http://www.13thtigerpress.com Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:21:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/paramount-launches-clip-website-for-businesses http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/paramount-launches-clip-website-for-businesses#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:21:31 +0000 cgseo http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/paramount-launches-clip-website-for-businesses Continue reading →]]> Paramount Pictures has launched an online service to sell its movie clips to businesses in an effort to combat declining DVD revenue. ParamountClips.com is powered by Digitalsmiths VideoSense platform. Users can search the Paramount library by actor, locations, or lines of dialogue. VideoSense combs through the collected metadata to locate the relevant clip.

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/paramount-launches-clip-website-for-businesses/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/online-holiday-shipping-deadline-looms http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/online-holiday-shipping-deadline-looms#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:09:03 +0000 admin http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/online-holiday-shipping-deadline-looms Continue reading →]]> Most holiday shipping offers are set to expire on or before December 18, according to a new study by Shop.org and BIGresearch. Nearly two thirds (62.3%) of retailers' shipping deadlines for Christmas delivery will fall on or before December 18, with 34 percent of shipping deadlines occurring on December 18 itself. Many of the busiest online shopping days of the year are set to take place this week as shoppers go online to make holiday purchases in order to meet impending shipping deadlines. "Online shoppers don't need to deal with long lines, store hours or winter weather, but they do need to plan ahead," said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org . "To entice online shoppers on a budget, many retailers will offer special sales and promotions as shipping deadlines near." Shoppers looking to save on shipping should also be aware of December 18, as 17.9 percent of retailers said that would be the last day they would offer a free shipping promotion for holiday gifts. According to shop.org's eHoliday survey, released in October, the majority (79.4%) of online retailers will offer free shipping with conditions at some point during the holiday season, while more than half (57.4%) also plan to offer free shipping without conditions. The popular promotion is one element driving shoppers online, with 33.1 percent of holiday shoppers planning to spend more on the Internet this holiday season because of free shipping. "In this economy, shoppers are taking a look at the entire purchase price - including shipping - before deciding where to shop," said Phil Rist, Executive Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, BIGresearch. "Though free shipping isn't "free" for retailers, companies know these promotions can set themselves apart from their competition and are relying on them more heavily to bring in shoppers." For shoppers who miss standard shipping deadlines they may be still able to use expedited shipping from some retailers. More than half (54.2%) of online retailers will offer overnight shipping options for Christmas delivery through December 23.

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/online-holiday-shipping-deadline-looms/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/things-to-consider-if-page-speed-is-to-become-a-ranking-factor http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/things-to-consider-if-page-speed-is-to-become-a-ranking-factor#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:19:41 +0000 admin http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/things-to-consider-if-page-speed-is-to-become-a-ranking-factor Continue reading →]]> About a month ago, WebProNews interviewed Google's Matt Cutts , who suggested that page speed may soon become a ranking factor in the world's most popular search engine. Speed has been a consistent theme with the company over the past year or so, with the release of various tools and announcements. It has become quite evident that Google places a great deal of importance on speeding up the web. With that in mind, it's not hard to see why Cutts' suggestion could soon become a reality. Google has always maintained that it is trying to deliver the best user experience, and by delivering results that load quickly users should get just that. Do you think it's a good idea for Google to use speed as a ranking factor? Share your thoughts here . While many webmasters are embracing the notion of speed as a ranking factor as a welcome change, there are also plenty of people who do take issue with it for a variety of reasons. We've had some interesting comments from readers on the subject. Here are some of them: So, we all have to pay for the most expensive hosting now or we won’t get found in search engines. I won’t be able to host on my own servers at work now. It went from paying for backlinks with huge advertising corporations to get sites PageRank up, Now we have to go with even bigger corporations that can afford to have a massive pipe connecting to the Internet. I don’t think Google mean to, but they are squeesing the poor people of the World out from search results and glorifying huge corporations – Be careful Google! ... Page speed is going to be a big political issue. Apart from concerns about net neutrality, what about countries who’s internet infrastructure is vastly inferior to the technology rich countries. Regions like south east asia and central china have much better connections than east africa. Even some parts of Scotland have poor internet links based on the ageing BT networks. Also the people who can afford dedicated servers and high quality bandwidth have a big advantage over the common Joe who has to rely on shared hosting. Does this make google less democratic? or are they just following what they think people want, ie faster loading sites? ... What do you think will happen to the sites that are mainly using rich media like video blogs? Can they really accelerate their load time? If not, are they doomed to drop from the SERP? ... The speed thing concerns me. Next to a tiered internet its the biggest slam agains the small time net player. Corporations will take over fast and knock out anyone who can’t afford a lightning fast server. Those are just a few reader comments that were left on the video interview. You can read them all here . You can read quite a few more on this related article as well. Voice your own concerns here . Regardless of how you feel about the possibility of Google using page speed as a ranking factor, it's probably going to happen, and it's something you're more than likely going to have to deal with. Besides this even being a factor for regular organic results, consider Google's recently introduced real-time results . The quicker Google can crawl you, the quicker you can potentially appear in this section. As far as speeding up your site in general, Bill Hartzer recently shared a few tips on the subject in an interview with WebProNews: And of course, Google has its own tips. The company offered a few on site performance improvement using its Webmaster Tools . Webmaster Tools has a Site Performance feature, which shows you a performance overview graph. This looks at the aggregated speed numbers for your site, based on the pages that were most frequently accessed by visitors who use the Google Toolbar and have the PageRank feature activated. "By using data from Google Toolbar users, you don't have to worry about us testing your site from a location that your users do not use," explains John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Z

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/things-to-consider-if-page-speed-is-to-become-a-ranking-factor/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/amazon-kindle-comes-to-iphone-in-over-60-countries http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/amazon-kindle-comes-to-iphone-in-over-60-countries#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:02:34 +0000 admin http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/amazon-kindle-comes-to-iphone-in-over-60-countries Continue reading →]]> Amazon has released an iPhone app for the Kindle to over 60 countries. Now users in a total of 64 countries can read Kindle books on their iPhones and iPod Touch devices. "We are excited to make the Kindle for iPhone App available to iPhone and iPod touch users in more than 60 countries, allowing them to access the vast selection of the most popular books, all available wirelessly from the Kindle Store," said Ian Freed, vice president, Amazon Kindle. "The Kindle for iPhone App is the perfect companion for customers who own a Kindle or Kindle DX, and a great way for customers around the world to download and read books even if they don't yet have a Kindle." Amazon says that with the app, customers in over 60 countries will be able to:

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/amazon-kindle-comes-to-iphone-in-over-60-countries/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/european-online-holiday-shopping-off-to-strong-start http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/european-online-holiday-shopping-off-to-strong-start#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:00:00 +0000 admin http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/european-online-holiday-shopping-off-to-strong-start Continue reading →]]> European online Christmas shopping season got off to a strong start this year in the U.K., France and Germany, according to a new report from comScore. Visits to retail sites were up 18 percent during the first week of November compared to an average week during the prior two months, and increased even more throughout the month to reach a 41 percent growth rate during the week ending November 29. France saw solid gains, resulting in the same 41 percent growth rate during the last week of November, while Germany showed slight lower growth at 16 percent. "That we're seeing such strong growth in visitation to retail sites in three of Europe's leading countries prior to the December pre-Christmas rush is, hopefully, a positive sign for the overall European economy," said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni. "Right now the U.K. and France appear to be demonstrating the highest rate of traffic growth to retail sites, outperforming the U.S. by a considerable margin. While German growth has been slightly slower, the heavy part of the country's online shopping season should begin in earnest during the first week of December." During the month of November, average weekly visits to online retail sites grew 35 percent in the U.K. compared to the prior two months. Among the top 5 online retailers as ranked by average weekly visits, Play.com sites experienced the largest growth at 62 percent, closely followed by the Home Retail Group (61%) and Tesco (50%). Visits to online retail sites in France were up 36 percent during the first week of the month and remained steady during November. Groupe PriceMinister has the fastest growth rate at 188 percent, followed by Amazon and Cdiscount, both at 40 percent. In Germany, visits to online retail sites got off to a slightly slower start than in France and the U.K., but still showed 17 percent average weekly growth. Amazon was the fastest growing retail site during November, up 46 percent, followed by Neckermann Gruppe (up18%).

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/european-online-holiday-shopping-off-to-strong-start/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/whole-foods-launches-mobile-website http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/whole-foods-launches-mobile-website#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:29:52 +0000 cgseo http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/whole-foods-launches-mobile-website Continue reading →]]> Whole Foods Market has unveiled a new website aimed at mobile users. The company says it provides users with the same features as its non-mobile site. Visitors to the mobile site can access Whole Foods selection of over 2,000 recipes, store information including hours, driving directions, store specials and a calendar of events for their local store. "Whether they are at home, work, or out and about, our customers can now easily access store information and what's on sale at their local Whole Foods Market ," said Bill Tolany, global coordinator of integrated media for Whole Foods Market. "Shoppers can also use their handheld devices to create shopping lists and save their favorite recipes to 'My Recipe Box,' a popular feature on our website." The mobile site also features a store locator where customers can use a ZIP code search to find the nearest Whole Foods Market store.

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/whole-foods-launches-mobile-website/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/google-cracks-down-on-%e2%80%9cgoogle-money%e2%80%9d-scammers http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/google-cracks-down-on-%e2%80%9cgoogle-money%e2%80%9d-scammers#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:11:45 +0000 admin http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/google-cracks-down-on-%e2%80%9cgoogle-money%e2%80%9d-scammers Continue reading →]]> Google said today it is taking aim at fraudulent companies that uses its name for money scams. Bogus offers such as "Easy Cash with Google" and "Use Google to Make 1000s of Dollars!" has led the company to take a number of measures. Google has filed a lawsuit against Pacific WebWorks and several other unnamed defendants for using its name in questionable money schemes. The Official Google Blog offers more details. "Even as we're taking legal action to try to cut these sites off at the source, we're still working constantly to remove scammy URLs from our index, and we'll permanently disable AdWords accounts that provide a poor or harmful user experience, whether or not they use Google's trademarks illegally." Google warns users to be wary of the following names:

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/google-cracks-down-on-%e2%80%9cgoogle-money%e2%80%9d-scammers/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/university-creates-iphone-orchestra http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/university-creates-iphone-orchestra#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:20:12 +0000 cgseo http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/university-creates-iphone-orchestra Continue reading →]]> iPhones are being used as musical instruments in a new class taught at the University of Michigan. The students who design, build and play instruments on their iPhones, will perform a free public concert on December 9. The course called "Building a Mobile Phone Ensemble" is believed to be the first of its kind. The class is taught by Georg Essl , a computer scientist and musician who has been working on developing mobile phones as musical instruments. "The mobile phone is a very nice platform for exploring new forms of musical performance," said Essl. "We're not tethered to the physics of traditional instruments. We can do interesting, weird, unusual things." "This kind of technology is in its infancy, but it's a hot and growing area to use iPhones for artistic expression." To build an instrument on an iPhone, the students program the device to play back as sound information it receives from one of its sensors. The touch-screen, microphone, GPS, compass, wireless sensor and accelerometer can all be changed so that when a user runs their fingers across the display, blow air into the mic, tilt or shake the phone, different sounds will come out of the device. The class requires some creativity and technological savvy according to Essl. "In order to come up with a creative piece you have to engage with the technology, but in order to make technology interesting, you also have to engage with the musicality. These are really hard to separate. We're trying to teach both," Essl said.

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/university-creates-iphone-orchestra/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/google-gets-a-new-real-time-infrastructure-for-display-ads http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/google-gets-a-new-real-time-infrastructure-for-display-ads#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:45:58 +0000 cgseo http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/google-gets-a-new-real-time-infrastructure-for-display-ads Continue reading →]]> Google just announced that it is acquiring Teracent , a provider of "intelligent dynamic display advertising." The company considers itself a pioneer in dynamic ad serving and optimization solutions. Google appears to agree. Teracent provides machine-learning algorithms, which can create customized display ads based on thousands of different creative elements. The infrastructure Teracent brings to the table allows for real-time assembly of dynamic ads. It's designed to determine the optimal selection of each ad element and return it based on the objectives of the campaign. "As you know, we've been busy releasing new features and products to help improve display advertising on the web for everyone," Google says. "We believe that Teracent's technology fits neatly into these efforts." Google says the one on the right was created with Teracent's technology. "Teracent's technology can pick and choose from literally thousands of creative elements of a display ad in real-time — tweaking images, products, messages or colors," the company adds. "These elements can be optimized depending on factors like geographic location, language, the content of the website, the time of day or the past performance of different ads." "The infrastructure, opportunities and technical depth that Google will provide for Teracent customers means a future of product innovation for Teracent's dynamic ad optimization platform," Teracent says in their own announcement. Google says the technology can help advertisers get better results from their display ad campaigns, while enabling publishers to make more money from their ad space. Teracent's technology will be available to all Google advertisers running display ads, including DoubleClick clients. The deal is expected to close this quarter, subject to various, but unnamed closing conditions. Integration details will be announced after the deal is officially closed. Financial terms were not disclosed. Related Articles: >

]]> http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/google-gets-a-new-real-time-infrastructure-for-display-ads/feed 0 http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/national-dog-show-available-online-at-hulu http://www.13thtigerpress.com/business/national-dog-show-available-online-at-hulu#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:38:40 +0000 admin http://www.13thtigerpress.com/uncategorized/national-dog-show-available-online-at-hulu Continue reading →]]> NBC said today "The National Dog Presented by Purina" will be available online Thanksgiving Day (Noon - 2 p.m. in all time zones) at NBCSports.com. The television broadcast will also be available online after 2 p.m. ET on Hulu . To complement the TV special and showcase all the breeds, NBCSports.com will feature video of the walks, examination and judging of all the breed-winning dogs with commentary from announce Wayne Ferguson, President of the host Kennel Club of Philadelphia. NBC is inviting viewers to vote for their favorite group winner in a best in show poll. TV viewers will be able to vote online at NBCSports.com or by texting the word "DOG" to 5155 on their cell phones. "The success and popularity of the 'National Dog Show' is because it reaches all generations and families can watch the show together," said Jon Miller, Executive Vice President of NBC. "There is also growing interest in all of the different breeds and we recognize the importance of providing online coverage of each one." NBC says "The National Dog show" attracted 18.7 million viewers last year, and this year it will again follow the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The show is hosted by John O'Hurley and analyst David Frei.

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