text:
VentureBeat presents: AI Unleashed - An exclusive executive event for enterprise data leaders. Network and learn with industry peers. Learn More
In the ecommerce world, digital images are everything. A new platform is using artificial intelligence (AI) to give brands the ability to evaluate visual content “through the eyes” of their target audiences in real time.
Vizit, a provider of image analytics software for global brands and retailers, uses the organic interactions millions of consumers have with online commercial imagery to generate new AI-powered models of their visual preferences, called Vizit Audience Lenses. The goal is to ensure the images a brand uses for representing its products online are effective at capturing the desired audience’s attention and triggering sales conversions.
Vizit is the latest entrant in the crowded digital shelf space, which refers to wherever products are made visible and available for online purchase. This includes a brand’s own product pages, as well as third parties, social media outlets, banner and mobile ads, and Google.
The digital shelf is considered one of the most critical elements of ecommerce, and as brands look to cut costs, advanced predictive AI image analytics lets them quickly assess how an image will perform across different channels and better understand customer expectations.
An exclusive invite-only evening of insights and networking, designed for senior enterprise executives overseeing data stacks and strategies.
Vizit today announced a $10 million series A round, led by Infinity Ventures and Brand Foundry Ventures, to grow its Visual Brand Performance Platform. The round also added new investors eGateway Capital and several CPG, retail, and technology executives, with participation from existing investors including Lakefront Partners and Lubar and Co., the company said.
How Vizit’s predictive image analytics works
Vizit founder and CEO Jehan Hamedi told VentureBeat that 99% of brand marketers and ecommerce leaders are probably not aware that they have a problem with their digital images.
“And many of them may be leaving millions of dollars on the table, as a result,’’ Hamedi added. “Just imagine a world before Google; businesses didn’t know what their search rankings were or how important the search-rank metric was to their digital success until it became available. Then an entirely new economy sprung up overnight to report on and optimize those metrics.”
This is the idea behind Vizit Scores, which are generated once users upload images to the Vizit platform, Hamedi said. The software automatically analyzes those images using AI models called AI Audience Lenses, which view and assess them for the intended audience.
The proprietary scores are generated in real time with automated and predictive image analytics through a web-based interface. The scores are designed to reveal which populations the image appeals to, what drives their preference, and where attention is garnered, he said.
For example, “Imagine you are a brand marketer, ecommerce leader, or designer at L’Oreal and you want to know if your product imagery and designs will be successful at attracting and converting a given audience,’’ such as millennial female consumers, Hamedi said. “You might also want to know what the visual trends are in your category, and what your competitors are doing that resonates with your target consumers.”
The Vizit platform aims to make this possible, he said.
“Customers use Vizit’s AI image analytics to assess the quality of their existing imagery to adjust and improve their imagery, and to select the images that have the highest performance potential with their target audience for new ecommerce, marketing and product development initiatives,” Hamedi said.
The goal is to deliver predictive insights about how consumers will react to content, how brands’ content performance compares to their competitors, and what design elements will capture a target audience’s attention, make products stand out on the digital shelf, and drive category-dominating levels of ecommerce conversion.
Brands finding success with Vizit’s AI platform
“Before Vizit, Mars never had a way to determine the imagery and design elements that contribute to conversion,” said Roman Vorobiev, global director of design and artwork management at Mars Inc., in a statement. “Vizit gives us an anchor point to measure how relevant and effective our images are for our audience, and we have proven that higher Vizit Scores on our content lead to up to 30% more units sold across major retailers.”
Mars is now reporting on its Vizit Scores in nearly a dozen countries, Vorobiev said.
Vizit has enterprise customers in 10 countries in a range of industries, including several of the top 10 largest food and beverage companies, the largest motorcycle manufacturer, and the largest cosmetics and beauty company in the world, according to the company.
“Every industry you can think of depends on successful visual communications and visual brand building,” said Brian Spaly, general partner at Brand Foundry Ventures and founder of Bonobos and Trunk Club, in a statement. “Vizit has forever changed the way products are merchandised, market research is conducted, campaigns are created, new products are conceived, and brands are built.”
Hamedi said that with the series A funding, Vizit will continue to invest in expanding the platform’s capabilities to serve its Fortune 100 customers and grow Vizit’s international presence.
Getting seen on the digital shelf
For companies like Vizit to gain traction in the digital shelf arena, they will need to provide a better online shopping experience than their competitors by understanding customer needs and optimizing their pages accordingly, according to web analytics firm Similarweb in a blog post.
There are several ways to do this, including investing in SEO for improved visibility, focusing on the right digital shelf metrics and enhancing visual content.
“You could have a great brand and fantastic products, but those two things alone won’t guarantee that you’ll conquer the digital shelf in 2022,’’ Similarweb said. It requires “a strategy that directly addresses digital shopper behavior and the idiosyncrasies of discovery in the digital shopping space.”
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings.


text:
(The Center Square) - The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys from the Utah Attorney General's Office teamed up to obtain the largest consumer protection lawsuit settlement in the state's history.
The two entities reached a court-ordered settlement with Response Marketing Group, LLC, and its principals. The companies must pay $15 million and can no longer sell money-making opportunities.
In the lawsuit, Utah and the FTC allege that Response Marketing made false promises to sell real estate investment training programs. Plus, real estate celebrities Scott Yancey and Dean R. Graziosi, who endorsed the training, must pay a combined $1.7 million.
Response Marketing attracted people to free events via infomercials and social media advertising. In these ads, real estate celebrities said they would share their techniques. However, at these events, Response Marketing urged consumers to buy $1,000 three-day workshops where they were promised they would learn how to become successful real estate investors. However, at those three-day events, consumers were pitched additional training programs that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
One program called "Inner Circle" cost as much as $30,000 on top of that initial $1,000. Most people who took these courses did not become successful real estate investors and could not recoup the money lost from these programs.
"This is the largest consumer protection division settlement in Utah's history and holds Response Marketing and its affiliates accountable for the serious financial harm to consumers across the country," Utah Department of Commerce Executive Director Margaret Busse said in a press release from the Attorney General's office. "Utah businesses that seek to take advantage of consumers should be put on notice."
Busse also praised the FTC and Utah Attorney General's Office for taking action on the matter.
"This partnership gave us the reach to go after these bad actors who thought they could skirt Utah's laws," she said, according to the release.
A district court found Response Marketing guilty of making false or misleading claims.
Here are some of those false claims the company made, according to the release.
"Telling consumers they would get offering customers special access to a funding network for real estate deals without using their own money, providing students with letters that would supposedly allow them to make discounted cash offers, and having buyers for houses they wanted to flip for flipped homes," the release said. "Response Marketing sold training programs under various names, including Affluence Edu, Cash Flow Edu, Flip for Life, OnWealth, Renovate to Rent, and Visionary Events. In December 2019, Response Marketing agreed to stop selling these packages after the FTC and Utah DCP filed their complaint."
Response Marketing's affiliates, Nudge LLC and BuyPD LLC, and four people who owned the company were also part of the settlement.
If the guilty parties fail to make the necessary $15 million in restitution payments, they will face another $15 million in fines, according to the release.
The court order can be read here.

domain: news


text:
Sports drinks face junk food label
Public health advocates are lobbying for limits on the availability of sports drinks such as Gatorade and Powerade in high school vending machines.
They say the drinks contain more sodium and as much as two-thirds the sugar of sodas, The Washington Post reported Monday. Lobbyists representing major soft drink bottlers say sports drinks are essential to young athletes.
A report from the University of California at Berkeley, however, said students who drink a 20-ounce sports drink every day for a year may gain about 13 pounds, the newspaper said.
"For years we've been programmed to believe that sports drinks are healthy and you need to replenish those electrolytes after you go out and walk the dog," Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Post.
The limits could become part of a bill introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, that would allow the federal government to set new nutritional standards for the foods and drinks sold outside school cafeterias.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International


text:
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- One of the country's most successful large-cap portfolio managers advises investors to stick with companies that are tops in their industries, sell low-priced products, are riding either a megatrend or great demographic wave and are trading at something close to a reasonable valuation.
Fritz Reynolds, manages the no-load Reynolds Blue Chip Growth Fund (RBCGX) [(800) 773-9665], and posted a 54 percent return last year. The fund beat the S&P 500 not just last year, but also over the last three- and five-year periods as well. When CBS.Market.Watch.com first spoke with Reynolds last fall, the fund totaled $90 million. Reynolds says Blue Chip is now at $220 million.
Reynolds also runs the Reynolds Opportunity Fund (ROPPX), a mid-cap-oriented portfolio that's up 59 percent since last year and is now at $60 million. Year to date, the Blue Chip is up 4 percent, Opportunity is up 6.3 percent.
Reynolds backs the biggest companies doing business today. "These companies are well managed, they have high unit growth, high return on equity, great products, great brand names in many cases, and many sell around the world," he said.
And he's patient. "Over the next 3, 4, 5 years we'll get a kicker, as many of the countries that are growing more slowly now, or having their problems, are going to get their economies turned around, creating a lot more demand for the products of the companies we own."
The Blue Chip Fund's top 10 holdings include: Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco Systems (CSCO), America Online (AOL), Intel (INTL), Merck (MRK), Pfizer (PFE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Schering-Plough (SGP), Wal-Mart (WMT) and Warner Lambert (WLA).
Future blue chips
Reynolds is also looking for the blue chips of the future. "We continue to be big believers in the Internet and we do believe that it is going to be a big growth area," he says, "But we're investing in a higher quality conservative way, companies like Microsoft, Cisco, America On Line, Lucent (LU) and Dell Computer (DELL), all have a lot of sales and high earnings." He sees the Internet as an added growth kicker for these big companies.
And he's got smaller positions in a number of Internet stocks. He owns shares in Yahoo (YHOO), Lycos (LCOS), Excite (XCIT), Infoseek (SEEK), EarthLink Network (ELNK), Mindspring (MSPG), Amazon.com( AMZN), eBay (EBAY), and MarketWatch.com (MKTW), the publisher of this site.
"Disney is the key stock in the leisure-time area," says Reynolds, who says he's done well over the years by sticking with industry leaders when they're out of favor. "Disney doesn't have very much going for it these days. The movies are kind of weak, the sports programming is very expensive, and with the slowdown around the world, there's not as much happening in the theme parks. On the other hand, almost assuredly, things will get better in the world, and the theme parks will pick up. Maybe they'll not pay so much for sports programming. We'll see better movies, and eventually value wins out."
He says he's been buying Schlumberger for a while, noting that the stock's moved up to over 50. "Schlumberger is the key stock in the energy area, and when energy gets better, and with oil at 10 bucks a barrel, eventually it's going to pick up, and that's the key stock that people are going to want to own."
Reynolds notes Coke's been KO'd from 90 down to the 60s. At 40 times earnings, it's at the high end of his buying range. "But once again, things will get better, and almost assuredly Coca-Cola's growth will return, maybe not to the 20 percent level, but closer to 15 percent or so, and people will be interested in the stock."
And the overall market? He says it looks good, given favorable economic conditions.
Especially the U.S. economy -- "still very strong, growing at 2,3,4 percent." Since the U.S gross domestic product is only 14 percent exports, Reynolds emphasizes that while we're in a global economy, domestic factors are more important than overseas demand as far as U.S. stocks are concerned.
Low interest rates and low inflation are also key. "Those are very important for the stock market," he said. "And right now we've got interest rates at a 35 year low and inflation at 1 percent. That's real good for stocks."


text:
How Airworks, an Edmonton-based company, reinvented the air compressor
Hot Air Under Pressure
by Alix Kemp
#25 on the Fast Growth 50
Airworks Compressors Corp.
Head office: Edmonton
Industry: Manufacturing and Distribution
2010 gross annual sales: $2,425,462
2008 gross annual sales: $815,354
Three keys to growth:
- Listen to customers’ needs to create new and innovative products
- Take advantage of slowdowns in the market to hire the best talent
- Invest heavily in research and development
photograph Ryan Girard
The customer is always right, so when there’s demand for a product, you listen. That’s what Darryl Weflen, founder and president of Airworks Compressors, figured out when customers came to him asking for a new type of air compressor for on-site repairs in the mining and energy sectors. Weflen owns Airtek Systems, which produces and installs engine-mounted air compressors that draw power from the running engine of the truck in which they’re installed. When customers kept asking for self-powered compressors, Weflen’s company produced a few one-off units. In 2007, however, Syncrude approached the company, frustrated by the engine-mounted compressors it was using in Alberta’s oil sands. Despite coming from a host of different producers, the compressors Syncrude was using continually gave out after only a year in the field. It needed something new, and Weflen was willing to deliver.
In just a few months, he produced a small run of compressors that ran off an internal engine and could mount on the back of a truck rather than in the engine. Made from high-quality components, they were more durable, more fuel efficient and more environmentally friendly. Syncrude was thrilled, and nearly five years later, the company is probably even happier – those same units it bought from Weflen at the end of 2007 are all still operational. In 2008, Weflen took that design, the first of the Twister series, and launched Airworks Compressors.
It’s not the first time Weflen identified a need and used it to launch a new company. After moving to Alberta from Saskatoon in 1990, he worked for a company that did compressor installations and became good at installing pre-manufactured compressor systems, a relatively new product at the time. When other companies started approaching him, Weflen realized there was a need for what he was doing. He stayed with the company he was with, but started his own business doing compressor installations out of his garage. In 1995, that grew into Airtek Systems.
Although Airworks was founded just before the 2008 recession, the company thrived from the start because of its innovative product and the demand coming from the oil and gas sector. “What recession?” asks Sheila Stang, the operations manager for Airworks and sister company Airtek.
Instead of being a disaster, Weflen says, the recession was a good thing for the fledgling company. “It gave us the opportunity to pick up some great employees,” he says. Instead of holding Airworks back, Weflen thinks the recession gave the company an advantage over competing firms that had to invest less in developing new products in order to make it through. And while he says the company might have grown more quickly had there not been a recession, Airworks certainly isn’t suffering.
Although most of its customers are in Western Canada, with its thriving oil and mining operations, the company has been expanding into international markets. There are Twister compressors operating in Cuba and South America, and a growing network of dealers through the rest of Canada and the U.S. carry Airworks products.
That growth is obvious when you look at the company’s revenues – Airworks earned $815,354 in 2008 and $1,161,230 in 2009. In 2010, the gross revenues more than doubled, reaching $2,425,462. In fact, it has been growing so quickly that suppliers have had trouble keeping up.
“We found that a lot of suppliers that were carrying a lot of stock on the floor, all of a sudden we were cleaning them out in very short order and scrambling to find other suppliers that could meet our needs,” Weflen says. Outpacing its suppliers is the company’s greatest challenge, he says, more so even than finding adequate labour.
According to Stang, the other challenge is keeping up with Weflen himself, who always has a new idea on the go. The research and development of new products fuels the company.
Right now, Airworks is working on a compressor that doesn’t have an engine.
Air works is already ahead of its competitors, given the advantages its products offer. Not all air compressors are created equal. An average engine-mounted compressor uses approximately 15 litres of fuel in an hour, while a Twister compressor uses about one and a half. And because Airworks compressors don’t run off an idling truck engine, they don’t reduce the lifespan of the vehicle the same way an engine-mounted unit does. That’s good news for energy companies looking to cut overhead and, especially lately, trim their emissions. While Weflen didn’t set out to create a green product, industries are increasingly moving towards environmentally friendly policies, and Airworks compressors can help companies and their contractors become a little greener.
“There are some sites in Fort McMurray, in particular, where they do not want you idling your truck once you get on-site, so if you can pull in and not have to run it, you’ve got the job,” Weflen says. “The guy that pulls in and has to run his truck for an eight- or 10-hour day, he might be looking for work elsewhere.”
Being green isn’t the only thing that sets Airworks products apart. Weflen has also made the compressors a little sexier, trading out boring grays for paint jobs in orange, white, yellow and black. That visual signature makes the company’s products recognizable when they’re mounted on the back of a truck. And Weflen still gets excited when he sees one of his compressors on the road or job site. He’s not the only one, either – Airworks staff text each other photos whenever they catch sight of one of their machines. “It’s exciting for all of us,” he says. “We’re putting our mark out there.”


text:
Opel Media Online
- Start of regular production of the Holden Insignia VXR in the main plant in Rüsselsheim
- Insignia, Astra and Cascada new in the portfolio of the Australian sister brand
- Intensified cooperation with the other GM brands
Rüsselsheim/Melbourne. Cooperation between Opel and its sister brands within General Motors has entered a new era. The first Holden rolled off the production line in Rüsselsheim today – a Silver Lake coloured Insignia VXR with 325 hp for the markets in Australia and New Zealand. Opel wants to intensify the cooperation with the other GM brands continuously in the years to come. The production of Holden vehicles plays an important part in this strategy.
“We will work closely with our Australian partner whenever it makes sense in the coming years,” said Opel Group CEO Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann. “It is not only further proof for the development expertise of our engineers and the attractiveness of our products it also increases the capacity utilization of our plants. We are delighted that our successful flagship will also be available in Australia and New Zealand.”
“Astra, Cascada and Insignia are renowned in Europe for their performance credentials and premium execution, making them the perfect addition to Holden’s range as we continue to offer more choice for our customers,” said Bill Mott, Holden Executive Director of Marketing.
The Holden Insignia VXR is known as the Opel Insignia OPC in mainland Europe. The Rüsselsheim-based carmaker announced in May 2014 that it would be exporting European vehicles under the Holden badge from 2015.
In addition to the Insignia VXR, the Astra GTC and the especially sporty Astra VXR (the equivalent of the Astra OPC) will also be exported to Australia and New Zealand as Holdens. The elegant Cascada convertible will complete the line-up.
Holden and Opel share very similar core brand values, including the commitment to performance, engineering excellence, vehicle dynamics and technology. In future, Holden will source roughly one third of its future product line-up from Opel.
The GM-internal cooperation with Holden is not the only one announced by Opel in recent months. A few weeks ago, Buick presented the Cascada convertible at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Furthermore, it was announced last year that Opel would produce a new Buick model for the US market in Rüsselsheim later this decade.


text:
The supermarket chain this week announced the gourmet health-food range has grown to exceed 350 products, with beetroot latte, hemp products, fava beans and banana flour now thrown into the mix.
Kate Walker, Woolworths Macro brand manager said the group keeps a close eye on what’s going on in the health and wellness area to ensure products meet customer demand.
“We understand that everyone is on a different health journey, so making nutritious foods readily accessible is paramount in helping Aussies live healthier lives,” she said. “Our customers also live busy lives which is why we work closely with our team of nutritionists to ensure our new range features an assortment of healthier on-the-go foods at affordable prices. These include our nutritious adult snack packs and healthy heat-and-eat soups.”
This latest launch features a complete hemp range that includes seeds, flour, protein powder and chips; a 300g banana flour and a fava bean snack range for kids.
Woolworths intends to add to more product ranges to the mix in the coming months.


text:
Netflix, the super popular video service, is expanding further into Europe. The company plans to add another six countries to its list of subscribers by the end of this year.
Netflix has been slowly expanding in Europe during the last two years. It started in the UK, Denmark and the Scandinavian states back in 2012, then in Netherlands and now it’s due for a major expansion.
The countries soon to have access to Netflix are: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Luxembourg. There’s no clear launch date for any of them and in all likelihood this looks to be a staggered release with some folks receiving access sooner and others later.
Alongside the recent news that Netflix will be decoupled from Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, we’re sure some users will be very happy.
If you’re excited and you live in one of the aforementioned countries you can head over to Netflix and sign up to receive an e-mail alert when the service launches in your region.


text:
Consumers in producer countries are increasingly interested in Fairtrade certified products as a means of supporting their domestic economy, according to Fairtrade International’s annual report.
Russian authorities have imposed an import ban on confectionery produced in Ukraine.
Nestlé has extended its partnership with expansion services firm DKSH to bring confectionery brands such as Kit Kat, Milo Confectionery and Uncle Toby’s to traditional trade channels in Singapore.
UK-based United Biscuits will up its investment in India from £30m ($49m) to £50m ($82m).
Kellogg has bid for a 51% stake in Egyptian biscuit and breakfast cereal firm BiscoMisr, according to a filing in Egypt’s stock exchange – a move which would makes sense,...
Mondelēz International will close its chewing gum plant in Botswana and move production to Poland as African consumers ditch pellet gum for slab gum.
Export value of the Polish confectionery market almost doubled in the last five years and shouldn’t stop growing even in case of a potential Russian embargo on confectionery, according to...
Scientists at the University of Cambridge are to research how to keep chocolate from melting in hot, tropical regions.
Mars has opened an M&M’s retail store in Shanghai, which it hopes will lift brand loyalty in China.
Colombia’s leading chocolate firm Grupo Nutresa has reported a drop in earnings for its chocolate division in Q2 due to mounting cocoa costs.
Asia Pacific will leapfrog North America in 2014 retail value confectionery sales to become the world’s second largest market, according to Euromonitor International.
São Paulo’s city assembly has approved a new bill prohibiting the sale of toys coupled with Easter eggs in the city.
Hachez, owned by the Danish Toms Group, will move part of its packaging production from Germany to Poland in an attempt to claw back some of its recent losses.
Kiwi fruit products company Taura Natural Ingredients has introduced what it claims is possibly the world’s smallest real fruit pieces.
Neocandenatone, a purple pigment found in the heartwood of Dalbergia congestiflora trees, could hold colorant possibilities for gummy and hard candies, according to Mexican research.
Just a week after Mexico banned commercials for soda, snacks and confectionery products during cinema showings of children’s movies and during children’s TV programming, Mexican authorities say ads for Nestlé,...
Singapore-based Petra Foods has appointed ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi to oversee the creative stategy for its SilverQueen and Delfi Top brands.
The amount of cocoa processed in Asia in the second quarter (Q2) grew 5.21%, according to figures from the Cocoa Association of Asia.
Universal Robina Corporation (URC) has snapped up New Zealand snack giant Griffin’s Foods for NZ$700m ($606.6m) in a move it says should bolster its presence in the Asian snack sector....
Scandinavian confectioner Cloetta has recorded sales and profit growth in the second quarter driven by acquisitions and says it is eyeing further buys.
Swedish-Danish oils and fats giant AarhusKarlshamn (AAK) has acquired Colombian company Fabrica Nacional de Grasas (FANAGRA), which specializes in vegetable oils and fats for the bakery segment.
Brazilian confectionery manufacturers are forced to commit up to 15% of exports costs towards resolving bureaucratic problems that hinder their sales abroad, according to the Brazilian confectionery industry Association (ABICAB).
The World Cup will boost sales of peanut-based snacks in Brazil by as much as 30% in Q2, according to Brazil's leading peanut-based candy and snacks producer Dori Alimentos.
Nestlé has opened a $16m chocolate molding and packaging line that will use fine flavor Arriba cocoa beans.
Barry Callebaut has registered sales growth in its nine month results driven by the recently acquired Petra Foods cocoa business.


text:
Axelum advocates organic farming
MANILA, Philippines — Organic farming has been gaining ground around the world due to the many benefits it brings both to the environment and to the farmers.
Integrated coconut products manufacturer Axelum Resources Corp. is among the few that have actively advocated and practiced organic farming.
The company’s organic farm sits on a 10-hectare land located in Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental and has been operational for over a decade.
The farm is manned by the Holy Family Farm Workers Association (HFFWA) – a group of farmers trained and supported by Axelum – and produces a variety of organic fruits and vegetable crops such as purple yam (ube), lettuce, cabbage, sweet potato, tomato, among others.
Axelum equips farmers with “starter kits” composed of assorted seedlings, container pots and other basic planting tools and purchases the harvested crops directly from the farmers to provide an additional source of livelihood to them.
Axelum and the HFFWA were recently recognized by the Department of Agriculture as the Most Outstanding Farmer’s Group Regional Organic Agriculture Achiever for 2019.
Along with its organic agriculture initiatives, Axelum is also targeting to establish an organic store, a pesticide plant and a 50-bed medical facility in the province to further give back to the community.
In the 2006 study conducted by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, there are only an estimated 35,000 organic farms in the Philippines with a cumulative area of 14,140 hectares, or 0.12 percent of the country’s total agricultural land.
But with the signing of Republic Act 10068, also known as the Philippine Organic Agriculture Act of 2010, more companies have shifted to organic farming.
Data from the National Organic Agriculture Program, an agency affiliated with the Department of Agriculture, showed that total organic agriculture area hit 349,041 hectares, or about 4.86 percent of the country’s total agricultural area from 2011 to 2017.


text:
The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) has warned the Ugandan public against the importation and consumption of meat from South Africa, saying it is not safe right now.
“The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) would like to notify the public on importation, sale and consumption of South African processed meat products after a Listeriosis (listeria) outbreak linked to pre-packaged and ready-to-eat meat products. This outbreak has so far killed 180 people in South Africa,” reads part of the notice.
According to UNBS, some of the suspected pre-packaged products from South Africa include ready-to-eat deli meats (polony, ham, salami,), hot dogs, refrigerated pâtés or meat spreads and sausages.
To ensure the health and safety of the public, UNBS indicated it is carrying out market surveillance inspections in all super markets that are said to be main importers of South African meat products, aimed at removing the affected products from the market.
‘Analysis of related products is also being carried out to ensure there has been no cross-contamination’, says the notice.
As a result, UNBS imports inspectors at all border points have been notified to withhold consignments of all pre-packaged and ready-to-eat meat products from South Africa until further notice.
UNBS would therefore like to call upon consumers to avoid buying the above mentioned products originating from South Africa until they have been cleared by UNBS.
According to UNBS, it is mandated to enforce standards to protect consumer health and safety and the environment against dangerous and sub-standard products.


text:
GENEVA – New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and even Toronto, all put on some great auto shows. But it’s here in Geneva where the most powerful, most exotic and some of the most truly inspiring automobiles to grace our planet are seen for the first time.
For mind-boggling, mouth-watering supercar candy, Geneva is the Holy Grail — demonstrating how much art, science and engineering can be crafted into the automobile. Where 500 horsepower was once considered a big deal, many of the cars here today are pushing well past 1,000. Welcome to the new world.
Take the Koenigsegg Regera, for example. This is a 1,500 horsepower car — 1,500 horsepower! — that is as beautiful as it is powerful. That’s almost more power than Canada’s entire Naval fleet. A 5.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine with three electric motors allows the Regera to achieve 400 km/h faster than it takes to make a latte — under 20 seconds. Only 80 samples of the Regera will be built, at more than $2 million each.
Zenvo TS1 GT
Another car with more than 1,000 horsepower is the Zenvo TS1 GT, a hypercar that marks the firm’s 10th anniversary. More importantly, it makes the run from rest to 100 km/h in under 2.8 seconds thanks to a 5.8L V8 with two superchargers that produce 1,163 net horsepower. The noise inside will be insanely loud, though, with the engine mounted behind the two seats of the carbon-bodied, rear-wheel-drive car that will also cost close to $2 million.
Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo
Equally impressive is the Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo. The all-carbon-fibre car was F1 legend Emerson Fittipaldi’s dream for a supercar, carried out by Italian design house Pininfarina. While it only boasts 600 horsepower from its 4.8-litre V8, the limited production car of 25 units comes with driving lessons from Fittipaldi himself, a two-time Formula One champion and two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500, who will instruct owners on how to drive the car. For the rest of us, the car will also be featured – as the name suggests – in Sony’s Gran Turismo video game series.
Pininfarina H600 Hybrid Kinetic
Pininfarina also played a hand in developing the H600 Hybrid Kinetic. A concept sporting more than 800 horsepower, the H600 uses turbine and hybrid technology along with a small traditional engine to exceed 100 km/h in 2.9 seconds from rest. With traces of Maserati, the car carries unique styling and a “lounge like” interior. Hybrid Kinetic was founded by the former chairman of Chinese automaker Brilliance and partnered with Pininfarina to build the car.
Also using turbine technology is the Techrules REN. With a weight of only 1,700 kilograms thanks to a carbon fibre structure, the Ren can run, hitting 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds while boasting a better power-to-weight ratio than the Bugatti Chiron. A total of six motors produce a staggering 1,725 lb.-ft. of torque and only 10 cars — at a cost of $3.6 million each— will be built. Techrules sees the Ren as a halo car that will help in developing more earthly cars such as SUVs and family sedans.
Italdesign Automobili Speciali Zero One
Volkswagen Group’s Italdesign Automobili Speciali wowed Geneva with its Zero One, only five of which will be built. The Audi R8 and Lamborghini Huracán provided the basis for the car, which employs a 5.2-litre naturally aspirated V10 that requires 3.2 seconds to reach 100 km/h from a standstill. With a resemblance to the Lamborghini Veneno, which shares the same designer, the car is covered in fins, vents and spoilers to keep the car cool and planted to the road at speed.
First seen at last year’s Paris Auto Show, the Renault Trezor is nonetheless a shocking display of imaginative sheetmetal. While the Trezor will likely never be built, it certainly fuels the Renault brand about what it possible when designing a car. Besides, styling cues can always be borrowed from halo cars and concepts for street cars. The clamshell roof would likely never pass regulatory hurdles, but it’s about as futuristic as you can get. The Trezor is said to be relatively quick despite only 349 horsepower, thanks in part to its light weight.
Spyker C8 Preliator Spyder
Spyker is no stranger to the Geneva Motor Show, but its C8 Preliator Spyder drew crowd with its stunning interior and word that it now has a Koenigsegg-built V8 with 600 horsepower and 442 lb.-ft. of torque. Priced from about $500,000, the open top car will be built at Spyker’s Coventry, England, assembly plant to the tune of about 100 per year.
Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG 003S
Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus (SCG) revealed its first road car, the SCG003S, at Geneva. The hand-built car, by manufacturer Manifattura Automobili Torino, uses a carbon fiber chassis and a 4.4L twin-turbo engine that develops in excess of 800 horsepower. If the SCG003S looks like a race car, that’s because it evolved from one. MAT, which designed and built the car, competes in endurance races, including the Nürburgring 24 Hours. SCG is a New York-based company founded to develop and race cars. The S in SCG003S stands for “Stradale,” whereas the “C” denotes “Competizione,” in homage to the legendary Italian road racers of the 1960s, which were equally at home on the track as the road.
Vanda Electrics Dendrobium
The Dendrobium, an all-electric hypercar from Singapore’s Vanda Electrics, is meant to mimic aspects of the natural world — its headlamps, for instance, are supposed to resemble waterfalls. Regardless, with some help from Williams Advanced Engineering, the same division that helped build the Jaguar C-X75, the Dendrobium has a target speed of about 2.7 seconds from rest to 100 km/h with an AWD setup. About a dozen cars are planned, with a starting price of close to $2 million Canadian.


text:
Vaio laptops to make a comeback in India soon
Flipkart has teased the launch of new Vaio laptops in India. The new Vaio laptops will be offered by Hong Kong-based Nexstgo.
Sony's Vaio laptops are making a comeback in India soon. The new Vaio laptops have been teased on Flipkart with more details expected to be revealed in the coming days. Sony Vaio was one of the most popular laptop series years back but the company had to sell it off in 2014 as the company moved its focus on mobile devices.
The new Vaio laptops will be offered by Hong Kong-based Nexstgo, according to a report by Zee Business. Nexstgo and Vaio have reportedly signed a licensing agreement where the former will handle the manufacturing, sales, marketing and servicing of Vaio laptops. Nexstgo plans on bringing “a wide range of finest-quality laptops” to India in the next three months.
“The brand has previously witnessed unrivalled demand from the Indian market, and we believe that the country's burgeoning tech-enthusiasts and young business professionals will be elated to experience VAIO's premium solutions once again,” Alex Chung, CEO, Nexstgo was quoted as saying by Zee Business.
There are no details on what the new Vaio series of laptops has to offer. The Flipkart teaser only hints at light-weight laptops as it carries the tagline “Lighter than your past.” The entry of Sony Vaio laptops comes at a time when the PC and laptop market in India is very competitive with multiple options from popular and leading brands like Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP and Acer. There have been newer players like Xiaomi entering the laptop market in India. It's interesting to see what the new Vaio laptops have to offer, and if its brand popularity still exists.
Catch all the Latest Tech News, Mobile News, Laptop News, Gaming news, Wearables News , How To News, also keep up with us on Whatsapp channel,Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram. For our latest videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel.


text:
UK holiday destination
Butlins Bognor Regis opened its new £20 million Ocean Hotel resort this week,
while also claiming good conference and event bookings at its neighbouring
Shoreline Conference Centre.
are spa facilities and a Snow
Cave which is kept at a
constant -16Oc at the Ocean Hotel.
spokesperson from Butlins says: “The Ocean Hotel provides guests with more
choice. While Ocean Hotel will attract new guests, it’s likely that
existing guests will also make full use of the facilities, from the
restaurant and bar to the spa.”
flags a 20 per cent growth in its conference and event bookings at Shoreline,
but has decided not to include any conference facilities in the Ocean Hotel.


text:
Many brides know that a wedding dress can cost a lot of money. But thrift store dresses are becoming a big bridal trend, thanks to smart shoppers and social media.
Jillian Lynch, who just got married, got her wedding dress from a thrift store for only $3.75. It was brand new and still had the tags on it.
Lynch got married in May. Earlier this year, she shared her shopping trip on TikTok. She went to different thrift stores in her Ohio area. But her story went viral when she posted a video in April showing a Camila Coelho dress from Revolve, complete with tags. Lynch had found a brand-new Reyna Maxi Dress, which sells for $220 and can be bought online right now. Even though it fit her almost perfectly, she wasn’t sure at first that it should be her wedding dress.
A few of her followers on TikTok did give her advice, like telling her to get it tailored so it fits a little tighter. Lynch said in her video that she liked the high slit up her leg, but one of her fans suggested that she add a bit of lace to the top to tone down the look just a little bit. Lynch also asked her tailor to change the adjustable straps to ones that couldn’t be changed. This made the outfit look a little bit better.
Lynch told Insider.com that brides often shop for wedding dresses with their mothers, their bridal parties, or a group of people to get feedback. She had shared her story on TikTok. “It felt like that a lot.”
She went on, “I think it swayed me when people told me on TikTok that it looked like it was made for me. After I made that TikTok, every time I wore it, I liked it more and more. It made me feel really pretty.”
Lynch found her Visanze Collection wedding shoes at a thrift store for only $8, bringing the total cost of her wedding outfit to $11.75. But when you add in the $100 that Lynch spent on tailoring, you get a slightly more expensive wedding dress. Even so, this is a lot cheaper than most off-the-rack wedding dresses. She also did her own hair and make-up for her wedding in Arizona, which was another way she saved money.
Overall, the small wedding, which she told Insider she hadn’t planned on even though she had been with her partner for 13 years, was just what she wanted, right down to her dress from a thrift store.
She said, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so good in something.” “On their wedding day, brides should feel like they’re at their most beautiful. When I put on the dress, I felt just like that.”


text:
Freckles on Tomatoes
Hi- this is not a disease, but a ripening/pigment issue that gardeners and farmers see late in the season. We think we can also detect the beginning symptoms of anthracnose, a fruit disease that causes soft sunken spots that become fuzzy.
One easy way to avoid many tomato fruit problems is to harvest fruits when they first begin to turn color and allow them to ripen indoors.
You may enjoy a tomato article that appeared this summer in the Maryland Grows blog:


text:
Coming off the back of its first congress two years ago, Alg’n’Chem 2014 will look at the opportunities offered by micro- and macro- algae and focus on the demand, which o this day, remains underutilised.
“It is necessary to combine the talents, and energies to develop processes and production chains based on algae,” says FFC.
Algae has become an increasingly important ingredient for a cross-section of cosmetic and personal care ingredients, and is emerging as a segment with several opportunities for development.
The algae has been traditionally harvested for food products and ingredients, but is increasingly being added to cosmetics as biotechnology has made it easier to produce and process into value-added ingredients.
Farmed algae is of particular interest as it has a much more sustainable profile than many other marine-based extracts.
More and more algae ingredients such as coastal plants, seaweeds and sea minerals are making their way into cosmetic products and hold the key to be the future's sustainable ingredient alternatives.
However, according to FFC, many challenges remain, such as to explore new fields for the development of algal resources in order to open new markets, reduce production costs, energy costs, and those of processing, packaging and reducing environmental impacts.
It requires the involvement of multiple disciplines to overcome these obstacles (biology, chemistry, process engineering and equipment), says the French organisation.
As such, FFC will conduct the next conference in Montpellier, France from March 31 - April 3, 2014, with the aim of promoting public and private research and development for the valuation of algae.
It will address key themes through a multidisciplinary and multi-sector approach, from their culture to various potential opportunities.
The objective is to establish the state of the art for the valuation of algae, to detect the latest scientific, technical and technological breakthroughs, and identify new developments and opportunities.


text:
China in Africa
According to a new report by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU), China plans to continue to invest in Africa’s natural resources and may increase its expenditure on agriculture. Asia sees Africa’s youthful population as a source of labour for its manufacturing companies and a market for its consumer goods. Although trade should be reciprocal, the continent’s trade deficit is large as it continues to import significantly more than it exports. In recent years, the West’s already fragile reputation in Africa has worsened. The only western institution still properly active seems to be the IMF, while China on the other hand has kept up its commercial operations. As Chinese loans became more popular in helping to fund major infrastructure projects across the continent, some African leaders expressed worry that their countries were becoming too over-reliant.
Although this recent plan to increase trade with Africa by China seems to imply that the move away from an over-reliance is not happening, many governments on the continent are now more aware of the so-called ‘Chinese debt trap’ that countries like Zambia and Angola have fallen into, and as such are able to better pick and choose which trade/financial flows with China works for them. Bilateral trade between China and Africa rose 35% in 2021 from 2020 to $254bn, with exports from the continent hitting a record $106bn. Currently, Nigeria is Africa’s biggest importer from China while SA is the biggest exporter. Other major exporters include Angola and the DRC. All 3 are big producers of metals or oil.
Become a member
Join the Ecommerce Forum South Africa and benefit from industry insights in South Africa and Africa.
Sign up to newsletter
Sign up to our newsletter and stay informed of the progress we are making at the Ecommerce Forum South Africa with government during Coronavirus.


text:
Since they’re old enough to be ashamed of their elders, Generation Z have reclaimed many of the things we once loved.
Take the side haircut, crying smiling emoji and skinny jeans; just a few of the many remnants of the recent past that zoomers have decided – often rightly so – that we should leave them behind.
But is now the time for Google, the number one search engine, to suffer the same fate and fade into obscurity?
For Gen Z, TikTok is the place to go if you’re looking for answers. Where can you find nice cafes in the city? What is the best Italian restaurant in London? What exhibitions are there in Paris? How do you write a cover letter? How do you make a clean break-up?
While these might be questions that boomers and millennials would Google and find on WikiHow or Tripadvisor, it turns out that Gen Z seeks advice from the same app bursting with dance trends and pop music.
As early as 2021, web security and performance company Cloudflare reported that its video app had overtaken Google in the number of searches on its platform.
With over three million downloads worldwide and a growing audience, TikTok’s use as a search engine has risen rapidly, to the point that many are wondering if it will eventually dethrone Google and end its decades-long supremacy.
At the Brainstorm Tech conference in the summer of last year, Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan said that the company’s studies have shown that “about 40 percent of young people, when looking for a place to eat lunch, don’t turn to Google Maps” or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram”.
In this case, Raghavan didn’t seem necessarily concerned about what Generation Z’s habits mean for Google’s future, but acknowledged that the journey into online information gathering began “in different forms than before, visually rich forms”.
As new users reach an age where they start looking for things online on TikTok and Instagram, Google will have to “raise whole new expectations” by using a “totally new technology” as Raghavan said to beat the competition from the two social media platforms. apps.
Using TikTok as a search engine has many advantages: up-to-date and quickly delivered information (usually contained in videos of less than a minute); an ever-evolving algorithm that you know well; and generally engaging content.
According to various media interviews with users, Generation Z finds information on TikTok more personal – and therefore ‘real’ and more valuable – than a search result on Google.
“The platform’s algorithm is designed to provide users with content they are likely to be interested in, based on their previous interactions,” Abdul Rahim, an IT professional and the founder and CEO of Software Test Tips, told Euronews Next.
“This personalization has resulted in a highly engaging and entertaining user experience that keeps users coming back for more. In addition, TikTok has become a hub for DIY tutorials, fashion and beauty tips, and more, making it an excellent resource for users to discover new products, ideas, and trends.
But the exact same benefits can also be viewed less positively. TikTok’s algorithm, by keeping users on the platform for as long as possible, makes it harder to leave the app to fact-check information.
The platform, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, does not – for now – penalize misinformation on its platform, instead prioritizing user engagement and popularity.
Personalized search results can make our echo chambers even tighter and more stifling.
But as TikTok’s popularity grows and the app dwindles Google’s popularity, it seems unlikely that it will completely replace the number one search engine in the world.
“While Gen Z technology users can rely on TikTok for all kinds of searches, it is a step too far to suggest that TikTok will surpass Google as the number one search engine in the world, let alone make Google obsolete,” said Nick Swan. technical expert and founder of www.SEOtesting.com, a tool that helps customers get more search traffic from Google.
“It is true that younger people prefer video-based social media platforms and as a result smart social media posters can position themselves as ‘micro-influencers’ on platforms like TikTok. How? Offering simple but practical online advice – similar to searching for a topic on Google,” added Swan.
“Once seen as a platform to share videos of popular dances, you can now find videos that simplify a random housing act that you had never heard of before TikTok”.
But Google still has a lot to offer, says Hannah Campbell, co-founder and general manager of digital marketing firm One Twelve Agency.
“I don’t think it’s possible for Google to be completely replaced by TikTok,” she said.
“Although TikTok search usage for Gen Z is a powerfully changing tide, there are still several generations older than Gen Z who will never follow this trend.
“We should also remember that Gen Z also uses Google; TikTok is just not great for researching hard information or recommendations specific to a particular topic or region.”
Google has also built its reputation over two decades and is generally considered more reliable than information found on TikTok. The search engine is also faster at collecting information while TikTok lags behind.
In addition, Google is constantly trying to improve and keep up with the competition.
“It is wise not to think of Google as a constant. While the interface has barely changed since its 1998 beta release, the technology and algorithms behind the interface are constantly being modified and updated to meet the needs of users and advertisers,” said Campbell.
“For example, if TikTok starts to overtake search because users are bored by too many promoted posts on Google, it is likely that Google will adjust their algorithm to fix this problem,” he added.
If Google can ensure that its users are always satisfied that they have learned enough about a topic to help achieve a specific goal after reading a website’s content, especially without having to go back to other information if possible then Google will easily remain as the number one search engine in the world,” Swan said.
Google could try to catch up with TikTok by being a little more like the video app. Last September, Google announced new features that make searching faster and more visual for users.
The search result we’re used to — 1 out of 1,384 pages of text and black-on-white links — may soon be a thing of the past — like taking selfies from above and identifying which Hogwarts houses we belong to.
Google will continue to have the most information about how people search, understand how they process information and human behavior, and with their updates to create more dynamic results, they will continue to be the single source for bringing together information from multiple touchpoints. Marina Glavan, Senior Strategist at marketing agency AMV BBDO.
“Until TikTok can act as a one-stop shop for all information and creators can understand user questions as well as Google, the platform will struggle to fully catch up with Google.”


text:
Following the commercials featuring actress Lili Reinhart and rapper-actor Common promoting the new iPhone 15, T-Mobile has released another commercial showcasing a well-known personality – Zoë Saldaña.
In this advertisement, Saldaña finds herself in a ski shop, envying a family with the latest Apple iPhone 15. As she expresses her desire for her family to own this cutting-edge smartphone, her reflection in the mirror engages in conversation, urging her to “join T-Mobile and receive four new iPhone 15 devices on them, along with four lines for just $25 per month.”
Her enthusiasm grows at the prospect, but the dialogue shifts to her skiing abilities and her oversized, puffy white jacket. Zoe discovers that her stuntwoman is the true skiing expert and that her jacket gives her the appearance of a marshmallow.
This commercial, part of T-Mobile’s ongoing “Deep Thoughts” series, communicates to consumers that they can acquire the iPhone 15 Pro at no cost. The emphasis is on the offer of obtaining four iPhone 15 devices with four eligible trade-ins, coupled with four lines of unlimited service at a cost of $25 per line.
Notably, Saldaña has previous experience in the advertising world, having starred in a Stella Artois commercial alongside Matt Damon earlier this year.


text:
Friday, June 01, 2012:
According to a new study commissioned by Dell, the ideal country to be in if you’re a woman starting a business in 2012 could well be India, the location of its forthcoming Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) event taking place in New Delhi, June 17-19 2012. At the event, Dell will be releasing the results of its Women’s Global Entrepreneurship Study, examining indicators of business confidence among women entrepreneurs in different countries, along with their motivations, financing options and sources of support.
Early results show tremendous optimism on the part of women entrepreneurs in India. When asked about expectations for business growth, women entrepreneurs in India anticipate an average of 90 percent over the next five years. When you consider that India has a projected GDP growth rate of 8.2 percent in 2011-2012, according to the Indian Economic Outlook Report, women entrepreneurs in India have good reason to be feeling bullish.
Previous DWEN events in Shanghai (2010) and Rio de Janeiro (2011) included female global entrepreneurs that connected with one another at the events and continue to share best practices, build business opportunities and celebrate female influence in the global economy. Together, DWEN members and Dell chose India for this exclusive event because of its role as one of the largest emerging markets, as well as its influence on the world of technology.
Host Moira Forbes, publisher of Forbes Woman, will lead the exclusive, two-day event around the theme, “Innovation through Collaboration.” The agenda is structured as an exchange of ideas between female founders, CEOs, innovative leaders, business icons, experts and thought leaders who run businesses in top markets. With speakers representing Canada, the United States, Brazil, China, Japan, Australia, India, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network will address topics such as doing business in India, social entrepreneurship and strategic giving, sustainability, customer engagement, social media strategy, going global, and more. Speakers include:
Susan Feldman, Co-founder and Chief Merchandising Officer, One Kings Lane
Carley Roney, Co-founder and Editor in Chief, XO Group, Inc.
Lola Ogunnaike, Today Show Contributor
Martina Sandrock, General Manager, Iglo GmbH
Jane Silber, CEO, Canonical
Carolyn S. Miles, President and CEO, Save the Children
Shoba Purushothaman, Founder, Training Ventures Ltd. & Founder, The NewsMarket
Aishwarya and Amruda Nair of The Leela Group
Kay Koplovitz, Chairman & CEO, Koplovitz & Co. , Chairman, Springboard Enterprises
Frédérique Clavel, President, Fédération Pionnières
Tara Hunt, CEO and Co-founder, Buyosphere
Sarah Prevette, Founder, Sprouter and BetaKit
Danae Ringelmann, Co-founder, IndieGoGo
Ameera Shah, Managing Director and CEO, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd.
Lakshmi Pratury, Host and Curator, The INK Conference
“Women are playing increasingly important roles in leadership and we’re seeing some of the most exciting global growth coming from female-led companies,” said Moira Forbes, of ForbesWoman. “I recently traveled to Asia for the inaugural Forbes Forum: Asia’s Power Business Women and saw first-hand how the region’s female business leaders and entrepreneurs are changing the face of business and India is at the forefront of this phenomenon.”
Dell Women’s Global Entrepreneurship Study, Key Findings:
The agenda for the event will be supported by data uncovered as part of the Dell Women’s Global Entrepreneurship Study, which highlighted positive growth trends for female entrepreneurs in India including:
Business is Booming: 71 percent of female entrepreneurs in India say their business is very successful, and eight in 10 female entrepreneurs in India say they are hiring.
Opportunity for Technology: 74 percent of female entrepreneurs in India say their technology needs are getting more complex.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job: 90 percent of female entrepreneurs in India started their business while maintaining their day job.
Positive Social Impact is Important: 85 percent of female entrepreneurs in India believe it is very important that their business has a positive social impact.
“Dell recognizes how critical entrepreneurs are to global economic recovery and job creation and our commitment to their growth goes well beyond the products and solutions we sell,” Karen Quintos, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Dell Inc. “The Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network celebrates the unique perspective and approach that women bring to business—and reinforces the role of technology in enabling these women to reach new markets, expand their companies and provide value to their customers.”
Women leaders are invited to join in the conversation and share who and what inspires and motivates them as entrepreneurs and leaders via the Women Powering Business Network group on LinkedIn.
DWEN is supported by Endeavor, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneurial Winning Women and the Kauffman Foundation. Content about the event can be found on Twitter via @DellBizWomen and by following #dwen.


text:
Friday recap: New goodies from Facebook, Google, Moz, BuzzSumo
Friday already? Gee, time sure flies, and with it comes the week’s new host of updates for content marketers.
In today’s recap, we’re back in the world of Facebook and Google (will these guys ever slow down? Hopefully never!), while Moz and BuzzSumo are here to add a little spice.
Facebook adds more reporting for advertisers
Advertising online has long faced its issues. Recently, Google received numerous complaints after certain companies found their ads showing up alongside extremist content and other, shall we say, “off-brand” material on platforms such as YouTube. But Facebook seems determined not to go down the same road.
— Marketing Land (@Marketingland) September 13, 2017
On September 13, the social media company announced it will be rolling out the pre-campaign advertising reports we heard about back in June. These will allow companies the chance to see where their ads are likely to end up – from Instant Articles right the way through to the Audience Network – and flag anything that they don’t agree with.
Additionally, Facebook has also confirmed its intentions to offer post-campaign reports, so you can see where those ads actually did wind up.
And that’s not the end to their announcements. Facebook hired 3,000 new content reviewers to more quickly process posts flagged as offensive, and is also seeking accreditation with the US non-profit Media Rating Council (which accredits audience measurement services). If Facebook can acquire accreditation, advertisers will be better able to trust that their metrics are completely accurate – Facebook will no longer be “grading its own homework”, as some have accused.
Google’s snazzy new dashboard
The Google dashboard is a convenient place for users to see which products they are using and the data associated with them – for example, I know that two days ago (at 3:45 p.m.), I watched the Quint death scene from “Jaws”. An important piece of research, if there ever was one.
However, Google has evolved a lot since the 2009 dashboard release, and so the tech giant has completely overhauled its design. This has been done to improve usability on touch-screen devices, but also to make browsing through apps and data easier. The emphasis here is on privacy – adding more power for Android users to control their data.
New Site Crawl tools for Moz Pro users
It must be Christmas and nobody told us – Moz has given us content marketers the gift of five new Site Crawl functions.
One of the most notable updates is that the title tag diagnostics tool has done away with counting how many characters are in a title tag, replacing the figure with pixel count. Google measures headlines in pixel space rather than character count, so this new update will give more accuracy to marketers (and less chance of receiving the dreaded ellipses in the Google results page).
The other four fixes are around its issues functions. For example, you can now ignore issues 100 at a time (instead of the arduous 25), as well as mark issues as “Fixed”. Instead of being ignored, Fixed issues are continually monitored, to be reflagged should they crop up again.
— Moz (@Moz) September 13, 2017
BuzzSumo starts asking questions
Answering users’ questions is one of the best ways to make highly competitive content. Even better, if you’re directly answering a question that your audience is asking, you are providing content that is inherently valuable – and we know that value is one of the key factors in modern SEO.
So you can imagine how we jumped for joy when BuzzSumo unveiled its Question Analyser tool last week! Question Analyser – now integrated into the BuzzSumo dashboard – scans through thousands of forums, including Reddit, Amazon and Quora, to find the questions users are asking in relation to your target keywords.
You can filter the results to get data more relevant to your marketing campaign, or rather than search by keyword, you can instead look only at specific websites and/or subreddits.
— BuzzSumo (@BuzzSumo) September 12, 2017
This is set to be a wonderful ideas generation tool, and a quick way to understand the types of queries your users have. We’re already getting stuck in using the tool here at Castleford. How will you utilise it?


text:
Tourism is a driving industry for several countries, one of them being Croatia, whose beauty beckons more and more tourists to the Adriatic every year – 3.5% more overnight stays are recorded annually according to official data. Now the country is building a number of new hotels and resorts to accommodate the growing amount of visitors.
The ever-growing increase in tourist visits means Croatia has had, and will continue needing to, make increasingly larger investments in its tourism industry to accommodate the new demand, by building new and improved hotels and resorts.
Horwath HTL, a real estate consultancy, reported that in the past 15 years Croatia invested 5.5 billion US dollars in the hospitality. The company also predicted that in the next five years another 2.2 billion US dollars will flow into new hotel buildings.
According to a leading provider for hotel data, TopHotelProjects, 21 new hotels and luxury resorts are to be open in the near future. These new luxury accommodations are meant to shift the market away from private apartment renting and campsites, which are now the preferred accommodations for overnight stays, at least in the summer, the best tourist season for the country.
One good example of this new investment in Croatian tourism is a health facility located on the Brac Island. A large investment is being made into turning this cancer treatment center into a health tourism facility, with millions of euros being used to promote the facilities and build hotels in the surrounding areas in order to make it one of the top tourist attractions of the country.
Other top facilities are planned to be built and improved over the next five years, including a large resort in Dubrovnik, which is planned to have 5000 rooms and open for business in 2020.
With stunning and paradisiac locations as well as beautiful architecture and cultural attractions, Croatia has been slowly rising as one of Europe’s top modern tourist destinations. This investment will surely cement the country’s position in the future, bringing in even more visitors from all over the world to the Adriatic seaside.


text:
Glendale, Arizona, the city where the Phoenix Suns play their home games, is a hotbed of holiday homes for holidaymakers.
It’s home to the largest concentration of holiday home owners in the country, with an estimated 100,000 holiday homes per square mile, according to the latest data from the Australian Association of Counties (AACC).
But that number is far from the only place in the US where holiday homes are a popular choice for families and singles.
In Australia, the number of holiday properties for singles has been on the rise in recent years, and now has a staggering 2.5 million homes in the top 10 of the list of most popular holiday homes.
With that many holiday homes available for holiday spending, it’s easy to understand why the Phoenix area has been known as one of the top holiday destinations in the world for many years now.
But it’s the way they choose their holiday homes that can set them apart.
“Glendale is not only a great place to stay, but the people are a wonderful group of people,” says Ashley Mott, a spokesperson for Phoenix Holiday Homes.
“They have all kinds of different interests.
Some come from different states, some come from all over the world, some just come from Arizona.”
While the majority of Phoenix Holiday Home owners are American citizens, the majority are locals.
“Most people come from Phoenix, but we’re also in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, and Seattle,” says Mott.
“We have a lot of different ethnicities and nationalities here.”
Most of the Phoenix Holiday home owners who we spoke to said they had been in the business for a long time and enjoyed their time in Arizona.
“I’ve lived in Australia for 15 years and I’ve been here 10 years,” says Rachel, a resident of Glendale.
“It’s a great community.
It is a beautiful place to be.”
And while most Phoenix Holiday homes are for single people, there are plenty for couples.
“People who are in a long-term relationship are very likely to be more attracted to Glendale than any other place in Australia,” says Matt, a former resident of Arizona and the owner of Phoenix and Glendale Holiday Homes in Glendale and Chandler.
“There are so many options.
The majority of people in Phoenix will go to another city and there are so much choices.”
What’s the best holiday home for couples?
There are so few options for singles in Phoenix, and even fewer options for couples, according.
But if you’re looking to spend the holiday season together, you may want to make the most of your options.
“Our goal is to create a place that is the perfect home for a relationship, so you can have all the fun you want while you’re having the best time of your lives,” says Chris, a Phoenix Holiday homeowner.
“Whether it’s with a partner or not, you’re welcome to come and stay in one of our beautiful homes.”
While couples can choose from a wide range of vacation homes, it might be best to focus on the ones where you can both be together for a whole year, Mott says.
“In the case of single people and couples, we want you to make a commitment to stay together and you can’t do that at home.
We need to make sure that you’re living together in a shared home,” she says.
And the best way to do that is by buying a holiday home together.
“If you want to go holiday in a new place, we would definitely recommend you buy a holiday house together, especially if you are single,” says Matthew, a Scottsdale resident who owns and manages a property for Phoenix and the Arizona Coyotes.
“Single people, couples, and people with children can all have a great time together and have a beautiful holiday.”
When to visit Phoenix Holiday Homes?
If you’re coming for the holidays, it may be worth going to the Phoenix Airport on a weekday or a weekend.
You can catch a flight to New York City on a Saturday, or you can book a private jet or charter flight.
You’ll also be able to check in and check out at a variety of Phoenix-area hotels, including Holiday Inn Express, Marriott Marquis, and Phoenix Sky Harbor.
When to book a holiday in Phoenix?
“The best time to visit the Phoenix region is between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays,” says Phoenix Holiday Housing.
“But it’s also best to go on holidays during the spring or summer months,” says Mark, a senior manager at Phoenix Holiday Houses.
“Because you can get a lot more sun than you can during the winter months.”
What to expect in Phoenix during the holidays?
Most Phoenix Holiday families are going to have their own separate house, which can be a good thing.
“As far as the people living in the


text:
Filling in again as a Jared Galleria of Jewelry store manager in Brandon, Dawn Souto-Coons' long-suspected fears were confirmed when she stumbled into a payroll report on an office desk.
"Sure enough, every male except one earned more — $2, $3 and up to $4 an hour more — than any of the females," said the 13-year jewelry store veteran. "Even the top female sales associate, who sold more than $1-million of jewelry a year, got $2.50 less an hour than a guy just hired with no jewelry experience."
Souto-Coons is part of the Tampa Bay connection to a suit filed this week by the U.S. Employment and Equal Opportunity Commission alleging systemic sex discrimination in pay and promotion across 1,414 jewelry stores run by Sterling Jewelers Inc. of Akron, Ohio.
Souto-Coons, 49, had managed one of the parent company's JBRobinson stores in Maryland. But since relocating to Tampa with her husband's government job seven year ago, she took a $20,000 pay cut, then was passed over for store manager openings twice, and trained men with no jewelry background for manager jobs she was denied. At the time of her payroll discovery, she was pinch hitting for a male boss off being trained for a promotion to district manager. She didn't get the job he vacated, either.
A unit of British-owned Signet Group, the world's largest specialty jeweler, Sterling owns Jared, Kay Jewelers and Marks & Morgan locally and employed 20,000 women in the period covered by the suit dating back to Jan. 1, 2003.
Nineteen named plaintiffs in eight states — and hundreds more in statements collected in 20 states — claim similar experiences to Souto-Coons', including eight from the Tampa Bay area. Filed in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, N.Y., the civil case seeks unspecified money damages and a court order in which Sterling agrees to clean up its act and independent monitoring.
The EEOC case grew from what was found in discrimination complaints in Tampa where female workers are in arbitration with Sterling.
"From cases like Tampa, we verified systemic pay and promotion discrimination across the entire company," said Margaret Malloy, EEOC senior trial attorney in New York.
Because Sterling gives local managers wide discretion, "pay and promotion have been excessively subjective," the EEOC said.
"It's amazing a company that gets most of its business from women treats female employees like this," said Sam Smith, a Tampa lawyer with Burr & Smith, which filed the case.
Sterling denies discrimination, noting most store managers nationally are women. Sterling said Souto-Coons didn't get promoted because of declining job performance.
"We take the allegations very seriously," said spokesman David Bouffard. "We are confident these charges do not reflect the culture of this company."
Other Jared workers, however, say local managers hire and promote friends, who are more often male. They also ignored sexual harassment complaints and tolerated boorish behavior — including an alleged sexual assault of a 25-year-old employee by a 40-year-old supervisor — at store management conferences staged annually at Walt Disney World.
"It's the good ol' boy network," said Judy Reed, 56, who stepped down from assistant store manager to a sales job at Jared in Citrus Park last year. This after being passed over a third time for manager jobs she didn't know were open until they were filled.
"There is no system to inform you of openings, so I never had a chance to interview."
Sherry Roberson, who worked as a Jared assistant store manager in Illinois and Tampa, said her experience was similar to Souto-Coons'.
"I was assured on my first promotion to assistant store manger that the $35,000 a year they offered me was the company standard," she said. "Then I met a man with no retail experience who got the same job at $37,000."
Mark Albright can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org or (727) 893-8252.


text:
The path has been a rocky one for the ad tech space recently but there’s substantive value in Canadian name Sabio (Sabio Stock Quote, Charts, News, Analysts, Financials TSXV:SBIO), according to Paradigm Capital analyst Daniel Rosenberg, who provided clients with an update on the advertising technology sector on Wednesday. Rosenberg reiterated a “Buy” rating on SBIO, saying Sabio’s focus on connected TV (CTV) and streaming are right in line with prevailing digital ad trends.
Rosenberg spoke of the evolution in advertising where social media has opened up new channels to reach customers, while the rise of the mobile device has established new platforms and approaches for advertisers. At the same time, Rosenberg said 2022 has brought more than its share of challenges to companies in the space, where budgets for advertising are being tightened amid economic turmoil and recessionary pressures. Public companies have felt the pain, with Ad Tech stocks now down on average 46 per cent year-to-date.
But according to Rosenberg, not only are valuations now more attractive in the space but the sector should be in for a strong end to the year, as the US midterm elections are promising to bring with them big time ad spend. Rosenberg quoted two estimates for 2022’s political ad spending at $9.7 billion and $7.8 billion, respectively, either of which would be double or more the amount ($4.0 billion) spent on the 2018 midterm election and compare well with that spent on the 2020 presidential election at $9.0 billion. (All figures in US dollars except where noted otherwise.)
Moreover, Sabio, with its products supporting advertisers in the CTV and over-the-top (OTT) categories and helping them to execute programmatic ad campaigns backed by Sabio’s analytics platform, should do well in the current climate, as CTV is positioned to take in a disproportionate share of ad dollars, according to Rosenberg.
“Within digital advertising, dollars are migrating toward connected TV/streaming (CTV),” Rosenberg wrote. “Several factors are contributing to the shift. First, the decline of linear cable TV subscribers with cord shavers and cord cutters has resulted in viewers shifting their gaze toward streaming platforms. Ad dollars are following suit. At the same time, restrictive privacy changes from Apple (which continue to roll out in every update, see its most recent iOS 16 update) have decreased the effectiveness of application-based distribution channels.”
Specifically referencing the mid-terms, Rosenberg quoted Kantor/CMAG, an advertising expenditure monitoring company, which has predicted CTV and streaming will get $1.2 billion of a projected $7.8 billion in political advertising this year, while eMarketer is estimating $1.5 billion in political spending to flow through CTV and streaming devices.
Rosenberg said Sabio is particularly well positioned to take advantage of the current trends.
“[Sabio] is one of the only publicly listed companies with substantial exposure to the CTV market, with CTV revenue representing about 44 per cent of total revenue and growing. We think the strength of CTV trends should overshadow any general slowdown in ad spending,” he wrote.
“In Q2, management indicated that it expects to continue to capture market share and deliver strong organic revenue growth for the balance of 2022 on the back of a strong sales pipeline. Recall in Q2 Sabio delivered a 70 per cent increase in revenue and a 106 per cent increase in CTV revenue, while many AdTech peers reported challenging results in the same Q2 period,” Rosenberg said.
Sabio reported its second quarter in late August, coming in with revenue of $7.2 million compared to $4.2 million a year earlier and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $1.4 compared to breakeven a year earlier. The company said its average deal size increased by 48 per cent year-over-year, with larger CTV campaigns featuring prominently.
Rosenberg said with its growth investments largely complete, positive adjusted EBITDA should come by the fourth quarter this year with further improvement into 2023.
“We find it notable for an AdTech company of Sabio’s size to attract marketing dollars from enterprise-grade customers and do so while maintaining relatively attractive profitability levels — something we have only seen at peers with much greater scale. We believe it speaks to the value and differentiation of its CTV offering and data analytics capabilities,” he said.
From the Canadian perspective, Rosenberg said valuations in the Ad Tech space appear to be stabilizing and bouncing off lows after a period of contraction. The analyst has Sabio to be trading at 1.8x 2022 EV/Revenue compared to its peer group average at 4.4x and at 1.4x for 2023 estimates compared to its peers at 3.6x. That’s an attractive valuation, Rosenberg said.
“We think there’s substantial room for the gap to narrow given Sabio’s leading growth rates, integrated tech stack and differentiated offering,” he said.
With his Buy rating, Rosenberg has reiterated a C$3.00 target price on SBIO, which at the time of publication represented a projected one-year return of 233 per cent.
Disclosure: Sabio is an annual sponsor of Cantech Letter.
We Hate Paywalls Too!
At Cantech Letter we prize independent journalism like you do. And we don't care for paywalls and popups and all that noise That's why we need your support. If you value getting your daily information from the experts, won't you help us? No donation is too small.


text:
© 2021 - Negotiamini. All Rights Reserved.
Digitalisation continues to grow in many sectors, resulting in significant demand for skills-based education and training – Here, Professor Neil Morris argues for growth of online education
Millions of individuals in the UK do not have ‘the essential digital skills for life and work [i]. In 2017, the UK Government called for a major shift in the provision of digital skills training, to meet the demands of the industry during the so-called ‘4th industrial revolution’ [ii]. The UK Government’s Digital Strategy places great emphasis on the need for digital skills: ‘For the UK to be a world-leading digital economy that works for everyone, it is crucial that everyone has the digital skills they need to fully participate in society’ [iii]. Demand for digital skills
Prior to the pandemic, advances in technology were already disrupting industries such as manufacturing, commerce, banking, science, transport, medicine and engineering, and individuals entering these sectors need a high level of digital skills to be employable and productive. However, a UK think-tank estimated that over 12 million people and a million small businesses in the UK do not have sufficient digital skills to prosper [iv]. The Skills Funding Agency estimates that within twenty years 90% […]


text:
When you open a bank account, they give you a free toaster.
And when you buy certain luxury apartments in Dubai? Why, then your real estate agent will hand over not one key but two: one for your new home, and one for your new car.
Or you can super-size it! Buy yourself a penthouse, and Damac will throw in a Lamborghini Aventador Roadster -- which "supercar" costs $445,000 and is "like a hit of atropine mixed with kerosene," the redoubtable race car driver Alex Lloyd of Yahoo Autos informs us.
Of course, such a "gift" doesn't come cheap. A qualifying four-bedroom penthouse will set you back $15 million, the New York Daily News estimates.
Select Damac Maison "luxury serviced hotel apartments" at the Distinction and the Upper Crest in the Burj area of Dubai -- home to Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower -- are eligible for the promotion, the company says in a news release. Units at Dubai Marina's Damac Residenze, with interiors designed by Italian luxury fashion brand Fendi, also qualify, according to the news release.
The promotion runs alongside the Dubai Shopping Festival, Jan. 2 to Feb. 2.
- Damac Properties


text:
South Africa applies to start research into GM Wine
Stellenbosch University has applied to the South African Government to grow genetically modified grapes in field trials. The hope is that GM grapevines will produce grapes that are resistant to fungus. The first vintage wouldn’t be for produced for around five years and even then it wouldn’t be released commercially. However, a former South African now living in Canada also put in application requesting to sell GM yeast in his native country to use in winemaking. The South African Wine Council said in a statement that it, ‘has clearly objected to the commercial use of GM yeasts’ and expects the application to be turned down. It is currently not legal to produce GM wine in South Africa and the wine and spirit board there says it has no plans to change this.


text:
Microsoft has now sold out of its $25 software offer for iOS developers to get a copy of both Windows 8 Pro and Parallels Desktop 8, but Microsoft has plans to launch similar offers in the future.
Smartron S805 Android TV box: Unboxing and first impressions
Office 2016 launching this year, touch apps coming soon
Introducing Windows 10 for phones
NewerTech Wireless Aluminum Keypad Review
NewerTech Wireless Aluminum Keypad
Hands on with HoloLens
Download: Windows 10 build 9926


text:
Apparently conventional farming techniques aren’t too grape for vineyard keepers in the Midwest. Their tender fruit withers when it comes into contact with a commonly used herbicide, called 2, 4-D, that is spread on corn and other field crops to control broadleaf weeds.
So researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new grape that can stand up to 2, 4-D (or R2D2 if you’re playing Star Wars).
This new improved grape – imperially named “Improved Chancellor” — does not die when confronted with 2, 4-D (the D stands for Dichlorophenoxyacetic) because it has been genetically altered with an added bacterium that breaks down the herbicide, according to an Environmental News Service release.
So happily, nearby crop farmers will be able to continue to use the weed killer, which was introduced in 1946 and is by some accounts the most common herbicide in the world. And grape farmers can co-exist nearby because they can grow a grape that’s genetically engineered to resist the chemical poison.
This development has the potential to “salvage the wine and grape industry in the Midwest,” says one of the plant biologists, Robert Skirvin, who helped develop the new uber grape.
Currently, the regular grapes just can’t survive the pesticide blow-by; it takes just 1/100th of the amount of 2, 4-D typically sprayed on corn to kill those existing Midwestern grapes, Skirvin told the ENS.
He hopes that the new grape will be test grown in about five years, but first, the researchers will need permission to grow it outside because it is genetically modified.
Of course, this whole problem has another potential solution: U.S. farmers could grow their corn and other field crops organically, without pesticides. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that organic farming is growing, but it remains less than 1 percent of U.S. cropland according to the USDA’s up-to-the-minute 2005 numbers.
Some of the forces driving increased production of organic row crops include dairy farmers’ need to feed organic grain to their dairy cows to retain organic certification for their milk, and consumer demand for organic bread, pasta and other grain-based foods.
Consumer demand has been higher, however, for organically grown produce, where much more of the agricultural land is being devoted to organic practices, according to the USDA.
(Dichlorophenoxycetic acid, by the way, is commonly found in many lawn weed killers. Moral: Picnic before treating the grass.)
Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media


text:
Two Wits students have started a laundry service for the Wits community and residents in surrounding areas.
Two Wits students have started a laundry service, LaundryBae, to serve the Wits community and residents in Braamfontein, Melville and Auckland Park.
Originally launched in May, the service was held back due to university holidays and minor setbacks in getting the business going. For example, the owners struggled to acquire the vehicle used for pick-ups and deliveries, and to find a suitable team for the business.
Quantity surveying honours student, Sizwe Bhengu, said that running LaundryBae isn’t easy and has come with challenges.
“It has been a huge learning curve but we have welcomed all the challenges and managed to fix the issues we had,” the 22-year-old said.
Bhengu told Wits Vuvuzela that he and his partner, Glen Mabunda, a fourth-year mining engineering student, saw a gap in the market.
“A lot of people don’t have time, and we wanted to introduce a service where with the touch of a message, your laundry can be picked up and cleaned for you,” Bhengu added.
Mabunda entered the Agis Holdings and Wits Business School Entrepreneurship Competition in 2017. Out of 84 entries, he scored first place and won R75 000. Mabunda used this money to start the business with Bhengu.
Mabunda said that the idea came from his own struggles of being a student and not having time to do laundry.
Auckland Park resident and second-year BCom Accounting student at Wits, Mbali Zulu, said that she had many commitments as a student and had no time to do laundry.
She said, ‘I’ve used their services a few times and it’s been great. They are professional, punctual and exceptional at what they do.”
Each laundry item is charged individually with prices ranging from R50 for shoes to R150 for a full men’s suit. Clients can contact the business through its website (http://laundrybae.com/). The laundry is then picked up from the customer, laundered or dry-cleaned, and returned to the customer within 24 hours.
Wits Vuvuzela, Witsies launch fashion Oasis, August, 2018
Wits Vuvuzela, Wits graduate shines at shoe cleaning, March, 2018
Wits Vuvuzela, Unit to boost students’ entrepreneurial skills, August, 2018


text:
Zagat had an interesting week last week, to say the least.
First they rebranded and made things look a little less stuffy and more like something that’s transient like food always is. Then they decided to change their rating system, which was famously based on a scale of 1 to 30, to a ranking that work from 1.0 to 5.0. Perhaps millennials, and the like, prefer an easier to understand system?
But Zagat didn’t just leave us puzzling about scores and numbers, they also gave us a “Tiny Café” pop up for a few days only; right on Astor Place.
All of this to work with their 2017 New York City Restaurants Guide launch that the city is so split on—some await this announcement by seat edge, and others couldn’t care less. Whichever camp you belong too, the familiar Zagat sign has winked at you if you’ve ever been out to eat. And the book, which is on sale next week, will come into your path at some point. It is interesting that Per Se has really disappeared from the list and Le Bernadin (which always had a top rating since 2010) is now 4.9 and no longer 29. But enough of the complexities of New York dining.
According to Zagat (which gets fed by their new owner Google), “Zagat’s recent rebranding and new iPhone app now available for download, the goal is still simple: to help readers cut through the clutter and provide premium restaurant guidance from a trusted voice in tiny, yet perfect, reviews.”
And so if you happened to pop over to Astor Place (corner of Astor Place and Cooper Square to be precise) at some point over the weekend, you might have tasted some of Zagat’s favorite restaurants famous or infamous dishes—in mini format of course—for free. “Tiny food videos and pictures are a growing trend on social media and we wanted to contribute to this conversation, “ shares Ben Ezrick, head of marketing, content and community at Zagat.
The idea is to showcase the city’s best talent in their respective categories and to let the public come and just have a petite taste. And so how do you even begin to choose these maestros from the mass of talent in a city like New York? Maybe it’s better not to know.
“We decided to do what we do best and create something tiny yet perfect like our restaurant reviews. We rate and review the best restaurants so partnered with three of the most notable to create micro creations of their signature dishes,” says Ezrick. Los Tacos brought tacos. Pizza Loves Emily made the smallest littlest pizzas and burgers, Jacques Torres made Alice in Wonderland style chocolate chip cookies. They call it a one of a kind pop up—and who doesn’t love all things tiny. “Those who can’t attend in person can see our tiny yet perfect restaurant reviews and tiny food café listing in our new iPhone app,” adds Ezrick.
And, naturally, the hashtags, like #TinyCafe, were presented all over the cafe—because nothing looks better than the world’s tiniest pizza on your hand as New York rains down on you.
Photos courtesy of Zagat.


text:
Journal Sentinel Ads Will Drive Stories?
As ad sales plummet, Gannett wants stories to support advertising initiative.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, which may explain a plan that seems to mix ads and editorial by the Gannett chain and its newspapers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Newspapers in America have seen plummeting advertising revenue going back more than a decade, “from $37.8 billion in 2008, when the Great Recession began, to $14.3 billion in 2018, a 62% decline,” as Forbes has reported.
But that was nothing compared to the collapse of advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic, with revenue declining 20 to 30 percent during the first few weeks of the crisis, the story noted. The pandemic “could be the death knell for many newspapers,” Forbes predicted.
In response, Gannett announced plans in March to furlough staff and institute other cost reductions, as Urban Milwaukee reported. The goal was to cut spending by $100 to $125 million this year, Forbes notes.
Faced with all this bleeding, Gannett is looking to somehow increase ad revenue and as Poynter reported last week, the company has launched a new “combined ad sales and news initiative… on the theme of how businesses and individuals are preparing for a broad reopening of the economy. The ‘Rebuilding America’ special issues, planned for May 30 and 31, will appear across Gannett’s 260 regional paper network as well as USA Today.”
An internal memo from a Gannett regional editor, obtained by Poynter, offered an overview of “a joint effort between the news and the sales side” that “is being framed as news rather than an advertising supplement,” the story notes. “But it at least tiptoes into deploying the network’s newsrooms (operating at three-quarter strength because of furloughs) to produce a boatload of stories in support of an ad sales initiative.”
“Local newsrooms will be asked to produce a number of geographically specific ‘sidebars,’ tentatively 10 to 12 at the chain’s largest papers like The Arizona Republic and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, fewer from smaller properties…While the memos do not dictate that the editorial content be entirely positive, the thrust is to position Gannett’s USA Today Network as ‘the nation’s source for a powerhouse platform that tells the story of America’s rebuilding economy’,” as the memo puts it.
“The sources who provided the internal memos to Poynter also indicated that NewsGuild chapters are preparing a protest letter this week to CEO Mike Reed, charging that the plans cross an ethical line by linking content so closely to advertising,” the story notes.
Urban Milwaukee contacted Journal Sentinel editor George Stanley, asking for comment, and has not heard back from him.
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.


text:
New Delhi: The government will push the agenda of simplifying the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime by rationalising tax rate and lower the number of tax slabs in the upcoming meeting in mid-March, sources told ET Now.
The Centre is likely to push the states to look at merging 12 per cent and 18 per cent tax slabs into a standard rate.
“The next GST Council meeting will take place in March. We will discuss with the council members and try to take up the issue of slab merger and correction of inverted duty structure in the meeting,” said a senior central board of indirect taxes and customs official.
The opposition has criticised the Modi government for a complicated GST structure as it has four slabs of 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent. Added to that the government charges a cess on demerit and luxury products above the 28 per cent GST.
Recently, the 15th Finance Commission has also recommended merging 12 per cent and 18 per cent tax rates. The 15th Finance Commission chaired by N K Singh has also suggested rationalization of GST into a three-rate structure, comprising a 5 per cent merit rate and 28-30 per cent de-merit rate.
According to the latest Finance Commission, the effective tax rate under GST stands at 11.8 per cent according to the International Monetary Fund and 11.6 per cent according to the Reserve Bank of India. This rate is considerably lower than 14 per cent, the average revenue-neutral rate (RNR) that was required for a smooth transition from the value-added tax regime without any revenue loss.
“We realize that our GST rates are lower than the revenue-neutral rate. The Council will take a final call on what the rationalized slabs should be. The aim will be to make the structure clean besides improving revenues.,” said the senior official.
The GST revenues touched a record high of Rs 1.19 lakh crore in January and Rs 1.15 lakh crore in December on the back of improved economic activity and enforcement.
GST collections remained above the lakh crore mark for the fourth month in a row after it touched an all-time high of Rs 1.19 lakh crore in January.
The government will also look to correct the inverted duty structure in certain items such as textiles, footwear and fertilizer among others in March. An inverted duty structure arises when the rate on inputs is higher than that of final products.