Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts
Globosport Digital launched Celina Jaitley’s official online and mobile destination aiming to invite fans of the gorgeous actress into her very personal and professional life. www.mycelinajaitley.com is an interactive and user-friendly website which takes fans on a journey through memories and career highlights that have made Celina Jaitley who she is.
The website encompasses the story of a girl who aspired to join the army and her journey from there on to become a successful model and finally an acclaimed actress. Also shared are the diva’s style secrets, her favourite destinations and more. Revealing an unknown side of the actress is a list of charitable causes that Celina has been associated with. It also provides her fans with an opportunity to ask questions and get a reply from the actress herself. Celina also plays online love guru as she gives fans help and advice on their love life.
“I am really excited about launching my own digital platform through www.mycelinajaitley.com. My fans and my well wishers can now get a glimpse of my personal life, get to know me more and talk to me about my style statement, my professional life etc,” says Celina. “This really makes me feel connected to my fans and I feel like this is an ideal platform for people to reach out to me,” she adds.
Globosport Digital has powered the Official Mobile and Internet destinations of Celina Jaitley. GSD has currently acquired exclusive global new media (Internet, Mobile) and Licensing and Merchandising rights of over 30 celebrities from Bollywood, Sports and South Indian film industry. This includes the likes of Ranbir Kapoor, Celina Jaitley, Mugdha Godse, Payal Rohatgi, Sikander Kher, Riya Sen, Koena Mitra, Amrita Arora, Rahul Bose and several others
Whenever I’m forced to look into moving to another town or city anywhere throughout the United States, I’ve always dreaded the apartment hunting process. Sifting through countless old rental ads in the weekly newspaper is the very last thing I want to do on a Sunday afternoon. Even worse; making phonecalls, setting up viewings, and dealing with the variety of potential landlords - an assortment of snakes and sleazebags most of the time. Luckily, the magic of the Internet now simplifies the process of hunting for an apartment. The following top 5 apartment search websites are sure to make your next move significantly easier than your last. How do you determine which apartment search websites are the top five? For me, it comes down to to three things - simplicity, features, and results. The site needs to be simple enough so that I can get in and out and do what I need to do without requiring a training course on how to navigate the website. The website should also provide all of the features that an apartment hunter demands, such as the ability to visually tour apartments or filter search criteria. Most importantly, the site should return the largest number of results as possible. The following websites meet those basic requirements, and some of them have a few nice bonus features as well. According to RealEstateRama, the following were the top ten apartment hunting websites based on the number of times visitors “checked availability” of an apartment on the website. Popularity is one thing, but as MakeUseOf readers know, features and quality are often far more important than popularity. With this in mind, I tested all ten websites, and have rated the top five apartment search websites based on design, features and ease of use. Starting off the countdown at number five, Move.com makes the cut with a clean and efficient design. Move.com lets you search by price range as well as beds and baths, but in addition you can also search by property type as well as amenities and pet requirements. There are article listings under home finance, moving, and home & garden categories. However, the overall focus of the website seems to be geared toward motivating people away from renting and into becoming a first time home buyer. Two identical sections to the rental search are parallel searches for New Homes and Existing Homes. The search results included 5 detailed photo listings coming up for Portland, Maine, and all listings including estimated rent prices. The search here is focused on the specific town that you’re looking for, but you can heavily refine that search with the terms listed in the left menu bar. ApartmentGuide is a very simple, stripped down apartment search where you search by price, beds and baths, property name, or location. The results come up in a clear photo format with a cool interactive map showing where each property is located. While this site returned fewer results for Portland, Maine (3 vs. 5) than Move.com did, it is still ranked higher due to the fact that the site is devoted to only apartments, and because this website is one of the few apartment search sites that provides a truly interactive map where you can access the listings by clicking an icon within the map. The site also performs an “intelligent” search for rentals within communities that surround the city you searched. My favorite feature of the site, however, is the stylish slideshow that’s offered for every property. This feature alone is a valuable way to get a nice tour of a property well before you take the trip to check it out in person. ApartmentHomeLiving is the sort of website that you’ll want to visit even if you’re not looking for an apartment. The feel of the sight is light and airy, and the motto says it all, “Live for hot chocolate.” The search results are nice photo listings pulled from the Apartments.com database, but they aren’t anything to call home about. What makes this apartment search site stand out is obviously the content. There are loads of great features and “answers” about everything to do with moving and apartment living. In essence this site is like a “souped-up” version of Apartments.com, with a dash of fun thrown in. In the search area, you can even find an apartment based on your personality! Often copied, but still one of the forerunners in the apartment search business, Apartments.com provides greater search features and a better site design than the majority of competitors. From the very first page, you’ve got a large clickable map for easy one-click apartment searching. Or if you prefer, you can search by typing the location, and also by a whole list of apartment characteristics like type of housing, beds and baths, whether it’s pet friendly, or the apartment and community amenities. The listings are detailed, with the ability to save results to “favorites,” clear pricing, and many properties offer a “360 degree” tour. Apartments.com is one of the few websites that lists private rental properties as well as large managed properties. In the case of my search for Portland, Maine, the results returned included 8 managed and 2 private rentals. The site also offers valuable content for renters including sections titled moving center, apartment living, manager center, and landlord resources. Rent.com is, by far, the king of the apartment search domain. The site is clearly professionally designed, with a fast and easy initial page featuring a basic search. Unfortunately, to use Rent.com you need to enter your email address. However, I’ve used Rent.com for over three years and have never had a problem with spam through the site. The power of Rent.com, and the main reason it remains the king of the hill is its extensive apartment database that includes not only managed apartment buildings, but also condos, townhouses and houses. The bottom line is that Rent.com returns more results than any other site - for my test search for the small city of Portland, Maine, it returned 18 listings. The listings include large, clear photos and photo galleries, lots of specific details about the apartments, and the price range is clearly displayed on every listing. The “moving center” section of the website offers renters help with transferring utilities and insurance, dealing with truck rentals and storage, and the millions of other details that renters have to worry about during a move.Rating the Top Five U.S. Apartment Search Websites
#5 - Move.com
#4 - ApartmentGuide.com
#3 - ApartmentHomeLiving.com
#2 - Apartments.com
#1 - Rent.com
Thanks to its open-ended design and a thriving user community, Twitter is fast outgrowing its roots as a simple, easy-to-use messaging service. Enterprising hackers are creating apps for sharing music and videos, to help you quit smoking and lose weight -- spontaneously extending the text-based service into one of the web's most fertile (and least likely) application platforms. Hardware hackers have set up household appliances to send status alerts over Twitter, like a washing machine that tweets when the spin cycle is through, or a home security system that tweets whenever it senses movement inside the house. Others have incorporated Twitter into their DIY home automation systems. Forgot to turn off the lights? Send a tweet to flip the switch by remote control. "It's so simple and easy to access, people are thinking of more and more uses for the platform," says Dan Wasyluk, creator of the Twitter-based Snipt service. Wasyluk launched Snipt last week as a way to let programmers share short snippets of code over Twitter. Launched in 2007, Twitter quickly became a darling of the life-and mind-casting interneterati. But some saw boundless possibilities in the 140-character limit, and what was a slow trickle of innovation is now quickly elevating what is essentially a micro-blogging service into one of the internet's most important technologies, along with instant messaging and e-mail. Though it's main use -- sending and receiving short messages to your social network -- is often dismissed as time-wasting trivia, Twitter's potential as a broad internet platform is just beginning to be fully realized. Twitter has grown into a ubiquitous presence -- you can send tweets from your phone, your desktop and your browser -- that has potential to not only facilitate communication among humans, but even to make machines do your bidding. Businesses are starting to be built around it. Botanicalls, for example, sells a Twitter-enabled hardware kit that lets your neglected house plants alert you when they're thirsty. The company has developed a tiny moisture sensor attached to a circuit board with an Ethernet port. You stick it in your plant's soil, and when the moisture levels drop below a certain level, your plant sends you a tweet begging to be watered. Using Twitter's application programming interface (API), a programmer with even a modest amount of experience can create a webapp that gathers public data from Twitter, or uses it to send links, commands or bursts of information. "[Twitter's] open API is a huge reason it has grown into such a platform," says Wasyluk. File sharers were the first to rush in. The photo-sharing service TwitPic, one of the oldest Twitter mashups, lets users send pictures to their followers by storing a photo on its servers, then passing the link around on Twitter. Now there are newer apps like Tweetcube and Twittershare, which let users share larger media like MP3s and videos. Twitter's limited format of short, text-based announcements are a natural match for sites like TrackThis, which you can use to get status updates on FedEx and UPS packages, and Tweetajob, which job seekers can use to get real-time updates about new job openings. Anyone who needs help quitting smoking can use Qwitter to monitor their progress. Those looking to lose weight can turn to TweetWhatYouEat or TweetYourEats. Hardware hackers have put a new spin on the Twitter mashup -- as it turns out, just about anything that can be plugged into the internet is capable of talking to Twitter. Programmer Ryan Rose rigged up his washing machine to send him a tweet when his clothes are done. He just follows his machine's twitter account (it's PiMPY3WASH) and he knows when to go downstairs and move his undies to the dryer. Linux hacker Shantanu Goel set up a video camera and some motion-sensing software on a PC connected to the internet. If anyone breaks into his house or goes snooping through his room, the software detects the movement and sends out a tweet. Tech-savvy environmentalists can install Tweet-a-Watt, a gadget that plugs into your wall socket and connects to your wi-fi network. Once a day, the pocket-sized device broadcasts stats of your daily energy usage to Twitter. Whether that sort of transparency results in embarrassment or bragging rights can be determined by a system like the one created by Justin Wickett. The Duke University student wired up his home so he couldturn his lights on and off remotely, just by sending a text message to Twitter from his mobile phone
While we’ve previously published buzz about the platform being dead, it’s currently far from it. The platform continues to thrive despite its occasional hiccups. Yes, there is controversy about honest versus dishonest developers but the fact remains that you can still build a popular application even with the new hurdles. Below are 13 strategies that you can use to immediately attract attention to your applications. Don’t be surprised if you use these strategies and your server gets overloaded with a massive onslaught of new users! The highly viral applications, like snowball wars, tend to immediately attract numerous copycats which also often times attract tens if not hundreds of thousands of users. Even the top application developers use this strategy. For example, there is now an entire suite of Mob Wars applications created by Zynga and SGN which are essentially copycats of the original Mob Wars application. I remember a saying in the movie hackers which was “Mess with the best, die like rest!!” If you modify that phrase a little you can come up with “Copy the best, soar beyond the rest.” Perhaps my derived version is a bit corny but you get the idea. Copy the top applications and there’s a good chance that you will attract a large number of users. In this example Zynga simply provided more development and design resources to improve the application. I would guess that they also invested heavily in promotion in addition to thorough A/B testing. O.k., so perhaps that’s not the best example since Zynga clearly invested heavily in building out Mafia Wars. There are plenty of other applications that need improvements and you can be the one to do so. This strategy clearly takes more investment then some of the other strategies I outline below. You can’t quickly duplicate larger applications since more development time went into creating them. If you are looking to build lasting value though, you are going to need to invest more significant development resources. So remember, if you can’t come up with an original idea, improve upon an existing one. As Lupe Fiasco says in the song Superstar, “Did you improve on a design, did you do something new?” Improving upon existing applications can bring you great success. One application, “Send Valentine Chocolate“, has attracted over 150,000 users in under two weeks. My guess is that they’ll be launching more holiday applications since they’ve called their company “Holiday Apps“. There are numerous other applications growing due to Valentine’s day. Browse through our directory of the fastest growing Facebook applications and you’ll quickly find tons of applications for sending valentines, chocolate, love letters, and more. We’re almost two years into the Facebook application and there is still a market for holiday applications. As always, niche holidays are always an easy grab but it appears that more popular applications are still ripe for the taking. The most popular applications tend to have avid fan bases. For example, the YoVille virtual world application, created by Zynga, has an extremely active user base. There are also a number of fan pages that have popped up related to Yoville, a few of which have even become extremely popular. One application that is growing quickly is called “Pet Society Gifts“. This application has taken advantage of the popularity of Playfish’s extremely popular Pet Society game and has made a gifting application targeted to it. Should you completely rip off another company’s brand? Definitely not. There are some great opportunities to build niche gift giving applications though. Rochester Gifts is another application that picks an unfulfilled niche and provides them with a gift giving application. The application selects gifts that only locals would know about and then encourages them to donate the gift to friends. One problem with the application? It violates Facebook’s terms of service by unlocking more gifts as a user gives out more. Regardless of their violation, the application clearly satisfies and unfulfilled niche and on Facebook there is still limitless niche possibilities. There are now numerous fast growing applications written in Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, Russian, and many other languages. The point is clear: create similar applications in other languages and you’re sure to experience similar success. Last week in my Facebook privacy guide, I highlighted how news feed items published by applications can often times be invasive if not offensive. Regardless of how aggressive some application developers are willing to go for new users, the bottom line is that such tactics are successful at acquiring new users. Personally, I’d avoid trying to launch a similar application but so far “Have Sex!” has proven to be extremely successful. While I believe the developers in this example may have pushed the limits too far (in that they publish a news feed story every time you visit the application), the model is clearly effective. By publishing news feed stories regularly with outlandish statements you rapidly increase the likelihood of friends of your users clicking through and adding the application. By itself, this strategy is not extremely useful, but combined with an engaging application, this strategy can attract a ton of new users. Friends for Sale is probably the most classic example of integrate a rating system into their application. While Friends for Sale isn’t simply “rate your friends on these factors”, the bidding on friends creates a natural ranking system among friends, creating a highly competitive environment. I think there is a clear distinction between rating and ranking though, which is why I separated this strategy from the 11th strategy below. The act of rating friends to determine who’s the most popular, who’s the most friendly, who is the best looking, and others, caters to our inner high school yearbook ranking system. Any time you can list out friends into ranked lists, you are guaranteed to attract the attention of users. Unfortunately though ranked lists only attract temporary attention which is why you need to come up with other creative models for engaging users once you have their attention. Begin with a friend rating system and you are on the path to Facebook application success. That’s why it’s not surprising that the Kinder Surprise application is one of the fastest growing Facebook applications. I would argue that this is probably the single most effective strategy for figuring out a good application to build. Whether it’s celebrities, products, politicians, or just general topics, fan pages provide developers with a countless number of good topics to focus on. Watercooler Inc. is probably the best example of an application developer that has build a large network of applications based around popular topics. While they inspiration probably wasn’t Facebook pages since they didn’t exist when the company launched, the concept is similar: go find the most popular topics and brands and build applications around them. There are clearly risks involved. For example, the Scrabulous application went through a number of lawsuits and was forced to rename their application after creating the first version of Scrabble for Facebook. While it’s not a game show, it still had trademarks and copyrights related to the game and the same thing goes for television applications. One good model is to recreate a television game show but call it something else. For example, I have yet to find a Facebook version of the “Price is Right” but I’m sure tons of people would end up playing it. While you may want to call the application something besides the actual name of the game show, this strategy is pretty much guaranteed to work. The only problem with this strategy? Well, it takes a bit more programming to recreate a television game show on Facebook. Aside from the hurdles though, this is still a great model. There are a number of other applications that are culturally related but many of them have fairly uncreative application titles though. For example, the “Italian Stuff” application is growing quickly, yet it has a horrible name in my own opinion. There are a number of ways to brainstorm effective cultural applications. The easiest way is to think of the most memorable places or activities when going on a vacation to any country. Applications based around native food dishes are also a great thing to consider. I’ll leave the brainstorming up to you though. These systems are great for incentivizing users to compete against their friends and other users on Facebook. The result is higher engagement and often times you see repeat usage as users try to work their way up the leaderboard. One interesting strategy to get users to return is to provide them with a higher ranking in the leaderboard. For example, users tend to rank higher among their friends then among all Facebook users. By posting the leaderboard within their friends, it gives the impression that users aren’t really that far from the top spot. This indirectly encourages the user to return to try and gain the top spot. By catering to this sort of behavior, you can easily attract a large number of users by making them feel good for being in on the joke. Like many other strategies, this only generates temporary engagement. You will still need to create something which generates additional value for the user. Inside jokes alone don’t provide much lasting value. The inside joke strategy will most definitely get you moving in the right direction for attracting a few new users. Encouraging the user to actually click the application is another story, but they’ll most definitely notice the quiz invitation. Quiz applications always rank among the fastest growing applications with our Facebook application leaderboard. Whether it’s “What character in Sex in the City are you?” or “What rock song best describes your life?”, people continuously add these applications. Quiz applications have extremely short life spans for the most part though so you may want to quickly figure out somewhere to redirect users once they’ve completed the application. One way is aggregating all the quizzes into a single application. That’s what the developer ofQuizzes application did. They now have over 35,000 daily active users. Quizzes are a great step for first attracting users, but as I said, make sure you quickly find out another way to engage the users once they’ve completed the quiz. Also, please do me a favor and don’t create junk applications. Try to come up with something a little more creative!
I spend a fair amount of time browsing through our Facebook application leaderboard to find what applications are growing on the platform. Every day it’s a different picture. Sometimes you find applications that are spamming the platform and other days you’ll find a really interesting application that you haven’t seen before. Regardless of type, there is still a huge potential to build successful applications on the Facebook platform.1. Copy Another Application
They say imitation is the biggest form of flattery. It’s also often times a really good business plan. In the world of Facebook applications, duplicating another Facebook application is frequently a fast track to success. I don’t recommend creating an exact duplicate though since at that point you could run into some legal issues. For those that are not very creative, duplicating applications is frequently the most efficient model for attracting a lot of users.2. Put a New Twist On A Popular App
This is extremely similar to the first strategy that I outlined. If there is a popular application that appears to have an active user base but still doesn’t rank among the top 50 applications, you may want to explore ways to improve it. For example, Zynga’s version of Mob Wars is now one of the most popular applications on Facebook.3. Launch Holiday Oriented Applications
For the past two years, holiday applications have thrived on the Facebook platform. Every time another holiday comes around, I see a temporary spike in application traffic to those apps catering to the specific holiday. With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, love is spreading around Facebook through a number of applications.4. Niche Gifts
5. Translate Existing Applications Into A Foreign Language
This is a huge opportunity for just about any developer. Take one of the more popular applications (not the most popular since the are probably translated already) and convert it into different languages. Also, a good strategy for choosing which language to translate into is to use our demographic statistics tool to find the fastest growing countries and then translate applications into each country’s native language.6. Post Outrageous News Feed Stories
7. Integrate a Way to Rate Friends
This strategy continues to be successful. Jugement, a French application which let’s you rate friends based on various characteristics has experienced tremendous growth over the past week. The application has also followed one of our previous suggestions, “Translate Existing Applications Into A Foreign Language”, by essentially translating the “Compare People” application into French.8. Turn A Popular Fan Page Into an Application
This is something that I think many developers have failed to act on. Fan pages are a great indicator for what’s popular among users of the Facebook platform. That’s why we released out Facebook page statistics tool. For example Kinder Surprise, a popular chocolate egg which comes with a toy inside (and has been banned from the United States), is one of the most popular pages on Facebook.9. Create the Online Version of a Television Game Show
Yesterday while browsing through our application directory, I noticed that the Deal or No Deal application was spiking in traffic. It’s not surprising considering that it’s still a popular television game show. Similar to the last strategy I mentioned, which is to take advantage of popular brands, this one takes that a little bit further and suggests duplicating television game shows.10. Create Culturally Oriented Applications
Facebook is all about expression of self-identity and part of our self-identity is our affiliation groups. One affiliation group that people tend to be strongly attached to is their cultural groups. Whether it’s religion or geographically related cultural activities, targeting sub-groups of users is always a great way to achieve rapid adoption. Many of the culturally related applications are in other languages so it’s hard for me to come up with a lot of examples, but I would say that theShabbat Shalom application is one example.11. Create a Ranking System
I’ve already mentioned a rating system for friends, but ranking is much different. One of the better ranking systems I can think of is done through Grader.com. The site has a number of ranking systems including the Facebook grader which ranks the top Facebook users and top Facebook pages on the site. Many social gaming applications also have their own internal ranking systems.12. Make People Feel Like They’re Part of an Inside Joke
This rule is a combination of making people feel like their part of an exclusive group as well as stroking their ego by emphasizing their intelligence. The Dunder Mifflin Nifty Gifties application is a good example of this. You can compare it to the “Watercooler effect”, which was when employees felt left out of the loop for not watching a certain television show the night before.13. Generate Creative Quizzes
I hate mentioning this one because there are already way too many quiz applications on Facebook. The funny thing is that this always works though. Browse through a Cosmopolitan magazine, and you’ll see it filled with tons of quizzes that are almost identical to ones they put in previous editions. Quizzes are as enticing as top 10 lists. They never fail to capture the user’s attention.
Some days ago I read that Viadeo, a social network that competes with Linkedin, had acquired one of the largest sites in India, ApnaCircle, founded by one of Hotmail’s cofounder. On the other hand, Linkedin is trying hard to fight Xing in its home country, Germany. I really wonder if it is posible to compete with Linkedin in such a network market. The case of Viadeo is more difficult. It comes from France, where it used to be the largest professional network. I am not sure any more, as Linkedin has become very popular over there. It is also trying to penetrate the Spanish market, but it is having a hard time, as both Xing and Linkedin are very popular in Spain. So Linkedin is the world leader and there are some networks fighting this leadership in some countries. Will they survive? I am not so sure any more, as Linkedin is translating its platform to the main world languages: Spanish, French and German and more coming. This is like a Coca-Cola business: if everybody drinks this brand, you have no option. What happens is that in some local markets you need to be on Xing or on Viadeo to get to know people. But for international business, Linkedin has become the only option. I only see one option: Microsoft, though it is not doing anything on this market so far. Its leadership in the professional software could be easily extended to this area. The same works for Google if it evers decides to convert Google Apps into a world social network for professionals. Number of users:
The answer is yes, but only in some conditions. Xing is very strong both in Germany and China, where it is the main professional social network. If you are a German or a Chinese, you need to be on Xing, as all your colleagues will be there. In fact, Xing changed its name from OpenBC when it became the first network in China, which is a bigger market than Germany.
- Linkedin: 30 million
- Xing: 6.5 million
- Viadeo: 6.5 million
Chasing a good deal is always a popular pursuit. And with the current economic conditions, saving money has never been more important. Many look to shopping site Woot as a way to garner steep discounts on random products. It's a site that has grown in popularity thanks to one simple catch: supplies are limited and there's only 24 hours to make the purchase.
Now, a new discount site has taken the Woot model and made it decidedly earth-friendly. So you'll be saving green - while being green. Meet EcoSteal.
Like Woot, EcoSteal offers one discounted product at time. Unlike Woot, there doesn't appear to be a time limit. The product remains available until supplies are exhausted. At the moment, for example, there's a Mountainsmith women's backpack that's made of 100% recycled materials available for $40 US - less than half the retail price.
And while the products are fleeting, EcoSteal asserts that being socially conscious about purchases isn't: "Being green is not a fad. It is not trendy. It is a new way of life that we all must live by and embrace." One thing is for sure: saving money and doing something good for the planet is a combination that's going to attract a number of fans.
EcoSteal users have the option of buying up to three of the available product. In addition to the discounted price, they'll be charged for shipping. (Unfortunately for our non-US readers, EcoSteal is currently only shipping to the United States.) All purchases are final, unless there is a defect or error on EcoSteal's part.
To see what eco-friendly deal you can snag today, head over to EcoSteal. Or if you want to be in the know on the latest green offerings, register for the EcoSteal alert service.
EcoSteal users have the option of buying up to three of the available product. In addition to the discounted price, they'll be charged for shipping. (Unfortunately for our non-US readers, EcoSteal is currently only shipping to the United States.) All purchases are final, unless there is a defect or error on EcoSteal's part.
To see what eco-friendly deal you can snag today, head over to EcoSteal. Or if you want to be in the know on the latest green offerings, register for the EcoSteal alert service.
Oh Twitter, how versatile you are. There’s so much that can be done through Twitter, that Twippr.webs.com shouldn’t come as a surprise. With this new service for the increasingly popular (and almost, if not already, mainstream) Twitter, you’ll be able to send money, much like you would with PayPal.
All you have to do is follow the site through Twitter, send a message that says how much you want to send and to who, and they’ll take care of the rest, using your PayPal account. Why should you care about this? Well, because it’s basically the most useful Twitter apps has been created for a while. Without leaving your Twitter account, you’ll be able to settle debts, send money to your friends (what’s a better gift than cash?) and do whatever else you want.
It would be interesting to see other businesses adopt this model. For example, can you imagine doing your online shopping through Twitter? That would be huge, and Twippr is on the right path.
Molex (MOLX) this afternoon warned that March quarter results will likely be below current Street expectations, sending the stock lower in late trading. For the fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 31, the company posted revenue of $666.7 million, a bit above the Street consensus at $656.6 million, but down 20.8 percent versus a year ago and off 20.5 percent sequentially. The company posted a GAAP loss for the quarter of $87.2 million, or 50 cents a share. Backing out various charges and gains, adjusted net income was nine cents a share, below the Street consensus of 14 cents a share. Orders in the quarter were $562.2 million, down 34.5 percent from a year ago, and off 29.4 percent sequentially. Backlog at Dec. 31 stood at $285.3 million, down from $374.4 million a year ago and $385.5 million one quarter earlier.
A new Twitter app that goes by a hard-to-pronounce name, Twtwlst can be defined as a gift registry that is free and open to any person who desires to give it a try. The system makes for creating wish lists for very different occasions: birthdays, baby showers, graduations… and once a list has been put together, it can be easily embedded on any website or profile page for all to see and act upon. 
It goes without saying that the lists themselves adhere to the character length that sets micro-sharing apart. The one aspect that must be mentioned is that when listing out each item you will be able to provide a link where that specific product can be readily purchased by your friends and peers. Other than that, the site is completely intuitive, and - in the same vein of other apps that have been developed by the twapps team - there is not even need to register or create an account in order to get going. Just station your browser at www.twtwlst.com and see whether it will accommodate your needs or not in person.
There's been a lot of talk lately about the decline and fall of newsweeklies, some of it fueled by the shift of U.S. News & World Report to biweekly, and then monthly, publication. But U.S. News hasn't given up on the idea of the weekly news digest. In fact, later today, in a soft launch, it will rolling out a new product: a "digital newsweekly" that reproduces, in pixels, what the magazine once did in ink and paper.
"We're creating a tailored product for readers that does what the old newsweeklies did, which was to stop time for people and say 'What the heck happened over the last week?' and make sense of it," says editor Brian Kelly.
U.S. News Weekly, as the new publication is called ("It sounds ironic," acknowledges Kelly) will be produced and delivered as a downloadable PDF file, laid out in the form of a magazine, complete with a cover and table of contents. For years, publishers have been offering such digital editions of their magazines with the help of vendors such as Zinio, but U.S. News Weekly is a whole new, albeit related, publication, edited for a somewhat different audience than U.S. News & World Report. Whereas the parent title has gravitated toward advertiser-friendly topics like health and education, the digital weekly will be "very Washington-centric," says Kelly, with a tighter focus on politics and policy.
Since there's less ad support for that type of content, U.S. News Weekly will be a premium product: A one-year subscription will cost $19.95 (although subscribers to U.S. News & World Report will be able to download it for free). "This is what every editor's trying to figure out right now -- how can I pay my reporters to do reporting?" says Kelly. "You've got to figure out a way where, on some level, the consumer is going to pay for some type of content." (Of The New York Times's much-maligned premium-content program, Times Select, Kelly says, "I always thought that was an experiment they never should have abandoned. If you can get 200,000 people to pay for a product, you're doing very well.")
The upside for the readers, he notes, is that they're only paying for content -- and not for the expense of shipping and printing. And because there's no need to budget time for those processes, U.S.
News Weekly will have near-instantaneous turnaround: The magazine will close on Thursday night and be made available at noon on Friday."I don't think the newsweekly concept's outdated," says Kelly. "I think it's the delivery method that's outdated. To produce a great report, close the magazine on Thursday night and then readers don't get it until Monday -- that's insane.
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