Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
FIGHTING CYBER BULLIES
Electronic Arts, Sony Use Crisp Thinking to Fight Cyber Bullies
By - Apr 1, 2011 10:25 AM http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-01/electronic-arts-sony-use-crisp-thinking-to-fight-cyber-bullies.html
Adam Hildreth, co-founder and chief executive of Crisp Thinking. Source: Crisp Thinking via Bloomberg
Hildreth, who left school at 16 to run Dubit full time, began working on software to detect bad behavior in the game world. The idea became his next company, Crisp Thinking, which he co-founded in 2005. Crisp’s software analyzes users’ language and actions to identify harassment, spamming, or predators who may be “grooming” potential victims. The system can react in real time by automatically warning or banning people who violate a site’s terms of service, or referring them to human moderators.
Online games, forums, and social networks use Crisp’s software to curb activity that could hurt users or damage their brands. Hildreth says Crisp has 75 clients, including Sony Online Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and the Cartoon Network. Clients pay between a few thousand dollars and tens of thousands a month. He expects revenue at the 30-employee company to double to $5 million in 2011 from $2.5 million last year, as cyber bullying cases make news and more companies realize the risk that negative interactions online pose to their brands.
OVERSIGHT VARIES
The degree of oversight in online communities varies widely, says Michael Kaiser, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, a nonprofit funded by industry and government to promote online safety. Some sites do nothing at all, some rely on users to flag questionable behavior, and others have humans review every post before publishing, he says. For businesses hosting online communities, “the quality of the discussion on some of these sites is going to be a part of your brand,” says Kaiser. “There should be some expectation of policing or the brand or the site will lose credibility, or it becomes a place where just nasty people hang out.”Crisp originally focused on stopping cyber bullies and online predators in virtual worlds and so-called massively multiplayer online games that can host thousands of users. The software can be used to identify a range of behaviors, from users disparaging a brand to racist comments to “gold farming,” the practice of accumulating currency in a virtual world to sell to other players. Beyond games, Crisp can track posts on online forums and clients’ Facebook pages and other social media sites. Companies use Crisp’s technology to identify customers who have complaints that should be referred to customer service, or even to find potential sales leads.
The software extracts meaning from users’ words, actions, and relationships online. Hildreth says Crisp processed 500 million pieces of user-generated content -- comments, chat messages, and blog posts -- in February and that number is growing by 25 percent a month. Most of the analysis is based on language (Crisp interprets messages in nine languages), though 20 percent is based on other user behaviors, like friend requests or actions in a virtual game. While many companies make software for families to monitor or restrict children’s interactions online, relatively few sell to Crisp’s market: the companies trying to keep online communities safe in the first place.
EXTRA MODERATION
Sony Online Entertainment began using Crisp for chat moderation in its Free Realms game in 2009 and in Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures the next year, according to Brad Wilcox, the game company’s head of global customer service. The software provides an extra layer of moderation on top of Sony’s own chat filters and other safeguards to “identify various types of behavior (harassment, bullying, griefing [deliberately disrupting other players], grooming [attempts by predators to gain the trust of minors online], racism and anything sexually explicit) that is against the game’s code of conduct and has no place in our games,” he says in an e-mail. Sony investigates such incidents and then warns or banishes players found to be in violation.Because Crisp only makes the software and does not operate online communities, the company doesn’t determine how brands handle misbehavior online. The technology can automate responses such as warning users, silencing them, or kicking them off, depending on the severity of the offenses and the user’s history on the site.
As more and more businesses create online communities around brands or use Facebook and Twitter for marketing, they’re facing risks that users could be harassed or offended on their forums, or use the sites to badmouth their brands. Hildreth suggests the problem Crisp was built to address will snowball. Says Hildreth, “Customer service in a public environment is a risk.”
To contact the reporter on this story: John Tozzi at jtozzi2@bloomberg.net
LAS VEGAS HOUSING DILEMMA
Wealthy Leaving Las Vegas Mansions as Foreclosure Pain Spreads
By - Apr 25, 2011 11:00 PM CT
Realtor Zar Zanganeh stands in the foyer of a luxury home previously owned by actor Nicolas Cage in Las Vegas. Photographer: Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg
April 26 (Bloomberg) -- A growing number of high-end homes are selling at a loss or facing repossession by lenders in Las Vegas, which already has the highest rate of foreclosure filings among large U.S. cities. The wave of defaults that began with subprime borrowers and the unemployed has spread to upscale homeowners who see no point of staying even if they can afford to. Bloomberg's Monica Bertran reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
The panoramic view from an infinity pool in the backyard of actor Nicolas Cage's forme Las Vegas home. Photographer: Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg
The master bedroom of Nicolas Cage's former home. Cage bought the seven-bedroom house for $8.5 million in 2006. By January 2010, it was in foreclosure. Photographer: Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg
The next owner, who property records show paid $4.2 million, has put the house on the market for $7.9 million -- an “unrealistic” price, according to Zar Zanganeh, the broker handling the listing.
“It’s sad,” Zanganeh said, his high-heeled boots clacking on the marble floor as he gave a tour of the 14,000-square-foot (1,300-square-meter) mansion featuring a six-person steam shower and a closet the size of a small apartment. “There’s a lot of inventory, a lot of homes like this waiting for an owner.”
A growing number of high-end homes are selling at a loss or facing repossession by lenders in Las Vegas, which already has the highest rate of foreclosure filings among large U.S. cities. The wave of defaults that began with subprime borrowers and the unemployed has spread to upscale homeowners who see no point of staying even if they can afford to.
In the 15 months through March, at least 25 houses in the Las Vegas area changed hands for more than $3 million, with at least seven doing so through foreclosure or by selling at a loss, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors and Clark County property records. In 2009, 14 homes sold for more than that amount, with one trading at a loss.
‘A Sucker’
In the first quarter, 30 Clark County homes with loans exceeding $1 million were repossessed by banks or bought by third-parties in foreclosure sales, up from 20 homes a year earlier, according to ForeclosureRadar.com, a Discovery Bay, California-based company that tracks defaults. Short sales, in which the bank agrees to accept less than the loan balance, and bank-owned properties accounted for about three-quarters of all home sales, according to the Las Vegas Realtors.“You feel like a sucker if you’re paying a $5 million mortgage on a house that’s worth $2 million,” Zanganeh, 28, said while showing the grounds of an 11-acre Las Vegas estate built by Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of the Sultan of Brunei. “These days, there are no traditional sales. They’re all short sales or bank-owned.”
The estate -- with 18 bedrooms, 36 bathrooms, a 20,000- bottle wine cellar, an 11-car garage and air-conditioned stables for 10 horses -- sold for $14 million in 2004 to Eric Petersen, who owned Consumer Credit Services Inc., a Las Vegas-based catalog-merchandising company that closed in 2008. Petersen, 44, said he spent $20 million to make the estate habitable.
Giving Up
It’s back on the block for $25 million -- $9 million less than his investment -- with an offer “for considerably less on the table,” Petersen said in a telephone interview from Las Vegas. He has slashed the listing price four times since October from an initial $37.5 million.“I gave up on Vegas,” Petersen said. “There’s no opportunity for anything in this town that I can see.”
Another listing with Zanganeh’s firm, Luxe Estates Collection, is a never-occupied, bank-owned mansion overlooking a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course in the gated Ridges community west of Las Vegas. The asking price is $3 million for the 8,550-square-foot house, which was repossessed in 2010 and had a $3.2 million mortgage from the Community Bank of Nevada, a lender seized by regulators in August 2009.
About 100 homes in the county are listed for $3 million or more, according to the Las Vegas Realtors, a five-year supply at the current sales pace.
‘Rolled the Dice’
In Nevada, 23 percent of delinquent borrowers said they “strategically defaulted,” or walked away from their homes by choice rather than necessity, according to a January report by the Nevada Association of Realtors.“It’s folks that feel the hopelessness of it all,” Rob Wigton, chief executive officer of the state association, said in a telephone interview from Reno. “They’ve rolled the dice and lost.”
The population of Clark County, home of Las Vegas, has fallen by about 16,000 from its estimated high of 1.97 million in 2008, according to the government-funded Nevada State Demographer. Almost 15 percent of homes in the county -- 125,000 residences -- were vacant, according to the 2010 Census, following a construction boom in the last decade that peaked with 39,000 housing permits issued in 2005.
Las Vegas home values have plunged 58 percent since the 2006 high-water mark, the most of the 20 metropolitan areas tracked by the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Prices fell 7.4 percent in March from a year earlier to a median $125,950, the Las Vegas Realtors reported April 8.
70% Underwater
Almost 70 percent of Las Vegas-area homeowners with mortgages were underwater at the end of 2010, meaning they owed more than the value of the property, according to CoreLogic Inc. (CLGX), a Santa Ana, California-based real estate information company. Among cities with a population of more than 200,000, Las Vegas has led the nation in the pace of foreclosure actions since November 2009, with one of every 31 homes receiving a filing in the first quarter of this year, RealtyTrac Inc., an information provider in Irvine, California, reported April 14.About 20 percent of Las Vegas homeowners seeking short sales owe at least $750,000, said Jamie Cogburn, a Las Vegas plaintiff’s attorney who said he has handled 350 such sales and is working on 200 more. One client is a doctor with a home now valued at about half of its $1 million mortgage, Cogburn said. The doctor earns enough to save for a 20 percent down payment on his next home within a few months at current prices, he said.
“People with a higher income can go buy another house,” Cogburn said in a telephone interview. “You’ve got to cut your losses at some point, just like with a stock.”
Four Weekends
Cage, who won an Academy Award for 1995’s “Leaving Las Vegas,” in which he portrays an alcoholic who drinks himself to death in the city, stayed in the house now being marketed by Zanganeh for four weekends, according to the broker.The actor sued his manager in October 2009 for placing him in “numerous highly speculative and risky real estate investments, resulting in Cage suffering catastrophic losses,” according to court filings. The manager, Samuel Levin, countersued, saying Cage ignored advice and “set off on a spending binge of epic proportions,” acquiring 15 homes, four yachts, an island in the Bahamas, a Gulfstream jet and millions of dollars of jewelry and art, according to a November 2009 complaint in state court in Los Angeles County. The case was settled out of court in August.
Cage, 47, who also starred in the 1992 film “Honeymoon in Vegas,” “is working and not doing press at this time,” his publicist, Samantha Hill, said in an e-mail. He was arrested in New Orleans on April 16 for domestic abuse and public drunkenness after arguing with his wife about the address of a house they are renting, according to a statement by the city’s police department.
Sales Pick Up
Las Vegas’s economic collapse has made it hard for many executives and business owners who own mansions to keep up with their mortgages, said Brian Gordon, a partner at Applied Analysis LLC, an economic-consulting firm in the city.“People on the lower end were forced out a long time ago,” he said. “People on the high end had a longer staying power. Now they’ve chewed through their resources.”
While high-end homes fall in price, total residential- property sales have accelerated, rising 8.2 percent in March from a year earlier to 4,316 units, the Las Vegas Realtors reported. More than half of this year’s purchases were all-cash transactions, a sign that investors are finding bargains at the low end of the market, said Robert Lang, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Making Lemonade
“Prices are below the cost of materials and labor,” said Lang, also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “If you’re betting the U.S. economy won’t go back to Armageddon, you might see one-third appreciation if you buy now.”Las Vegas’s affordable housing and warm weather will be the theme of a promotional campaign the city plans to use to attract out-of-town investors and potential new residents, Mayor Oscar Goodman said.
“We’re going to make lemonade out of this ‘crisis’ by promoting our foreclosures here,” Goodman, who’s stepping down in July after 12 years in office, said during an April 5 campaign party for his wife, Carolyn Goodman, a candidate to succeed her husband.
The city, he said, will be “showing the opportunities to people who are freezing to death in the middle of the country in the worst winter imaginable -- that they can come out here and buy a home at one-third what it cost five years ago and have a wonderful quality of life.”
To contact the reporter on this story: John Gittelsohn in New York at johngitt@bloomberg.net
Monday, April 25, 2011
DELL READIES 10-INCH TABLETS
Dell Readies 10-Inch Tablets to Fend off iPad
Dell is betting on Android and Windows 7 tablets to counter the surge in popularity of the Apple iPad.
Michael Dell shows off a new seven-inch Streak Android tablet. Photo: Hartmann StudiosA leaked roadmap suggests Dell has in store two Windows 7 tablets and a 10-inch Android Honeycomb tablet for release later this year, as the company aims to grab tablet market share. But despite keeping allegiance to Microsoft with Windows 7, Dell CEO Michael Dell says Android tablets will one day dominate the market.
The three Dell tablets, detailed courtesy of a presumed roadmap leak to the AndroidCentral blog, are reportedly set to arrive later this year, with the Android tablet, dubbed "Streak Pro," as early as June. The Streak Pro specs list a 10-inch display (1280 by 800 resolution), an Nvidia 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, with two microphones and two cameras for video recording and chatting, running on Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS for tablets. Dell won't go for a stock Android UI, but use instead its Stage 1.5 user interface.
The two Dell Windows 7 tablets are set to follow the Streak Pro: the 13-inch Latitude XT-3 in July, and the Latitude ST in October. The Latitude XT-3 will be a convertible tablet (like most pre-iPad tablet offerings), with Intel CPUs, 2GB of RAM, and a stylus, powered by Windows 7. The Latitude ST will feature an iPad-like design, an Intel Oak Trail 1.5Ghz processor, 2GB of RAM, up to 128GB SSD storage, dual cameras (1.3 megapixels front and 3 megapixels rear), claiming eight hours of battery life. Note that the leaked Dell roadmap is on par with an earlier leak, from the same blog in February.
It's unclear though why Dell insists on making Windows 7 tablets, especially as the company's CEO believes Android tablets will dominate the tablet market in a few years, like Android smartphones do now. Dell said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday about Android tablets outpacing iPads: "Not tomorrow. Not the next day. But again, if you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, "What is that?"And now there are more Android phones than iPhones. I don't see any reason why the same won't occur with Android tablets."
Dell also said that in the four years he has been back at the helm of the company, the sudden rise of the iPad took him by surprise: "I didn't completely see that coming. Tablets aren't really new, in the sense that the tablet PC idea's been around for a while. Obviously, more recent products have been much more successful."
Dell has already tried its hand at Android tablets last year, with little success, with the 5-inch Streak, a clunky hybrid tablet/smartphone. Marred with old software, high pricing and negative reviews, the original Streak was widely seen as a flop. The company also unveiled a 7-inch Streak tablet in January, running Android 2.2. Dell also experimented with a 10-inch tablet/netbook hybrid last year, called Inspiron Duo, running on Windows 7.
Michael Dell shows off a new seven-inch Streak Android tablet. Photo: Hartmann StudiosA leaked roadmap suggests Dell has in store two Windows 7 tablets and a 10-inch Android Honeycomb tablet for release later this year, as the company aims to grab tablet market share. But despite keeping allegiance to Microsoft with Windows 7, Dell CEO Michael Dell says Android tablets will one day dominate the market.The three Dell tablets, detailed courtesy of a presumed roadmap leak to the AndroidCentral blog, are reportedly set to arrive later this year, with the Android tablet, dubbed "Streak Pro," as early as June. The Streak Pro specs list a 10-inch display (1280 by 800 resolution), an Nvidia 1.2Ghz dual-core processor, with two microphones and two cameras for video recording and chatting, running on Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS for tablets. Dell won't go for a stock Android UI, but use instead its Stage 1.5 user interface.
The two Dell Windows 7 tablets are set to follow the Streak Pro: the 13-inch Latitude XT-3 in July, and the Latitude ST in October. The Latitude XT-3 will be a convertible tablet (like most pre-iPad tablet offerings), with Intel CPUs, 2GB of RAM, and a stylus, powered by Windows 7. The Latitude ST will feature an iPad-like design, an Intel Oak Trail 1.5Ghz processor, 2GB of RAM, up to 128GB SSD storage, dual cameras (1.3 megapixels front and 3 megapixels rear), claiming eight hours of battery life. Note that the leaked Dell roadmap is on par with an earlier leak, from the same blog in February.
It's unclear though why Dell insists on making Windows 7 tablets, especially as the company's CEO believes Android tablets will dominate the tablet market in a few years, like Android smartphones do now. Dell said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday about Android tablets outpacing iPads: "Not tomorrow. Not the next day. But again, if you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, "What is that?"And now there are more Android phones than iPhones. I don't see any reason why the same won't occur with Android tablets."Dell also said that in the four years he has been back at the helm of the company, the sudden rise of the iPad took him by surprise: "I didn't completely see that coming. Tablets aren't really new, in the sense that the tablet PC idea's been around for a while. Obviously, more recent products have been much more successful."
Dell has already tried its hand at Android tablets last year, with little success, with the 5-inch Streak, a clunky hybrid tablet/smartphone. Marred with old software, high pricing and negative reviews, the original Streak was widely seen as a flop. The company also unveiled a 7-inch Streak tablet in January, running Android 2.2. Dell also experimented with a 10-inch tablet/netbook hybrid last year, called Inspiron Duo, running on Windows 7.
Friday, April 22, 2011
New Mixtape: @YUNGROBP Raw Like Sushi Hosted By @DJKrisstyle
stamped by Coast2Coast as a stand out independent by recently endorsing his latest mixtape, "Raw Like Sushi" Hosted by DJ Krisstyle(HOT 104), Yung Ro is grinding! C2C which is a affiliate of Datpiff has also elected Yung Ro as one of sixteen stand out artists in a upcoming issue of HipHopWeekly. Check out his mixtape below!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
@caLICOJONEZ_SOD LETTER 2 SOULJA BOY S.O.D DEATH B4 DISHONOR
Calico Jonez Memphis SwishGang SOD Money Gang Death B4 Dishonor. New Mixtape "Get Rich Or Indicted Tryin" Drop This Summer. For more follow Calico Jonez on Twitter @CalicoJonez_SOD
Sunday, April 10, 2011
MARKETING TIPS FROM @RONALDSKELTON PART 7
Great & memorable brand stories contain the unexpected, touch your heart or dare you to live
When it comes to marketing, what you want is not important, what your potential customers want is critical.
a big part of #marketing is building the trust & rapport
#Marketing doesn't need to be hyped, untrue, or pushy. Just share the authentic benefits of your unique product or service
With hundreds maybe even thousands of ways to promote a business. The key is finding some marketing activities you enjoy.
Social Media is not a marketing strategy, It's a tactical method. Yet it's unique enough it should have its own strategic plan
Set a goal today to increase your marketing efforts by just one action. Done right each day...#win
I believe that persistent & consistent positive actions no matter how small or large are the key to success.
monitor "the story that's told" about your company. You can't impact what you don't understand
When it comes to marketing patience & persistence pay off
Guerrilla marketers are always intentional with our actions.
When it comes to marketing, what you want is not important, what your potential customers want is critical.
a big part of #marketing is building the trust & rapport
#Marketing doesn't need to be hyped, untrue, or pushy. Just share the authentic benefits of your unique product or service
With hundreds maybe even thousands of ways to promote a business. The key is finding some marketing activities you enjoy.
Social Media is not a marketing strategy, It's a tactical method. Yet it's unique enough it should have its own strategic plan
Set a goal today to increase your marketing efforts by just one action. Done right each day...#win
I believe that persistent & consistent positive actions no matter how small or large are the key to success.
monitor "the story that's told" about your company. You can't impact what you don't understand
When it comes to marketing patience & persistence pay off
Guerrilla marketers are always intentional with our actions.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
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