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Nielsen, after its rebranding efforts and under new ownership, has been on an acquisitions tear on its mainstay analytics side: it bought mobile analytics firm Telephia and blog buzz firm BuzzMetrics, last year, bought a stake in NeuroFocus earlier this year, and now has bought out Utah-based TV analysis company Audience Analytics and its Audience Watch software, reports THR. The technology acquired will become the primary delivery mechanism for Nielsen's DigitalPlus product, which will provide metrics on interactive television data and VOD transactions, the company said. In addition, with this purchase, the company will develop a single platform to process TV, Internet, mobile and consumer data sets.
We've gotten a flood of tips that the notoriously miserly Verizon is lining things up to offer unlimited calling plans. Starting Tuesday the 19th (of this month) should see the following plans sprout up:
- $100 - Nationwide Unlimited (voice)
- $120 - Nationwide Select Unlimited (voice, SMS, MMS)
- $140 - Nationwide Premium (voice, SMS, MMS, VZNav, VCAST, email)
- $150 - Nationwide Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and data)
- $170 - Nationwide Global Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and international data)
- $200 - Family plan with two lines, $100 per additional line.
That's not all though. There are even more perks and benefits in store for premium-paying unlimited users:
- 5GB cap on data is out
- No contract extension for current customers
- Available on one or two year agreements
- All plans include Mobile Web 2.0 portal access (skip it)
- No roaming or long distance
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Written by Ryan Block · Filed Under Business
Washington DC based Cookthink bills itself as being like Pandora for recipes with a tested cooking database that returns results based on user desires.
The key pitch of Cookthink is the “cookthink it” search tool. Users enter what they are craving and Cookthink suggest a good recipe to match those cravings. Ingredients can be combined, for example if you had cravings for a pasta dish that included bacon and mushrooms, you could add all three to the search and the service will return a recipe.
Recipes can be searched using four categories of tags: mood (eg, hangover-friendly), ingredient (eg, chicken), cuisine (eg, Tex-Mex) and dish type (eg, quesadilla). For each recipe, Cookthink suggests complimentary recipes for the dish, and links are provided to relevant cooking tips and techniques.
Cookthink also offers a meal builder, with which users can create and save meals using recipes on the site.
There is absolutely no shortage of recipe sites on the web with often very little between them. Along with the rich search and feature set, Cookthink promises that every recipe on the site has either been tested in-house or by one of the members of the “Cookthinktank,” a confederation of food bloggers and cookbook authors whose recipes are searchable at Cookthink. Basically they aren’t suggesting recipes that haven’t been tested by someone related to the site.
The site is currently privately funded and will look to raise venture capital in the northern Spring.
Written by Tim · Filed Under Open
Rest assured, we've seen some wicked frickin' lasers in our day, but apparently, even the
two-kilowatt rendition that heats coffee in mere seconds can't hold a
candle ray of light to HERCULES. Intentionally named in all caps by University of Michigan gurus in order to highlight its awesomeness, said laser contains 300 terawatts of power (or 300 times the capacity of the entire US electricity grid) and could "help scientists develop better proton and electron beams for radiation treatment of cancer." Still, we can't help but conclude with UMich's own description of this masterpiece: "If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of [HERCULES]." Damn.
[Via
Physorg]
Written by Darren Murph · Filed Under Science
Nothing mind blowing here, but RosterBot will be a welcome application for coaches of kids or adults informal sports teams. It’s simple, it’s free and it works, unlike existing applications (let me know if you know of an alternative that you like).
Like most of the good applications we see, it was created not from a spreadsheet but from the need to solve a problem. In this case, Canadian Ian Bell (founder of the new and improved PubSub) came up with the idea when he got tired of reading through email strings about upcoming games for his hockey teams.
In an email, Ian wrote “Lots of companies vying for domination in this space. My approach is to focus on the core value and really get good at solving the pain most people have around organizing their teams, and not worry about all the other big-ticket aspects such as photo sharing, scorekeeping, etc. Other companies are good at that but they’re mired in the process of making big sales to leagues, etc. I’m hoping I can make the appeal directly to teams, which is far less costly and more viral.”
RosterBot works for any sport, and it takes about a minute to get the team set up and invitations sent out. If you are on or coach a team that can use this, you’ll love it. Otherwise, move on, nothing to see here.
So Ian, when’s the new PubSub launching, anyway?
Written by Tim · Filed Under Open
In a fresh filing this evening, the activists agitating for change at NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) announced that they picked up another 500,000 shares on Wednesday. Through the various funds involved, Harbert Management, the parent company of Harbinger, now controls 15.57 million shares or nearly 11 percent of the company. Just since the investors announced their intentions to seat their own boardmembers on Jan. 25, NYTCo has announced board changes as well as newsroom layoffs. And already, since that date, shares are up over 27 percent.
Related
Top jobs in digital media posted this week:
-- Playboy (NYSE: PLA) Digital Media: SVP of Marketing
-- Time, Inc: Director of Business Development, RealSimple.com
-- Howcast Media, Inc.: Director of Content Development & Programming
-- About.com: Senior Interactive Online Producer
-- MySpace: Senior Product Manager
-- Photobucket: Senior Product Manager
Tons more at our job board.
Written by Tim · Filed Under Media
-- Dow Jones: As tipped last month, the SEC has settled an insider trading complaint against ex-Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) director David Li and certain affiliated parties. Li was alleged to have passed on news of News Corp.'s bid for Dow Jones to friends, and though he won't admit to wrongdoing, he will pay an $8.1 million fine. Affiliate Michael Lueng, who traded with the help of his daughter and son-in-law, will pay another $16.2 million. Statement.
-- Star Tribune: The Minneapolis daily has laid off 58 staffers - about 3 percent of the newspaper's workforce. Most of the jobs are in the circulation department; no reporting positions are being affected. The paper, which was sold off by The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) in 2006, also handed down an indefinite wage freeze for all its nonunion employees, which will affect about 600 in total. The Star Tribune's revenues have declined nearly $75 million in the past two years.
-- North County Times: The North County Times newspaper, which covers North San Diego County, has begun offering voluntary newsroom buyouts. In response to the weakening economy, the paper is looking for 20 volunteers to take the buyouts, though it has not announced contingency plans, in the event its target is not met. The paper is a division of Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE). The news comes a day after major reductions were announced at Tribune. (via NC Times)
-- McClatchy: The newspaper publisher had its default credit rating downgraded by Fitch from BB+ to just BB. The announcement goes into some depth on the reasons for the dongrade, but the bottom line is that McClatchy is a "strong operator", but not so strong that it can swim against the tides of the industry. Also, there's an interesting comment on the fear that the company may be pressured to do something drastic: "??? while Fitch recognizes that companies with dual-class stock structures may be somewhat insulated from shareholder activist-driven event risk, we are cautious that boards of directors and management teams may still be similarly pressured to consider management-lead buyouts (MBOs), other leveraging transactions or large-scale digital acquisitions to attempt to boost their companies' share prices." Release.
-- Private Capital Management: Bruce Sherman, the investor who spearheaded Knight Ridder's sale to McClatchy, has washed his hands of the newspaper industry. The latest filing from his fund Private Capital Management has no holdings in newspaper stocks. Just last quarter, the company held stakes in NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) and McClatchy, although by then he had eliminated his holdings in Belo (NYSE: BLC), Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Media General (NYSE: MEG), and Lee Enterprises. (via E&P)
Related
First Scoble writes about something so amazing from Microsoft it makes him cry and will be world changing. Then Long Zheng spots the above page via an email pitch linking to opensourcehero that redirects here.
What open source something will Microsoft forge on February 27 that will be world changing and make Scoble cry? I read Scoble’s post again (either I didn’t read it all the first time, or he has since added to it) and pulled out some more clues:
Read more
A day after the Tribune Co. announced job cuts both in and out of the newsroom, the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) is planning to eliminate 100 newsroom jobs through attrition, buyouts and possibly layoffs, according to NYT itself. The cuts account for 7.5 percent of the newsroom's 1332 employees. The cuts were announced by executive editor Bill Keller, who described layoffs as a last resort that may be required if the company doesn't get enough people to accept buyouts. In a memo, Keller acknowledged that the "low-hanging fruit" of easy cuts is gone and the move would have an impact on the company's journalistic output. In November, the company announced plans to eliminate a dozen newsroom jobs, although none were reporting positions.
The announcement comes as the company is under pressure from activist investors pushing for aggressive changes. Last Friday, NYTCo top brass met with Scott Galloway and on Tuesday, the company announced a board shakeup to bring in more digital and deals experience.
-- The New York Observer relays a first-hand account of the meeting with Keller when the cuts were announced. Apparently, in an attempt to reduce the pain, there is talk of diverting some money set aside for editor bonuses to saving jobs. Perhaps the most oddly revealing news is that during the Q&A, there was just one question about the cuts: "Instead, there were questions about why the fourth-floor was so cold and why stairwells in the building were still inaccessible."
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