manage personal finances

A few years ago, the Internet experienced a video revolution. As broadband access expanded and more people began uploading content, video became an expected resource for consumers. Businesses could get more mileage out of television commercials and engage users by linking to video reviews of its products.

A year ago, we saw evidence of small and medium-sized business increasing budgets for video content – to be used both on their homepages and in advertisements. In 2009, 19% of businesses polled were using video (up from 5% in 2008) and I’m willing to bet that number will be much higher in the 2010 report that should come out later this month.

Now, as technology has become more affordable and increasingly mobile, we’re able to experience virtually anything online. As such, local search engines are evolving into master content synthesizers to meet the needs of consumers and advertisers alike – offering video and photos, local advertising deals, user reviews, QR codes, maps and directions, etc.

Consumer expectations of local search engines have never been higher. Users want to see photo and video reviews of a company’s products, read what other people have to say, and even take a virtual tour of your store or restaurant before they visit.

The same is true of small- and medium-sized business owners looking to find a competitive advantage. Local search engines are offering more dynamic content than ever before to users and it’s up to search marketers to help business owners feed that content.

It’s interesting to see how video content has changed since the advent of YouTube. Instead of traditional video advertising, we’re seeing new technology that lets users look around your business from their own home. Soon, we’ll be able to find virtual creations of almost any environment online – and those virtual tours are being integrated with current deals and other advertising promotions to drive traffic to your business.

Recently, a company called EveryScape partnered with Bing and YP to offer digital advertisers a new local search solution – virtual tours. For example, YP360 will let a user step inside a restaurant in Baltimore while they’re still on the train. They can choose a place and even set a reservation, all within the same application on their phone.

Google Earth has gone indoors and local search engines are responsible for bringing this detailed and vivid content to users while keeping it simple and accessible. And the business case for offering this new content to users and advertisers alike is clear as local advertising is expected to grow to $16.1 billion this year, up from $13.7 billion in 2010.

Even more, mobile phone advertising spending is expected to be more than a billion dollars in 2011, up 48% from 2010. Local search engines like YP and Yelp! are seeing over 20 million visitors a month, many of them accessing via mobile phones.

This is a great opportunity for local search engines and advertisers to embrace this new technology and get ahead of the pack. Effective local advertising goes beyond building a social networking presence and listing in directories – you have to make sure your content is engaging. In the online world, the savviest local search marketers who use this technology well will have the most successful campaigns.

I recommend that any business owner or local search marketer read up on the latest digital advertising solutions and consider offering your customers virtual tours of your products or store. To set your business apart, you need to stay current with the best that local search has to offer.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Locals Only

Another day, another honking big funding for another online start-up (and yet another broken embargo too!).

It’s like Groundhog Day in Silicon Valley as usual.

Today, Cambridge, Mass.-based HubSpot wins tech’s version of the lottery, grabbing $32 million from Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and also Salesforce.com.

It is unclear what the valuation for HubSpot is now, although it is likely high given it has raised $65 million now.

HubSpot makes marketing software for businesses, who use it to find prospects and generate leads, along with tools to analyze the process. It claims it has “4,000 customers, over 50 percent market share, five million leads managed, and 70 million page views tracked monthly.”

The Series D financing included HubSpot’s existing venture investors–General Catalyst Partners, Matrix Partners, and Scale Venture Partners–and part of it will be used to cash out existing shareholders. In previous rounds, the start-up has raised $33 million.

Here is the official press release:

Sequoia, Google Ventures, and Salesforce.com Invest $32 Million in HubSpot

Marketing Software Company Attracts New Strategic Investors

CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – March 8, 2011)–Today, for the first time ever, Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and Salesforce.com all invested together in one company, providing HubSpot with a Series D round of financing through a $32 million investment. HubSpot provides all-in-one marketing software used by over 4,000 businesses to get found by more prospects, convert them into leads and sales, and analyze the entire marketing process.

“The fundamental way that people shop, learn, and buy has changed radically in the last few years. HubSpot helps transform the way businesses market from outbound marketing (cold calls, email blasts, and direct mail) to inbound marketing (Google, blogs, social media, mobile, etc.),” said Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot.

Sequoia Capital has a long history of partnering with founders to help them build long-term, multi-billion dollar companies, including Google, LinkedIn, AdMob, YouTube, Yahoo!, Apple, and Oracle. “We back companies that are transforming their industries,” said Jim Goetz, General Partner at Sequoia Capital. “HubSpot is the emerging category leader in the SaaS marketing sector. Their customer base exceeds that of all the other relevant marketing software companies combined, including Eloqua, Marketo, Genius, and Manticore.”

“Today, every company needs to succeed in search, social, sales, and marketing–I can’t think of a more powerful trifecta than Google, Salesforce.com, and HubSpot. With 4,000 customers, HubSpot is already a clear marketing leader–now, with this new infusion of capital and recognition by Google’s venture arm and Salesforce.com, HubSpot has a great opportunity to separate itself from the pack and become the leading marketing platform in the small and medium business space,” said Brent Leary, co-founder of CRM Essentials.

Google Ventures Partner, Rich Miner (formerly co-founder of Android) said, “We agree with HubSpot’s belief that search engines, social media, and mobile devices have fundamentally changed how businesses should market themselves. We’re thrilled to support their efforts to help thousands of small and medium businesses reach potential customers.”

Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO of HubSpot commented, “We founded the company based on a simple premise: Businesses want an easy-to-use, complete and integrated marketing platform that helps them get more leads and customers. We plan to use this new capital to further invest in this ambitious vision and further our existing lead in the marketing software category.”

Surface Encounters

Report: NFLPA to soon begin paying players

The NFL Players Association will reportedly begin paying players in need from its lockout fund beginning April 15.

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Take Two: Donald Trump Releases Official Birth Certificate - The Note

Donald Trump learned the hard way this week that if you're going to call on the president to release his official birth certificate, you'd better do the same. The Note, authored by ABC News' Amy Walter and Michael Falcone, ...

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autosport.com - NASCAR <b>News</b>: Raikkonen to compete in NASCAR

Former Formula 1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen will make a surprising move to NASCAR this year, the Finn joining the series with a new team.

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Dirty Percent

Tuesday, 1 March 2011

It’s not hard to make the case that Apple’s new in-app subscription system offers numerous benefits to users, developers, and publishers. But whatever those benefits, they stem from the mere existence of these new subscription APIs. What’s controversial is the size of Apple’s cut: 30 percent.

No one is arguing that Apple shouldn’t get some cut of in-app purchases that go through iTunes. And, if Apple were taking a substantially smaller cut, there would be substantially fewer people objecting to Apple’s rules (that subscription-based publishing apps must use the system; that they can’t link to their external sign-up web page from within the app; and that they must offer in-app subscribers the same prices available outside the app).

The reasonable arguments against Apple’s policies seem to be:

• Apple should be taking less, perhaps far less, than 30 percent.




• Apple should not require subscription-based apps to use the in-app subscription APIs. If it’s a good deal for publishers, they’ll choose to use the system on their own.




• Apple should not require price-matching from subscription offers outside the app. Publishers should be allowed to charge iOS users more money to cover Apple’s cut.




• Apple should consider business models that simply can’t afford a 70/30 revenue split.

Let’s consider these in reverse order.

Apple Should Consider Business Models That Can’t Afford a 70/30 Revenue Split

Apple doesn’t give a damn about companies with business models that can’t afford a 70/30 split. Apple’s running a competitive business; competition is cold and hard. And who exactly can’t afford a 70/30 split? Middlemen. It’s not that Apple is opposed to middlemen — it’s that Apple wants to be the middleman. It’s difficult to expect them to be sympathetic to the plights of other middlemen.

Some of these apps and services that are left out might be ones that iOS users enjoy, though. This is the leading argument for how this new policy will in fact hurt users, and, as a result, Apple itself: it’ll drive good apps off the platform. Frequently mentioned examples: Netflix and Kindle. For all we know, though, Netflix may well be fine with this policy. Apple would only get a 30 percent cut of new subscriptions that go through the Netflix iOS app, and that might be a bounty Netflix can live with in exchange for more subscribers. Keep in mind, too, that Netflix and Apple seemingly get along well enough that Netflix is built into the Apple TV system software.

Kindle, and e-book platforms in general, are a different case. For one thing, Kindle doesn’t use subscriptions. Kindle offers purchases. Presumably, given Apple’s rejection of Sony’s e-book platform app last month, Apple is going to insist on the same rules for in-app purchases through apps like Kindle as they do for in-app subscriptions. If so, something’s got to give. The “agency model” through which e-books are sold requires the bookseller to give the publisher 70 percent of the sale price. So if the publisher gets 70 and Apple gets 30, that leaves a big fat nothing for Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, or anyone else selling books through native iOS apps — other than iBooks, of course.

But leaving aside the revenue split, there are technical limitations as well. The existing in-app purchasing system in iOS has a technical limit of 3,500 catalog items. I.e. any single app can offer no more than 3,500 items for in-app purchase. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of Kindle titles.

Something’s got to give here. I don’t know what, but there must be more news on this front coming soon. I don’t believe Apple wants to chase competing e-book platforms off the App Store.

Apple Should Not Require Price Matching

Why not allow developers and publishers to set their own prices for in-app subscriptions? One reason: Apple wants its customers to get the best price — and, to know that they’re getting the best price whenever they buy a subscription through an app. It’s a confidence in the brand thing: with Apple’s rules, users know they’re getting the best price, they know they’ll be able to unsubscribe easily, and they know their privacy is protected.

Credit card companies insist on similar rules: retailers pay a processing fee for every credit card transaction, but the credit card companies insist that these fees not be passed on to the customer. Customers pay the same price as they would if they used cash — which encourages them to use their credit card liberally. (Going further, many charge cards offer cash back on each purchase — they can do this because the cash-back percentage refunded to the customer is less than the transaction processing fee paid by the retailer.)

So the same-price rule is good for the user, and good for Apple. But Matt Drance argues that Apple could dissipate much of this subscription controversy by waiving this rule:

The requirement that IAP content be offered “at the same price
or less than it is offered outside the app,” combined with the
70/30 split, means developers must make less money off of iOS by
definition. They can’t price their IAP content higher to offset
the commission, nor can they price their own retail content lower.

If I am interpreting this correctly, I can’t bring myself to see
it as reasonable. […] I think a great deal of this drama could
go away if Apple dropped section 11.13 while keeping section
11.14: Your prices on your store are your business; just don’t
be a jerk and advertise the difference all over ours.

And I agree with him. Yes, the same-price rule is good for users and for Apple, but waiving this rule wouldn’t be particularly bad for users or for Apple, either — and it would give publishers some freedom to experiment.

I suspect one reason Apple won’t budge is that their competitors — like Amazon — insist on best-price matching.

Apple Should Not Require Apps to Offer In-App Subscriptions

I’m sympathetic to this argument, too. “If you don’t like our terms, don’t use our subscription system.” But it has occurred to me that this entire in-app subscription debate mirrors the debate surrounding the App Store itself back in 2008 — that 30 percent was too large a cut for Apple to take, that it shouldn’t be mandatory, etc. The same way many developers wanted (and still want) a way to sell native iOS apps on their own, outside the App Store, many publishers now want a way to sell subscriptions on their own, outside the App Store.

The fact is, the App Store is an all-or-nothing affair. You play by Apple’s rules or you stick to web apps through Mobile Safari. This alternative is no different for periodical publishers than it was (and remains) for app developers in general. A lot of these demands boil down to a desire for more autonomy for native iOS app developers. Apple has never shown any interest in that.

There’s one striking difference between the subscription controversy today and the App Store controversy in 2008: with subscriptions, Apple is taking away the ability to do something that they previously allowed. There was never a supported way to install native apps for iOS before the App Store. Subscriptions sold outside the App Store, on the other hand, were allowed until last month.

Apple Should Be Taking Less, Possibly Far Less, Than 30 Percent

Another difference between the App Store itself and in-app subscriptions is that with apps, Apple hosts and serves the downloads. Apple covers the bandwidth, even for gargantuan gigabyte-or-larger 99-cent games. The OS handles installation.

With in-app subscriptions (and purchases), however, the app developer is responsible for hosting the content, and for writing the code to download, store, and manage it. So — one reasonable argument goes — given that Apple is doing less for subscription content than it does for apps (or for music and movies purchased through iTunes), Apple should take less of the money.

Taken further, the argument boils down to this: that for in-app subscriptions and purchases, Apple is serving only as a payment processer — and thus, a reasonable fee for transactions would be in the small single digits — 3, 4, maybe 5 percent, say. More or less something along the lines of what PayPal charges.

Apple, I think it’s clear, doesn’t see it this way. Apple sees the entire App Store, along with all native iOS apps, as an upscale, premium software store: owned, controlled, and managed like a physical shopping mall. Brick and mortar retailers don’t settle for a single-digit cut of retail prices; neither does the App Store.

Seth Godin argues that Apple’s 30 percent cut is too big to allow publishers to profit:

Except Apple has announced that they want to tax each subscription
made via the iPad at 30%. Yes, it’s a tax, because what it does is
dramatically decrease the incremental revenue from each
subscriber. An intelligent publisher only has two choices: raise
the price (punishing the reader and further cutting down
readership) or make it free and hope for mass (see my point above
about the infinite newsstand). When you make it free, it’s all
about the ads, and if you don’t reach tens or hundreds of
thousands of subscribers, you’ll fail.

Godin’s logic strikes me as questionable. For one thing, he freely switches between a newsstand metaphor (arguing, perhaps accurately, that the App Store is too large for publishers to gain attention from potential readers in the first place — you won’t read what you never notice) and the economics of subscriptions. But subscribers are the opposite of newsstand readers. Newsstand readers are buying a single copy, often on impulse. Subscribers are readers who are already hooked, and who know what they want. Put another way, the size of Apple’s cut of subscription revenue — whether it were higher or lower — has no bearing on the “attention at the newsstand” problem.

Second, the problem facing traditional publishers today is that circulation is falling. Newsstand sales and subscriptions are falling, under pressure from free-of-charge websites and other forms of digital content. The idea with Apple’s 70-30 revenue split is that developers and publishers can make it up in volume — that people aren’t just somewhat more willing to pay for content through iTunes than other online content stores, they are far more willing. The idea is that Apple has cracked a nut no one else1 has — they’ve created an ecosystem where hundreds of millions of people are willing to pay for digital content. Thus, potentially, publishers won’t just make more money keeping only 70 percent of subscription fees generated through iOS apps than they are now with 96 percent (or whatever they’re left with after payment processing fees) of subscription fees they’re selling on their own — they stand to make a lot more money.

I’m not guaranteeing or even predicting that it’s going to work out that way. I’m just saying that’s Apple’s proposition.

Godin’s assumption is that iOS in-app subscriptions won’t significantly increase the number of subscribers. If he’s right about that, then he’s right that Apple’s 30 percent cut will prove too expensive for publishers. But Apple’s bet is that in-app subscriptions can dramatically increase the number of subscribers. Consider the app landscape. Apple’s 30 percent cut didn’t drive the price of paid apps up — the nature of the App Store drove prices down. It’s a volume game.

The App Store itself proves that Apple might be right. Like with app sales, in-app subscriptions won’t work for every publication. But it could work for many. It really is possible to make it up in volume.

And if a 70-30 split for in-app subscription revenue doesn’t work, the price will come down. That’s how capitalism works. You choose a price and see how it goes. I’ll admit — when the App Store launched in 2008, I thought Apple’s 70-30 split was skewed too heavily in Apple’s favor. Not that it was wrong in any moral sense, but that it was wrong in a purely economic sense: that it might be more than developers would be willing to bear. Apple, clearly, has a better sense about what prices the market will bear than I (and, likely, you) do.

Competition vs. Anti-Competition

One last argument I’ve seen regarding these in-app subscription rules is that it’s further evidence of anti-competitive behavior from Apple. That makes sense only if you consider iOS to be the entire field of play. Apple, though, is competing at a higher level. They’re competing between platforms: iOS vs. Kindle/Amazon vs. Android/Google vs. Microsoft, and in some ways, vs. the free web. Why should publishers make an app rather than just a mobile web site? For happier customers and more money.

Sony has a platform for e-books. Amazon has a platform for e-books. Barnes & Noble has a platform for e-books. Apple has a platform for e-books. But Apple is the only one which allows its competitors to have apps on its devices. And Apple is the anti-competitive one? I’m no lawyer, but if the iTunes Music store hasn’t yet been deemed a monopoly with Apple selling 70+ percent of digital music players, then I doubt the App Store will be deemed a monopoly for a market where Apple has never been — and, according to market share trends, may never be — the top-selling smartphone maker, let alone own a majority of the market, let alone own more than a single-digit sliver of the phone market as a whole. As for ruthless profiteering, consider that Amazon, with their e-book publishing, originally took the fat end of a 70-30 revenue split with authors.

One question I’ve been asked by several DF readers who object to Apple’s new in-app subscription and purchasing policies goes like this: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple to pay them 30 percent for every purchase made through iTunes on Windows? To that, I say: good luck with that. Microsoft couldn’t make such a change by fiat. The whole premise of Windows (and other personal computer systems) is that it is open to third-party software. Apple couldn’t just flip a switch and make Mac OS X a controlled app console system like iOS — they had to introduce the Mac App Store as an alternative to traditional software installation. If Microsoft introduced something similar to the Mac App Store for Windows, Apple would simply eschew it. If Microsoft were to mandate an iOS App Store-like total control policy for all Windows software, they’d have a revolt in their user base that would make Vista look like a success.

iOS isn’t and never was an open computer system. It’s a closed, controlled console system — more akin to Playstation or Wii or Xbox than to Mac OS X or Windows. It is, in Apple’s view, a privilege to have a native iOS app.

This is what galls some: Apple is doing this because they can, and no other company is in a position to do it. This is not a fear that in-app subscriptions will fail because Apple’s 30 percent slice is too high, but rather that in-app subscriptions will succeed despite Apple’s (in their minds) egregious profiteering. I.e. that charging what the market will bear is somehow unscrupulous. To the charge that Apple Inc. is a for-profit corporation run by staunch capitalists, I say, “Duh”.

If it works, Apple’s 30-percent take of in-app subscriptions will prove as objectionable in the long run as the App Store itself: not very.

With the company’s future already clouded by Steve Jobs’ latest medical leave, the possibility of the iPad’s chief designer, Jonathan Ive, cashing out ups the uncertainty, Dan Lyons writes.

Is Apple losing its design guru?

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced in January that he would take a third medical leave, the biggest concern was the cloud of uncertainty that hovered over the company. Now that uncertainty has become an issue again, as rumors have started swirling that Apple might lose its chief designer, Jonathan Ive. 

Apple's head designer Jonathan Ive poses for a portrait on January 27, 2010 in Cupertino, California. (Photo by Paul Harris / Newscom)

Reports in Ive’s native England suggest that the man who oversaw the design of the iPhone and iPad wants to spend more time in the U.K., putting him at odds with Apple’s board enough that he would consider leaving the company. Although Ive and Apple won’t comment, the scenario is plausible for two reasons: First, Ive is about to cash in options valued at $30 million that he was granted in 2008; and second, Ive has an especially close relationship with Jobs. 

Whether Ive stays or goes, the brouhaha shows the challenges that Apple is increasingly likely to face given the questions about Jobs’ role in the coming months. One scenario being bandied about by Apple-watchers suggests Ive is making a power play to succeed Jobs; it seems just as likely, however, that he simply may not want to work at Apple if Jobs isn’t there. 

Still others think the entire notion that Ive might leave is completely unfounded. But either way, the whole incident shows how the Jobs health situation is bringing more drama to a company that, until now, has been a model of tight-lipped discipline.

Apple’s products are famous for their sleek designs, and conventional wisdom holds that losing Ive would be a terrible blow to Apple—“Apple’s worst nightmare,” Britain’s Guardian called it. But the truth is, losing Ive may not be as big a deal as some Apple watchers think.

For one thing, Apple has loads of bench strength in every department, and because of its success it can attract just about anyone it wants.

“How much of this is Steve, how much is Jon, how much someone else? Steve always had an eye for design. The designer is only as good as the client,” says Jean-Louis Gassée.

For another, the real genius behind Apple’s designs might not be Ive—but rather Jobs.

That’s the educated guess of Jean-Louis Gassée, a former top executive at Apple and a longtime close watcher of the company who still has many connections there.

Gassée points out that Ive was already working at Apple when Jobs returned to the company in 1996. Ive joined the company in 1992, when Jobs was gone from the company, having been ousted by the board in 1985.

And before Jobs returned to Apple, Ive wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire. The first products that Ive designed under Jobs were the “Bondi Blue” iMac and the somewhat ugly iBook. Ive’s next products, the "desk lamp" Mac and the early metal laptops, were better looking, Gassée says.

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Recognizing Women's History Month, New Deal 2.0 tells the surprising story of how women became citizens -- and how their economic lives have evolved along with their rights. Allida Black urges action on UN Resolution 1325, which ensures equal citizenship for women across the globe.

The monumental elections of Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia), Roza Otunbayeva (Krygyzstan), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), and Prime Minister Julia Gillard (Australia) and the game-changing appointments of Dr. Michelle Bachelet as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNWomen and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State proved that women can govern, run preeminent human rights organizations, set international policy, and place women at the center of diplomacy, development, and peace.

But the question remains -- if women can be president, why can't they be citizens? Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and in rights." Yet it took another twenty years after its signing to get the international conventions on political and civil rights and on economic, social and cultural rights -- and, in the United States, another twenty plus years for Congress to adopt legislation ensuring women's political and economic rights. It took another thirteen years for the United Nations to ratify (without the support of the United States) the Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination against Women. And in 2011, the US House of Representatives and other foreign governing bodies still toy with legislation essential to women's identities, ranging from limiting access to reproductive health services and marriage to crafting sentencing guidelines that treat girls and women as felons and charges those that have abducted and abused them with misdemeanors.

In a 1946 column, written before she joined the UN Commission on Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt urged women to "call on the Governments of the world to encourage women everywhere to take a more conscious part in national and international affairs, and on women to come forward and share in the work of peace and reconstruction as they did in the war and resistance." More than fifty years later, at the dawn of a new century, the UN Security Council -- pressured by a well-organized international women's lobby, Hillary Clinton, and other stateswomen and embarrassed by the rampant use of rape and genital dismemberment as tools of war -- adopted Resolution 1325. It urged "Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict."

Now ten years later, the campaign -- indeed the struggle -- to enforce this resolution rages across the United States as much as it does across Egypt or the Congo or Afghanistan.

It is tempting to construct this resolution narrowly -- to see it as a tool of armistice rather than reconstruction, as a vehicle to protect women rather than empower them. To do so, to paraphrase Albus Dumbledore, would be to do what is easy rather than what is right.

UN1325 is on the front line in the campaign for women's citizenship. It is a battle to ensure that economic, social and cultural rights cannot be divorced from, or considered separately from, political and civil rights. It is the struggle to reclaim democracy promotion away from post-Cold War politics, self-interested development and the campaign against terror and place it at the heart of citizen participation.

Just as important, it is a campaign to ensure women's rights as citizens as much as it is a campaign to force governments to act responsibly to all its citizens. While equality and human dignity have no sex, policy designed without taking stock of gender differences often perpetuates discrimination.

As Eleanor Roosevelt would say, both citizens and governments must "recognize that the goal of full participation in the life and responsibilities of their countries and of the world community is a common objective" and one "which the women of the world should assist one another" in achieving.



This post originally appeared on New Deal 2.0.

What is your social media brand? Do you have one? Sure, many small business owners and entrepreneurs are coming around to the enormous importance of social media as a marketing, customer service, and, yes, even sales tool. But if you haven’t thought about how social media can define your brand, you are probably missing a HUGE part of what social media tools can do for your business. Here’s more…

Tools & Techniques

Creating a great brand with these blog tools. Tools that improve the look and functionality of your blog also improve your brand. A well-maintained small business blog is one of the most obvious and least expensive branding tools at the entrepreneur’s disposal even more so than social media channels like Facebook and Twitter because of how a blog can be customized to fit your needs and personality. This list of tools is a great way to start. EpicLaunch

What Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi can teach you about social media. One of the stars of the hit reality show “Jersey Shore”, “Snooki” is a perfect example of personal brand, but social media entrepreneurs could also learn much about building their own online presence from Snooki. Being yourself and using a simple, short tag to indelibly brand your identity are also great techniques in social media. One site is already trying to apply the starlets techniques in the social media space. Brand-Yourself

Tito Philips doesn’t want your comments on his blog! At least, not if they’re the wrong kind. And the wrong kind would be comments left for no other purpose than to get the blogger and his/her readers to visit your blog and perhaps comment on it in return. Why is comment trading bad? Don’t get Tito started! There are many ways to engage in social media marketing. Be sure you understand and respect some of the attitudes you may face. Blogging Bookshelf  

News & Trends

The best of the best. Want to get a look at arguably the 20 best Facebook fan pages for business on the planet? By now you should know the value of a Facebook fan page to your branding efforts. What’s also true, however, is that not all Facebook sites are created equal. If you want to take your social media marketing to the next level, have a look at this list of cream of the crop sites. Inc.com

Even churches use social media marketing! In this article on the growing market for tech services among religious organizations, we learn that many churches have also already entered into the social media space. As houses of worship, particularly huge mega-churches, expand and build congregations, it’s easy to see how social media can work as a marketing tool here as well. Is your religious organization using social media for branding? WSJ

Tips & Tricks

20 tips that will make you a Twitter star. Among the tools popular in the new digital space is Twitter. The microblogging platform can be used for business or non-business purposes and it can be the key to your small business’s success. Learn how to use Twitter like a pro and you may be surprised at the benefits your small business gains as a result. Global Copywriting

Valuable lessons in social media. Gary Vaynerchuk, author of The Thank You Economy and a successful social media entrepreneur in his own right, has many insights to share with small business leaders seeking a new way to define their brands in an age of social communications. Read some of the takeaways Vaynerchuk shares with those trying to define their businesses with social media. E-Marketing Associates

Success Stories

Doubt the power of FB to create brand for almost anyone? You won’t after you read the story of Princeton English Professor Jeff Nunokawa and “Jeffbook”, a collection of 3,221 brief literary essays on Facebook, that have created an incredible cult status for Nunokawa in the process. His motivation? Not too different from those of most marketers. Nunokawa simply started sharing where he knew his audience already spent lots of their time. The results speak for themselves. Fast Company

Increase exposure with niche social media. Blogger Mavis Nong talks about the importance of niche social media sites including social bookmarking sites as a key method of creating exposure for your online business. Mavis talks about her experience with our sister site BizSugar.com (thanks for the shout out! ) and explains how smaller more focused social sites can sometimes have a surprising impact even larger than the big guys. Attraction Marketing Online

Opportunities

Sponsors wanted for new SugarTone Sweet Business Blogging Contest. Put the power of social media to work for your brand. We’re looking for sponsors to help with a brand new blogging contest involving two of the fastest growing small business communities on the Web, BizSugar.com and Bloggertone.com. Learn more about the contest by reading the full announcement and get in touch today! BizSugar Blog

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Jon Stewart Calls Out NBC <b>News</b> For Not Reporting on GE&#39;s $0 Tax <b>...</b>

On Friday, The New York Times reported that General Electric paid no U.S. federal income tax in 2010, despite earning $14.2 billion in profits. While.

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This Week&#39;s Health Industry <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com

A look at what's coming up in the drug and health fields.

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Making Money Work

By Richard Smith, a recovering capital markets IT specialist

Housing Wire’s Paul Jackson has another post up continuing his row with Yves over securitization chain of title issues. It presents itself as a rebuttal of her previous post, about an Alabama trial court decision that Jackson deems to be a significant defeat, but which Yves and more recently Adam Levitin have argued is both insignificant and not very relevant.

Normally I’d leave the two of them to slug it out. However, Jackson’s weekend submission, in which he says he is “going to address her latest talking points” piqued my interest. Rather than addressing any of the substance of the post itself, he mounts a bizarre attack on the motives of the attorneys behind the Alabama case, based on a pretty peculiar interpretation of one of Yves’ comments to the post. The comment:

Are you kidding? Each side spent over $250K on this case. Trials where you are making real legal arguments, as opposed to presenting papers for a judge to approve, are costly. And Alabama billing rates are a lot lower than in other states. For borrower’s counsel, since the borrower has no money, the “spent” is what their time was worth plus hard dollar expenses (experts witnesses and so on). They are out the real out of pocket real costs.

The banks’ lawyer gets paid, so yes, this is an epic fail for the bank. I’ve mentioned this in other posts. The more borrowers fight cases, the more loss severities are gonna rise. Investors already are losing 70% on the average foreclosure and housing prices are projected to fall further in most states this year. If on top of that they start having more cases with 300% losses on foreclosure, investors might wake up and finally do something a lot more serious to pressure servicers.

Sooo…bank attorneys run up a tab fighting a foreclosure in a pretty obscure courthouse, that results in a 300% loss to investors, when all the borrower’s attorney wanted was the house back and a loan modification. The big numbers are the result of the bank attorney’s posture, and of eleventh hour moves that many judges would have rejected: introducing an allonge on the eve of the trial. This was clearly a bad economic result for the borrowers’ attorney! It was not hard to see that the trial had become a war of escalation, with the bank’s attorney in an ideal position to up the ante. The post makes clear that unlike the bank’s lawyers, borrower’s counsel was “out”, in hard dollar terms, vastly less than the total, which would have to include the opportunity cost of unpaid for billing time.

For Jackson this somehow becomes the basis for a statement of his worldview: that everyone is greedy, ergo these attorneys must be too! In his own words:

Morality and the accompanying emotions to that noble love of justice are simply a varnish for the fires of greed. In other words, everything is about the money, and if you can find a viable angle to make more of it than someone else. And I mean everything.

Taking guidance from this exceedingly dubious, indeed self-refuting claim (if it’s all about the money, we can’t trust Jackson either, can we?) is quite foolish. In fact Jackson doesn’t really believe it either: elsewhere in his oeuvre, we find a bizarre exception to his rule:

Believe it or not, mortgage servicing is a noble industry. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be. Even in managing borrower defaults and repossessing property, there is something noble to the work, underneath it all — and it comes from following the law, enforcing contracts, ensuring that our nation’s system of property rights maintains its integrity for all Americans.

Though it could be that he’s just slapping a spot of varnish, on some fires of greed, for the money; I do hope that varnish isn’t flammable, Mr Jackson, or you may decide you are underpaid.

At any rate, armed only with his distractingly inept imagery and his defective moral compass, Jackson sets out on a fishing trip, in his latest, and gets hopelessly lost almost immediately:

Yves tries to suggest that in writing about the Congress case I was claiming “Mission Accomplished,” attempting to associate me with an infamous Dubya moment during the far-from-over war in Iraq. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you have the attention span of a gnat, you might take this at face value. On the other hand, the very next sentence says this:

Yves spends a fair amount of time suggesting that the effect of the Congress case elsewhere will be muted, if it has any effect all. In attempting to minimize the relevance of this case, however, what she misses is an important reality: that the defense here saw fit to mount one in the first place.

So make your mind up, Mr Jackson: is the case widely relevant or not?

Or was the choice of court and case, perchance, simply something of a goof by some attorneys looking to develop a theory that might have more lucrative applications? That’s one sensible conclusion you could draw, and a basic step in puzzling that out, that does not even occur to Jackson, is doing some minimal research and actually looking up the plaintiff’s lawyers. And the idea that deep pockets types would go to of all places Alabama, not exactly known for cutting edge jurisprudence or friendliness to consumers, and hire two no-name attorneys to represent a black borrower, is beyond belief. If you are Jackson, though, you skip the homework, or the sanity check, and go for the ASF paranoia:

In many ways, the plight of the distressed borrower is a convenient lever to pull if — for example— you’re a buyside Wall Street firm that decided to load up with cheap nonagency mortgage-backed securities in the wake of the market’s collapse, betting on a mechanism that could open the door to damage claims and settlements worth more than the securities themselves. Or maybe a mortgage insurer looking for novel ways to repudiate claims en masse.

I’m not at all suggesting that’s what went on here…

I have a suggestion straight back at Mr Jackson: if you want to not suggest something, the best way is simply not to make the suggestion. Otherwise, it looks as if you’re trying to have it both ways.  Keeping the accusation vague is a smart move, admittedly, if you happen to be a bit clueless and not very brave. Bill Gross for one has made the trade that Jackson mentions, but does Jackson actually mean Bill Gross? He doesn’t say. Perhaps he doesn’t want Bill Gross on his case.

Yves by contrast doesn’t care a bit, roundly dissing Mr Gross’s self interested utterances. Ultimately, Jackson is too vague to be interesting here: it’s just a smear. As for the mortgage insurer theory: there’s no evidence for that either; just Tom Adam’s prior employment history and his occasional contributions at this blog. Mortgage insurers can make claims directly, on the very same theory that Naked Capitalism and the Congressional Oversight Panel have discussed. They have no reason to test a theory on a case in a largely irrelevant jurisdiction. And there are business reasons that the monolines are going the putback case route rather than this one. Remember that most of the MBS exposure (excluding CDOs) that monolines have is via HELOCs or second liens. That may put them in a position similar to that of the big banks: unwilling to take action on the first lien mortgages for fear of write downs on the second liens.

Yes, Bill Gross and MBIA and others are out there. And if they want to work the legals to make some money, or claw some back, they, or others like them, will. It’s really hard to see why the output of “Naked Capitalism” would so heavily in their ruminations as to be worth paying for (if that is what Jackson’s insinuating: he doesn’t seem to be able to bring himself to spell it out).

All of this stuff of Jackson’s is irrelevant and pretty much content-free;  but still, it’s an interesting glimpse of sell-side anxieties.

So what really matters about this case? Three things: the unfortunate Erica Congress, who has had her hopes dashed twice over now, once when she couldn’t pay her mortgage and a second time when she was turfed out of her house; and two blithe but pernicious affirmations by the judge: first, that an allonge doesn’t have to be affixed to the note, which just opens up the floodgates for document fabrication, and second that “digital signatures” are valid endorsements to the note.

Unfortunately, neither Jackson nor the judge seem to grasp the difference between a digital signature, “a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document”, as Wikipedia has it, and a digitally reproduced signature, a simulacrum that can be knocked up in minutes by any sad sack in a servicer that can use Photoshop, Word, and a laser printer, and doesn’t authenticate anything at all, least of all a transfer of title. Using 21st century technology to recreate a state of screwed-up title that hasn’t existed in anglophone countries since the mid-17th century is nothing to crow about, Mr Jackson. As a citizen of the US, it ought to make your blood run cold. It’s not just about the money.

At any rate, the more this stuff is talked about, the more lawyers (in less frivolous jurisdictions) will furrow their brows about the damage being done to the integrity of basic property transfers. So we will keep the pot boiling.

I know that memories are short on Wall Street. But are they short on Main Street too? Reading Linda Stern’s latest paean to leverage and housing risk, it certainly seems that way. Saving for a down payment is hard, she says. It can take time!

And that doesn’t seem to pay. If you think about the cost of paying rent for five or more years, you may be better off jumping into a home with a low down payment now. That’s true even if you have to spend more money on fees and mortgage insurance to get one of those low down payment loans.

Well, yes, let’s think about the cost of paying rent for five or more years. In fact, let’s plug all our numbers into a rent-vs-buy calculator and see where we’re at after five years. The problem with Linda’s formulation here is that it helps to reinforce the common fallacy that 100% of rent payments are “wasted,” in a way that mortgage payments are not. But that’s simply not true. In both cases you’re paying money every month for your shelter; in the rental case that money goes to the landlord, while in the ownership case it goes to the bank.

Some small part of your monthly payment may or may not end up helping you build equity in your home, if house prices move up rather than down and depending on how much of your payment goes towards principal. But remember that the alternative here is saving up for a down payment — which is essentially the same thing as building up equity in a future home. If you save up $250 per month for five years and then put down $15,000 as a down payment, then you immediately start off with $15,000 of equity in your home. By contrast, if you buy today with no money down and start making mortgage payments, there’s a good chance your equity will be much less than $15,000 in five years’ time.

But Linda’s on a roll here, and manages to come out with one of the most astonishing pieces of personal-finance advice I’ve seen since the crisis hit:

Even if you have the money for a bigger down payment, there can be good reasons to save your cash. Mortgage rates continue to skirt all-time lows: Why not put your money to work for yourself and borrow as much as you can reasonably afford, on a monthly basis, at today’s rates? You can put the money you’re not paying into a down payment to work elsewhere. If home values rise, you will have done your best to leverage a small down payment into bigger equity. If they fall, you’ll have less skin in the game, and that could put more pressure on your banker to improve your loan terms lest you walk away.

This, in a nutshell, is everything that was wrong with the housing market before the crash — everything that we want to avoid going forward. Can’t Linda look around at the current devastated state of many people who bought with little or no money down, and see the dangers here? Evidently not. Instead, she seems to think it’s a bright idea to borrow more money than you need, to the point at which you’re pushing the envelope of what you can reasonably afford. And then take the cash you’re not using for a down payment, and “put your money to work for yourself.”

I barely know where to start on this. Here’s one way of thinking about it: banks are not charities, and that they expect to make money from their loans. They have a cost of funds which is lower than the mortgage rate that you’re paying; the difference between the two rates is their profit. You, however, if you follow Linda’s advice, have a cost of funds which is your mortgage rate: if you wind up getting a lower return on your savings than you’re paying on your mortgage, you would have been better off just using the money for a down payment. Needless to say, if there was an easy way of getting a higher return on capital than the mortgage rate, the banks would have done it already, rather than lending you the money. And it’s pretty delusional, frankly, to think that you can invest better than say JP Morgan. Yes, there are tax benefits to having lots of mortgage-interest payments. But they’re not sufficient to make the difference here.

Here’s another way: let’s say you own your home outright. Would you take out a mortgage against 95% of your home’s present market value, and then invest that money in the market somehow, trying to “put it to work for yourself “? Of course not: you don’t have remotely that kind of risk appetite. Borrowing money against your house to invest in the market is, always, stupid. But that’s exactly what Linda’s proposing you do.

And here’s one more: shit happens. Sometimes, you end up needing money, in an emergency. If you’re already borrowing as much as you can reasonably afford, that’s a big problem. If you have a bit of fiscal breathing room, you’re much better off. If you end up in a situation where you’re in a position to put pressure on your banker to improve your loan terms lest you walk away, that’s not a good situation to be in. It means you’re broke. It’s something you want to avoid, whereas in Linda World it seems to be something to actively court.

Linda’s also convinced that house prices are going to rise: if you buy now rather than later, she writes, that means you’re buying “while housing prices are low.” That’s debatable — they still seem quite expensive, on some measures: the price-to-rent ratio, for instance, is still well above its historical average. And more generally, buying low doesn’t help you in the slightest if prices just continue to grind lower.

Linda’s conclusion is that “the less you put down, the better off you are.” Which is true so long as you keep on making all your mortgage payments without any problem, and nothing goes very wrong either with your personal economic situation or with the US economy as a whole. That’s the way that leverage works: it makes everything sunny, so long as things go right. And then it plunges you into misery when things go wrong.

The scariest part of Linda’s post, for me, is when she talks about how it’s a good idea to “do your best to leverage a small down payment into bigger equity.” It’s not the dollar amount of the equity she’s talking about here, it’s the leverage used to get there, and the higher the leverage the better off you are. Following that advice got us into our current mess. And taking it now is a recipe for disaster.

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SEO Services Vancouver For A Better Marketing Solution

 

When you start your own website there are lots of ways you'll have to sell it off and one of the best ways is to use Search engine optimization Vancouver if you happen to maintain that area. The SEO or seo services would be the top method of getting more visitors to your website and therefore making more sales.

 

Now, you should know that you will not use SEO service if you are not an internet business - but then again, if you don't come with an online presence if you are a offline business, then you will not allow it to be very far.

 

It's a popular fact that if you are planning to make it in the offline world you need to have an online business. This really is something which all business people are learning hard way. One thing that you should also know is the fact that it is not as easy as just establishing the website and leaving it to complete its things.

 

This can be done in most types of ways, however these companies usually take advantage of multiple methods to create the perfect marketing technique online. It is possible to hire these phones write articles for you personally, post on forums and blogs, create meta data and meta descriptions, cleanup the code, add alt tags towards the images and much more.

 

It is crucial that you do this because otherwise the organization that you have worked so difficult for could end up losing the money. If you have a website you want to create, then you will also employ the expertise of an SEO company, which means seo company. What the corporation does is basically go ahead and take best parts of your website, look into the code, create keywords and write various articles and documents to ensure that your website is placed close to the top of the list for the major search engines.

As a result the Search engine optimization company can not only increase your traffic, but additionally make sure that your site is fully optimized for the search engine spiders that will be introduced to it. These spiders are utilized to analyze your site and place it in certain positions determined on certain keywords.

 

If you want to make use of the SEO services Vancouver then all you've got to complete is find the top companies. It is through these how the SEO gets done effectively and efficiently. Because of so many SEO companies to choose from you need to be sure that the one you are going for is reliable. You ought to be in a position to ask for a breakdown of what you need, and also the company should also have the ability to let you know know long they have been operating for. This can narrow down the list to reveal the top ones.

 

SEO Services Offered by Different Vancouver Web Companies

The Vancouver SEO company services are very good for business growth as they provide quality services. If you are planning to create a website for the online business, then you have come to right article as I will be explaining below how Web optimization Vancouver company services can increase your website ranking and make it popular.

Before that, you should know what Seo is. It is not that complicated and i am sure you're going to get a grasp from it reading my article. The main goal of SEO is to have increased traffic to your website and audience. It is a good decision to choose a Vancouver SEO company that are experts in this sort of work, so that your website could be listed in search engines like google.

There isn't any point in you having a website with no website ranking whatsoever as you won't get any business and profits to survive. It is a very tough atmosphere out there because there are so many internet business people exactly like you, who desire their share of pie. You have to be aware of the fact that nearly 85% of web traffic can be got from internet websites.

When a user types in a keyword or keywords for which he/she really wants to know in different sites, these use crawlers to get web sites with the relevant content and index them based on algorithms. You don't have to worry about the algorithms which these sites use as that isn't important.

To appear within the first page from the search result, you will have to hire professionals and experts who can do the needful to maintain your site one of the good books in these websites. These professionals can optimize your site content to ensure that your website gets more traffic.

When the traffic gets high, it's a sign that you are obtaining a service that will enable you to get more revenues. SEO Vancouver company do the next to create your site appear within the first page of search engine results.

Use keywords which are popularly utilized on search engines in your website content.
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Submit your website to directory websites.
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SEO Vancouver company also perform site diagnostics which is a significant part in online optimization as research and analysis on finding keywords may be the way to begin a SEO campaign. So, be sure you select the right SEO Vancouver service company.

Are you searching for more info regarding SEO Vancouver? Visit http://www.seo4vancouver.com/seo-services.asp today!

 

What to Expect Whenever Hiring a Roofers

When it comes time to repair or substitute your roof, it can be a daunting task to locate someone who is competent for the job. There are lots of roofers out there, however the types who will do a great job for a reasonable cost are not frequently easy to find. If you are in the marketplace for a contractor, use the ideas below with regard to meeting with and hiring the right one.

Interview as well as Discussion

Most roofing companies offer totally free consultations. This is especially important, because it gives them an opportunity to evaluate exactly what your roof requirements, also it gives you a chance to assess them. As with all businesses, believe in intuition about the people you let up onto your roofing. No issue how good a contractor's reputation or even suggestion, he or she ought to start by showing a person with a business greeting card. If the contractor occurs looking as well as talking in an less than professional manner, most likely the task he's going to perform may also be unprofessional. This is not to express that you should expect companies to reach in fits. They is going to be climbing in your roof, so most will be dressed in denim jeans as well as function boots or even sneakers. If the actual contractor appears to be interested in talking on their cell phone while on your roof compared to he's within evaluating your own roof's needs, that may be another sign that he is not really the one to do the job. For the lawful protection, be certain that the actual contractor offers sufficient liability insurance.

Roof Assessment

Anticipate that the service provider is going to be going up in your roofing. Actually, any kind of service provider who does not want to go up on your roof to judge the problem ought to be immediately reduced. Those who're seriously interested in their own work will either create a drawing of your roof's surface and tag trouble spots on it as they go through their own evaluation, or even they will take pictures or even video clip from the surface area while they're available online for. This is an extremely important action, because it enables you to observe exactly what the problems are and know how they'll be fixed.

Estimation

The next step would be the written estimate. The contractor will require away his loan calculator and come track of a written estimate. Some contractors will go to their own vehicle or van and write down the suggestion, while others will crisis the numbers for the job in front of you. Once you are given the suggestion, ensure that you understand which items is going to be used, just how long the task will take and when there are any additional or even concealed expenses that may arise during the restore of the roof. The service provider should be able to solution many of these questions with ease and forewarn a person associated with a extra expenses that might be sustained if the roof's ethics end up being broken within.

Once you have received several written estimations from roofers, assess what each organization or contractor would like to offer you for that cost. Do not always low cost the highest bet, because occasionally the highest bet will actually be the service provider who the job properly. Also, be wary associated with bids which are not nearly as expensive others. They may be using inferior items or perhaps be untruthful concerning the chance of hidden costs. Most importantly, believe in intuition and opt for the actual service provider that makes you feel quite comfy regarding giving more than your money.

 

Seven Uyghurs Sentenced to Death

2011-03-23

Critics of the sentences say China has politicized the robberies as acts of terrorism.

 

AFP

A Uyghur man walks past armed Chinese security forces in Urumqi, July 17, 2009.

Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang have ordered the executions of seven ethnic minority Uyghur men convicted of "violent" crimes, official media said on Wednesday.

 

The death sentences were handed down by the Supreme People's Court in recent days, according to state media in the regional capital, Urumqi.

 

The men were accused in connection with three separate attacks late last year in the Silk Road city of Kashgar, according to the news website Urumqi Online.

 

According to another website, the Xinjiang-based Tianshan news site, Aimaiti Tuheti, Yiming Dawuti, and unnamed "others" killed a security guard at a pedestrian mall as part of a failed Aug. 7 robbery attempt.

 

In a separate incident on Oct. 12, it said, Nuermaimaiti Aobulikasimu and 11 others broke into a house, bound and killed the couple living in it, and took their possessions.

 

It said the group also broke into the homes of two brothers, robbed them, and killed six people in a Nov. 11 attack in Kashgar.

 

The report gave no information about the victims or the schedule for the executions.

 

Three of the men were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, a sentence that is normally commuted to life imprisonment in China's judicial system.

 

They were convicted of deliberate homicide and armed robbery by the Kashgar Intermediate People's Court in the first instance.

 

'Strike hard' campaign

 

A Han Chinese resident of Urumqi surnamed Yang said a reference to "terrorism" in official news reports on the case showed that it was being politicized by the authorities, who have launched a series of "strike hard" campaigns in Xinjiang following deadly ethnic violence in July 2009.

 

"There is an implied political meaning; that they were somehow engaged in separatist activities or ethnic divisions," said Yang.

 

Exile Uyghur groups said the trials had been conducted behind closed doors, with scant opportunity for public scrutiny.

 

"The entire process against these men, from the trial through to the judgment, was opaque," said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress.

 

"There was also very little reasonable evidence to convict them on a legal basis, because all the evidence came from one side of the case," he said.

 

"We strongly condemn the Chinese government for continuing to pursue their policies of ethnic division," said Raxit.

 

"We are also strongly opposed to the death penalty in this case."

 

Earlier cases

 

Last month, the Supreme Court sentenced four Uyghurs to death for alleged involvement in an Aug. 19 bomb attack in Xinjiang’s western Aksu city.

 

The World Uyghur Congress pointed to concerns over lack of transparency in those cases too.

 

The Aksu blast left eight people dead, including two of the bombers, and 15 wounded after a man riding a three-wheeled vehicle threw explosives at a group of uniformed patrolmen. Four Uyghurs were arrested shortly after the attack.

 

State media characterized the cases as acts of terrorism and unrelated to longstanding ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the region.

 

Exiled Uyghur dissident Rebiya Kadeer has warned that attacks like those in Aksu will continue to occur until Beijing addresses the underlying source of tension in the region.

 

Millions of Uyghurs—a distinct, Turkic minority who are predominantly Muslim—populate Central Asia and Xinjiang.

 

Uyghurs say they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness despite China's ambitious plans to develop its vast northwestern frontier.

 

Those frustrations erupted in July 2009 in deadly riots that left nearly 200 people dead, by the Chinese government's tally.

 

At least 26 people, mostly Uyghurs, were sentenced to death in the aftermath of the riots, many of whom have been executed, according to state media.

 

China is believed to execute more people each year than the rest of the world’s countries combined, although the government does not publish official figures.

 

Rights groups say Beijing may execute as many as several thousand prisoners annually.

 

Chinese authorities blame Uyghur separatists for a series of deadly attacks in recent years and accuse one group in particular of maintaining ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

 

New training scheme

 

China on Wednesday also announced a training scheme which places ethnic minority graduates from Xinjiang in work elsewhere in China.

 

Governments of the destination cities will spend 450 million yuan (U.S.$ 69 million) for the program, while Xinjiang will spend 400 million yuan (U.S.$ 61 million), the official Xinhua news agency reported.

 

The program targets some 60,000 jobless college graduates in Xinjiang, around 80 percent of whom are from ethnic minorities, and 60 percent of whom are women.

 

However, some commentators see the move as an attempt to assimilate non-Han Chinese into mainstream Chinese culture.

 

"From the point of view of ethnic minorities, the graduate work scheme is really taking the cream of youth from the minorities and using them to 'further cultural development,'" wrote one ethnic minority user on a popular microblogging service.

 

"In fact, the culture that is being advanced is Han culture, and this group of young people will have been totally brainwashed," the microblog update said.

 

An Urumqi resident surnamed Li agreed.

 

"They have run senior high school schemes like this before during the past few years," he said.

 

"Whether it's high-schoolers or graduate training programs, these are measures that are aimed at thought control and brainwashing, and the 'Partification' of their education," he said.

 

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.

 

Wikileaks and the Uyghurs

through henry upon December 20, This year
Henryk Szadziewski, Supervisor, Uyghur Human Rights Project

Whether it were ever uncertain, information acquired through the whistleblower website, Wikileaks, has verified Chinese government worries more than its ongoing control of the location it phone calls Xinjiang, also is known as East Turkestan. The leaked out wires from U.S. diplomats demonstrate the degree that Chinese language government bodies attempt to persuade government authorities worldwide to consider it's position upon problems impacting Uyghurs. The cables additionally display the actual United States' concerns and views regarding the on going repressive steps in the area.

Most lighting of Chinese federal government stress are the wires pointing to Chinese frustration, or even the specter of Chinese language ire, within the release of Uyghur detainees in Guantánamo to third nations. A December Twenty nine, 2008 cable television relates how Chinese Assistant International Reverend Liu Jieyi met with the Ough.Utes. Ambassador in order to China to tone of voice Beijing's strong competitors associated with launch to any country other than China, and that when the U.Utes. did indeed accede to this request it would "avoid harm to bilateral relationships and also to cooperation ‘in important areas'". Furthermore, the February 2009 cable television describes how the Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Zhang Yannian, regarded the feasible discharge of Uyghur Guantánamo detainees because "an unfavorable act toward us" and a "slap in the face". That the U.S. government stood firm in not really liberating the actual detainees to China illustrates the actual degree of the politicized nature from the Chinese judicial program. Genuine concerns over terrorism are understandable, but in the U.S. government's view the detainees would probably face do-it-yourself torture as well as execution when they came back in order to China

Chinese language government pressure regarding the actual Uyghur Guantánamo detainees was not just applied to the U.Utes. government, but also in order to New Zealand along with a number of Western government authorities which were considering resettlement. Albania, Indonesia and Finland, as well as European Union member states just about all appear to have paid for the impact associated with Chinese language government disappointment. Regarding Indonesia, that was initially prepared to think about 2 Uyghurs on solely relief grounds, Uyghur Guantánamo instances had been less preferable to other detainees due to the negative effects accepting Uyghurs would have on relations with China. The May Eight, 2009 cable television relates exactly how "German Ambassador Michael Schaefer documented that Indonesia experienced knowledgeable The far east from the U.S. request to accept some Uighur detainees held at Guantánamo coupled with already been consequently cautioned by The far east of ‘a heavy load on bilateral relations' in the event that Indonesia had been to simply accept any kind of detainees".

The diplomatic wires additionally talk about the unrest within Urumchi, the local funds, within This summer '09. A This summer Thirteen, 2009 cable talking about mass incidents in China states:

"Ethnic riots such as those who work in Xinjiang July 5-7 as well as in Tibet in March associated with 2008 vary substantially in source as well as character through mass occurrences, XXXXXXXXXXXX stressed to PolOff [Political Officer] on XXXXXXXXXXXX. Each existing severe problems for the actual Celebration, XXXXXXXXXXXX said, but the Party management wouldn't hesitate to open fire upon Uighurs or even Tibetans when they deemed it essential to recover order. Bulk occurrences present a different type of risk, he said, since the leadership is ‘afraid' to fire on Han rioters with regard to anxiety about causing massive open public outrage that will change from the Celebration."

This can be a chilling viewpoint, particularly when one views the evidence offered by 50 percent reviews launched this year by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and Amnesty International which fine detail eyewitness company accounts from the use of lethal reside fire towards Uyghur protestors in July '09. In addition, the declaration that fireplace wouldn't be used towards Han Chinese language protestors has resonances for that different strategy used by Chinese security forces in Urumchi in order to Han Chinese language direct orders in September '09. During individuals protests, after that Celebration Secretary, Wang Lequan, tackled protesters, who had demanded that he inform them regarding government responses in order to security concerns. An identical ask for to satisfy with the Celebration Assistant by Uyghur demonstrators in July wasn't fulfilled.

The actual broader consequences of the unrest additionally noticed a brief dialogue on the impact it might have on Iran-China relationships, as well as on relations along with Australia following World Uyghur Our elected representatives President, Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, talked in the Nationwide Press Club in Canberra within August '09. In the latter situation, china federal government "privately warn[ed] a major Australian bank that sponsors the nation's Push Club to use its influence to bar the Kadeer speech there".

The actual United States' issues concerning the scenario in the Uyghur region are available via within the cables. Inside a dialogue on policy path in Tibet, Ough.S. authorities clarify that it'll end up being not possible for Chinese frontrunners to consider a softer collection "if they appear like doing this under worldwide pressure". The cable television dated 04 Sixteen, 2008, one month after the episode of unrest within Tibetan regions, also relayed the observation "that household stability continues to be leadership's main concern most of all, meaning there'll ‘almost surely' be no rest of the present difficult collection on Tibet or in places such as Xinjiang." The information contained in the cable television also storage sheds light about the severe level of sensitivity with which the Chinese federal government sights territorial integrity, and also the feasible spill over of unrest from Tibet.

The chance of methods to tensions within Tibet and Xinjiang arising from civil culture are debated in a Feb 24, 2008 cable. While suggesting that China's financial achievement will increase its potential to deal with democratic change, the actual cable television also talks about exactly how Chinese leaders see the effectiveness associated with "a restricted expansion of civil culture, such as improvements within the rule associated with law along with a more powerful role for approved beliefs, NGOs, charities along with other actors within areas which contribute to sociable stability and don't problem Communist Party rule." This is a significant change in thinking, that has seen U.S. officials market the notion which Chinese language economic development, and economic relationships along with The far east brings in regards to a progressively democratic society; nevertheless, more faith appears to be placed in the grassroots motion than one that starts from the top levels of the Chinese government. Nevertheless, the cable concludes which "[i]n areas such as Tibet as well as Xinjiang, driving a car associated with separatism results in tighter restrictions about the development of municipal society." This method is viewed as counter-productive through the recognized, that suggests that the actual Ough.S. federal government "should continue to express...serious concerns over Beijing's human rights report and appeal to China's developing awareness that greater regard with regard to human privileges, spiritual freedom and the guideline of law will serve to advertise the improvement as well as social balance which The far east looks for in addition to to improve China's international picture." This type of strategy would take substantial diplomatic skills thinking about "China's paranoid concern that the United States secretly encourages routine change as well as ‘separatists' in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang".

The wires offer insight into the daily business associated with diplomacy that is rarely owned by the general public, which is fascinating to note the quantity of function carried out nowadays upon Uyghur issues. The importance of the actual part of the United States like a keep track of associated with Uyghur human privileges problems in personal discussions is created clear, and contrasts with its tactful open public position. The staff of the Uyghur Individual Privileges Task is actually comfortable with the pressure the Chinese government exerts on Uyghur activists; nevertheless, the details of Chinese language government stress upon its alternatives is illustrative of the degree that Chinese language authorities make an effort to control contradictory narratives. With more revelations in the future from Wikileaks, issues more than Uyghurs may not grab the actual headlines, but the wires possess shed brand new light about the documentation of human rights conditions in the Uyghur region.

 

Wikileaks and also the Uyghur People

through holly upon Dec Twenty, 2010
Henryk Szadziewski, Supervisor, Uyghur Human Rights Project

Whether it were ever uncertain, info acquired through the whistleblower website, Wikileaks, has verified Chinese language federal government worries more than its ongoing charge of the region it calls Xinjiang, which is also referred to as Eastern Turkestan. The leaked out wires through Ough.Utes. diplomats demonstrate the degree to which Chinese government bodies attempt to persuade government authorities globally to adopt its position upon issues affecting Uyghurs. The actual wires also show the actual United States' concerns and views regarding the ongoing repressive measures in the region.

The majority of illuminating associated with Chinese language federal government pressure would be the cables directed in order to Chinese anger, or the specter associated with Chinese ire, over the discharge of Uyghur detainees within Guantánamo to third nations. The Dec Twenty nine, 08 cable television relates how Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jieyi fulfilled with the Ough.Utes. Ambassador to China in order to tone of voice Beijing's strong competitors associated with release to any nation apart from China, and that when the U.Utes. do certainly accede to this ask for it would "avoid harm to bilateral relationships and to cooperation ‘in essential areas'". In addition, a February 2009 cable describes how the Chinese language Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Zhang Yannian, regarded as the actual possible release of Uyghur Guantánamo detainees because "an unfriendly behave toward us" and a "slap in the face". The U.S. federal government stood company in not releasing the actual detainees in order to The far east illustrates the degree from the politicized character of the Chinese judicial program. Legitimate issues more than terrorism tend to be easy to understand, but in the Ough.Utes. government's observe the detainees might most likely encounter do-it-yourself torture and execution if they came back to China

Chinese language government stress in regard to the Uyghur Guantánamo detainees was not only put on the actual U.Utes. federal government, but additionally to Brand new Zealand along with a number of Western governments which were considering resettlement. Albania, Germany as well as Finland, in addition to European Union fellow member says just about all appear to have borne the actual impact associated with Chinese language government disappointment. In the case of Indonesia, that was at first prepared to think about two Uyghurs on purely humanitarian reasons, Uyghur Guantánamo cases had been much less better than other detainees because of the unwanted effects taking Uyghurs might have on relations with China. The Might 8, '09 cable television relates how "German Ambassador Erina Schaefer reported which Indonesia had knowledgeable The far east of the Ough.S. ask for to accept a few Uighur detainees held from Guantánamo coupled with already been consequently cautioned by The far east of ‘a heavy load upon bilateral relations' in the event that Germany had been to accept any detainees".

The actual diplomatic cables additionally discuss the unrest within Urumchi, the local funds, within July 2009. A July Thirteen, 2009 cable discussing bulk incidents in China says:

"Ethnic riots such as those in Xinjiang This summer 5-7 as well as in Tibet in 03 associated with 2008 differ substantially in source and nature from mass occurrences, XXXXXXXXXXXX stressed in order to PolOff [Political Officer] upon XXXXXXXXXXXX. Both existing severe trouble for the actual Party, XXXXXXXXXXXX said, but the Party management wouldn't wait to spread out fireplace upon Uighurs or even Tibetans when they deemed it necessary to recover purchase. Bulk incidents present another type of risk, he said, as the management is ‘afraid' to fire on Han rioters with regard to fear of causing massive open public outrage that would turn from the Party."

This can be a chilling viewpoint, especially when 1 considers the evidence presented in two reviews launched this year by the Uyghur Individual Rights Project (UHRP) and Amnesty International that detail eyewitness accounts from the utilization of lethal live fire against Uyghur protestors in This summer '09. In addition, the actual observation which fire wouldn't be used against Han Chinese protestors has resonances for the different strategy taken by Chinese language security causes in Urumchi to Han Chinese language direct orders in Sept 2009. During individuals direct orders, after that Party Assistant, Wang Lequan, tackled protesters, who experienced required he let them know about federal government responses in order to protection concerns. An identical request to satisfy using the Celebration Assistant by Uyghur demonstrators within July wasn't met.

The broader repercussions from the unrest also saw a short dialogue about the effect it might possess on Iran-China relationships, as well as on relations along with Australia after Globe Uyghur Congress Leader, Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, spoke in the Nationwide Push Membership in Canberra within August 2009. In the second option case, china government "privately warn[ed] a major Aussie bank which vendors the nation's Press Membership to make use of it's impact to bar a Kadeer speech there".

The actual U . s . States' concerns about the scenario within the Uyghur area are available via within the cables. In a dialogue upon policy path in Tibet, U.S. officials clarify that it will end up being not possible with regard to Chinese language leaders to adopt a much softer collection "if they appear like they are doing this below worldwide pressure". The actual cable out dated 04 16, 08, 30 days following the outbreak associated with unrest in Tibetan areas, also relayed the actual observation "that household stability continues to be leadership's main concern most of all, which means there'll ‘almost surely' end up being absolutely no relaxation of the present difficult line on Tibet or perhaps in places like Xinjiang." The info contained in the cable television additionally storage sheds gentle on the severe level of sensitivity with which china federal government views territorial integrity, and also the feasible drip over of unrest from Tibet.

The prospect of methods to tensions in Tibet as well as Xinjiang arising from civil culture tend to be discussed in a February Twenty-four, 08 cable. Whilst suggesting which China's economic achievement will increase it's resistance to democratic reform, the cable additionally talks about how Chinese leaders see the effectiveness of "a limited growth of municipal society, such as improvements in the guideline associated with regulation along with a stronger role with regard to authorized beliefs, NGOs, non profit organizations and other actors within places that contribute to social stability and do not challenge Communist Party guideline." This can be a notable alternation in thinking, which has seen Ough.Utes. officials market the notion which Chinese language financial development, as well as economic relations along with The far east will bring about a steadily democratic society; nevertheless, more belief appears to be put into the grassroots motion compared to one which starts from the best levels of the Chinese government. Nevertheless, the cable television proves which "[i]n places for example Tibet and Xinjiang, the fear of separatism results in tighter restrictions on the growth of municipal society." This method can be regarded as counter-productive through the recognized, who shows that the Ough.Utes. federal government "should continue to express...serious issues over Beijing's individual privileges record as well as appeal to China's growing awareness which higher respect with regard to individual privileges, spiritual freedom and also the guideline associated with law assists to advertise the very improvement as well as social stability which The far east looks for as well as to enhance China's worldwide picture." Such a technique would take substantial diplomatic skills thinking about "China's weird fear that the Usa secretly promotes regime change as well as ‘separatists' within Taiwan, Tibet as well as Xinjiang".

The actual cables offer understanding of the actual daily business associated with diplomacy that's rarely afforded to everyone, which is interesting to note the amount of work carried out nowadays on Uyghur problems. The significance of the actual part of the United States as a keep track of associated with Uyghur individual privileges problems in private discussions is created clear, as well as contrasts using its sensible open public stance. Employees from the Uyghur Human Rights Project is comfortable with the pressure china government exerts on Uyghur activists; still, the details associated with Chinese government stress on it's counterparts is illustrative from the degree which Chinese officials attempt to control contrary stories. With more facts to come through Wikileaks, concerns over Uyghurs may not grab the headlines, but the wires possess shed brand new light about the documentation associated with individual privileges conditions in the Uyghur area.

 

Seo And Article promotion Will Place You On Page 1

Seo and article promotion are two of the strongest strategies that can be used promoting your internet site and get the revenue and success that you desire for your internet business. These two everything has been around to get a really long time already nevertheless they still still be really effective. In fact, these have helped a lot of people free themselves from the traditional methods for money-generating options of society.

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