Темы
Разделы
Интересы
Top 20
 |
| 421 | No matter where you live, you can go to church, so to speak, with Christ Fellowship. The McKinney, Texas, congregation is on board with almost every high-tech gambit under heaven.
Find the church by going online -- the 21st-century version of sighting a steeple on the horizon. Beyond their Web site, Christ Fellowship has a Facebook page to give it a friendly presence in social media.
You can download the worship program by scanning their customized-with-a-cross QR code. The worship services are streamed online from their Internet campus -- with live chat running so you can share spiritual insights in real time.
Afterward, says senior Pastor Bruce Miller, "someone will ask you, 'How did it go? Did God help you, today? How can we help you?' Just like we do when people come to our building in McKinney. We are here to help people find and follow Christ, wherever they are starting out from."
And wherever they are in the digital world.
Christ Fellowship exemplifies most of the latest ways churches dramatically extend their reach of church beyond any one time or local address. Such congregations signal "a willingness to meet new challenges," says Scott Thumma, of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. He's the author of a study by Faith Communities Today (FACT) of how churches, synagogues and mosques use the Internet and other technology.
FACT's national survey of 11,077 of the nation's 335,000 congregations, released in March, found seven in 10 U.S. congregations had Web sites, and four in 10 had Facebook pages by 2010, Thumma says.
The use of QR codes is too new to be measured yet, Thumma says. He recently began tracking churches that stream their worship -- about 1% of congregations, Thumma estimates.
Future surveys may also measure the explosion of digital applications. Christ Fellowship has an app for donating online and... newsfactor.com » | | 422 | With the emergence of social media, more companies are replacing blogs with nimbler tools requiring less time and resources, such as Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.
A survey released earlier this year by the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth says the percentage of companies that maintain blogs fell to 37% in 2011 from 50% in 2010, based on its survey of 500 fast-growing companies listed by Inc. magazine. Only 23% of Fortune 500 companies maintained a blog in 2011, flat from a year ago after rising for several years.
The trend in business is consistent with the broader loss of interest in blogging among all consumers. In late 2010, the Pew Research Center said blogging among adults ages 18 to 33 fell 2 percentage points in 2010 from 2008. "Blogging requires more investment. You need content regularly. And you need to think about the risk of blogging, accepting comments, liability issues, defamation," says Nora Ganim Barnes, a professor at the university who wrote the report. One benefit of a blog: "It's a tool and content you own."
It's not just mom-and-pop shops that dropped blogging. Those no longer updating or creating a blog range from Bank of America and building materials maker Owens Corning to Sport Chalet and dating Web site OkCupid. Others "never started a blog. They just went straight to social-media tools," Barnes says. T.J. Crawford, a Bank of America spokesman, says the bank dropped the blog because its social-media strategy is focused on Facebook and Twitter. "We want to be where our customers are," he says.
OkCupid, whose blog was ranked one of the 25 best by Time magazine last year, stopped updating in April 2011. It plans to revive the blog.
Companies often underestimate the amount of work a blog requires, says Pete Steege, director of marketing communications and Web strategy for Rimage, a... newsfactor.com » | | 423 | A new service that grades how each of Facebook's top third-party apps respects consumers' privacy was released late Sunday by research firm PrivacyChoice. The free tool, Privacyscore for Facebook, spells out privacy policies and tracking practices of more than 200 top Facebook apps, including games, work-related programs and sharing apps.
Online tracking is fueling a heated national debate over whether new do-not-track laws are needed to safeguard consumers' online privacy. Leaders in the online advertising industry use a version of Privacyscore to self-police the tracking practices of online advertising networks, and thus head off new laws. Privacy experts welcomed the consumer version.
"This certainly is going to be a useful tool for consumers, but it may actually be even more useful in pushing application developers, who don't like getting poor grades, to look more closely at their own privacy practices," says Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C., think tank on data security.
Facebook's pervasive Web presence comes with "a responsibility to hold people who are developing apps on their platform accountable for the (privacy) assertions that they're making," says Craig Spiezle, executive director of the Online Trust Alliance.
Facebook's David Swain noted that the company requires app developers to agree to its privacy policies. "If we find an app has violated our policies we take action," Swain says.
According to PrivacyChoice, 140 different tracking entities routinely collect information about users of the top Facebook apps. Trackers can correlate that data to profiles of individuals' browsing behavior across multiple Web pages in order to deliver more relevant ads. "It's up to users to know the privacy risk of sharing personal data with apps," says Jim Brock, PrivacyChoice founder and CEO.
Privacyscore's top score is 100. Deductions are made for sharing data with an excessive number of tracking entities, failing to honor... newsfactor.com » | | 424 | In 2002, a few months after the launch of the first iPod, John MacFarlane made his push to get digital music out of the computer, headphones and earbuds -- and into the living room.
He started Sonos, a wireless music company that in June will celebrate its 10 anniversary. In its first decade, Sonos has sold nearly 1.5 million units of its wireless music system to 550,000 customers. Revenue for the privately held company has nearly doubled during the past three years to more than $200 million in 2011, says MacFarlane, who was interviewed at Sonos' corporate headquarters here. "We're just getting warmed up."
Sonos high-fidelity systems -- which connect to an Internet router to stream music around the house -- used to be sold mainly at specialty stores but are now also sold at Target and Best Buy. The price of a basic package has dropped from about $1,000 to $350. And fans of the product gush with enthusiasm on Facebook and Twitter. "Love it," wrote Andrew Matuszak on Facebook this week, after he bought a Play: 3, the entry-level $299 speaker, and a $50 Bridge, the device that connects to the Internet router.
Matuszak, who lives near Reading, Pa., says he first heard of Sonos while shopping with his girlfriend last week at a local audio shop. They decided on the Sonos, brought it home, and use apps on their smartphones -- he's Android, she's iPhone -- to select music to play through the speaker. "We put it in the master bedroom, but we can move it throughout the house," he says. "We've put it in the bathroom and living room with no problems whatsoever. You just unplug it, and plug it back in, and music starts playing."
Musicians love it, too. Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park, former Spice Girl Mel B... newsfactor.com » | | 425 | Are some consumers losing interest in Pinterest? That appeared to be the trend last month, when meteoric growth for the overnight app sensation slackened, according to two market-research firms.
The image-bookmarking site and social network drew 18.7 million unique visitors in the U.S. in March, compared with 17.8 million in February and 11.7 million in January, says ComScore.
AppData, meanwhile, says the number of Pinterest users connected to Facebook in the past 30 days declined to 8.3 million from 12.2 million.
"The numbers show slowing user growth, (the) negative impact of redesign and declining buzz level on Google Trends," IDC analyst Karsten Weide says.
What impact, if any, those figures have on the hype surrounding Pinterest is anyone's guess. The 2-year-old start-up has an estimated value of as much as $1 billion and is a hot acquisition candidate, following Facebook's $1 billion purchase of Instagram.
The dip could be interpreted as a hiccup in the app's inexorable path to Internet riches, says ComScore analyst Andrew Lipsman.
Pinterest did not comment directly on the reports but said in a blog post Wednesday that it had its "highest traffic days ever" on Monday and Tuesday. It did not provide figures, though market researcher Experian claims the site is the third-most-popular social network in the U.S., behind Facebook and Twitter.
For historical context, Lipsman compares Pinterest's hockey-stick-like growth to Twitter's ascent a few years earlier: "After periods of major growth spurts, it's natural for things to subside."
What the figures tell is that despite formidable numbers, Pinterest has a soft user core that has yet to solidify -- just as Twitter did in 2009, Lipsman says. Now, Twitter users are among the most fervent among social-media companies.
For now, some consumers are re-evaluating Pinterest. "I need more time and motivation -- not more ideas and recipes," says freelance writer Cathie Ericson. newsfactor.com » | | 426 | Yahoo plans to double its Olympics presence this summer, aiming to be the top Web site for the fourth straight Games.
Yahoo is sending 25 people from around the world to cover the Summer Games in London -- about "twice as big" as it had in the Winter Games -- including U.S. gold medal winners Shannon Miller and Dan O'Brien and many of its sports columnists and reporters. It also plans to cover the games in dozens of languages.
The move is an effort to outshine competitors. Despite not paying for exclusive rights to cover the games, Yahoo says it has been the No. 1 global destination for Olympics coverage for the past three games.
In February 2010, Yahoo Sports had 32 million unique visitors and 254 million page views for the Vancouver Games, it says. Second-place NBC, which paid for exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to cover, had 19 million visitors and 251 million page views.
NBC, a unit of Comcast Corp. that has agreed to pay $4.4 billion for the U.S. rights to carry the Games through 2020, lost $200 million on the Winter Olympics. By contrast, Yahoo's Olympics coverage is profitable, says Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo's head of global media.
"These games will be the biggest revenue driver we've ever had for an event by a long shot," he says.
The Summer Games will represent a test of Levinsohn's broadened role of overseeing Yahoo's global media efforts. Previously, he oversaw media for the Americas.
The event also represents Yahoo's bigger push into video. Levinsohn said the site will have five times the video coverage of the previous games. Proctor & Gamble Co. is a key sponsor for various projects, including one that features the mothers of Olympians. newsfactor.com » | | 427 |  (Reuters) - A Texas baby born with an incurable disease whose parents created an online "bucket list" for their daughter that became an Internet sensation has died, her father said on Tuesday.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 428 | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU regulators are in no rush to decide any antitrust charges against Google, in a complicated investigation into complaints by rivals about its search results, the EU's competition chief said on Friday.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 429 | BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States expressed growing concern over cyber-intrusions globally during talks with Chinese leaders, the U.S. secretary of state said on Friday.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 430 | In the heyday of television, networks and advertisers craved the hottest TV shows, those capable of producing "water cooler" conversation the next morning.
My, how times have changed in the digital era. "The water cooler used to be the next day, now it's while the show is going on," says Greg Kahn, executive vice president of ad-buying firm Optimedia.
For a small but very influential segment of the TV audience, the notion of passive viewing has changed dramatically.
Now, as the networks prepare to unveil their fall lineups and make ad deals for the coming season, "social" TV viewing is a key component of what they will be touting. (NBC and Fox will be the first to present to advertisers, on May 14.)
Posting comments about TV shows on Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms grew 146% from April 2011 to April 2012, says Mark Ghuneim, CEO of Trendrr, which tracks social-media trends in television. "If you had to hire a marketing company to get 1 million people to talk about your show, I don't know what it would cost," he says. "Here it happens organically."
Rick Haskins, executive vice president of the CW network, says fans don't tweet during the commercials. "They jump when there's an OMG (oh my God) moment, when something happens on the show. That's when we see the spikes."
Kahn says he'd much rather have his ads in a show with 2 million active online followers, vs. a show with little online social interaction.
"If they're more engaged with the show, they'll be more engaged with the advertisement," he says.
The most discussed shows online tend to be the live events -- such as Fox's American Idol, ABC's Dancing with the Stars, NBC's The Voice and sports and award shows. Scripted series gear toward animated favorites such as Fox's The Simpsons and Family... newsfactor.com » | | 431 | In the heyday of television, networks and advertisers craved the hottest TV shows, those capable of producing "water cooler" conversation the next morning.
My, how times have changed in the digital era. "The water cooler used to be the next day, now it's while the show is going on," says Greg Kahn, executive vice president of ad-buying firm Optimedia.
For a small but very influential segment of the TV audience, the notion of passive viewing has changed dramatically.
Now, as the networks prepare to unveil their fall lineups and make ad deals for the coming season, "social" TV viewing is a key component of what they will be touting. (NBC and Fox will be the first to present to advertisers, on May 14.)
Posting comments about TV shows on Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms grew 146% from April 2011 to April 2012, says Mark Ghuneim, CEO of Trendrr, which tracks social-media trends in television. "If you had to hire a marketing company to get 1 million people to talk about your show, I don't know what it would cost," he says. "Here it happens organically."
Rick Haskins, executive vice president of the CW network, says fans don't tweet during the commercials. "They jump when there's an OMG (oh my God) moment, when something happens on the show. That's when we see the spikes."
Kahn says he'd much rather have his ads in a show with 2 million active online followers, vs. a show with little online social interaction.
"If they're more engaged with the show, they'll be more engaged with the advertisement," he says.
The most discussed shows online tend to be the live events -- such as Fox's American Idol, ABC's Dancing with the Stars, NBC's The Voice and sports and award shows. Scripted series gear toward animated favorites such as Fox's The Simpsons and Family... newsfactor.com » | | 432 | Investors who "like" Facebook may now be able to put their money where their clicks are. Most of the large online brokerage firms, including E-Trade, Fidelity and Charles Schwab, are allowing customers to request shares of the Facebook initial public offering. It's the latest phase in kicking off what's expected to be the largest technology IPO next week.
Given the large degree of attention on this IPO, though, investors shouldn't expect to actually get shares or make money on them. "I anticipate there to be many orders relative to the number of shares available to allocate," says Jay Ritter, professor of finance at the University of Florida.
Some key caveats and risks investors interested in getting Facebook shares from their brokerages should keep in mind include:
Rules limit who is eligible. Most online brokerage firms reserve the right to limit who gets Facebook shares. Fidelity investors must have $500,000 in qualified balances at the brokerage or trade 36 times a year or more to be considered, the company says. Schwab is telling customers to call their representatives to see if they are eligible.
TD Ameritrade is allowing investors to participate if their account is valued at $250,000 or more or they have completed at least 30 trades in the past three months.
No guarantee of shares even for qualified investors. While investors might request shares, they might not get any or as many as they'd like, Ritter says.
Stipulations to ownership. Most brokerages don't require investors to hold IPO shares for a set number of days but may punish investors who don't. E-Trade recommends investors hold IPO shares for at least 30 days and may exclude investors who don't from future deals, says the company's Web site.
Fidelity investors may be precluded from future IPOs if they sell in fewer than 15 days.
Returns could be disappointing. With... newsfactor.com » | | 433 | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Scott Thompson never provided a resume or incorrect information to Yahoo, he told top executives at a meeting on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 434 | Investors knew it would take awhile before the IPO market shook off the tech wreck. But not 12 years. That's how long, though, it's taken for the initial public offering market to show signs of life after the dot-com IPO boom and subsequent spectacular bust.
After being almost comatose for years, the IPO market has hosted 63 deals this year and is expected to launch nine more this week, which would be the best start to a year since 2000, says Renaissance Capital. Add to that the biggest-ever technology IPO in Facebook -- which is expected next week -- and 2012 looks like the year IPO investors' bruises from the 2000 debacle may finally fade.
"There's a huge pipeline" of IPOs, says Kathy Smith of Renaissance Capital. "There's lots to choose from for investors."
Even some entrepreneurs say the reception their IPOs are getting exceeded their expectations. "It's a surprise how much demand and interest there was" for the IPO of Infoblox, says CEO Robert Thomas. Shares of Infoblox, which helps companies find patterns in corporate data, jumped 33% their first day of trading in April.
The recovery of the IPO market has profound meaning not just for investors in newly public companies, but for the U.S. economy and all its participants. Since the stock market is a main pool of capital that allows companies to fund their expansion, grow and ultimately hire, a robust IPO market is critical to keeping money moving into new ideas. Venture capitalists, too, need a robust IPO market to allow them to cash in on their winners so they can move on to fund the next big idea.
The IPO market is regaining its swagger thanks to a bevy of fortunate coincidences working in concert to give investors the courage to step in and buy.
The strong stock market is... newsfactor.com » | | 435 | PALO ALTO, California (Reuters) - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose limited role in promoting the No. 1 social network's market debut has drawn criticism, laid out its growth strategy to investors on Friday, saying that transforming its mobile and advertising experience are top priorities in 2012.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 436 | Two much-anticipated games, Max Payne 3 and Diablo III, [could] bring respite from a five-month slump in video game retail sales.
The arrival of the third-person action game and the PC-based fantasy role-playing game will be welcomed by game fans and retailers, because the release schedule of potential hits so far in 2012 has been underwhelming.
Another sign of slumping sales: Retailer GameStop reported last week that first-quarter sales fell 12.5% on a drop in store traffic due to fewer blockbuster titles.
Overall April retail sales were $630.4 million, down 32% from $930.9 million in April 2011, reports market tracker the NPD Group.
"When we see compelling content come into the market, the games are still selling as well as ever," says NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "We just saw a lot less this April as compared to last."
Other factors in the slump: growth in sales of downloadable games and add-on content, as well as a casual gamer shift to mobile and Web games. Some developers have turned design efforts to the next generation of video game consoles, even though only Nintendo's Wii U has been announced, says Geoff Keighley, host of Spike network's GameTrailers TV.
"Really, the only big game this year," he says, "has been Mass Effect 3," BioWare's science-fiction role-playing game, which has sold about 4 million copies in two months.
With Max Payne 3 ($60, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PCs, ages 17 and older), developer Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto) revived the police detective from two popular computer games out in 2001 and 2003. The success of the new game, coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PCs, "is critical for the video game market, not just for Rockstar," says EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich.
Since the impact of mobile games on interest in premium-price console games is hard to quantify,... newsfactor.com » | | 437 | Before you get too excited about Facebook's initial public offering on Friday, remember that technology IPOs aren't always a long-term investor's best friend.
Facebook plans to sell 337.4 million shares to the public on Friday, aiming to raise more than $12 billion. The buzz has crowded out most other IPOs this week. "The circus is coming to town," says John Fitzgibbons, founder of IPO Scoop.com.
Facebook is a big deal -- not just in terms of its stock, but in terms of its reach and clout. The Menlo Park, Calif., company, founded in 2004, claims 901 million monthly active users worldwide.
IPOs typically underperform stocks with the same market value for three years after their debut, according to Jay Ritter, professor of finance at the University of Florida.
"But Facebook isn't your typical IPO," Ritter says. "It is the small companies that are most likely to be disappointments for investors." Companies with more than $100 million in annual revenue typically match the broad market's performance the following three years, not including the first day's run-up, Ritter says.
One definite point of excitement will be Facebook's first day of trading. First-day run-ups can be huge. Visa, one of the largest IPOs ever, priced its shares at $44. The stock finished its opening day at $56.50, a 28.4% gain, according to IPO Scoop.com. Splunk.com, a software company, soared 108.7% on its first day last month.
Unless you're a big institutional investor or an insider, however, you probably won't get to call in rich for work on Friday. Investment bankers, who are the people who take IPOs to market, typically dole out hot IPO shares to their best clients. Those clients are mutual funds, pension funds and hedge funds.
New technology stocks can be tricky, especially for long-term buy-and-hold investors. Remember Pets.com? An Internet favorite during the dot-com boom, Pets.com... newsfactor.com » | | 438 | Restaurant giant Panera Bread made a big business bet eight years ago to offer free Wi-Fi to its customers as a way to boost sales, long before Starbucks.
The fresh breads eatery aimed to court customers in between meals. The experiment worked, raising sales early on about 15%.
But now, it's become a challenge to meet the Wi-Fi demand, says Panera's vice president of technology, Blaine Hurst. "With mobile carriers cracking down on data plans, more and more people say, 'I'll go to Panera for free Wi-Fi.' How do we make sure we have capacity?"
With free Wi-Fi available at national chains such as Starbucks and McDonald's, and becoming more accessible without charge at hotels or airports, Panera is grappling with how to keep its Wi-Fi customers happy amid heated rivalry.
For now, Panera has got a gold-plated problem: Customers' use of its Wi-Fi is way up. Monthly connections to Panera's wireless network at its 1,565 locations have grown to 2.7 million sessions in April from 2.2 million a year ago.
The downside is slow Internet service. The company's network sometimes gets clogged because so many people are online at once. Some Panera locations will restrict Internet use to 30 minutes during the busy lunch hour. But Hurst is looking for solutions.
He's experimenting with rewarding frequent Panera customers with loyalty program benefits: unrestricted Wi-Fi. "Is there a way you get guaranteed access because you're a frequent Panera shopper?" Hurst says. "How do we make it better for our guests?"
Nicole Miller Regan, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, says Panera would be smart to tie premium Wi-Fi with its MyPanera loyalty program, which she says has "extremely high" participation.
Panera says some 45% of all transactions are by loyalty members, who get free "surprises" (cookies, cupcakes, coffee) periodically in exchange for signing in with the card.
"The loyalty program... newsfactor.com » |
|
| |
|