge the gap between dreams and achievement.
SuccessFactors is the leading provider of cloud-based Business Execution (BizX) software solutions to organizations of all sizes, with more than 8 million users across multiple industries and geographies. We strive to delight our customers by delivering innovative solutions, a broad range of content, process expertise and best practices knowledge gained from serving our large and varied customer base. Today, we have more than 3,200 customers in more than 168 countries using our application suite in 34 languages.
Like us: http://facebook.com/SuccessFactors


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Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
Since the power's still out downtown, yoga studios and wellness businesses are utilizing both candlelight and natural light to stay in business during the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Well + Good NYC has rounded up a handful of places that are still offering everything from fitness classes to acupuncture in lower Manhattan, despite a lack of electricity.
Though Yoga 216 in Chelsea was flooded, they're currently offering free hour-long classes lit by candlelight every day at 5pm. Bari on Leonard Street is hosting its cardio-toning workouts by candlelight, and Sacred Sounds Yoga in Greenwich Village is utilizing the natural sunlight with its daytime classes.
And while no one wants to be without power, a few of the establishments have found that switching over to candlelight has actually improved service. One employee at The YinOva Center, a Union Square facility that offers acupuncture and other types of Traditional Chinese Medicine, explains: "We started using candles because we had to, but we're finding it to be soothing and beneficial for those who walk into our center."
· Wellness businesses thrive by candlelight [Well + Good NYC]
· All Hurricane Sandy coverage [Racked NY]


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For the ninth iteration of the festival, which kicks off on Friday, May 25, the bill packs in prominent artists fresh off the releases of their 2017 records, enlisting Queens of the Stone Age, Tyler, The Creator, Paramore, and Khalid to perform. Also on deck to play are repeat Boston Calling performers The National, The Decemberists, St. Vincent, and Portugal. The Man.
Other buzz-y artists that pop out on the flyer include Alvvays, BROCKHAMPTON, Perfume Genius, Charly Bliss, and Zola Jesus.
Boston is repped this spring by acclaimed hip-hop duo STL GLD, guitar-rock trio Weakened Friends, and reformed ’90s alt-rock stars Belly (yes, our Belly, unlike the one at Coachella and Governors Ball).
Today’s announcement also confirmed that Natalie Portman will be curating and hosting a “special series of programming” at the 2018 festival, with more details to come later in the year.
“Each year we continue to push ourselves to bring fans the very best festival experience,” says Boston Calling co-founder and CEO Brian Appel. “With some new changes and features already announced for this year’s festival, and many more on the way, we are ready and excited to treat our fans to an incredible weekend of performances from some of the world’s most iconic music acts.”
Boston Calling has additionally noted that the 2018 fest will offer improved features, such as “additional entrance lanes, stronger wi-fi, more activations and art installations, bigger video screens, dozens of additional food vendors, expanded craft brewing options, a brand new 20,000 square foot VIP and Platinum lounge, and an all new Platinum level viewing experience.”
Peep the entire lineup below, as well as an updated site map for 2018. All ticket info can be found here.