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The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), also referred to as a TransAtlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), is a free trade agreement being negotiated since July 2013 between Europe and the USA. It would be the largest free trade agreement yet and cover more than 40 percent of world trade.
The agreement will cover 'non-tariff barriers' (NTBs) to trade, including government regulations, government procurement and spending, and movement of temporary workers across borders. The TTIP is also likely to result in:
TTIP also seeks to create new markets by opening up public services and government procurement contracts to competition from transnational corporations, threatening to introduce a further wave of privatizations in key sectors, such as health and education. [see Trade in Services]
Another aim of the agreement is to advance multlateral trade talks by setting "globally-relevant rules and standards".
Advocates claim the agreement would result in up to 1% increase in economic growth and lower prices for consumer goods. However, "the European Commission's own impact assessment of TTIP concluded that a growth rate in the region of 0.1% would constitute a more realistic expectation" over ten years which would be "trivial".
Jobs are likely to be affected, not only by the use of temporary workers across borders, but also by "a downgrading of any labour standards identified as 'barriers' to trade, such as collective labour agreements which could be challenged as representing restrictions on the business model of competitors". Moreover, the increased import of "goods and services from US states where labour standards are lower and trade union rights are non-existent" will impact on European jobs.
Foreign investors would be able to sue governments if government regulations or policies interfered with company expectations of profits using the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in the agreement.
The TTIP is primarily aimed at eliminating regulations that hinder trade. This is variously termed 'regulatory harmonization', 'regulatory coherence' or 'regulatory cooperation'. The traditional aim of reducing tariffs is hardly necessary given that those existing between participating countries only average 3%.
Proponents argue that differing regulations impede trade, adding costs to trading activity. However critics are concerned that harmonising regulations on both sides of the Atlantic would ensure that the weakest regulations would prevail. This would mean abandoning the precautionary principle in Europe and adopting US environmental, food and labour standards, that is "getting rid of what are called 'trade irritants' such as the EU's bans on GM food, chlorinated chicken and hormone loaded beef' and other higher EU health and safety standards". Other regulations that have been targeted include pesticide restrictions and endocrine disrupters.
EU Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, argued that differing regulations required "raising safety standards and limiting the environmental impact of cars, or increasing health and hygiene standards for food" entailing "unnecessary costs" and " delays for businesses".
Documents obtained by the Corporate Europe Observatory show
that EU Commissioner "De Gucht's officials invited industry to submit wishlists for 'regulatory barriers' they would like removed during the negotiations".
Business groups are clearly seeking to use the negotiations to promote deregulation. The Transatlantic Economic Council has affirmed "its commitment to removing barriers to transatlantic commerce; to rationalizing, reforming, and, where appropriate, reducing regulations to empower the private sector".
Europe's comprehensive REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) legislation of chemicals that affect health and environment is a target of US corporations.
REACH is based on the precautionary principle ... and requires industry to prove that a chemical is safe before it can be certified for commercial use. By contrast, the USA's 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires the public regulator to prove that a chemical is unsafe before its use can be restricted, and further limits any restriction to the 'least burdensome' measure possible.
Europe's restrictions on genetically modified food and labelling requirements would also be at risk. Whilst 70% of processed food products sold in US supermarkets contain genetically modified material, there is almost none sold in Europe and any that does must be labelled.
On the announcement of the new trade talks Max Baucus, the Chairman of the [US] Senate Finance Committee, and Senator Orrin Hatch, the ranking minority member of the Committee, wrote a preemptive letter to the U.S. Trade Representative in which they insisted that a precondition for American involvement in the talks should be gaining acceptance of the less restrictive American food policies toward sales and processing of GMO foods... On both sides of the Atlantic, international food manufacturers such as Nestle and Kraft, and giant grain traders such as ADM and Cargill, are supporting the negotiations as a way to loosen European restrictions.
Although the negotiations have been kept secret, a leak has revealed the EU intention to establish a non-elected "Regulatory Cooperation Council" that would evaluate government regulations in Europe and the US, both present and those proposed in the future, and subject them to an cost-benefit analysis of their impact on trade.
The negotiations are secret, access to negotiated drafts being only accessible to participating negotiating teams and their advisors, mainly business people. This is a measure that is meant to keep those affected by the agreement from being able to effectively oppose the agreement during the negotiations.
All papers, documents, emails and negotiating minutes have been marked secret. Only the senior-most party members in the European Parliament's International Trade Committee are allowed to see documentation relating to the negotiations and they are forbidden from discussing what they see... In addition, the US has forbidden the EU from passing along American position papers, even to members of the European Council and European Parliament...
In an effort to appear accountable, a consultation session was held at George Washington Unversity in December 2013 where stakeholders were able to present their views to negotiators.
For the roughly two-and-a-half-hour session, the USTR reserved five different rooms where representatives of various "stakeholders"—ranging from the AFL-CIO to Friends of the Earth to the National Pork Producers to Intel Corporation—could deliver speeches no longer than ten minutes.
Meanwhile hundreds of US corporate "trade advisors" from corporations such as Wal-Mart and Cargill and from industry groups have full access to negotiating texts and are kept up to date with negotiations because they are members of industry trade advisory committees [ITACs].
In Europe there had been 130 consultations with stakeholders by September 2013. However 93% of these were with corporations and their lobbyists including the US Chamber of Commerce, the German industry federation BDI, chemical lobby groups CEFIC and VCI, pharmaceutical industry coalition EFPIA, DigitalEurope, the Transatlantic Business Council, arms industry lobby ASD, the British Bankers Association, and corporations like Lilly, Citi and BMW.


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Toyota appears to be doubling down on its hybrid bet. In addition to the world premiere of the Toyota Yaris hybrid, the auto manufacturer will show off a new affordable hybrid city car at the 2012 International Motor Show in Geneva next month. The company released a sketch of the concept before the reveal.
You may think that the pint-sized Yaris Hybrid and theshould already count as city cars, but it appears that Toyota has something even smaller and lighter up its sleeve. Not much has been shared about the car in advance of the world premiere, but the manufacturer says it is a study of an ultra-lightweight vehicle that can be manufactured affordably without using exotic and expensive materials. The FT-Bh concept will demonstrate how a hybrid city car can be mass-produced using materials and processes already used in the automotive industry.

domain: news


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Ahead of the busy holiday shopping season, Google and Lazada have announced a brand new collaboration that equips online sellers with the necessary digital skills to help their eCommerce business grow.
This collaboration between the two e-commerce platforms will provide educational resources for small retailers and address barriers to entry among startup online businesses.
The training courses will cover topics such as business strategy and digital marketing and will help address barriers of entry to starting an online shop.
“E-commerce has become an integral part of daily life for millions of Southeast Asians, and with more people shopping from home, we want to empower small businesses with the skills to thrive in this online environment,” said Ben King, Director at Google.
“We’ve committed to training three million SME workers in Southeast Asia on digital skills, and have already provided training to two million individuals. We’re excited to partner with Lazada as they share their expertise and help us extend our support to thousands of merchants on their platform,” King said.
Small businesses across Southeast Asia can access the free short courses by Lazada University on the Grow with Google site, as well as new interactive mini-courses via the Google Primer app.
“We are also delighted to be partnering with Google on this initiative, which comes at just the right time, ahead of year-end mega shopping festivals like 11.11 and 12.12,” said Jon Chin, Regional Head of Seller Growth and Engagement at Lazada.
“We expect that it will be peak onboarding season during and after these sales campaigns, so this partnership can help equip sellers with digital skills in a short period of time, which will enable them to tap into online opportunities and ride on the year-end holiday season to boost their sales. Given that in the past year, we have seen an online migration of sellers onto our platform, we expect that this initiative can support many SMEs across the region to transition effortlessly into digital commerce,” he added.


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Another cyberattack on the healthcare sector has put the privacy of millions of users at risk. Recently, a Canadian healthcare firm LifeLabs has disclosed a data breach impacting millions of patients. What’s notable here is that the firm did pay for to recover the data.
LifeLabs Suffered Data Breach
The largest Canadian general diagnostic and specialty laboratory testing services provider LifeLabs has confirmed a cybersecurity incident. Reportedly, LifeLabs suffered a data breach that the data of affected millions of patients.
In an open letter to the customers, the CEO of LifeLabs, Charles Brown, explained the details of the incident. As stated, the incident resulted in the exposure of users’ personal and health-related information to the attackers.
LifeLabs recently identified a cyber-attack that involved unauthorized access to our computer systems with customer information that could include name, address, email, login, passwords, date of birth, health card number and lab test results.
Elaborating further, he mentioned that the incident affected 15 million customers, the majority of whom reside in British Columbia and Ontario. The breached data dates back to 2016 and earlier.
Our investigations to date of these systems indicate that there are 85,000 impacted customers from 2016 or earlier located in Ontario…
Our investigation to date indicates any instance of health card information was from 2016 or earlier.
Security Measures Taken
After noticing the incident, the firm promptly started taking necessary actions to remediate. They engaged cybersecurity experts to resolve the attack. Plus, they also made some payments to recover the lost data. As stated in the letter, one of the steps they took include,
Retrieving the data by making a payment. We did this in collaboration with experts familiar with cyber-attacks and negotiations with cyber criminals.
Though, they didn’t specifically mention a malware attack. Yet, their act of paying to recover data hints it to be a ransomware attack.
Furthermore, they also filed reports to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (OIPC) and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (IPC).
While the CEO’s letter to the customers does not state the exact date of the incident, the statements from the IPC and OIPC hint that it happened around November 1, 2019.
For now, the CEO has assured that the breach did not adversely affect the security of customers.
I want to emphasize that at this time, our cyber security firms have advised that the risk to our customers in connection with this cyber-attack is low and that they have not seen any public disclosure of customer data as part of their investigations, including monitoring of the dark web and other online locations.
In the previous months, a New Zeland-based PHO Tū Ora and UAB Medicine also disclosed data breaches.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.


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Jess Budde, Greg Finn, and Christine “Shep” Zirnheld are breaking down all the digital marketing news of the week on this week’s Marketing O’Clock podcast.
If you’re unable to listen on Spotify, be sure to catch the video version of the show on the Search Engine Journal YouTube channel.
Google announced a number of upcoming changes and improvements coming to Search, including the revelation that it will soon be able to identify individual passages on a webpage to surface relevant content in the search results.
Another change coming soon allows us to identify individual passages in a web page and process them as perhaps being most relevant to a search. We expect this will improve 7% of search queries in Google. #SearchOn pic.twitter.com/cUwnuVyWwH
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 15, 2020
Google announced new shopping features that will benefit both shoppers and retailers this upcoming holiday season.
- Price comparison: Items may be labeled to specify whether their prices are high, low, or typical compared to other products on Google Shopping.
- Price tracking: Shoppers can opt-in to receive price tracking alerts in Gmail or the Google app.
Changes for Retailers
- Merchant promotions: Merchant promotions are now available in the U.S. and will be shown in more locations across Google for both free and organic shopping listings. Google also said that they will be speeding up the approval process for the holiday shopping season.
- New Smart Shopping goal: The new customer acquisition goal for Smart Shopping campaigns is now out of beta and available to all advertisers.
- New Google Shopping reporting: Auction Insights metrics will be available for shopping campaigns in Google Ads Report Editor
The United States Department of Justice is suing Google over multiple violations of antitrust law related to online search.
The suit is the result of a year-long investigation into the tech giant.
Facebook announced new ecommerce features ahead of the holiday shopping season.
First, brands will be able to create ads with shoppable product tags directly from the Facebook Ads Manager.
They also announced new ecommerce-focused audiences including shopping engagement custom audiences and shopping lookalike audiences for brands who use Facebook Shops.
Brands will also be able to manage and promote sales for their Shop in the Promotions tab of Commerce Manager.
In our Take of the Week segment, digital marketers wrote some passionate limericks about the challenges they face in response to Tim Halloran‘s poetry challenge.
This is called "Ode to Facebook" ❤
There once was a young man that managed ads,
Who hated when half-baked ad-tech made him look bad,
"I've got it!" he said,
"I'll simply never get out of bed,"
And now all his clients are mad.
***#ppcchat #fbadschat (2/2)
— Tim Halloran ☕ (@timmhalloran) October 13, 2020
Then, ICYMI, Pamela Lund has some advice for advertisers with upcoming Facebook campaign launches. Don’t wait.
Facebook approvals are super slow right now so if you've got a sale, launch, etc coming up next week get your campaigns/ads built out right meow.
— Pamela Lund (@Pamela_Lund) October 21, 2020
We’ll answer your burning digital marketing questions during our lightning round segment:
- Who just made Target ROAS bidding available to advertisers on their platform?
- What you need to know about the new Google Tag Manager preview tool.
- When do most people listen to podcasts?
- Where you can look to find the best seafood in Colorado.
- Why advertisers who utilize the Facebook Audience Network might soon be pivoting their strategy.
- How the Biden campaign just became the poster child for turning off Search Partners ad placements.
Check out the Marketing O’Clock site to subscribe to the show and read all the articles featured on today’s show.
Thank you to our sponsor, Upfluence!
Featured Image Credit: Cypress North


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There are many people around the globe who are sceptical about the use of digital currencies. Recently, the president of the central bank of Germany said that digital currencies can cause widespread bad consequences.
Similarly, the president of Deutsche Bundesbank Jeans Weidman called this digital system as a threat to the financial system.
The CBDCs employ distributed ledger technology with no interference of third parties and is considered to be efficient with peer-to-peer interaction.
The governor Vitas Vasiliauskas said that this system is totally different from the traditional transaction system and there is merit in this system that accounts for efficient transfer of value.
While debit cards do not allow the transference of actual value to the users therefore, the CBDC have certain advantages in this regard.
However, Weidman’s elaborated that the utmost requirement right now is the maintenance of a secure and stable financial system which would not be possible with digital money. Also, there is much volatility and an immense lack of stability in this segment.
The president of Bundesbank expressed similar views and said that the modern banking systems are providing fast and secure online transactions and they are sorting ways to make this system effective, but the digital currency can only disrupt this already established system.
Weidman’s called the blockchain technology as slow, expensive, and not an efficient technology. He said that their projects based on this technology have failed.
There is a lot of criticism on this technology and as a whole to the crypto-world but, this is a fact that people are still taking interest in this segment and are willing to take the risks.


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BDC study shows that acquisitions are a driver for small business growth
by CM Staff
BDC study also provides 4 winning conditions for a successful acquisition for small businesses.
MONTREAL — Entrepreneurs who choose to grow through acquisition are twice as likely to experience sales growth above their industry average as those who grow organically, says a new BDC study released today, entitled “Business Acquisitions: A Strategy That Drives Growth.”
The mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market among Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rebounded quickly when the lockdown measures were lifted, and the outlook for the next five years is very positive, the study notes.
“Growth through acquisition has several advantages, including adding new resources to address a labour shortage and accessing more technology, so you can do more with less,” says Pierre Cléroux, Vice President, Research and Chief Economist, BDC.
The study also points out that the persistent labour shortage will likely lead to more and more entrepreneurs making acquisitions in an effort to bring in new talent.
“We also found that 13% of Canadian entrepreneurs plan to grow through acquisition, with new talent and technology as their motivation in order to deal with a labour shortage,” Cléroux adds.
The number of mergers and acquisitions increased in sectors benefitting from the pandemic. The share of transaction volume accounted for by health care companies increased to 19% from 7%. The share accounted for by information and communication technology (ICT) companies increased to 15% from 8%. Private and public financing are driving the M&A market, as well as aging entrepreneurs who want to sell. As with the Canadian population, Canadian entrepreneurs are aging. Coupled with the fact that the pandemic has made some rethink their plans, this will boost the supply of businesses for sale.
Interestingly, between 2016 and 2020, the number of Canadian SMEs that bought foreign companies was almost double the number of foreign firms that bought Canadian SMEs.
Four winning conditions for a successful acquisition
According to Étienne Drouin, Managing Director, Growth & Transition Capital, Atlantic and Central/Eastern Quebec, “to stay engaged, employees of both the buyer and the seller must understand where the company is going. And these words must come from the mouth of the president.”
The study highlights four winning strategies for a successful business acquisition:
- Include the acquisition in your strategic plan
- Be dedicated to the acquisition because it will take time
- Implement the integration plan from day one
- Plan for unpleasant surprises
The study surveyed 1,563 Canadian entrepreneurs online in May and June 2021 and was supplemented by a series of interviews with experts across the country.


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Download: watchOS 9 Beta 6 and tvOS 16 Beta 6 Released
Apple has today made new versions of watchOS 9 and tvOS 16 available to developers. The new updates are the sixth developer betas to be made available ahead of what is likely to be a September release to the world.
Apple continues to churn through the beta releases for these new updates and this latest round comes just a week after the last one, perhaps pointing towards Apple being closer than ever to having all of the kinks ironed out ahead of a release to the public.
Those who don’t want to wait should be able to download the new public beta versions of these releases in the next few days assuming nothing goes wrong.
The watchOS 9 update is set to include a handful of new watch faces as well as improvements to a number of apps. The Fitness+ feature is getting support for some third-party televisions, while the ECG app is also gaining support for aFib history, too. Developers looking to install this latest beta will need to have their Apple Watch on charge with at least 50% before starting the process.
Installing the tvOS 16 beta requires that the correct profile be installed via Xcode, something only those who are actively developing apps should do. As for the final release, users can look forward to being able to play games using Nintendo Joy-Cons and the Pro Controller, while HDR+ support is also coming to the Apple TV app, too.
Apple also released iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 betas, while the macOS Ventura beta hasn’t been made available so far.


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Many brands are now heavily using this mobile app to boost their marketing strategy. Instagram can be used to gain the necessary momentum needed to capture the attention of the market segment that has an interest in the product offering or services. As Instagram is supported by Apple and android system, it can be easily accessed by smartphone users. Moreover, it can be accessed by the Internet as well. Thus, the marketers see it as a potential platform to expand their brands exposure to the public, especially the younger target group. On top of this, marketers do not only use social media for traditional Internet advertising, but they also encourage users to create attention for a certain brand. This generally creates an opportunity for greater brand exposure. Furthermore, marketers are also using the platform to drive social shopping and inspire people to collect and share pictures of their favorite products. Many big names have already jumped on board: Starbucks, MTV, Nike, Marc Jacobs, and Red Bull are a few examples of multinationals that adopted the mobile photo app early. Fashion blogger Danielle Bernstein, who goes by @weworewhat on Instagram, collaborated with Harper's Bazaar to do a piece on how brands are using Instagram to market their products, and how bloggers make money from it. Bernstein, who currently has one and a half million followers on Instagram, and whose "outfit of the day" photos on Snapchat get tens of thousands of screenshots, explained that for a lot of her sponsored posts, she must feature the brand in a certain number of posts, and often cannot wear a competitor's product in the same picture. According to Harper's Bazaar, industry estimates say that brands are spending more than $1 billion per year on consumer-generated advertising. Founder of Instagram Kevin Systrom even went to Paris Fashion week, going to couture shows and meeting with designers to learn more about how style bloggers, editors, and designers are currently dominating much of the content on his application.
Let’s say, for example, that you run a construction business that helps with home repairs after natural disasters and you want to advertise that service. The official term for the service is “fire restoration,” but keyword research may indicate that customers in your area search instead for “fire repair” or “repair fire damage to house.” By not optimizing for these two keywords, you’ll lose out on a lot of traffic and potential customers, even if “fire restoration” is technically more correct.
Blogging website Tumblr first launched ad products on May 29, 2012. Rather than relying on simple banner ads, Tumblr requires advertisers to create a Tumblr blog so the content of those blogs can be featured on the site. In one year, four native ad formats were created on web and mobile, and had more than 100 brands advertising on Tumblr with 500 cumulative sponsored posts.
Social media platforms like Yelp and FourSquare are great for brick and mortar businesses looking to implement marketing on social media. Register on these sites to claim your location spot, and then consider extra incentives such as check-in rewards or special discounts. Remember, these visitors will have their phones in hand, so they will be able to write and post reviews. A lot of good reviews can significantly help sway prospective visitors to come in and build your business!
Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media advertising.
Yelp consists of a comprehensive online index of business profiles. Businesses are searchable by location, similar to Yellow Pages. The website is operational in seven different countries, including the United States and Canada. Business account holders are allowed to create, share, and edit business profiles. They may post information such as the business location, contact information, pictures, and service information. The website further allows individuals to write, post reviews about businesses, and rate them on a five-point scale. Messaging and talk features are further made available for general members of the website, serving to guide thoughts and opinions.
Unplanned content is an 'in the moment' idea, "a spontaneous, tactical reaction." (Cramer, 2014, p. 6). The content could be trending and not have the time to take the planned content route. The unplanned content is posted sporadically and is not calendar/date/time arranged (Deshpande, 2014). Issues with unplanned content revolve around legal issues and whether the message being sent out represents the business/brand accordingly. If a company sends out a Tweet or Facebook message too hurriedly, the company may unintentionally use insensitive language or messaging that could alienate some consumers. For example, celebrity chef Paula Deen was criticized after she made a social media post commenting about HIV-AIDS and South Africa; her message was deemed to be offensive by many observers. The main difference between planned and unplanned is the time to approve the content. Unplanned content must still be approved by marketing managers, but in a much more rapid manner e.g. 1–2 hours or less. Sectors may miss errors because of being hurried. When using unplanned content Brito (2013) says, "be prepared to be reactive and respond to issues when they arise." Brito (2013) writes about having a, "crisis escalation plan", because, "It will happen". The plan involves breaking down the issue into topics and classifying the issue into groups. Colour coding the potential risk "identify and flag potential risks" also helps to organise an issue. The problem can then be handled by the correct team and dissolved more effectively rather than any person at hand trying to solve the situation.
Popular social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks can provide marketers with a hard number of how large their audience is nevertheless a large audience may not always translate into a large sales volumes. Therefore, an effective SMM cannot be measured by a large audience but rather by vigorous audience activity such as social shares, re-tweets etc.
7. Decreased Marketing Costs. According to Hubspot, 84% of marketers found as little as six hours of effort per week was enough to generate increased traffic. Six hours is not a significant investment for a channel as large as social media. If you can lend just one hour a day to developing your content and syndication strategy, you could start seeing the results of your efforts. Even paid advertising through Facebook and Twitter is relatively cheap (depending on your goals, of course). Start small and you’ll never have to worry about going over budget—once you get a better feel for what to expect, you can increase your budget and increase your conversions correspondingly.
Paid search advertising has not been without controversy and the issue of how search engines present advertising on their search result pages has been the target of a series of studies and reports by Consumer Reports WebWatch. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also issued a letter in 2002 about the importance of disclosure of paid advertising on search engines, in response to a complaint from Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group with ties to Ralph Nader.
Facebook had an estimated 144.27 million views in 2016, approximately 12.9 million per month. Despite this high volume of traffic, very little has been done to protect the millions of users who log on to Facebook and other social media platforms each month. President Barack Obama tried to work with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to attempt to regulate data mining. He proposed the Privacy Bill of Rights, which would protect the average user from having their private information downloaded and shared with third party companies. The proposed laws would give the consumer more control over what information companies can collect. President Obama was unable to pass most of these laws through congress, and it is unsure what President Trump will do with regards to social media marketing ethics.
YouTube is the number one place for creating and sharing video content, and it can also be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool. Many businesses try to create video content with the aim of having their video “go viral,” but in reality those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive “how-to” videos. These how-to videos also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google, so don't under-estimate the power of video content!
WhatsApp was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.WhatsApp joined Facebook in 2014, but continues to operate as a separate app with a laser focus on building a messaging service that works fast and reliably anywhere in the world.WhatsApp started as an alternative to SMS. Whatsapp now supports sending and receiving a variety of media including text, photos, videos, documents, and location, as well as voice calls. Whatsapp messages and calls are secured with end-to-end encryption, meaning that no third party including WhatsApp can read or listen to them. Whatsapp has a customer base of 1 billion people in over 180 countries. It is used to send personalised promotional messages to individual customers. It has plenty of advantages over SMS that includes ability to track how Message Broadcast Performs using blue tick option in Whatsapp. It allows sending messages to Do Not Disturb(DND) customers. Whatsapp is also used to send a series of bulk messages to their targeted customers using broadcast option. Companies started using this to a large extent because it is a cost effective promotional option and quick to spread a message. Still, Whatsapp doesn't allow businesses to place ads in their app.
Mobile devices have become increasingly popular, where 5.7 billion people are using them worldwide . This has played a role in the way consumers interact with media and has many further implications for TV ratings, advertising, mobile commerce, and more. Mobile media consumption such as mobile audio streaming or mobile video are on the rise – In the United States, more than 100 million users are projected to access online video content via mobile device. Mobile video revenue consists of pay-per-view downloads, advertising and subscriptions. As of 2013, worldwide mobile phone Internet user penetration was 73.4%. In 2017, figures suggest that more than 90% of Internet users will access online content through their phones.


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CUSTOMS agents, freight forwarders and car dealers have expressed their worries on the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) Valuation System introduced by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) on imported vehicles.
The VIN-valuation is an artificial intelligence system that uses generated data to allocate a monetary value (tariff duty) based on historical data aggregated from what was initially captured into the NCS system as the appropriate value for a vehicle.
At a stakeholders meeting called by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Tuesday in Lagos, the customs agents, freight forwarders and car dealers threatened to go on strike action if the issue was not resolved.
Some of the stakeholders who spoke to The ICIR on the sideline of the event said NCS officials refused to acknowledge the problem of devaluation confronting them and lamented the consequential loss of income.
The meeting ended in a stalemate, without any logical step taken.
Clearing agents had last week embarked on a three-day protest against the VIN valuation system, labelling the policy “fraudulent.”
Over 8,000 vehicles were understood to have been trapped at the seaports during the protest, as freight forwarders blocked the Tin Can Port gate. It was learnt that Customs officers at the Tin Can command were not allowed to access their offices.
The mass action attracted other stakeholders, as car dealers in Lagos shut their auto showrooms in support, following a directive by the Lagos State Motor Dealers Association.
The Chairperson of the Association of National Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Tin Can chapter, Ojo Peter Akintoye, giving an illustration on how the VIN valuation works, explained that if he purchased a car for $5,000 and shipped it with $1,250, it is $6,250 in total. Akintoye noted that the Customs law recognizes what is known as transaction value.
The problem, however, according to him, is that when he brings it before the Customs for valuation, he is given a valuation of $13,800, which is much different from what he shipped.
“What the law says is that my $6,250 should be exchanged to naira to give me cost, insurance and freight (CIF). If that is done, we will change it to naira, then 35 per cent of the money in naira is what I am supposed to pay the Nigerian Customs Service. But in a situation when you take it to $13,800 dollars, how is that a uniform figure?” he wondered.
Akintoye lamented that the amount used to clear a car in Apapa, Tin Can and Port and Terminal Multiservices Ltd (PTML) ports is different. He argued that global practices mean automating the system, not forcing agents to sell a used car at an original car price.
He stressed that the NCS did not consult the stakeholders while instituting the VIN system and vowed they would resume the no-work protest if none of their grievances was addressed.
A spokesperson of the Lagos State Motor Dealers Association, Alhaji Lateef Animashaun alleged that Nigerian Customs officials were not operating according to best practices. Animashaun urged the NCS to give dealers a grace period of 90 days for the process to be fine tuned.
He said, “The best practice all over the world is that no matter the circumstances, the cost of clearing comes down. But in Nigeria, the cost of clearing increases. All of these happen because we are at the whims and caprices of Customs officers. Apart from paying these bills, they will still extort you on your car on the road. They will give you this valuation, you will pay the duty and another Customs official will question the duty paid again.
“The genesis of these problems are the targets the Federal Government placed on Customs for revenue generation. What they have to do is for its officials to fleece importers and agents.”
The Secretary of the ANLCA Board Michael Taiwo Oyeniyi said a lot of cargoes were trapped at the ports.
“There are some vehicles about to be released, but we pleaded with the management to give us, at least, a period of 90 days to clear the backlog. Let me say this on record: no freight forwarder in this country goes against VIN valuation, it is the system of operation that we are against,” Oyeniyi declared.
A Customs licensed broker, Prince Kennedy Osita, explained that agents were used to declaring their cargo for the Customs, after which they were transferred to the electronic VIN system.
However, in using it, Osita said, the agents discovered that the value was increased by 400 per cent.
He added, “When you input a vehicle of 2010, it brings a value of a brand new 2010 car instead of used car. They are neglecting the poor masses. It increases the cost of prices of cars averagely and affect cab owners who do Uber and Bolt.”
Responding to the concerns, the Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs, Zone A, Modupe Aremu, maintained that the VIN would not be scrapped. But he promised that it would be modified.
Aremu explained, “The modification will take care of all their issues. It was a family meeting, we talked and rubbed minds on how to get a solution to the strike. We will get back to them on that.
“We had three sessions of training on this VIN with them, so we didn’t expect this kind of response from them. Because of this, we will go back to our drawing board and modify some of the issues they raised. The VIN has come to stay.”


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With today’s release of Chrome M121, Google announced it will introduce new generative AI features that will make the browser easier to use.
Microsoft is rolling out Reading Coach as a standalone app, which will expand its tools for educators in Microsoft Teams.
The FTC extended its submission claims deadline for Fortnite players who were charged for unwanted purchases during gameplay.
LG is going to debut a small bipedal AI-powered robot at CES 2024 in Las Vegas.
Microsoft’s Copilot tool is now an app on the Google Play Store on Android mobile devices.
The next generation of Apple’s CarPlay interface has been previewed in luxury cars made by Porsche and Aston Martin.
Google is giving anyone who has a WiFi-only Stadia controller lying around an additional year to convert it to Bluetooth.
Apple will pay $25 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accuses the tech giant of misleading customers over Family Sharing.
Meta is rolling out a suite of new tools on Instagram that give users more control over how much spam content and bots they will see on their feeds.
Threads is going to make an effort to moderate more of the user-generated content on the platform.


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Poloniex is a popular cryptocurrency exchange, but it has lacked an official mobile presence in the form of an APP. Recently, a fake Poloniex has been found out to circulate around the Google Play store, and chances are, it carries a dubious and malicious intent.
Poloniex Exchange is based in the USA and started back in 2014. It has built itself as a pure crypto-to-crypto market and is currently one of the busiest platforms which offer 140 Bitcoins and Monero markets.
Now the Poloniex U.I is publicized to be super easy to get by and is extremely user-friendly. All traders get access to several tools like technical analysis charts that simplifies the current market. Also, a live chat option is also there to help users their problems.
And to back it all up, there is an active auditing program that checks all transactions taking place on the platform. All transactions get stored in offline mode via air-gap cold storage and authentication is provided on top of that for additional security to all accounts.
As you can see, Poloniex is a powerful, secure, and user-friendly trading platform that runs 24*7, checking all qualities necessary to be one of the top players on the market. Nonetheless, even being one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges doesn’t exempt one from the hate of customers. More and more exchanges are being affected by the ongoing struggle with partnering banks. This is causing problems for the customers. And with Poloniex the issue is magnified with the presence of this new fake app on the Play Store.
However, Poloniex is not oblivious to the situation. They have taken to Twitter to reach out to its user base:
“We’ve been made aware of false reports coming from the creator of an impostor Poloniex app that the Poloniex platform has been compromised”[…]“This phishing scheme was aimed at various exchanges and the impostor has now chosen to publicly post sensitive user information of the victims – a highly unethical act.”


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Despite widespread concerns that falling gas prices would strike a significant blow to the electric vehicle market, Tesla Motors announced last week that it had received over the course of three days nearly 300,000 preorders for the new Model 3. It is the fourth electric vehicle designed by Tesla and the one it wants to invade the mass market.
On the morning before the prototype was revealed at the company’s design headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., Tesla tweeted photographs showing hundreds of customers waiting outside dealerships to reserve the new model. Several videos shared by the company showed lines snaking through city streets, and even lone customers waiting outside dealerships days in advance.
The Model 3 will have a driving range of at least 215 miles on a single charge, with support for the same autonomous features found in the company’s earlier cars. It starts at $35,000 before federal tax credits. That is half the price of Tesla’s initial Model S, which can travel up to 270 miles on a single charge, and significantly lower than the $132,000 Model X sports utility vehicle.
The Model 3 is “the final step in the master plan, which is a mass market, affordable car,” Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said at last week's reveal. “It was only possible to do that after going through the prior steps.”
Musk recently said that the company received 115,000 preorders within the first 24 hours since its website opened for the Model 3, which is not expected to enter production until 2017. Many of these orders were placed before Musk unveiled the prototype last week. Three days after preorders started, Musk tweeted that the number of preorders (with a $1,000 down payment) had reached 276,000. For comparison, the company produced 50,580 vehicles in 2015.
In recent years, auto companies have been building more electric and hybrid cars in part to meet higher fuel efficiency regulations, rather than widespread consumer demand. But advances in fuel efficiency and the falling gas prices have threatened to delay the widespread growth of electric vehicles. Musk, however, has dismissed the idea that lower gas prices will undermine Tesla’s latest vehicle.
“Even if the economics of oil favor gasoline, I think the Model 3 still does well,” he said in an interview with CNN earlier this year. “It’s more cases where there is little to no differentiation between the gasoline version of something and the electric version. If they’re about the same, and the electric version doesn't have a compelling economic proposition, then you’ve got a real issue in the market.”
Tesla also faces competition from Nissan and General Motors, which recently unveiled a new model capable of driving 200 miles on a single charge. To help compete, Tesla plans to build out its charging infrastructure, adding another 3,600 supercharger stations and quadrupling the number of wall connectors operated by hotels, restaurants, and stores by the end of next year.
Tesla’s plans to outpace competition are closely tied to the Gigafactory, an enormous lithium-ion battery plant being constructed in the deserts of northern Nevada. Musk said that when the Gigafactory reaches full capacity in 2020, it will produce more lithium-ion batteries annually than were produced worldwide in 2013.
Looking for parts? Go to SourceESB.


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It was a landmark Android device, and it's been an iconic phone for Sprint, but it seems that this past week finally saw the venerable HTC EVO 4G reach end-of-life (EOL) status. According to an internal memo obtained by Sprintfeed, the EVO View 4G, Sprint's version of the HTC Flyer, will also be put out to pasture from Jan. 29. And there's bad news for our friends at CrackBerry, too, as it seems Sprint also plans to stop offering the BlackBerry Playbook from "late January".
While the EVO View (and the Playbook) haven't exactly been runaway successes, we're sure a few of you will have fond memories of the EVO 4G, which first appeared way back in June 2010. Hopefully we'll see these devices replaced by more compelling Android phones and tablets as the year progresses.
Do you think the Pixel 4 is still worth getting?
The Pixel 4 is quickly coming up on its one-year birthday. Now that the phone has been out for a few months, do you think it's still worth getting?
Review: Wireless charging adds little value to the Fire HD 8 Plus tablet
Thanks to the pandemic and other important world events, the Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus wasn't released with much fanfare, but it was released with a fair amount of excitement and promise. This is because it offers wireless charging, in addition to a number of other improvements. But is it worth getting over the regular Fire HD 8?
Samsung's next budget phone might arrive with a whopping 6800mAh battery
Samsung could soon launch its first phone with a 6,800mAh battery. Expected to be called the Galaxy M41, the upcoming phone is also rumored to have a hole-punch display and triple rear cameras.
Best microSD Cards for Amazon Fire HD 8 in 2020
The Amazon Fire HD 8 is a great update to one of the most affordable and reliable budget tablets on the market, but if you need a little extra room for movies, music, apps, and more, then expand your storage with a trusty microSD card!


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Ticket touts and scalpers are a massive pain. Then again, so is buying tickets for events at all. The whole thing is not consumer friendly is it?
While we wait for someone to do something about erroneous, inflated booking fees, there's more calls that something needs to be done about ticket touts online.
It's a big problem too - only last week, the Local Government Association stated that music and sports fans lost over £5 million to online ticket fraud last year, which is up from the £3.35 million the year before.
In a report commissioned by the government, they're asking businesses such as Ticketmaster, StubHub, and the rest, to take measures to stop scalpers from buying tickets in bulk, which they can then sell for hiked up prices.
If you're looking for cheap gig and theatre tickets, you're not likely to find them in the hands of a tout, are you?
Professor Michael Waterson, who undertook the review said that there's "work to be done" within both the primary and secondary markets for ticketing.
He'd like to see ticketing companies providing details of the face value of the ticket, exact seat locations, and the like, to make sure sellers “fully observe the rules" set out by the Consumer Rights Act.
As for the touts, again follows the complaints of warnings that we've heard a million times before.
A spokesperson for StubHub, said: "We welcome Professor Waterson's recognition of the benefits for consumers from the secondary market and his decision to reject further legislation at this stage, including price caps and any general resale bans or bans for 'crown jewel' events."
"But we are concerned that there are still insufficient legal safeguards to stop event organisers using row and seat number details to cancel without compensation tickets offered for resale."
"Transparency should not come at the expense of people's right to resell their tickets."
The Government are apparently mulling this over, and will respond to the report in due course.


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LOS ANGELES — It is no secret to many casual dating site operators that the number of male members far exceeds the number of available females — but recent arrests in Japan are underscoring a surprising stat.
Reports are surfacing of the detention of nine Japanese executives of the Tetsuo Miura Group, including 42-year-old founder Tetsuo Miura, in a case of alleged consumer fraud that included the operation of an online dating site — which despite boasting a membership base of more than 2.7 million male users, had only one actual female member.
This was no audition for “The Bachelorette,” where more men than women should be expected, but a matter of men allegedly being paid to pose as women — using fake profiles and bogus images to charm male members into remaining customers of the site, which is characterized as “Japan’s biggest social network site and phone line app.”
Men reportedly paid 80,000 Yen (around $650) to subscribe to the site, where so-called “meat men,” flirted with them, encouraging the retention of their subscriptions, and allegedly using photographs that were stolen from other dating sites and social networks.
The Tetsuo Miura Group established the sites in 2004, generating a reported 10 billion Yen (more than $80 million) in revenues since.
Informally known as “sakura sites,” Japan outlawed the fraudulent marketing practices, but reportedly had not made enforcement of these statutes a priority, until this series of arrests.
While some observers feel that there is no harm caused when consumers receive what they paid for — the fantasy of an encounter with a woman of their dreams — other observers contend that the heavy use of social media and instant messaging by the meat men posing as women is outright fraud.
As for the program’s effectiveness, reports note that some site users spent upwards of $100,000 due to this swindle.


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Though he suggested insurers would be smart to defer to OEMs on elements of claims, insurance consultant and former USAA Vice President Jimmy Spears suggested last fall automakers might want to let insurers handle underwriting.
A big question right now involves how Tesla’s desire to sell its own insurance will play out, Spears told an Oct. 10, 2019, VeriFacts call.
One of an insurer’s strengths involves the industry’s ability to determine the risk of whoever they’re insuring, Spears said. A desire to write insurance just because someone bought your brand’s vehicle can affect your ability to determine their risk, he said.
All of your underwriting talent might get “put on the shelf” because you’re trying to please the consumer who bought your product, Spears said.
This could particularly be an issue with nonstandard business, Spears said, referring to the category of insurance handling folks with a lousy driving record or who drive specialized vehicles like sports cars, according to the III.
Customers who buy performance brands will drive the vehicles “completely different” than typical makes, Spears said.
We asked Liberty Mutual, which works with OEMs like Subaru and Volvo to offer automaker-branded insurance, if it had encountered such issues pricing risk for partner automaker customers. It said it couldn’t offer any insight.
Spears said he could see “beautiful alliances” arise around sharing data for “behavior-based driving,” noting an OEM would have a “completely unfair advantage” on rating based on the information available from a vehicle.
A good risk could get a particularly good deal, but the automaker would need a means of handling poorer drivers while retaining customer satisfaction, Spears said.
Some OEMs have permitted customers to opt in to share driving data with insurers today, and it looks like more of Spears’ “beautiful alliances” could be coming.
Metromile product and enterprise Vice President Amrish Singh told Insurance Nexus in its Friday “Connected Auto Insurance 2020” publication that his usage-based insurance company was working hard on the idea.
According to Insurance Nexus, Singh called it crucial “to find opportunities to partner with car companies to get access to their signal data. That is something we have spent a lot of our time and efforts on. We are in discussions with nearly every major auto manufacturer to connect with their car APIs”.
AXA Rev big data and AI senior product lead Lorenzo Morganti told Insurance Nexus about research AXA obtained from a consulting firm.
“According to them, by 2022 all European manufacturers will be able to install some OEM equipment to trucks and cars, so you will not need any more black boxes or OBD dongles,” Morganti said, according to the Insurance Nexus article, released three months before Auto Insurance USA 2020. “They will already be installed on all European car models. That is why we are trying to strike deals with car manufacturers, which will then be sharing data with us directly from their cars. We do have something in place already. We are testing deals with two large manufacturers, one of the largest in France and the biggest one in Germany. We are then doing some testing and use-cases where we are looking at data from the newest cars they are putting on the market or even ones that they are testing in the labs to understand how we can connect on a solid and robust basis to OEM equipment.”
He told Insurance Nexus it “will be the new frontier for us.”
Insurance Nexus, Jan. 24, 2020
Featured image: OEMs who want to get into the insurance business might be tempted to throw out underwriting discipline to please customers. (EmirMemedovski/iStock)


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When will the internet become just another bookseller’s bookstore?
That is the question that haunts many of the online bookstores that have sprung up since the financial crisis.
And it is a question that is being asked in a big way.
Online bookstores are becoming increasingly popular and their customers are shifting from traditional bookstores to online stores.
And online booksellers are increasingly getting into the game.
Online Booksellers Are Getting Into the GameIn the wake of the financial collapse, many online book stores have become the go-to online destination for many Americans.
But what happened to the traditional book store?
In recent years, online book sellers have gotten more aggressive in their efforts to get their books into people’s homes.
And some have gone so far as to take their business to the next level, charging tens of thousands of dollars for their books.
Online retailer The Bookseller, which has about 400,000 books sold, is one of the few to make money online.
Its book “The Great Recession” is one popular example of the kind of online sales that are being made.
In an interview with USA Today, the company’s chief executive, Mark Koller, said that the book was “one of our biggest sellers to date.”
In this July 8, 2016 file photo, bookseller The Bookseller is seen in Los Angeles.
Online bookseller The Books are Now Taking OverThe company, which is owned by former eBay chief executive Pierre Omidyar, has been selling books online for a decade.
Koller told USA Today that “We have the largest book collection in the world and our inventory is huge.”
Koller said that bookselling is also a way to help support the economy by getting people back to their work.
He added that the company has more than $5 billion in annual sales and has been profitable for six years.
Online stores like The Book Seller are now seeing a surge in sales.
Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited is the most popular Kindle eBook seller and Amazon recently announced that it will begin selling ebooks on its Kindle Unlimited service.
Amazon and The Bookselling also have the backing of a group of high-profile companies.
The Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a big fan of online bookselling.
In 2014, he said that Amazon’s strategy is to create an “unfettered, unadulterated, online world.”
And he recently joined with the Bookseller to open a new digital bookstore called The Book of the Month Club, which will sell books from The Booksmith, a bookshop he co-founded with his wife, Marlene Mayer.
In addition to Amazon, Koller has also invested heavily in the online retail industry with the sale of Amazon.com’s online store, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon’s Prime membership, and Amazon’s own website.
And in May, the online retailer acquired the publishing house Hachette.
In a company statement, Keller said that “The Bookseller has always been about creating value, and the book business is a prime example of this.
Our customers want our books, we want them to have a positive impact on their lives, and it is clear that Amazon is taking the best of this market and turning it into a force to be reckoned with.”
What Happens When Amazon and The Books Are Both Gone?
If all goes well, booksellings could find themselves out of business in the near future.
In addition to The Book seller’s demise, online retailers are seeing a rise in bookselling sales as consumers migrate to the Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform.
This year, Amazon has announced plans to launch its own video streaming service.
And the company recently announced a deal with Hulu, allowing customers to stream shows and movies from their own account on the streaming service and to access content through their Amazon Prime subscription.
But these moves may not be enough to keep the booksellership industry going in the long term.
Amazon and other bookstores could see a resurgence in sales, and with more customers switching to the cloud, they could lose their business.
The Amazon and Hachettes, along with other online bookseller are not the only ones that could face the threat of losing their business when Amazon and Amazon Web services disappear.
According to a report by a group that researches the online retailers industry, online ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Netflix could be next.
And although these platforms have been gaining traction lately, the report notes that there are a number of obstacles to these platforms becoming dominant.
Amazon’s plan to bring its cloud computing service to the web is still in the early stages.
But the company said that it is working with “industry partners” to bring the service to “the cloud and on Amazon Prime” and that it intends to release a version of the service later this year.
Netflix has been pushing to build a service similar to Amazon’s offering, with plans to release its own streaming service by the end of this year and to offer a variety


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Researchers wanted to know if taking vitamin B6 could induce lucid dreams. Instead, they found that when people took 240 milligrams of the nutrient before bed for five days, their dream recall improved by 64 percent. The study was published in the journal Perceptual and Motor Skills.
Vitamin B6 may cause deeper sleep during the first few hours of the night, which can lead to more intense dreams during rapid eye movement sleep, says study author Denholm Aspy, Ph.D., a visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide in Australia. They don’t know exactly how the vitamin helps people remember their dreams.
“You shouldn’t take 240 milligrams of vitamin B6 every night,” says Aspy. Taking the recommended dietary allowance of 100 milligrams before bed (through supplements or foods like chickpeas and salmon) has similar effects on dream recall, he says. Bonus: the nutrient gives you extra energy and keeps your skin healthy.


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During the pandemic, the perspective of many small and medium-sized business (SME) owners has changed. Many small businesses may have kept their roots in physical operations and then moved online.
Robert Clarkson, chief revenue officer at Payoneer, told Karen Webster of PYMNTS that there has been a shift in how small businesses, even sole proprietorships, come to market. Overall, SMEs have had to adopt a digital-first strategy, keeping an eye on the global stage and across multiple channels.
“What we’re seeing now is that businesses are starting from day one online only, [and only later] gravitating towards a more local presence,” he said.
While small businesses previously started locally and then continued to grow globally, many are now going international from the outset, seeking consumers through multiple direct and commercial channels. With sporadic drop-in traffic in their home markets due to the pandemic, they had to invest more than ever in their digital strategy.
“You have to find businesses,” regardless of the market, Clarkson said. This means investing in digital advertising, online storefronts and social media. But in an era of increasing cross-border trade, expanding its customer base often brings increased complexity and localization requirements.
Related: Payment Orchestration Guide: SMBs Embrace the Digital Payments Framework
Catering to an expanded base
Clarkson said SMBs need to cater to their expanded customer base by offering multiple languages on their sites and accepting payments in multiple currencies.
“If you’re an SME, you need to be able to present to a US buyer, a UK buyer, a [Vietnam]in their own language and currency to make sure you’re relevant,” he said.
That same reach and breadth is important as the gig economy grows and smaller stores expand their businesses to market services internationally. The problem is that many of these smaller companies may not have the technical know-how or the resources to accept these currencies and compete with the capabilities of larger companies. After all, payment systems differ from region to region, and even from country to country within the same region.
Vendors, in turn, must empathize with the limited resources an SMB has and must provide an intuitive, streamlined onboarding experience and an easy-to-navigate interface.
Clarkson said outsourcing this payment functionality to vendors, including Payoneer, can make it easier for SMBs to invoice and collect in multiple currencies and across multiple geographies, leveling the playing field between SMBs and their big brothers.
External payment providers, he said, also increase the likelihood that payments will be authorized and routes will be optimized to ensure transactions are completed.
Importantly, companies like Payoneer also conduct critical know-your-customer (KYC) processes in a digital environment where unknown buyers interact with unknown sellers.
“What they have in common is that there is a product or service that one party wants and the other party provides,” Clarkson said. “We spend a lot of time making sure the verification process takes place and the conversion rate increases.”
See also: 88% of businesses selling on marketplaces receive payments through them
Platforms smooth out rough edges
FinTech platforms can help bridge the gap between the complex challenges faced by modern digital businesses and the capabilities of largely analog financial infrastructure. This includes everything from enabling an array of KYC processes that vary by geography, optimizing settlement and conversion rates, better cash flow visibility, and quick access to working capital.
The latter is key, Clarkson said, because traditional banks don’t tend to be enthusiastic lenders to the SME community.
Supply chain issues, which have dominated the headlines in recent months, have also underscored the importance of flexibility between buyers and sellers. SMBs, he said, need an easy way — especially with B2B transactions — to pivot between marketplaces in order to get and sell what they need.
Looking ahead, he said SMEs are increasingly becoming global businesses and seeking the widest possible geographic coverage as they capture new customers and new sources of revenue, including options for immediate purchase and subsequent payment.
As Clarkson told Webster, “You must ‘act’ globally, but ‘look’ local.”


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The case marked the first major monopoly case at the commission in years and demonstrated a willingness to unwind harmful mergers, which might actually be applied to music trade giants. Live Nation has since mixed with the ticketing monopoly Ticketmaster, satellite radio monopolist SiriusXM, and on-line radio chief Pandora as a part of media mega-conglomerate Liberty Media.
Rather, buyers swap suggestions, share purchases on social media or snatch up exclusives when artists ship a Bandcamp alert. “The more people that might hear your music meant extra individuals at concert events meant more folks shopping for merch, and everybody’s joyful. Take reside out of the equation, and suddenly it doesn’t really add up,” he added. As the plight of their favorite musicians spread throughout social media, fans had been eager to assist. They’ve done a unprecedented job, and their market cap is worth gazillions of dollars.
Naxos, the world’s main classical music label is known for recording thrilling new repertoire with exceptional talent. The label has one of many largest and quickest rising catalogues of unduplicated repertoire out there anywhere with state-of-the-art sound and consumer-friendly prices. The catalogue includes classical music CDs and DVDs as well different genres such …


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The guys at Crackberry were able to check out the newly opened Tech Center at RIM’s UK Headquarters. The Tech Centre was opened up to help developers with porting apps to Blackberry 10. If you live in the UK and you have an app you want to port to BB10, you can make an appointment and get help with that. And it won’t cost you anything.
The UK isn’t the only place where these helpful tech centers will exist, RIM has plans for San Francisco, Vancouver, India and Indonesia locations as well.


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Media Molecule has been teasing it for awhile, but Sony Japan can't keep it in their pants. The upcoming Ghostbusters content for LittleBigPlanet has been revealed, and as is expected, is absolutely adorable.
The bad news is that it doesn't look like it'll be a big level pack with items like some had wanted, but the costumes may hit the spot -- a Slimer costume (or rather, a hat), a Marshmallow Man costumes, a "No Ghosts" costume, and a Ghostbusters outfit will all be made available on July 16.
Pricing is 200 yen ($2.15) per costume, or 600 yen ($6.50) for the full package. Siliconera, who picked up the news, notes that the pricing will probably change when it hits North America. But at least now you know approximately how many pennies you'll need to save to start busting those pesky sack ghosts in LittleBigPlanet.
[Update: From Media Molecule comes an image of the content with English text! It also confirms that "stickers" are also incoming. Check it out after the jump.]
Luigi is rockin' it hardcore! The upcoming New Super Mario Bros. U expansion, New Super Luigi U, is ready to drop on eShop on June 20 for $19.99. Not only that, there will be a special standalone disc, which doesn't require y...more
Star Trek Online is less than a week out from its latest big free content update, Legacy of Romulus, which, as may be expected, will introduce the playable Romulan Republic faction and a new line of Romulan Warbirds...more
As Queasy Games' musical platformer Sound Shapes continues to grow, it was only a matter of time before dubstep found its way in. The wubs are coming by way of a $0.99 Sound Pack that's out right now as DLC. Get out of that ...more


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It appears that Facebook is not the only social network shopping for startups these days.
LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network in the Internet, has jumped on the bandwagon with its acquisition of content sharing community Slideshare for a $119 million cash and stock deal.
What does this mean for professionals and entrepreneurs like you and me? Well, have a look at the presentation LinkedIn and SlideShare prepared to celebrate this exciting news.
Personally, I’m excited about this development. LinkedIn is already an invaluable networking and marketing tool for small businesses. Add SlideShare’s content sharing technology and the possibilities are promising.
Of course, both companies have no concrete plans yet, so we’ll have to stay tuned until they announce how SlideShare will actually be integrated into LinkedIn.
But for now, you can read LinkedIn’s Press Release about the announcement.
Exciting times ahead for these two great companies.
Apple has confirmed it will buy headphone maker and music-streaming service provider Beats Electronics.
The deal is worth a total of $3bn (£1.8bn), and is thought to be Apple’s largest acquisition to date.
As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre will join the technology firm.
Apple boss Tim Cook said the deal would allow the firm to “continue to create the most innovative music products and services in the world”.
Read the official press release here: www.Apple.com


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By Mike Ramsey and Christina Rogers
Chrysler Group LLC next week plans to unveil an unusual automobile—an electric car that doesn’t stand a chance soon of turning a profit and is unlikely to draw many customers.
So why is the company making it? It has to. California requires it.
For more than two decades, California has enacted rules aimed at improving the state’s famously smoggy air and staving off global warming, which is seen as a long-term threat to the Golden State’s lengthy, prized coast line.


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Roughly half of holiday shoppers are expected to start buying gift items before Nov. 1, but they want to make sure they are getting a good deal before they spend anything, according to a new study released by RetailMeNot, a digital savings and coupon website.
Finding the best deal remains at the top of most shoppers list, with more than 60 percent of consumers saying they plan to shop sales and promotions. That’s up from 51 percent last year, according to the study.
“It’s important for retailers to ensure they enter consumers’ consideration set early in the season,” said Marissa Tarleton, chief marketing officer of North America for RetailMeNot, Inc. “Having the right promotional mix is key for reaching these shoppers.”
Roughly 46 percent of shoppers said they would spend a full day hunting online for the best price, 26 would travel more than an hour to visit a store with a great deal, and 23 percent plan to line up outside store doors before they open in order to snag the best prices on the hottest products, according to the study.
Nearly 75 percent of consumers are planning to shop in brick-and-mortar stores this holiday season, and 50 percent said that the deals they find will help them determine which days to shop in-store, the study found.


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Despite the down economy, a developer is planning to build new apartments in downtown Cleveland next year.
K&D Group plans to purchase office space in the Playhouse Square district and convert it to more than 100 condo style units. The $23 million project is slated to begin in June and wrap up in 2013.
K&D owns three other rental properties in downtown Cleveland. CEO Doug Price says those apartment buildings are nearly fully occupied and the low vacancy rate in the city’s rental market makes this a safe time to build more.
Price: “The market really has caught up, there’s not enough supply, we’ve got a lot of new businesses moving in. The employees have finally realized the value of living downtown.”
Price says K&D plans to lease out the bottom of the building as retail space. And the group wants to add 400 more apartments in the downtown area in the future.


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It's a sad day when the Republican Presidential nominee is closer to the mark on an issue than a major news outlet, but that appears to be the case when it comes to CNN and trade. CNN managed to get badly confused as it confronted Trump's "myths" with "reality. It rightly criticized the idea that trade is a zero sum game, trade is typically mutually beneficial so that both parties gain, but the situation is still not quite as CNN presents it.
Its myth #1 is that "America is losing money to Mexico, China, and others." The piece then gives us the "reality," which it claims is:
"There's no proof that a trade deficit is bad for an advanced economy like the United States."
While a trade deficit is not necessarily bad for an advanced country (actually, trade deficits are likely to be worse for advanced countries, in theory fast-growing developing countries should be the ones running deficits), it certainly is bad in a context where an economy is operating below its full employment level of output. The trade deficit means that spending in the United States is creating demand in other countries rather than the United States. In a context of secular stagnation, which many economists believe the U.S. is now experiencing, the trade deficit is making the lack of demand worse than it would otherwise be.
It's true that the demand lost to a trade deficit could be offset by a larger government budget deficit, but at the moment there is little explicit support in either political party for larger budget deficits. This means that there is nothing to offset the demand lost to trade deficit, therefore the trade deficit means slower growth and higher unemployment.
CNN then attacks Trump's "myth II," that "trade with Mexico is a U.S. jobs killer." It counter this assertion by telling readers:
"About six million American jobs rely on trade with Mexico, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"On top of that, many U.S. businesses rely on Mexico. Consider this: for every dollar of goods Mexico sells in the United States, 40 cents of that dollar goes to U.S. businesses that ship parts and products to Mexico.
"America sends more goods to Mexico than it does to China, India, Russia and Brazil combined, according to Carla Hills, a former U.S. trade representative under President George H. W. Bush. All those exports support American jobs."
It's actually not clear what any of these points have to do with the time of day. What matters is net trade flows, the fact that six million jobs rely on trade with Mexico provides zero information on net flows. Similarly, it is nice that much of our spending in Mexico pays for items purchased from the U.S., but this is accounted for in the trade deficit. And the comparison of our exports to Mexico with exports to Mars really doesn't mean anything.
The United States currently has an annual trade deficit with Mexico of more than $60 billion a year. This corresponds to a loss of around 500,000 jobs in the United States. That is the reality.
There is also an issue that the actual and potential shifting of jobs to Mexico can put downward pressure on the wages of manufacturing jobs that remain in the United States.
These are the realities of trade. It's not clear that Donald Trump has any serious way to address these issues, but he seems to have a better grasp of them than the folks at CNN.


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Teamsters Applaud NY Law Targeting Secret Warehouse Quotas
Measure Will Guarantee Corporations Like Amazon Cannot Take Benefit of Employees
Press Contact: Kara Deniz Cellphone: (202) 497-6610 E mail: [email protected]
(WASHINGTON) — The Teamsters are hailing the signing of laws in New York that bolsters employee security within the e-commerce and warehouse industries at corporations like Amazon. The brand new legislation brings transparency to hidden office quotas and ensures these mandates do not intervene with legally protected breaks.
The Warehouse Employee Safety Act, signed right now by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), was drafted with enter from the Teamsters and different members of the New Yorkers for a Honest Economic system coalition. The brand new legislation, together with Teamster-backed AB 701 already enacted in California, units high-level warehouse business protections because it pertains to overly burdensome and abusive quotas.
“Amazon overloads its employees to pump up its earnings,” stated Teamsters Basic President Sean M. O’Brien. “Whereas we’re happy by this invoice’s signing, the battle continues in states throughout the nation to ensure this white-collar crime syndicate is held liable for its conduct.”
Teamsters Joint Council 16, Joint Council 18, and Joint Council 46 performed important roles in getting the measure authorized. Leaders from every Joint Council beforehand wrote in a letter despatched to lawmakers that the invoice would defend employees from self-discipline or termination primarily based on unfair and secret quotas and defend requirements within the warehouse business.
“Enacting this laws will finish Amazon’s shady apply of managing its New York warehouse employees by secret algorithm, however extra nonetheless must be executed,” stated Tom Erickson, President of Teamsters Native 120 and Director of the Teamsters Warehouse Division. “Going ahead, lawmakers in all places want to grasp the harm this firm is doing to their constituents and our communities.”
The laws requires that main warehouse corporations present their staff with documentation of their quotas on the time of rent, or when the legislation takes impact for present staff. Employees should even be notified of any change to their quota and have the best to request their very own work pace information together with combination information of comparable employees within the facility in the event that they imagine they had been disciplined for not assembly a quota. Corporations will not be capable to impose quotas that intervene with employees’ lunch, relaxation, or toilet breaks. The invoice additionally protects employees from retaliation when exercising their rights.
Accidents elevated by 64 p.c at Amazon warehouses in New York as the corporate reinstated its grueling quotas after the primary wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, based on a report from New Yorkers for a Honest Economic system.
Based in 1903, the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.2 million hardworking women and men within the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Go to Teamster.org for extra data. Comply with us on Twitter @Teamsters and “like” us on Fb at Fb.com/teamsters.


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October 28, 2020 - FX technology provider Integral announced today that their existing partnership with Refinitiv has been extended on a multi-year basis, ensuring that customers of Refinitiv’s multi-dealer platform can continue to use Integral’s price engine technology.
Integral’s pricing engine infrastructure allows market participants to auto-price their clients and construct and distribute prices via the FXall platform.
“We are pleased to be extending our partnership with Refinitiv via the FXall platform, which is recognised as a market leading multi-dealer platform,” said Harpal Sandhu, CEO of Integral. “Integral’s mission is to open up the institutional FX markets to support greater efficiency and choice. Our partnership with Refinitiv supports this strategy and will be of great benefit to our respective clients.”
Neill Penney, Co-Head of Trading at Refinitiv said, “Partnership and openness in the financial markets delivers improved value and efficiency to all participants. Our renewal of this partnership reflects our long-term relationship, and puts that principle into action, benefiting FXall liquidity providers using Integral’s pricing engine technology.”
Edgewater Markets Hires James Oliver as Director of Precious Metals Sales in London
UOB to set up electronic FX pricing and trade engine in Singapore
CLS and Finastra collaborate to deliver netting services to customers
IS Prime reports strong results for the 6th consecutive year
VanEck Lists a Physically-Backed Bitcoin on Deutsche Börse Xetra


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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed and published a new protocol for devices to capture biometric data wirelessly and securely using Web services.
The new WS-Biometric Devices (WS-BD) protocol enables desktops, laptops, tablets and smart phones to access biometric data capturing sensors using Web services. This can be used for biometric data such as fingerprints, iris images and face images.
With the WS-BD protocol, set up and maintenance of secure biometric systems for identity verification will be simpler because the protocol provides for interoperable components for biometric systems using a device-independent web-services layer in the communication protocol between biometric devices and systems.
Agencies and organizations that utilize biometric systems may benefit from implementing WS-BD protocol-enabled equipment because replacement costs in conjunction with replacement parts may be simpler and cheaper to swap in, rather than having to repair or replace system components that may be obsolete.
Researchers recently demonstrated the new protocol in their lab with a tablet device that communicated wirelessly with two biometric fingerprint sensors.
The NIST developed this solution with support from the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, the FBI’s Biometric Center of Excellence and NIST’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. NIST is working to bring these plug-and-play biometric devices to market through industry input from the Small Business Innovation Research Program.


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A few weeks ago, I outlined the Baby Bottle Dilemma involving BPA. Today, a news story noted that more studies are showing links to cancer. Although the FDA is still calling the chemical safe, New Jersey has apparently taken steps to ban its sale and Canada is considering a similar step.
One of the groups doing the study is the National Toxicology Program. I wonder if the Angry Toxicologist will have a comment ...
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Four assault liquor store staff, make off with seven imported whiskey bottles in Sohna
According to the police, the incident took place around 8pm on Thursday. The four suspects reached the spot in an Audi sedan and two of them went inside. The staff at the liquor store told the police that the two suspects picked up seven bottles of Jameson whiskey, imported from Ireland
Four men allegedly made off with seven bottles of imported whiskey after assaulting the staff of a liquor shop in Sohna, police said Friday, adding that the suspects are yet to be arrested.
According to the police, the incident took place around 8pm on Thursday. The four suspects reached the spot in an Audi sedan and two of them went inside. The staff at the liquor store told the police that the two suspects picked up seven bottles of Jameson whiskey, imported from Ireland.
The staff said the suspects started leaving the shop without paying for the bottles. Seeing them leave, salesman Vikas Kumar (31), who was manning the counter, allegedly objected and asked them to pay for the bottles.
Investigators said one of the suspects asked Kumar to accompany them to the car so that they could pay him.
On reaching near the car, all four suspects allegedly assaulted him, police said. They said two other employees from the liquor store came to Kumar’s rescue but the suspects assaulted them as well and fled with the bottles.
The staffers said the suspects threatened them with dire consequences if they dared to ask for money or inform police.
Police said Kumar knew one of the two suspects who entered the store as he had purchased liquor from the store several times in the past. They said that the salesman informed his owner and later alerted the police about the incident.
On Kumar’s complaint, an FIR against the suspects was registered under sections 34 (common intention), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code at the City Sohna police station on Friday, they said.
Inspector Sunil Kumar, station house officer of City Sohna police station, said after the preliminary investigation, it surfaced that one of the suspects had tried to make a digital payment for the bottles but that transaction failed. It was after this that he called the staff to the car to pay the cash. “However, an altercation took place near the car which ended in the assault. We will take necessary action soon,” he added.


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Property Rounds: Home-improvement stores maintain edge
While many brick-and-mortar establishments are crumbling, home-improvement businesses keep building in Connecticut and beyond.
The Home Depot leads the industry, with an expansion plan that includes a store under construction on the west side of Stamford, near the Greenwich line. The Atlanta-based company’s growth attests to an improving housing market and a resilient business model — one that relies heavily on in-person shopping, but also embraces digital platforms.
“Home-improvement businesses, with Home Depot and Lowe’s as the top guys, have generally proven to be fairly resistant to downturns from e-commerce,” said Garrick Brown, vice president of Americas retail research, for commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. “But that hasn’t stopped Home Depot from significantly investing in e-commerce.”
Stamford’s Home Depot center will mark the company’s 30th location in Connecticut. In Fairfield County, the company also operates stores in Bridgeport, Danbury, Fairfield, Norwalk, Stratford and Trumbull.
Lowe’s, the other home-improvement powerhouse, has also expanded its southwestern Connecticut presence in recent years. In 2015, it opened a center at 100 Connecticut Ave., about 1.5 miles east of the Norwalk Home Depot on the same road. Seventeen Lowe’s stores operate in the state.
The new Home Depot represents the first big-box home-improvement store in Stamford. It will consist of an approximately 115,000-square-foot home center and a 28,000-square-foot gardening outlet at 1937 W. Main St., a few hundred yards from the Greenwich line. Neighbors include a Stop & Shop grocery store and research lab for Cytec Specialty Chemicals.
“We’re thrilled that Home Depot is coming to Stamford,” said Thomas Madden, Stamford’s economic development director. “We’re excited about the job opportunities for the neighborhood, and we are working with Home Depot to secure positions for people who live close by.”
Home Depot officials were not available to comment for this article.
Construction started last summer after the property owners and city officials resolved zoning disputes and legal wrangling that had spanned nearly a decade. Stamford’s zoning board approved the project in 2015.
The complex is scheduled to open next summer, Home Depot officials told Hearst Connecticut Media earlier this year.
Home Depot’s growth in Connecticut reflects its rebounding brick-and-mortar operations. In the first half of 2017, it opened three stores in the U.S. and one in Mexico, Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call in August. The company had not launched any new U.S. outlets since 2013.
Across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Home Depot runs about 2,300 stores. About 400,000 people work for the company.
In the past quarter, Home Depot produced record quarterly revenues of about $28 billion and a record profit of approximately $2.7 billion. Sales and profits, respectively, climbed about 6 percent and 9.5 percent from the second quarter of 2016.
“Big ticket” transactions costing more than $900, such as appliances and flooring, represent about one-fifth of U.S. sales. The category grew by 12 percent in the past quarter.
A recovering real estate market is spurring Home Depot’s growth. While the key indicators are still mixed — total existing home sales nationwide increased 0.7 percent last month from August, but dropped 1.5 percent from September 2016 — the outlook has brightened significantly since the last recession.
“When you have a good real estate market, the DIY stores do great,” Brown said. “They get business from contractors with new contracts and business from people fixing up their homes because they’re trying to sell them.”
Foundation for the future
Home Depot continues to evolve its business — and hold its own against Amazon — through new initiatives in recent years that include inventory system upgrades and expanded delivery options. Last year, the company completed the rollout of its buy-online-deliver-from-store program.
Online sales grew about 23 percent in the past quarter,
Customers often meld e-commerce and retail trips: About 43 percent of online orders are picked up in stores.
“This is one Home Depot, not an online or in-store business, but it’s one Home Depot,” Tome said.
Retail experts see the recent changes as ones that position Home Depot well for continued growth. “It makes perfect sense how Home Depot looks at it,” Brown said. “If they can do a deliver-from-store initiative and offer the speediest delivery, then that’s the way to compete with Amazon.”
firstname.lastname@example.org; 203-964-2236; Twitter: @paulschott


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What's Next From Kevin Rose? A Social and Location-Aware Mobile App From His New Incubator, Milk
What exactly Kevin Rose is working on is still murky. In fact, it’s milky: His grand new start-up, Milk, is actually an incubator for mobile apps. But the boy geek says he’s ready to grow up and be CEO of something.
Rose told NetworkEffect that his first app “will be in social and location aware” and should be ready to show in three to four months.
Milk started operations last week and already has a team of six, including co-founder Daniel Burka, who was creative director at Digg and left his gig as director of design at Stewart Butterfield’s Tiny Speck to join Milk. The company is currently raising funding.
Rose told TechCrunch that Milk will be more agile than Digg and that he intends to keep control of the business rather than ceding it to others as he did at Digg.
Rose said he intends for his ideas to be “big” and “audacious,” but who wouldn’t say that?
Six months ago, Rose stepped down as interim CEO of Digg, the company he founded more than six years ago. His recent track record is mixed, with considerable success as an angel investor but a botched and immensely disliked product overhaul at Digg right before he left.


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By Joshua Burd
Industrial rents in northern and central New Jersey continued to soar in the third quarter, amid ongoing demand for relatively few spaces and locations near the New Jersey Turnpike, fueling deals such as Samsung’s lease for more than 735,000 square feet in Linden.
Those are among the findings of new research by Savills, the commercial real estate services firm, which found that average asking rents have grown by 40 percent over the past year to $15.63 per square foot. That represents another all-time high, while submarkets such as Linden and Elizabeth, the Hudson waterfront and the Interstate 280 and suburban Essex region have seen rates hit the low to mid-$20-per-square-foot range.
As the report noted, Linden was the site of the largest lease of Q3, thanks to Samsung’s commitment at the seven-building, 4.1 million-square-foot Linden Logistics Center. The electronics giant is taking 735,220 square feet at 700 Linden Logistics Way, which is being developed under a joint venture of Advance Realty Investors, Greek Development and PGIM Real Estate, while the overall campus has just 1.6 million square feet of remaining availability.
Meantime, Savills found that vacancy in Q3 held steady from the previous quarter, hovering at what the report described as a cyclical low of 2.4 percent.
“Economic uncertainty has grown over the past six months due to rising interest rates and negative GDP growth,” Savills’ Rutherford-based team wrote in the report. “With a construction pipeline making up just 2.9 percent of inventory, compared with the national figure of 4.8 percent, northern New Jersey is well prepared to absorb a slowdown in demand. With over half the pipeline going up in submarkets already at asking rents over $15 (per square foot), landlords will see price insulation in the near term.”
A separate report by Cushman & Wakefield’s New Jersey office also pointed to a slowing pace of leasing activity in the market, but highlighted rising rents as well as historic container volume by the Port of New York and New Jersey. The region moved more than 843,000 twenty-foot equivalent units in August, outpacing both the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and spurring continued demand in the face of unease about the economy.
The report also noted that renewal activity persisted in the state’s industrial market, with five out of the top 10 transactions being stay-in-place renewals.
“Although warehouse leasing activity slowed, demand for industrial outdoor storage surged as the Port of New York and New Jersey handled a historic number of containers,” said John Obeid C&W’s senior research manager for the New Jersey region. “Overall, strong underlying market fundamentals persisted, leading to an increase in pricing despite slower demand.”


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Don’t Think ... Be Brave
(Dubai, United Arab Emirates) — BearFish Sports Apparel, a division of BearFish Sports Marketing, announces that it will be exhibiting at the 2023 PGA Merchandise Show (Stand #4755C), January 24-27, 2023 in Orlando, Fl.
“We are excited to be exhibiting for the first time at the PGA Merchandise Show and to introduce our new line of premium performance and fashion forward headwear to the marketplace,” said Roger Duthie, President of BearFish Sports Marketing and BearFish Sports Apparel. “The PGA Merchandise Show is an important venue for us to showcase our exciting new hats and we look forward to meeting with the PGA Show attendees, PGA professionals and the media.”
“There are few high quality headwear options available with the combination of being stylishly designed, of premium quality, and incredibly comfortable,” added Duthie. “Additionally, they’re always at risk of being scuffed, marked, or crushed in your luggage or golf bag and previously there are no smart solutions on the market to effectively protect them while travelling. So to meet this need, each BearFish hat comes with a premium, semi- soft crushproof carry case to protect them during travel or storage and can easily clip to the side of a sports bag or inside a golf bag.”
For more information, visit www.bearfishsportsmarketing.com.


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Sony isn’t happy with the nearly $2 billion Spider-Man: No Way Home made at the box office. So, it’s releasing an extended cut of the movie to hopefully reach that milestone. It’s called The More Fun Stuff Version, and it should hit theaters all across the globe starting in early September. But ticket sales for the No Way Home extended cut have been delayed, so you’ll have to wait longer to secure seats for this version of Spider-Man’s latest MCU adventure.
What is The More Fun Stuff Version?
No Way Home was a massive success for Sony because it was the Spider-Man movie fans had been dying to see. It wasn’t just an MCU installment, though that would be enough to guarantee a large box office take for any Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. The film also featured the previous Spider-Men from Sony’s other franchises.
Rumors said we’d see Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield return to their Peter Parker roles so they could help Tom Holland’s Peter fight a slew of multiverse-based villains. That meant that, yes, the villains from the Maguire and Garfield movies would also return.
Those rumors did wonders for No Way Home. And the film certainly delivered on those unofficial promises.
As a result, the movie closed in on that $2 billion mark during its theatrical run. But No Way Home ended up just about $100 million shy of the goal. And that’s the kind of problem The More Fun Stuff Version should fix.
The No Way Home extended cut will bring fans about 15 minutes of additional Spidey content. Leaks said it’ll mostly be deleted scenes featuring the three Spider-Man variants. That’s the fun stuff Sony hopes will be good enough to sell plenty of tickets in the coming weeks.
The overall plot of the film won’t change. It’s still the same story with the same bittersweet ending. Don’t expect anything different.
No Way Home extended cut ticket sales
Sony already released digital and Blu-ray versions of the film. And No Way Home is already streaming online on some services, though it’s not on Disney Plus. But the scenes in the extended cut have not made their way to fans yet.
The only way to see them is to go to a theater for the No Way Home extended cut. The More Fun Stuff Version premieres on September 2nd in the US, with many more markets to follow later in the month.
Ticket sales should have started online on August 9th. But that didn’t happen, prompting Spider-Man fans to wonder why.
Fandango’s Erik Davis took to Twitter to reassure fans that The More Fun Stuff Version is still coming on Labor Day weekend. But Sony has delayed the start of preorders for the No Way Home extended cut for an unknown reason. No new launch date for presales has been announced.
But you don’t even have to preorder tickets for The More Fun Stuff Version. Again, this isn’t a new movie so there likely won’t be crowds lined up around the block. You’ll be able to score tickets by just walking in, rather than having to secure them online as soon as possible.
More Marvel coverage: For more MCU news, visit our Marvel guide.