Sunday, October 2, 2011

Small Business Should Stay Tuned to Market Trends

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By : Michael Griffiths ?? 4 or more times read
Submitted 2011-10-01 23:54:51

If new marketing trends are anything to go by, conventional business marketing tactics may be on their way out. Once upon a time, direct mail was considered the best marketing tool - today, many folks consider it as a waste of paper; a few years back email marketing was the rage - today, it is considered as spam and social marketing is taking over. The trends are changing fast and every business must stay in touch with what's coming. Here's a guide on what's happening:

Quality evangelism
Small business websites need online evangelists to talk about and recommend their products. An online evangelist needs not be a celebrity - he can be an ordinary person whose posts have gotten a lot of followers and because of his humongous number of followers, he is considered as a thought leader. If such people post about products, then it is likely that their followers will listen to them. It's like having a product certified by a reputed organization!

Google Places and Mobile marketing
Every small business must list itself on Google Places. Millions of people use Google Places daily to find local businesses. A map shows up and directs them to their desired destinations. So, if your small business is listed on the map, it is likely that you will get business or at least get a chance to win business. That was about Google Maps. Businesses must also engage in mobile marketing, which includes customizing ecommerce websites for mobile and development of ecommerce-enabled mobile apps. Every business must start working on their mobile marketing plans if they have not yet started.

Group deals
Everybody loves a bargain and websites that offer group deals help customers lay their hands on heavily discounted offers. The group deal website passes on a hefty discount only if a specified number of people buy the product. This helps the merchant dispose of his stocks in a jiffy. Group deals are also sent on mobile and these websites also geo target people moving about in localities in which registered merchants run their business. Offering group deals is a new trend and makes for an excellent small business marketing tactic. Businesses can enrol with a group deal website and offer their products at a big discount. If the customer likes the product, he will approach the company directly the next time he wants to buy.

Using social media for brand building
Companies have started tracking their online reputation. Many companies also use their Twitter and Facebook pages for listening to customers and solving their problems in a hurry. Social media is fast becoming a proxy CRM tool and must be included in every business marketing plan. The major social networks are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+1.

Multichannel marketing
Business marketing must embrace all channels of marketing - direct mail, social media, PPC, online ads, banners, SEO, mobile, offline, link exchange, email marketing, tablet marketing, and every other savvy marketing technique that will be introduced. The days of silo marketing are over - multichannel is the way to go.

Aside from these, small business marketing teams can subscribe to retail and tech newsletters that keep their readers informed of the happening and coming trends. Marketing tactics are fast changing and small businessmen must keep up to speed with the latest.

Author Resource:- Michael Griffiths is the CEO and Founder of My Small Business Marketing Guru. Helping small business owners generate more leads, clients and increase profits with relationship based marketing strategies. We invite you to get your free black mask marketing resources and DVDs when you visit http://www.mysmallbusinessmarketingguru.com.au
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By: Michael Griffiths

If new marketing trends are anything to go by, conventional business marketing tactics may be on their way out. Once upon a time, direct mail was considered the best marketing tool - today, many folks consider it as a waste of paper; a few years back email marketing was the rage - today, it is considered as spam and social marketing is taking over. The trends are changing fast and every business must stay in touch with what's coming. Here's a guide on what's happening:

Quality evangelism
Small business websites need online evangelists to talk about and recommend their products. An online evangelist needs not be a celebrity - he can be an ordinary person whose posts have gotten a lot of followers and because of his humongous number of followers, he is considered as a thought leader. If such people post about products, then it is likely that their followers will listen to them. It's like having a product certified by a reputed organization!

Google Places and Mobile marketing
Every small business must list itself on Google Places. Millions of people use Google Places daily to find local businesses. A map shows up and directs them to their desired destinations. So, if your small business is listed on the map, it is likely that you will get business or at least get a chance to win business. That was about Google Maps. Businesses must also engage in mobile marketing, which includes customizing ecommerce websites for mobile and development of ecommerce-enabled mobile apps. Every business must start working on their mobile marketing plans if they have not yet started.

Group deals
Everybody loves a bargain and websites that offer group deals help customers lay their hands on heavily discounted offers. The group deal website passes on a hefty discount only if a specified number of people buy the product. This helps the merchant dispose of his stocks in a jiffy. Group deals are also sent on mobile and these websites also geo target people moving about in localities in which registered merchants run their business. Offering group deals is a new trend and makes for an excellent small business marketing tactic. Businesses can enrol with a group deal website and offer their products at a big discount. If the customer likes the product, he will approach the company directly the next time he wants to buy.

Using social media for brand building
Companies have started tracking their online reputation. Many companies also use their Twitter and Facebook pages for listening to customers and solving their problems in a hurry. Social media is fast becoming a proxy CRM tool and must be included in every business marketing plan. The major social networks are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+1.

Multichannel marketing
Business marketing must embrace all channels of marketing - direct mail, social media, PPC, online ads, banners, SEO, mobile, offline, link exchange, email marketing, tablet marketing, and every other savvy marketing technique that will be introduced. The days of silo marketing are over - multichannel is the way to go.

Aside from these, small business marketing teams can subscribe to retail and tech newsletters that keep their readers informed of the happening and coming trends. Marketing tactics are fast changing and small businessmen must keep up to speed with the latest.

Author Resource:->??Michael Griffiths is the CEO and Founder of My Small Business Marketing Guru. Helping small business owners generate more leads, clients and increase profits with relationship based marketing strategies. We invite you to get your free black mask marketing resources and DVDs when you visit http://www.mysmallbusinessmarketingguru.com.au

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TSA Pats Down Breast Cancer Survivor Even After Getting Scanned

TSA Pats Down Breast Cancer Survivor Even After Getting ScannedLori Dorn, the wife of Laughing Squid's Scott Beale, recently submitted to a backscatter scan at JFK airport. The TSA pulled her aside for a breast patdown, even though she stated she had breast implants in place after her bilateral mastectomy. Of course, that didn't stop them.

They didn't even let her take out the Device Identification Card that would could have explained where the implants came from and their medical purpose. No. Instead they humiliated her in public:

Instead, she called over a female supervisor who told me the exam had to take place. I was again told that I could not retrieve the card and needed to submit to a physical exam in order to be cleared. She then said, "And if we don't clear you, you don't fly" loud enough for other passengers to hear. And they did. And they stared at the bald woman being yelled at by a TSA Supervisor.

Was there really no other way of going about this? Does this qualify as doing your job? Stop doing this to people. [Lori Dorn via Boing Boing]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5845772/tsa-pats-down-breast-cancer-survivor-even-after-getting-scanned

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Single ions -- extremely cool: Single magnesium ion brought to a standstill by means of novel, simple laser cooling

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2011) ? Quantum logic is quite a new and absolutely fascinating field of physics and might -- ultimately -- lead to the fabrication of a quantum computer. And it could also aid the search for the "theory of everything" -- the missing link between traditional physics and quantum physics. One of the fundamental questions hereby is whether fundamental constants possibly vary. To prove this in the case of the fine-structure constant, for instance, we have to measure the spectral lines of atoms (i.e. their inner structure) more accurately than ever before. Quantum logic spectroscopy provides such a method.

Physicists from the QUEST Institute at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and from the Leibniz University of Hanover have come one decisive step closer to this goal: instead of complex laser arrangements, all they need is one single laser source to bring a single magnesium ion to a complete standstill. Then they use this ion to determine the properties of another ion. The new method has been published in the specialised journal Applied Physics B.

The new research results constitute another step towards the conclusion of a scientific dispute, namely the question as to who can provide better measurement results to compare astronomic measured data with laboratory references. In astronomic investigations, light is analysed which is generated by quasars and has traversed all kinds of elements, e.g. in cosmic dusts, on its way down to Earth. The individual components can be identified via the spectral lines of the quasar light. If these spectra differ from those that researchers have determined in the laboratory for the same elements, this possibly suggests that the fine-structure constant has changed. These reference comparisons have yielded contradictory results. In order to clarify these contradictions, different systematic aspects have to be investigated. One of the fundamental aspects hereby is the accuracy rate of the known laboratory spectra. The complex internal structure of atoms and ions, which leave a characteristic trace in the quasar light, make it difficult for traditional spectroscopic procedures to tackle them.

The scientists from QUEST (Centre for Quantum Engineering and Space-Time Research) have conceived a clever ruse to detect elements such as, e.g., iron or titanium ions which are difficult to measure directly. These ions can be coupled with other ions of the same charge, by mutual repulsion of the charged particles. Together, the two partners form a quantum-mechanical system in which one of the partners can be manipulated and measured and, thus, provides information about the other partner. In this case, the first partner, the so-called "logic ion," is a magnesium ion. It is somehow used as a "sensor" for the "spectroscopy ion" to be investigated, which can be, e.g., ion, titanium or calcium. To this end, the magnesium ion first has to be cooled by means of laser light. Hereby, so much energy is subducted from it that it no longer moves. Then, the researchers can excite specific atomic transitions inside the "spectroscopy ion" -- i.e. they can basically cause electrons to move to another energy level. This, in turn, provokes a recoil kick which sets both ions into motion and can be detected very sensitively on the "logic ion."

The first step of the laser cooling procedure has become much easier now. Usually, complicated systems involving several laser sources, which fill large optical tables, are used for the purposes of cooling. This group of scientists has developed a novel and, comparably, compact laser system which only needs a single source. To this end, the frequency of light emitted by a fibre laser is multiplied with the aid of non-linear crystals up to a wavelength of 280 nm. An opto-electronic modulator generates a sideband on the light which is resonant with a transition in the magnesium ion and is used for the state preparation and laser cooling of the ions. "With this arrangement, we have succeeded in cooling a single magnesium ion in a Paul trap down to the ground state of a longitudinal mode," explains Piet Schmidt, Head of the QUEST Institute at PTB. "In a next step, we want to test this cooling scheme for an ionic crystal consisting of a magnesium ion and a calcium ion and then, in yet another step, a frequency comb will be used as a spectroscopic laser."

If this works out, laboratory precision measurements of elements such as titanium or iron (including their isotope shifts) might come within reach. This would contribute to clarifying the question of whether the fine-structure constant possibly varies.

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB).

Journal Reference:

  1. B. Hemmerling, F. Gebert, Y. Wan, D. Nigg, I. V. Sherstov, P. O. Schmidt. A single laser system for ground-state cooling of 25Mg+. Applied Physics B, 2011; 104 (3): 583 DOI: 10.1007/s00340-011-4444-0

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110929103212.htm

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Saturday, October 1, 2011

Home Asset Management ? wekivamediapsi.com

Purchasing properties entails huge amounts of money that produces real estates substantial resources. Although it may always be easy to manage only one or two real estate properties, managing more than which will seem too tedious for many individuals. This may be among the many reasons why people and companies use real estate asset management just to handle real estate features.

The difficulty in dealing with real estate assets is the fluctuating market prices and additionally demand for these residences. There are instances that housing bubbles may dramatically demonstrate to a drop in fees, deeming the property more or even a liability than an advantage. Real estate asset property fund management not just handles one?s real house assets, they may also often be a source of relevant information regarding real estate properties and the potential the hands down properties to earn higher returns sometime soon.

Real estate asset management comes with a structure approach in handling real-estate assets considering all all the factors that accompanies committing to real estate. It could possibly be described as the systematic operation of maintaining and upgrading real-estate assets in a cost-effective manner that are going to work well for the home or property owners.

A lot of factors are considered when managing real est assets. One would function as location of the asset, the soundness of the current structures, the cost of maintaining the structure perhaps even the lot appreciation or even the structure depreciation. Other than these, ideal real estate property management considers property fees that owners must spend on.

Because of the many areas of real estate asset relief, most, if not all property management firms or application management advisors use the employment of asset management software that cater mainly with the management of one?s home assets. Utilizing asset management software is useful due to their amount of data when managing real estate investment. These data may double as basis in predicting real estate investment cost estimates for a considerably long time, maintenance cost through occasion, and the property?s real-estate value which would stipulate its appreciation or upcoming resale value.

Source: http://www.wekivamediapsi.com/archives/4520

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Germany faces big test over crucial EU bailout vote

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a critical challenge to her authority on Thursday when some of her coalition, worried about throwing good money after bad by bailing out Greece, could humiliate her in a vote on euro-zone rescue plans.

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Support from the center-left opposition will ensure Germany passes the bill on new powers for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which some countries like Finland have ratified but others, including Slovakia, are disputing.

But if dissent in her coalition forces Merkel to rely on opposition votes to pass the new powers for the 440 billion euro ($600 billion) rescue fund, it would be politically damaging for the conservative chancellor and undermine her ability to pilot fresh measures to combat the euro zone debt crisis.

The lawmakers ? under close scrutiny from jittery markets ? are voting on European leaders' decision in July to increase the effective lending capacity of the fund to 440 billion euro ($595 billion) and give it new powers, such as buying the bonds of shaky countries or lending money to governments before they get into a full-blown crisis.

Story: Global markets anxiously wait as Europe stews on Greece

Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their allies were pressuring a handful of dissidents to get in line before the vote at 11 a.m. (5 a.m. ET). It should be clear about half an hour after that the EFSF has been passed, but any word on how many government lawmakers rebelled could take another hour.

"We are working to convince people," CDU second-in-command Hermann Groehe told Reuters. He said "it will be close" but the government would not put itself in the humiliating position of depending on the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens.

Highlighted tensions
Merkel's center-right coalition has been strained by members who have balked at the cost of propping up the eurozone's strugglers.

Germany is the biggest economy among the 17-countries that use the euro currency and has to contribute more than others to boosting the firepower of the bailout fund. If passed, Germany will be guaranteeing loans in future to the tune of up to 211 billion euro, rather than 123 billion euro so far.

Stocks tumble sharply, ending 3-day win streak

"Today we will make an important contribution to our nation, to Europe and to the stability of the euro," Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Merkel's bloc, said in opening remarks on the debate.

Markets remain in a fairly jittery mood over Europe's handling of its debt crisis. Shares in Europe have opened modestly lower Thursday.

Though Merkel described the euro as "our common future" and said approving the beefed-up bailout fund was "of the very, very greatest significance," she has not mustered the support of all member of her governing coalition.

Discussions went deep into the night in an attempt to win support of as many ruling lawmakers as possible, in an effort to secure a solid enough majority so that the government doesn't need the opposition's votes to pass the measure. At least a small group of lawmakers plan to vote against.

Opposition leaders have said that if Merkel's coalition has to rely on their votes, it would be a sign that her strife-prone and increasingly unpopular government is finished.

On Wednesday, Finland voted in favor of expanding the fund's powers despite earlier threats to pull out of a rescue plan for Greece.

The fund expansion has to be ratified by all 17 eurozone nations to take force.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44713324/ns/world_news-europe/

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Drug companies must report clinical trial results, even when they won't lead to a product, experts urge

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2011) ? Drug companies sponsoring human trials of possible new medications have ethical responsibilities to study participants and to science to disclose the results of their clinical research -- even when product development is no longer being pursued, says a commentary co-authored by a leading UC Davis drug researcher published online September 28 in Science Translational Medicine.

In the commentary, titled "Disclosure of Clinical Trial Results When Product Development is Abandoned," Michael Rogawski, chair of the Department of Neurology in the UC Davis School of Medicine, says that far too little attention has been given to the failure to reveal study results for drugs or medical devices for which development has been terminated.

Rogawski, an international authority on the development of drugs for epilepsy, says companies most commonly stop development of an investigational drug when clinical trials fail to show evidence of efficacy or if unacceptable adverse events occur. However, in some cases development is terminated because regulatory agencies require additional studies and the company sponsoring the trial is unwilling to comply. Companies may also terminate a program because of a lack of resources or because of a "reevaluation of the market opportunity."

Many sponsors do publish the results of their clinical trials even when there are no plans to market the product being tested, but there is no legal requirement that they do so. With little incentive to devote resources to an abandoned project, publishing often goes by the wayside. In this situation "scientific information on the efficacy -- or lack of efficacy -- and safety -- or lack of safety -- of the investigational agents is not available to the research community, and the opportunity to learn from unsuccessful clinical trials is eliminated," Rogawski says.

For example, Rogawski says that it is assumed that the mouse models used to identify new drugs to treat epilepsy have high predictive value, because every marketed antiepileptic drug has demonstrated activity in the screening models. But "this assumption could be erroneous, because we do not know if there are drugs that were effective in the models but did not exhibit efficacy or had unacceptable side effects in clinical trials and were therefore terminated by their sponsors."

Similar concerns have been identified in psychiatric drug research, leading to the conclusion that "translational medicine cannot approach its full potential if negative drug developments are unpublished."

Commentary co-author Howard J. Federoff, a neuroscientist and dean of the School of Medicine of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said disclosing negative results from drug and device trials benefits everyone.

"Disclosing negative results from drug and device clinical trials benefits the entire scientific spectrum," Federoff says. "Such reporting would lead to greater patient safety, improve treatment research strategies, and allow a more efficient use of limited resources. The HHS has within its power the authority to require such reporting and doing so would positively impact health outcomes."

Rogawski says that in 2007 Congress enacted a law requiring clinical researchers to post the detailed results of most clinical trials on the publicly accessible ClinicalTrials.gov database, whose original purpose was to assist patients in finding clinical trials. However, there is a loophole in the law that allows sponsors to delay submission of the data until the drug or medical device is approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If the product is not approved, the clinical trial results do not need to be made public. Under the authority of the FDA Amendments Act of 2007, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is considering regulations to require reporting of the results for any registered trial even those that do not lead to an FDA-approved product.

Patients participate in clinical trials for many reasons, Rogawski notes, including the desire to contribute to medical knowledge, help the sick and benefit humanity. If sponsors diminish the opportunity for society to benefit from the altruism of research subjects, this subverts an implicit moral contract between sponsors and study participants.

Federoff adds: "Transparency in data sharing of trial results for products whose development has been abandoned will further improve translational science, engender trust among study participants, and optimize resource allocations for the pursuit of the most promising new therapeutics."

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of California - Davis Health System.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/3YCulcCq5b0/110928142444.htm

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Wall Street ends worst quarter since 2008 (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stocks ended their worst quarter since the depths of the 2008 credit crisis, crippled by Europe's debt debacle, a U.S. credit downgrade and a sputtering global economy.

A steep slide on Friday closed out a fifth month of losses as weak economic data from China sparked fears of a global economic slowdown while investment bank Morgan Stanley plummeted on concerns about its exposure to European banks.

The S&P 500 index has lost more than 14 percent this quarter and over 7 percent in September alone. As of Thursday, Wall Street's deep downturn in the third quarter wiped out $2.2 trillion of the Wiltshire 5000 index -- the broadest measure of U.S. stocks.

"Why is the market so soft and so weak? Because '08 is still fresh in people's memories," said Joseph Mazzella, a senior trader at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Stocks have been battered by the threat of a slowdown and fears that a Greek debt default could spark a credit shock similar to that caused by Lehman Brothers in September 2008, sending markets into a tailspin.

Fears of a hard landing in the world's second largest economy joined the potent mix troubling investors after China's manufacturing sector shrank for the third month in a row.

HSBC's China flash purchasing managers index showed the longest contractional streak since 2009 in a worrying sign for the world economy, which has looked to China as a rare source of expansion.

"The economic engine that has been driving growth has been China and if that comes undone, it gets scary again," said Mazzella.

Investors will be eyeing China's official PMI, due out on Saturday, which may have edged up again in September. Any disappointment there will be a blow for markets.

Financial shares stumbled with Morgan Stanley, which fell 10.5 percent to $13.51 as investors appeared to react to fear signals in credit markets.

The cost of insuring Morgan Stanley's five-year bonds spiked in recent days to almost three times what it was on June 30. It shares have erased all their gains of the last three year.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 240.60 points, or 2.16 percent, to 10,913.38. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 28.98 points, or 2.50 percent, to 1,131.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 65.36 points, or 2.63 percent, to 2,415.40.

Wall Street's "fear gauge," the CBOE volatility index, or VIX, rose more than 10 percent to 42.96, its highest close since mid-August and indicating investors expect more volatility ahead.

"There is a lot of fear that GDP growth is going to slow down, or it's not going to be as fast as consensus estimates assume," said Adam Krejcik, an analyst at Roth Capital in Newport Beach, California. "Generally speaking there is a lot of fear out there, just a crisis of confidence."

Through Thursday, the MSCI All Country World Index had lost about $4.7 trillion in market capitalization. The U.S. benchmark S&P 500 has lost about $1.7 trillion in market cap during the quarter.

Euro zone annual consumer prices unexpectedly rose in September 3.0 percent and followed surprisingly higher inflation in Germany.

In what may be a precursor to the quarterly earnings season, Ingersoll Rand Plc tumbled 12.1 percent to $28.09 after the industrial conglomerate cut its third-quarter and full-year earnings forecast to below market estimates. The Morgan Stanley cyclical index dropped 3.6 percent.

Markets showed little reaction two U.S. economic reports that were stronger than analysts expected.

Business activity in the U.S. Midwest grew more than expected in September, buoyed by new orders and a jump in employment.

The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago business barometer surprisingly rose in September more than economists had forecast.

U.S. consumer sentiment improved in late September but worries persisted about jobs and finances, which could curb household spending in the coming months, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final September reading of the overall index on consumer sentiment showed.

About four stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. On the Nasdaq, about 7 stocks fell for every two that rose.

About 8.58 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, above this year's daily average of 7.96 billion.

(Additional reporting by Himank Sharma; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111001/bs_nm/us_markets_stocks

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