Content Management Press Releases

University Teams Tap Mobile Phones and Social Networks to Fight Non-communicable Diseases

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:35:56 -0500

University of California, Berkeley and ESADE Business School-Universidad Ramon Llull Target Diabetes to win IBM and Novartis NCD Challenge

ARMONK, N.Y., Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- New solutions developed by university teams could soon be harnessed to help manage the growing global problem of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as asthma, diabetes, stroke and cancer.

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A social-media enabled support system for pregnant women with gestational diabetes and advanced smart-phone service could have tremendous impact as cost-effective tools to help manage diabetes and other diseases. These winning innovations and others were part of the NCD Challenge, sponsored by IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Novartis (NYSE: NVS). The global competition was designed to bring together industry and academia to create innovative, easy-to-use solutions that fight the human and social burden of NCDs.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly two-thirds of all deaths occur due to non-communicable diseases which contribute to more than 60 percent of deaths worldwide. Over the coming decade, some 388 million people worldwide will die of one or more chronic illnesses and the cumulative losses in global economic output due to NCDs will total $47 trillion by 2030. Modest investments to prevent and treat NCDs could save tens of millions of lives and bring major economic returns.

Winners of the competition are Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and ESADE Business School-Universidad Ramon Llull in Barcelona, Spain. These winning solutions for two categories, developing nations and developed nations, help address the problem.

"The NCD Challenge illustrates the type of ingenuity, motivation and accessibility that will help control the growing epidemic of NCDs in many parts of the world," said Katherine Holland, general manager, global life sciences, IBM. "Innovation such as this is key to a global strategy to improve care and build a more sustainable healthcare system."

Developing World Solution:

2Vidas - Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

2Vidas is a pharmacy-based membership program for low- to middle-income pregnant women to address the growing problem of diabetes in Mexico. The project's aim is to make a lasting health impact on two lives during a finite period in which women have increased motivation to take better care of themselves for the health of their babies.

The program works by providing pregnant women access to monitoring tools at local pharmacies, support through peer-led sessions, and encouragement via positive SMS messaging that rewards self-management and offers health tips. The potential economic impact is the ability to save women 58-98% of out-of-pocket monitoring costs, depending on frequency of use, and the health system an average of $110 per enrolled woman per year through improved diabetes control - lowering the risk profile of the mother's pregnancy and baby's propensity for NCDs. 2Vidas membership program will deliver estimated $10.4 million in systemic cost savings and $475,000 in added value creation over five years. Team members included: Emily Ewell (team lead), Jenny Chang, Tara English, Rachel Sherman

Developed World Solution:

Dr. Diabetes - ESADE Business School-Universidad Ramon Llull

Dr. Diabetes utilizes a handheld device with an application and two cloud servers. It is a total solution designed to provide diabetes awareness, monitoring and management to patients with chronic illness, initially for China. It also provides early awareness to the public and streamlines diabetes management for patients. The solution provides medical data via cloud computing to physicians for accurate diagnosis, and to pharmaceutical companies and hospitals for efficient research and development. The solution is designed to be scalable to support other NCDs.

It is designed to lower the risk of complications, decrease treatment costs to patients by up to 73 percent, and decrease their hospital visits by 65 percent.

Team members included:
Ching-Chia Hsu (team lead), Meng-Chi Chen, Alexander Anthonysamy, Kohei Sato, Feras Nagadi.

The competition runners up are:

Smart Strip - Said Business School, University of Oxford. A non-invasive, mobile blood glucometer band that measures blood glucose transdermally
Oxford Asthma - Said Business School, University of Oxford. Low-cost solution for large scale monitoring and diagnosis of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Other finalists in the competition include:

DiaMapp – Jordan University. Smart phone technology for managing diabetes type 1 in children, empowering patients and their families to care for themselves
Move4Health - Karolinska Institutet. Prescription for physical activity by physicians, targeted for Vietnam, supported by mobile technology to measure activity and provide healthcare follow up
My Health Portal - ESADE Business School-Universidad Ramon Llul. Secure online portal based on cloud computing technology that bridges the communication gap between patient and doctor
TeleHealth - University of Melbourne. An innovative integrated telehealth solution that can globally individualize the care and management of people with diabetes

Winning teams will be recognized during the NCD Awards Ceremony held February 9-10 at IBM headquarters in Armonk, New York and Novartis headquarters in East Hanover, New Jersey. A keynote speech will be given by Dr. Jacob Kumaresan, World Health Organization Center for Health Development. During the competition, the teams were supported by mentors and subject matter coaching to provide industry expertise to complement each team's knowledge and research. The winning teams will be provided guidance from the venture capital community for commercializing their solutions.

People can join the conversation on the topic of fighting non-communicable diseases at: People for a Smarter Planet on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/9S1Jp8, and on Twitter at #NCD

About Novartis

Novartis provides innovative healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis offers a diversified portfolio to best meet these needs: innovative medicines, eye care, cost-saving generic pharmaceuticals, preventive vaccines and diagnostic tools, over-the-counter and animal health products. Novartis is the only global company with leading positions in these areas. In 2011, the Group's continuing operations achieved net sales of USD 58.6 billion, while approximately USD 9.6 billion (USD 9.2 billion excluding impairment and amortization charges) was invested in R&D throughout the Group. Novartis Group companies employ approximately 124,000 full-time-equivalent associates and operate in more than 140 countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.novartis.com.

About IBM

For more information about IBM, visit: http://www.ibm.com/smarterhealthcare

Join in the discussion on the Smarter Healthcare LinkedIn Group

Watch our videos at www.youtube.com/ibmhealthcare

Media contact:
Holli Haswell
(720) 396-5485
hhaswell@us.ibm.com

SOURCE IBM

comScore Releases the "2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus" Report

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:35:35 -0500

Report Offers Insights on Key Trends from 2011 and What They Mean for the Coming Year

RESTON, Va., Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report. This annual report examines how the prevailing trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce are defining the current marketplace and what these trends mean for the year ahead.

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"2012 promises to be an exciting year for the digital media industry as the explosion of available content and proliferation of web-enabled devices drive the evolution of the digital consumer, creating new opportunities and challenges for the entire digital ecosystem," said Linda Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of Global Product Development. "In order to be successful in this new paradigm, digital marketers must understand the key trends shaping the current marketplace and what that means for the future of their businesses."

To download a complimentary copy of 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/2012USDigitalFutureinFocus

Key insights from the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus include:

Facebook-Led Social Media Market is Redefining Communication in the Digital and Physical Worlds

Social Networking accounted for 16.6 percent of all online minutes at the end of 2011 and is on track to surpass Portals as the most engaging online activity in 2012. Facebook continues to lead as the driving force behind this shift in consumer behavior, accounting for the largest share of online minutes across the entire web in 2011.

Bing Gains Ground in Search

Although Google maintains a strong lead in the U.S. search market, one of the most notable stories in search in 2011 was Bing's positive growth trajectory. Bing closed out the year by surpassing Yahoo! for the #2 position among core search engines for the first time in its history, bolstered in part by its social search partnership with Facebook implemented in early 2011.

Online Video Boom Signals Sea Change in Video Ecosystem

Online video viewing witnessed impressive gains across a variety of measures in 2011, signaling a behavioral shift in how Americans are consuming video content. More than 100 million Americans watched online video content on an average day to close out 2011, representing a 43-percent increase versus year ago.

Digital Advertising Enters Era of Increased Accountability as Brand Dollars Continue to Shift Online

A staggering 4.8 trillion display ad impressions were delivered across the U.S. web in 2011 as brand advertisers continued to shift dollars to the digital medium. This shift in ad dollars has magnified the need for greater transparency and accountability in ad delivery across the digital advertising ecosystem.

Smartphone and Tablets Fuel the Rise of the Digital Omnivore

The rise of smartphones and tablets has drastically altered consumers' digital media consumption. In 2011, the majority of all mobile phone owners consumed mobile media on their device, marking an important milestone in the evolution of mobile from primarily a communication device to also a content consumption tool. At the end of the year, more than 8 percent of all digital traffic was consumed beyond the 'classic web' via devices such as smartphones and tablets.

E-Commerce is Back and Better Than Ever

Despite the backdrop of continued economic uncertainty, 2011 was a strong year for retail e-commerce. Throughout the year, growth rates versus the prior year remained in double-digits to significantly outpace growth at brick-and-mortar retail. Total U.S. retail and travel-related e-commerce reached $256 billion in 2011, up 12 percent from 2010.

Webinar - 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus: Trends Every Marketer Needs to Know
Join Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix, and Eli Goodman, comScore Media Evangelist, on Wednesday February 22nd at 2 PM EST, as they share key insights from the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report and discuss what these trends mean for today's marketers.For more information and to register, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/2012_Future_in_Focus_Webinar

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

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SOURCE comScore, Inc.

Collective[i] Pioneers New Era of Big Data With Novel Socialized Business Intelligence Network for Marketing and Business Execut

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:36:45 -0500

NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- After years in development and beta testing, Collective[i] (www.collectivei.com) has announced availability of the industry's first business intelligence network that enables executives to easily collaborate in the analysis of massive sets of business and marketing information.

Collective[i] is a SaaS solution designed to leverage Big Data resources, providing collaborative analysis and decision-making support to marketing and business executives. Just as Salesforce.com provided a network to manage sales operations, or as Facebook did with personal relationships, Collective[i] hosts the industry's first "knowledge network," automating the work associated with analyzing Big Data and socializing knowledge and discussion throughout an enterprise. Collective[i] delivers analyses for immediate use by any public or private enterprise, while avoiding the lengthy and costly development efforts required with home-grown or enterprise business intelligence systems, such as those created by SAP or IBM.

Collective[i] was founded by Heidi Messer, Stephen Messer and Tad Martin, marketing veterans with track records of successful technology innovation. The Messers founded LinkShare Corporation, where they pioneered the fields of affiliate and performance-based online marketing, operating the company until its sale in 2005 for $425 million to Rakuten. Mr. Martin was one of the first senior executives at online retailer Overstock.com; as head of operations he oversaw the company's growth from $70 million in revenue to an $800 million NASDAQ-listed company.

Collective[i] analyses put business information into context to uncover why things happened in the past with an eye toward what will happen in the future. Because Collective[i] standardizes and unifies data from existing tools, it can easily integrate macroeconomic information including weather, unemployment and consumer confidence with company-specific data collected across traditional and digital media channels to produce enterprise quality business intelligence. Furthermore, Collective[i]'s standardized data model also supports business partnerships among different companies by enabling a seamless exchange of knowledge.

By streamlining the process of analyzing massive data sets and collaborating around analyses to create knowledge, business leaders can devote their time and energy to developing and executing a winning strategy. "Creativity and innovation have suffered due to the time spent manually analyzing enormous quantities of data. Prior to Collective[i], the challenge for executives was putting data into a usable form," said Heidi Messer, Chairman of Collective[i]. "Collective[i] takes a new approach completely focused on converting data into knowledge so that business and marketing executives can focus on execution instead of data management."

About Collective[i]™

Collective[i] (www.collectivei.com) enables businesses around the world to transform raw data into knowledge. Collecive[i] is host to a global knowledge network where data analysis and collaboration inform execution and strategy.

SOURCE Collective[i]

Growth in Mobile Helps Take totaljobs.com to Record 5 Million Unique Users in January

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:36:42 -0500

LONDON, February 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Site visits from mobile devices up 219% compared to same period in 2011

Growth supplemented by investment in social media to increase jobseeker touch points

A boom in mobile consumption has helped totaljobs.com achieve a record 5 million site users during January. 1.75 million visits to totaljobs.com in January^[1] were from mobile devices - a massive rise of 219% year-on-year.

This record breaking month has been driven by strong investment in product developments, leading to mobile consumption now accounting for nearly one in five visits (17%) to totaljobs.com. In a further vindication of the brand's strategy - which saw mapping and transport elements introduced to the site in 2011 - January's results smashed the previous record of 4.26m users.

Traffic to the website in January increased 45% year-on-year, with job applications exceeding 2.8 million, a year-on-year increase of 36%, as job seekers stepped up their efforts as they kicked off the New Year.

Caterina Masso, senior marketing manager of totaljobs.com, says, "We have developed a series of technological advancements to ensure we are ahead of the curve and importantly, adding considerable value to both recruiters and jobseekers. This value was identified and created by helping jobseekers take the 'luck' out of finding a job; through technological innovations such as mapping and mobile tools as well as a partnership with Facebook and LinkedIn. In this competitive industry, it was essential that we answered this market need and our overall traffic and the rise in mobile visits suggests that we're getting it right."

As part of an overall strategy to enhance user experience through technology, totaljobs.com developed targeted mobile technology for the site and innovative new features like transport links which enables jobseekers to find the nearest transport links to jobs advertised on the website as well as the maps tool which allow job search results to appear on a map, enabling recruiters to have a job ad assigned to a unique pin point making it stand out even more and attract more relevant candidates.

Totaljobs.com has also allowed for the rise of jobseekers using social media by enabling LinkedIn and Facebook profiles to be linked to users' profiles.

The LinkedIn integration now allows recruitment professionals to see where they have LinkedIn connections with a candidate. The newly developed widget allows recruiters to see connections and gain referrals, enabling them to gain as much information about a candidate as possible before contacting them.

The Facebook job search function has been developed to maximise the reach of recruiter's adverts on the social media site. With 23 million UK users, Facebook provides the opportunity to increase the number of potential candidates seeing an advert, giving recruiters a greater audience.

Notes to editors

About http://www.totaljobs.com/

Totaljobs.com is one of the UK's leading jobs websites, attracting over 5.1 million jobseekers every month on the hunt for one of 100,000 vacancies the site carries over the course of month. All of this activity generates almost 3 million applications a month, cementing Totaljobs.com's strong reputation among recruiters and jobseekers alike. Thousands of recruiters from multinationals to smaller regionally based businesses, recruitment consultants and advertising agencies recruit through totaljobs.com.

1. WebTrends January 2012

SOURCE totaljobs.com

Socialbakers Launches in the United States, Catapults Momentum With Major American Partnerships and Billions of Social Interacti

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:36:08 -0500

Social Analytics Leader Hires Team of Tech Veterans, Hits Ground Running After Massive Unveiling of its Political Social Analytics on Facebook

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Socialbakers, the world's most cited source and fastest growing social media analytics company, today announced the launch of its U.S. headquarters in San Francisco. The company also announced its new U.S. leadership team based in San Francisco, which includes veteran technology executive Martin Huml as President and Chief Operating Officer, and Katrina Wong as Vice President of Marketing. Socialbakers' global expansion follows rapid demand from many of America's most recognized brands.

Socialbakers social analytics platform measures the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns across all major social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+.

With more than 750 customers and 275,000 registered marketing users, Socialbakers is the leading source for Facebook and social analytics throughout Europe. More than 60 U.S. brands are already using the technology, with an accelerated U.S. demand from brands, consumers and even politicians.

"Companies can no longer expect or assume that online users will engage with their Facebook or Twitter content. Our clients increase social media relevance and build their social community faster because we show what is working, what doesn't work and how they compare against competitors. Companies can build tremendous communities by using our technology to understand which content is most and least engaging and viral," said Jan Rezab, Socialbakers CEO.

Technology veteran and investor Martin Huml has joined as Socialbakers' President and COO, and will lead U.S. operations from San Francisco. Huml, who has been serving as company Chairman, is an accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor. Huml built and sold his first company in the mid nineties – an exclusive distributor for Apple Computer in Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia and several other former Eastern Blok countries. He also worked for several years in private equity at Credit Suisse First Boston in London and New York. Most recently, he ran his own San Francisco-based investment consulting firm, Runway Capital. He has chaired and served on several boards, and has also served as interim CEO and COO for various technology firms.

"Socialbakers is an exciting company on the brink of becoming the global leader in this fast growing social analytics space," said Huml. "Jan is a brilliant entrepreneur, visionary, and business leader. The team is exceptional and Socialbakers is positioned as one of the top analytics companies in the world. The U.S. is home to many of the world's most savvy companies, and it's time we expanded in order to provide them a technology that will change the way they run their entire social marketing programs."

Katrina Wong has been hired as vice president of marketing to lead the company's global go-to-market strategy, with focus on the U.S., UK, France and Germany. Prior to Socialbakers, Wong led corporate marketing for subscription billing company, Zuora. Wong developed marketing strategies for SAP's entry into the SaaS market, and worked at Salesforce.com deploying CRM solutions for global Fortune 500 companies.

"We have the most aggressive go-to-market strategy in the industry, and have big plans for 2012 – while the U.S. has a fragmented analytics market, Socialbakers is positioned to become the standard for social media intelligence," said Wong.

Socialbakers, a European technology company, launched in 2008 and is now the social analytics provider of choice for customers in more than 75 countries.

About Socialbakers

Socialbakers is a social media analytics company, and the most cited source for global Facebook data with over 10 million Facebook pages and places indexed. Launched in 2008, Socialbakers tools include its easy-to-use Engagement Analytics and Engagement Builder. The company is the only solution that allows brands such as Lufthansa, L'Oreal, Danone, Vodafone, Samsung, GE Money, Ogilvy, Kraft and Peugeot to measure, compare and contrast the success of their social media campaigns with competitive intelligence. Socialbakers is the recipient of the Red Herring 100 Europe 2011 Award. For more information, visit www.socialbakers.com.

SOURCE Socialbakers

tw telecom Offers Dedicated Connectivity Solutions for Amazon Web Service's Direct Connect Service

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:35:48 -0500

- tw telecom brings its Ethernet and Intelligent Network service portfolios - including plans for Bandwidth on Demand services - to the AWS platform in the Cloud

LITTLETON, Colo., Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- tw telecom (NASDAQ: TWTC), a leading provider of managed services, including Business Ethernet, converged and IP VPN services to enterprises and carriers throughout the U.S. and globally, announced that it has become an AWS Direct Connect Solution Provider, offering dedicated Ethernet connectivity to the AWS Cloud platform.

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AWS Direct Connect enables customers to bypass the Internet and establish dedicated connectivity between AWS and their datacenters and offices with a high-speed, secure carrier Ethernet connection that meets their applications' performance requirements. tw telecom's Ethernet and Intelligent Network capabilities allow customers to increase bandwidth throughput, control latency and access much needed visibility into the network that powers their applications. With about 15,000 fiber-connected buildings, tw telecom enables a secure, scalable and predictable networking experience for a large and growing number of enterprises worldwide.

"As IT departments move more of their applications into Amazon Web Services, the scale and complexity of the environments require superior network connectivity," said Graham Taylor, Senior Vice President - Marketing for tw telecom. "AWS Direct Connect customers can work with tw telecom to obtain Ethernet connectivity with Intelligent Network capabilities that support the application performance requirements customer's demand."

tw telecom's Intelligent Network portfolio includes services such as Enhanced Network Performance Management and includes plans to introduce Dynamic Capacity or "bandwidth-on-demand." tw telecom's Enhanced Network Performance Management provides enterprise customers with real-time network performance management data represented graphically for each network segment through an easy to use portal. With tw telecom's Dynamic Capacity service, enterprise customers will be able to scale their Ethernet bandwidth immediately across the network through a simple to use portal interface as their applications demand additional bandwidth.

AWS offers highly reliable, low-cost IT infrastructure services that customers can use to power their applications and extend their IT infrastructure into the cloud. This highly efficient and scalable infrastructure allows their customers to adjust to seasonal demand, be more dynamic and reduce IT capital costs. With tw telecom, connectivity is available up to 10Gbps (gigabit) into AWS, enabled by high-speed, dedicated Ethernet connectivity that supports the demands of cloud-based service delivery.

For more information, please visit www.twtelecom.com.

About tw telecom

tw telecom holdings inc., a unit of tw telecom inc.,(Nasdaq: TWTC) headquartered in Littleton, Colo., provides managed network services, specializing in Business Ethernet and transport data networking, Internet access, voice, VoIP, VPN and security, to enterprise organizations and communications services companies throughout the U.S., and globally. tw telecom connects more commercial buildings to its resilient, fiber network than any other competitive communications provider. It has the third highest market share of retail Ethernet ports in service, its own metro fiber networks and one of the ten most interconnected IP backbones in the world. tw telecom has the national capability, robust product portfolio and national/local customer care teams to support mission critical applications and to deliver the most sought after customer experience in the industry. Please visit www.twtelecom.com for more information.

SOURCE tw telecom

Salsa Labs Expands Online Organizing Platform for Nonprofits with Social Media Capabilities

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:35:47 -0500

New features seamlessly integrate social media sharing and tracking across online communities and content.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Salsa Labs, Inc., creator of the online, integrated CRM platform for non-profit fundraising, communications and organizing, today announced the addition of advanced social media features to its already robust product and services offerings. Available immediately, Salsa includes social sharing options for online and email content, integrated event registration and supporter enrollment via Facebook, support for Google+, monitoring tools, and more.

"Salsa is already proven as the go-to platform for nonprofits, organizations and campaigns seeking to advocate, fundraise and communicate with their constituents," said Chris Lundberg, Salsa's Co-Founder and CEO. "With the release of these social media features, we've made it easier than ever for our clients to step-up their outreach efforts, engage with supporters, and inspire action."

Salsa's social media capabilities are completely integrated and can be easily deployed, often with the click of the mouse to incorporate these features into a client's online communication activities.

Christine Schaefer, Vice President of Community and Marketing at Salsa, expanded on this: "Social media is an essential and proven way for building community, but getting it right requires time and investment. With the addition of these new tools to the core Salsa platform, we are making it easier for organizations to refine their outreach activities and become more efficient and effective in building and monitoring social connections."

Salsa's social media features provide nonprofits and other organizations with the following capabilities:

Supporter Sign-Up via Facebook – Drive event registration and foster support via Facebook with Salsa's one-click registration feature using Facebook Connect.
Share Online Content – Add social sharing features to online pages, making it easy for supporters to spread the word via Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Social Emails – Get more from email outreach efforts with the addition of social sharing features.
Google+ Support – Salsa social sharing tools include support for Google+.
Select Sharing Services – On Facebook but not Google+? No problem, Salsa lets users pick their preferred social network for sharing content.
Track Results – Measure social media impact with Salsa's Sharing Statistics tool.
Link your Facebook ID – Users can easily link Salsa sharing utilities to their Facebook accounts.

Read more about social media for non-profits online. Or, register to attend "Spicing Up Social Media: A Recipe for Nonprofit List Growth Panel Discussion" on Thursday, February 16 in Washington, DC hosted by Social Media Week and Salsa.

About Salsa Labs

Salsa Labs (Salsa) is the creator of the online platform built specifically for non-profits to organize and engage people in their missions, empowering them to do good works. In one easy-to-use, integrated, and flexible platform, groups of all sizes can manage their supporters, communicate, fundraise, advocate, host events, and much more. Organizations can create their own unique recipe for organizing by choosing from dozens of packages as well as by plugging in other applications produced by third parties in the Salsa Market. Salsa currently supports more than 2,000 non-profit groups' relationships with more than 75 million supporters, members, donors, activists, and fans all around the world. http://www.salsalabs.com.

Media Contact:

Christine Schaefer
Salsa Labs
202-787-3699
cschaefer@salsalabs.com

SOURCE Salsa Labs

New Social Media Analytics Technology Measures ROI for Retailers

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:35:25 -0500

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- AddShoppers launches new social commerce platform that tracks the ROI of social media traffic and significantly increases product sharing, free.

Now retailers can put a dollar amount to all types of social sharing. It's simple to identify which social networks are driving the most sales. In addition you can analyze demographics at a product level. For example, Product A might be more popular among males aged 25-34 on Twitter while Product B is shared more on Facebook by females aged 35-45.

"After setting up AddShoppers and incentivizing people to share, we are already collecting extremely valuable data, driving new social conversations, and acquiring new customers at a nominal Cost Per Acquisition. AddShoppers brings eCommerce social media marketing to a whole new level." - Jed Young, Internet Marketing Manager at FairwayStyles.com

During their beta, AddShoppers' new Social Promo Callout™ technology, increased Facebook Likes, tweets, and more by 30% on average. If a retailer chooses to offer a coupon for sharing, their customers are alerted by a callout tag that displays the applicable discount next to the sharing button of choice. After a customer shares, their friends can click through to view the product and share for their own discount.

Until now retailers were unable to analyze the worth of social sharing sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Google +1, and Pinterest in aggregate. AddShoppers is the first open social sharing service built from the ground up for eCommerce. With just 5 minutes of their time and a few snippets of javascript, retailers can be up and running.

AddShoppers is integrated with some of the top eCommerce platforms out of the box, including: Magento, Shopify, Volusion, Yahoo! Stores, and Big Commerce. Only sharing sources that make sense for retail such as Wishpot, Kaboodle, and Stumbleupon are integrated. AddShoppers' Influencer technology is powered by Klout so retailers can sort by their most influential sharers. Sharing demographics are enhanced by Rapleaf and Facebook.

About AddShoppers

AddShoppers is an open social sharing platform built for retailers. We increase sharing with our -- soon to be patented -- Social Promo Callouts™ and measure success with just a few snippets of code, free. Everything is eCommerce specific, even our URL shortener -- http://shop.pe.

http://www.addshoppers.com

http://www.twitter.com/addshoppers

SOURCE AddShoppers

SIIA Survey: Marketing Executives Believe Social Media is an Effective Tool; Not Yet Investing Significant Resources

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:35:15 -0500

Many Marketers Now Applying Traditional ROI Metrics to Test Social Media's Effectiveness

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries, today released "Marketing in Today's Economy"— the first SIIA publication to gather business-to-business sales and marketing tactics from leading industry executives. As part of the guide, SIIA joined with Lopez Research to conduct a comprehensive survey of more than 100 marketing executives in North America. The survey focused on their companies' use of email, mobile marketing and social media to build their brands, gain leads, and improve customer support.

One of the most eye-opening findings from the study is that a gap exists between attitudes towards social media and investment in social media. About 90 percent of marketing executives surveyed use social media marketing, and three quarters believe it has a positive impact on their business. At the same time slightly more than half (54.5 percent) of respondents said their company's marketing team spends less than 10 hours per week investing in social media. And further, 35 percent said they spend only between one and five hours per week on social media marketing.

"Social media has clearly become a widely used tool among B2B marketers and few doubt that it is helping their business," said Rhianna Collier, Vice President of SIIA's Software Division. "But our survey also shows that marketers may not be dedicating the resources necessary to get the results they want from social media marketing. It is remarkable to see that, despite their strong belief in the power of social media, over one-third of marketers are engaged in it for only five hours or fewer every week."

The SIIA survey suggests that marketers do recognize the need to dedicate more resources to their social media efforts going forward. About 65 percent of respondents cited social media as an area in which they would like to invest more spending, and over 70 percent indicated they expect to increase their use of both Twitter and Linkedin in the year ahead. And importantly, marketers are beginning to apply the same ROI metrics to social media that they do for other marketing efforts, both offline and online. For example, 59 percent of businesses are using social media use web traffic as an indicator of social media ROI, while 53 percent are using qualified leads as a key ROI metric.

Collier continued, "Social media is still a relatively new method for growing a business, but marketers clearly believe it is has value and will require greater investment. And with more marketers now applying traditional ROI metrics—such as qualified leads—to their social media efforts, they are more likely to get a clear sense of what level of investment makes sense. The maturation process of social media is clearly underway, and we can expect to see significant advancements in the coming years."

The survey looked at wide range of issues, and found a number of other results that are important for marketers—including:

75 percent of respondents do not outsource any social media efforts.
Nearly 60 percent of respondents said that less than 5 percent of their deals began through social network interactions.
Privacy is the top ethical concern in today's marketing world.
Most marketers predict that the biggest trend in 2012 will be greater communication and quantification of value to customers.

The Software & Information Industry Association conducted the survey in conjunction with Lopez Research during the fourth quarter of 2011. The survey interviewed 106 marketing executives, of which 88 percent were business-to-business marketers.

In addition to the survey, Marketing in Today's Economy features commentary from 16 leading marketing experts whose companies provide technology solutions or services across a spectrum of industries. The authors offer expertise on a wide range of B2B marketing trends and best practices—from social media to search engine optimization and cloud marketing.

Marketing in Today's Economy is available to SIIA members, Lopez Research subscribers and of the media upon request. To obtain a copy of the report, contact Beth Dozier at bethdozier@rational360.com or 202.429.1833.

About SIIA
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 500 leading software and information companies. The SIIA Software Division provides a forum for companies developing the applications, services, infrastructure and tools that are driving the software and services industry forward. For further information, visit www.siia.net/software

About Lopez Research
Lopez Research provides market research, visionary keynotes, strategic consulting services and partnership development services. We examine the capabilities, devices, networks and systems that enable today's pervasive, connected communications landscape. We research and interpret the impact of technologies such as mobility, social software, and cloud computing on business practices and models for enterprise, SMB and consumer customers. Our coverage areas are mobility, semantic and contextual services and the Internet of things.

For further information, visit www.lopezresearch.com. Lopez Research Contact: Brenda Roupolos sales@lopezresearch.com

SIIA Communications Contact: Laura Greenback, 202.789.4461, lgreenback@siia.net
PR Contact: Beth Dozier, Rational 360, 202-429-1833, bethdozier@rational360.com

SOURCE Software & Information Industry Association

Guidance Software to Acquire CaseCentral

Molly Bernhart Walker — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:59:42 -0500

With acquisition Guidance will extend market leadership with complete e-discovery solution

PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Guidance Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: GUID) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held CaseCentral, Inc., a leader in the electronic discovery (e-discovery) market for Cloud-based review and production software.

Click to Tweet: @EnCase to acquire @CaseCentral - brings together leading #ediscovery, #cloud solutions http:/bit.ly/encasecentral

"The acquisition of CaseCentral will bring together industry leaders for both on-premise and Cloud-based e-discovery software. We will deliver the best of both worlds to customers by offering complete, integrated and innovative software in the e-discovery market," said Victor Limongelli, president and chief executive officer of Guidance Software. "The combined organization will be the largest pure-play e-discovery software company, with nearly 500 total employees, and thousands of users."

This acquisition will extend Guidance Software's market leadership by delivering a complete e-discovery platform addressing the e-discovery needs of corporations and government agencies. The combined product portfolio will deliver to customers increased efficiency and automation, as well as lower risk for e-discovery activities. The integrated solution will span from legal hold to identification, collection, preservation, processing, first pass review, and, now with CaseCentral's market leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, best-in-class early case assessment (ECA), review and production capabilities.

The combined offering deploys software intelligently, with EnCase eDiscovery delivering the legal hold, identification, collection, preservation, and processing functions on-premise, at the customer site - close to the sources of data and the data custodians - and CaseCentral delivering the ECA, review and production functions as SaaS in the Cloud, so that geographically dispersed inside and outside counsel can efficiently review collected documents without needing any special equipment or software other than a web browser and internet connectivity.

Guidance believes the integration of EnCase eDiscovery with CaseCentral will quickly provide additional value to customers, scaling from support for single-case requirements to multi-case, multi-party requirements. Further, the unique EnCase eDiscovery Collected Data Reuse capabilities, coupled with the unique CaseCentral centralized, multi-matter legal repository should provide immediate benefit to customers by automating searches, reducing over-collection of ESI, lowering spoliation risk, re-using attorney work product where appropriate, and avoiding inadvertent production of confidential or privileged client data. See http://www.encase.com/only-with-encase.htm for more information on Collected Data Reuse and http://www.casecentral.com/enterprise.php for more information on multi-matter capabilities. These capabilities, among others, help customers to standardize e-discovery processes and drive down the risk, time and cost of e-discovery.

"CaseCentral has pioneered many significant e-discovery industry developments, including the delivery of e-discovery software via the Cloud and a centralized legal repository with multi-matter, multi-party and re-use capability," said Chris Kruse, founder, president and chief executive officer of CaseCentral. "We are excited about joining forces with Guidance Software, as we will be well positioned to capitalize on the market's tremendous potential and define the next generation of e-discovery solutions, benefitting both Guidance and CaseCentral customers, partners and employees."

Under the terms of the agreement, Guidance Software will acquire CaseCentral for upfront consideration of approximately $17.1 million, consisting of approximately $8.3 million in cash, $8.3 million in Guidance Software common stock, and the assumption of $0.5 million of debt, net of cash. Depending on CaseCentral's SaaS revenue growth, Guidance Software may pay up to an additional $33 million in cash over the next three years. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close during the first quarter of 2012. Guidance Software expects the transaction to add approximately $10 million in SaaS revenue in 2012, and to be slightly dilutive to slightly accretive to 2012 non-GAAP EPS and accretive to 2013 non-GAAP EPS.

Atlas Technology Group acted as financial advisor to Guidance Software in this transaction.

eZ Systems goes "full cloud"

Molly Bernhart Walker — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:25:04 -0500

eZ Systems releases new eZ Cloud Edition with the support of Ixonos

Skien, Norway - February 7 2012 - The demand for flexible and reliable cloud solutions in the area of content management will continue its steady rise in 2012. The Norwegian software vendor eZ Systems (www.ez.no) is keeping up with the trend: eZ Systems, in cooperation with the Finland-based cloud solutions provider Ixonos (www.ixonos.com), begins distributing the cloud edition of its award-winning open source web content management platform eZ Publish by the 1st of February 2012, and adds the new eZ Cloud Elastic to its range of products. eZ Cloud Elastic enables customers and eZ Service Partners to automatically receive the cloud resources they require, such as the necessary frontend-servers, depending on their needs and their user traffic. This way, eZ Systems and Ixonos will be able to offer customised cloud-based content management solutions to their customers.

The upcoming cloud edition is based on the most recent release of eZ Publish Enterprise. With the support of Ixonos Elastic Cloud, running on top of Red Hat Cloud (www.redhat.com), eZ Systems will be able to offer customers of the Cloud Edition the same level of quality and support they know from eZ Publish Enterprise. It includes service, assistance during the implementation and updates on a regular basis. This way, eZ Systems ensures stability of its product while continuing innovation. The international eZ Partners network offers its customers high quality options to carry out projects in time and in budget. The eZ Service Partners assist customers in all important aspects, such as implementation, consulting and support. Via the integrated eZ Market, users are able to enhance their content management requirements with several certified apps, extensions or connectors.

CEO Gabriele Viebach is confident that the collaboration with Ixonos is most promising: "We are glad to have gained a service-oriented partner with Ixonos, which has many years of experience in the areas of cloud and hosting services as well as software development. Their extensive multichannel expertise and state-of-the-art data processing centre complete the excellent company profile. Together, we are able to offer our customers a high degree of service and support."

Teppo Kuisma, head of Ixonos' Online Solutions business unit agrees: "We are looking forward to collaborating with eZ Systems, which is a world leading provider of open source content management solutions. Working together to provide enterprise content management from the cloud, we will ease and speed up the implementation and use of these services to eZ Systems' customers, Service Partners and developers alike."

About eZ Systems:
Founded in 1999, eZ Systems is the creator of eZ Publish, the award winning Open Source Web Content Management Platform, run by more than 250,000 installations in over 160 countries. eZ empowers digital business with a platform that not only enables organizations to manage content across multiple sites in many languages but also ensures that the information is delivered regardless of the channel. The result - right content, right time, right experience. The core element of the product is based on the open source paradigm enriched by enterprise services and completed by the eZ market offerings, resulting into enterprise grade subscription offerings with high-quality assurance, software maintenance and support services.

eZ Systems is trusted by well-known brands worldwide across a wide range of industries. Its customers include: CNBC, T-Mobile, France Telecom, Orange, BPCE, Clearchannel, Random House, EMI Music, Lagardère Active, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal Asia, UBM, Oslo Stock Exchange, Harvard University and MIT, United States Navy and French Ministry of Defense.

About Ixonos:
Ixonos (www.ixonos.com) is a creative mobile solutions company. We develop wireless technologies, software and solutions for connected devices and mobile services. Together with our corporate customers, we design products and services that let consumers enjoy inspiring mobile experiences. We enhance the competitiveness of our customer companies by enabling superior user experiences as well as faster time-to-market for their devices and services. We have offices in Finland, China, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Slovakia, South Korea and the U.S. Ixonos Plc is listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd. In 2010, the company's turnover was 84.9 million euros and its operating profit was 5.3 million euros.

Additional information: eZ Systems Headquarters, Klostergata 30, N-3732 Skien, Norway, Tel. +47 35587020, email: info@ez.no, Web: www.ez.no

comScore Reports December 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

Molly Bernhart Walker — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:20:20 -0500

Smartphone Penetration Climbs Over 40 Percent during December Holiday Shopping Season

RESTON, VA, February 2, 2012 - comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending December 2011. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.3 percent market share. Google Android strengthened its lead in the smartphone market to reach 47.3 percent market share.

OEM Market Share

For the three-month average period ending in December, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 20 percent share and Motorola with 13.3 percent share. Apple continued to gain ground in the OEM market with 12.4 percent share of total mobile subscribers (up 2.2 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 6.7 percent share.

Smartphone Platform Market Share

97.9 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in December, representing 40 percent of all mobile subscribers. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 47.3 percent market share, up 2.5 percentage points from September. Apple maintained its #2 position, growing 2.2 percentage points to 29.6 percent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with 16 percent share, followed by Microsoft (4.7 percent) and Symbian (1.4 percent).

About MobiLens
MobiLens data is derived from an intelligent online survey of a nationally representative sample of mobile subscribers age 13 and above. Data on mobile phone usage refers to a respondent's primary mobile phone and does not include data related to a respondent's secondary device.

Contact:
Stephanie Flosi
Senior Marketing Communications Analyst
comScore, Inc.
+1 312 777 8801
press@comscore.com

Socialtext and NetDocuments Partner to Enhance Social Collaboration

Molly Bernhart Walker — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:58:10 -0500

ClimateWorks Integrates Social and Content Management Application for Enhanced Communication across its Global Network

Palo Alto, Calif., February 07, 2012 - Socialtext, the leading enterprise social software provider, has launched a strategic partnership with NetDocuments, the leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) content management service provider, to enhance social collaboration within the enterprise. The ClimateWorks Foundation is a joint customer and non-profit organization dedicated to supporting public policies that prevent dangerous climate change and promote global prosperity. ClimateWorks is leveraging the integrated application to enable its international network of affiliated non-profits to collaborate on strategy, learn from one another, share best practices, and reach goals faster and more efficiently. This is the first Social Knowledge Exchange implemented in the non-profit sector.

"Our knowledge exchange vision includes offering a cloud-based platform that allows our global network partners to connect with one another more effectively," said Sarah Nichols, director of knowledge management, ClimateWorks. "After evaluating Socialtext, we felt by integrating the solution with our existing NetDocuments content management system we could develop a simple and unique solution that allows our hundreds of end users around the world to create, organize and share content, and to collaborate on projects. We believe this will enable our network to more efficiently solve issues and execute on new ideas."

Within three months of deploying the Socialtext solution, ClimateWorks' early adopters experienced a 37 percent reduction in departmental email traffic. Now, with more than 500 users, the organization will continue rolling out the solution to their entire global network for faster and more efficient execution on key initiatives. By teaming up with NetDocuments, Socialtext enables a powerful way for network partners to create and manage documents, and deliver information. End users no longer have to know exactly what they want and where it is before they can find it - now they can retrieve all types of network knowledge assets via a single front end.

"The combination of Socialtext and NetDocuments effectively delivers improved productivity for the discovery of corporate knowledge through social collaboration," said Leonard Johnson, vice president of marketing, NetDocuments. "Having an internal social framework for sharing internal expertise and corporate data, then easily linking the flow of information for any related documents securely stored in a feature-rich NetDocuments repository, brings two best-of-breed cloud applications to a user's daily work experience."

Through this strategic partnership, Socialtext and NetDocuments provide joint customers with the opportunity to manage, develop and share documents through the native Socialtext interface.

Highlights
·     Seamless integration with existing content management application
·     Access documents hosted through a secure cloud-based storage system
·     Download, borrow, edit and upload documents through the Socialtext interface
·     Backwards compatibility of documents currently hosted on Socialtext into the NetDocuments application
·     Enhanced document search capability through NetDocuments' "cabinet" categorization system

This partnership showcases Socialtext's unparalleled ability to rapidly customize and integrate into existing enterprise applications and infrastructure. A seamless integration offers customers, such as ClimateWorks, the ability to virtually access all people and information throughout the company with a single, easy-to-use interface.

"I've always believed that companies can benefit from smart customers, and Sarah Nichols' innovative insight led to a great partnership between Socialtext and NetDocuments," said Eugene Lee, CEO, Socialtext. "Our vision is to make all systems of record easily accessible for social collaboration and provide faster execution of business initiatives. We are aggressively moving towards creating a fully connected internal network, which is displayed through our relationships with companies such as Salesforce.com and Sharepoint. Our partnership with NetDocuments underscores our next steps in accomplishing our vision."

For more information about Socialtext, visit us at www.socialtext.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/socialtext or Twitter at @Socialtext.

About NetDocuments
NetDocuments was organized in 1998 as one of the first Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies in the world. Our vision is to leverage the Web and the SaaS delivery model to offer the most feature-rich and efficient document service, including the management and collaboration of work in process documents, emails and records. For more information about the company and management, go to http://www.netdocuments.com

About Socialtext
Established in 2002, Socialtext was the first company to deliver social software to businesses. By unlocking knowledge, expertise, ideas and data, Socialtext eliminates information silos across the enterprise to drive superior business performance. Socialtext's enterprise social networking products - including microblogging, blogs, wikis, profiles and social spreadsheets - provide simpler ways for employees to share vital information and work together in real-time. Delivered in a variety of hosted cloud services, as well as on-site appliances, enterprise customers are provided with flexible deployment options that meet their security requirements. Built on a flexible, web-oriented architecture, Socialtext integrates with virtually any traditional system of record, such as CRM and ERP, enabling companies to discuss, collaborate, and take action on key business processes. More than 6,500 businesses worldwide have accelerated their business performance with Socialtext, including Egon Zehnder, Getty Images, Symantec, Meredith Corporation, NYU Stern, OSIsoft, and Epitaph Records. To learn more, visit www.socialtext.com.

Media Contact:
Gutenberg Communications
Sharon Seitz
408-827-4362
sharon@gutenbergpr.com

Kontagent Execs and Data Scientists to Lead Roundtable Discussions at Inside Social Apps 2012 on Key Issues Facing Social, Mobil

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:33:37 -0500

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Kontagent, the leading global user analytics company, today announced that several members of its staff will lead five roundtable discussions at the Inside Social Apps 2012 conference in San Francisco. Held Feb. 8-9 at The Concourse at the San Francisco Design Center, the event brings together leaders of top social and mobile social gaming companies to analyze the toughest challenges facing the industry.

Inside Social Apps is especially geared toward developers that create apps for Facebook, iPhone, Android and emerging online social platforms. Jeff Tseng, Co-Founder and CEO of Kontagent, and other members of the team will take an investigative approach moderating discussions, addressing–among others–issues that social developers face when entering the mobile app space, how to decide whether to build or buy an analytics solution, and strategies for engaging and retaining players of social games.

Kontagent's data scientists and other team members moderating these sessions are steeped with practical experience and deep knowledge of social and mobile gaming trends. They will share their insights—gleaned as key members of Kontagent, one of the first companies to build analytics around user behavior—and encourage attendees to learn by sharing their own experiences in the space. Their diverse backgrounds bring unique perspectives to often difficult problems.

In addition to those listed, Kontagent will also lead sessions addressing the relative importance for developers of the key performance indicators of average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) as compared to average revenue per user (ARPU), and the increased competition social game marketers face on Facebook in the aftermath of FarmVille developer Zynga's recent initial public offering (IPO).

"More than with other apps, the secret to success in the social and mobile gaming market is the analysis of and proactive response to real-time information," Tseng said. "Competition is so fast and furious in this industry that small and large studios alike cannot afford to live in a bubble. Sharing anecdotes and war stories at these roundtables fosters success for all participants. These discussions will focus on high-level testing strategies and best practices, giving attendees key takeaways we've experienced first-hand."

A growing number of social game studios leverage Kontagent as their analytics provider of choice. Among others, these include Peak Games, Gaia Online, Popcap, Kixeye, Tetris Battle, Gazeus Games, Sismo Games, Social Quantum, Web Games, Playrix, Atommica and Atakama Labs. Kontagent's kSuite analytics solution solves the persistent problem social and mobile companies face today in processing and filtering through massive data sets to find the most actionable metrics and insights. Kontagent customers access kSuite's intuitive analytics dashboard and its deep domain expertise to gain insights into customer data.

About Kontagent:

Kontagent is the leading enterprise user analytics platform for social and mobile application developers, marketers and producers. Kontagent tracks more than 1,000 applications, over 100 million monthly active users, and in excess of 10,000 messages every second for customers around the globe. Our proprietary platform, kSuite, has been built from the ground up to harness deep data pattern visualization and analysis that provides our customers with valuable, actionable insights. Armed with this data, and combined with Kontagent's team of data scientists, our customers have the power to better measure and optimize their customer economics and build more profitable enterprises. Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with additional offices in Toronto and London. For more information, go to www.kontagent.com.

About Inside Social Apps 2012:

Inside Social Apps 2012 takes place Feb. 8-9 at The Concourse at the San Francisco Design Center. The conference brings together today's leading developers of social and mobile apps and games for a two-day summit on the future of app and game growth and monetization on social and mobile platforms. Discussions will tackle key issues and explore new opportunities facing social and mobile apps and games, including monetization, app and game design, marketing, and distribution on established and emerging platforms. For more information, go to: http://insidesocialapps.com/.

SOURCE Kontagent

5W Public Relations Named Agency of Record for Gripevine.com

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:35:30 -0500

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- 5W Public Relations, one of the 25 largest independent Public Relations agencies in the U.S., today announced its selection as the agency of record for Gripevine.com, a social media company that focuses on consumer complaint-resolution management. 5W Public Relations will execute an extensive integrated public relations program in order to promote Gripevine to targeted influential media. Key elements will include media relations, thought leadership, and company award recognition to increase awareness of Gripevine's brand in the CRM – Customer Service space.

"Gripevine.com is an innovative solution that is ultimately filling a great void in the customer service response market. We are delighted to have been selected as the company's PR agency of record and are confident that our experience will prove to be a valuable compliment to Gripevine's growth," said Ronn Torossian, Founder of 5WPR. "The service offered by Gripevine.com will give businesses an opportunity to improve their business to consumer relations on a global scale."

Gripevine connects customers and companies on a fair and level public playing field that empowers them to create win-win resolutions to common consumer complaints. By leveraging the power of social media to get their stories heard, users can ultimately affect a company's Customer Satisfaction Index on Gripevine, which provides an effective scale for the quality of customer service.

"We're thrilled to have brought on an agency with such a strong understanding and proven track record in the technology and social media fields," said Richard Hue, Co-Founder of Gripevine.com. "We believe 5W Public Relations' results driven mindset and knowledge of the industry will put us in the best position to grow as leaders in providing a viable solution for the current void in online complaint-resolution response management."

About Gripevine.com

Gripevine (www.gripevine.com), connects customers and companies on a fair and level public playing field that empowers them to create win-win resolutions to common consumer complaints. Companies can use their Customer Satisfaction Index on Gripevine to show the world the quality of their customer service. Customers can use Gripevine to leverage the power of social media to get their stories heard.

About 5W Public Relations

Founded in 2003 by Ronn Torossian, 5W Public Relations is headquartered in New York with an office in Los Angeles. Named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies, 5WPR is one of the 25 largest Public Relations firms in the U.S. From media relations to corporate communications, technology marketing, consumer goods, Health Care and special events, "WE GET IT". 5WPR is described in a leading trade publication as "aggressive in a way that clearly resonates with clients looking for a firm staffed with type a-plus personalities, a BS-free approach, and results from day one."

Contact: Ronn Torossian, 212-999-5585, ronn@5wpr.com

SOURCE 5W Public Relations

Ektron Gives More Experts and Thought Leaders a Collaboration and Community Home

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:36:31 -0500

Community initiatives provide invaluable resources to reach, engage and empower web content management, digital marketing and customer experience strategy practitioners

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Ektron, the company that empowers organizations to fully realize their websites' marketing and revenue-generating potential, today announced at the Online Marketing Summit an expansion of its Global Community Practice initiatives to provide content and other contributions from a wide variety of experts and thought leaders.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100709/MM19483LOGO )

New contributors this quarter via the Ektron community include Jon Binney, technical delivery manager at Realise Digital; Allen Bonde, CMO at The Pulse Network; Georgy Cohen, founder of Crosstown Digital; Josh Corb, director of technology at Earthbound Media Group; Jeff Cram, co-founder and chief strategy officer at iSITE Design; Laura Gardner, blogger at Rockfish; Salim Hemdani, group vice president, experiences and platforms at Razorfish; Steve Hershberger, co-founder of ComBlu; Mark Organ, co-founder and CEO at Influitive; Robert Rose, founder at Big Blue Moose; Travis Sheppard, vice president of technology at BGT Partners; Sarah Skerik, vice president, social media, at PR Newswire; Martin Spethman, founder of GPI; and Morgan Stewart, CEO at Trendline Interactive.

"We're bringing out the best of what the industry has to offer," said Erick Mott, vice president of Ektron's Global Community Practice. "We're giving people more ways to collaborate and create results with ideas, stories and insights via Ektron's Community hub, social media and events worldwide. The objective is to harness experiences that will help drive community participants' own successes."

Ektron's community also features contributions from Ektron personnel including Fred Bals, Richard Brown, Bill Cava, Jon Kee, Kevin McCloskey, Erick Mott, Sherry Peaslee, Bill Rogers, Chris Rogers, Nicole Rogers, David Ryan, Benjamin Schilens, James Stout and Tom Wentworth.

Ektron announced its Global Community Practice (GCP) initiatives in September 2011 to help organizations connect content and conversations to revenue via digital and face-to-face engagement. Four GCP programs revolve around a customer and partner success strategy including: customer stories and enablers; community hub and spokes; thought leadership with inner circle; and command centers and reporting. Industry experts and thought leaders interested in participating in Ektron's community initiatives can nominate themselves for review by Ektron staff.

About Ektron

Ektron simplifies the creation, management and delivery of digital experiences for global organizations that are looking to drive revenue growth and improve customer satisfaction. Ektron helps companies deliver customer experiences to their audiences through digital channels – including websites, mobile devices and social networks – by using content to engage consumers, drive business outcomes and further revenue growth. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, Ektron has thousands of worldwide customers including: Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, Las Vegas Sands, Microsoft, NASDAQ and National Health Services UK. For more information: www.ektron.com.

Media Contacts:

Fred Bals of Ektron, Inc.
603.589.5274
fred.bals@ektron.com

Michael O'Connell
PAN Communications
617.502.4300
ektron@pancomm.com

SOURCE Ektron

AARP and Microsoft Release New Study on How Online Communication Connects Generations

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:36:27 -0500

The report reveals social technologies are helping families connect and enhance intergenerational relationships

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AARP and Microsoft Corp. today released "Connecting Generations," a new research report that examines how people of all ages are using online communication and social networking to enhance their family relationships. The report reveals three key pieces of evidence showing that online communication is bridging the generation gap:

83 percent of those surveyed (ranging in age from 13 to 75 years old) consider going online to be a "helpful" form of communication among family members.
30 percent of grandparents of teens/young adults agree that connecting online has helped them better understand their teen/young adult grandchildren, and 29 percent of teens/young adults say the same about their grandparents.
Teens agree that the computer increases both the quantity (70 percent) and quality (67 percent) of their communication with family members living far away.

(Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20070209/NYF043LOGO)

"For decades, baby boomers and other older Americans have valued computers and mobile devices as tools for work, but technology is now playing an increasingly vital role in helping the 50+ population communicate and stay connected to their children, aging parents and other family members," said Jody Holtzman, Senior Vice President, AARP Thought Leadership. "By enhancing communication across all generations, technology is improving the quality of life for people of all ages."

Released in conjunction with Safer Internet Day 2012,an annual event organized by InSafe to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile devices among people worldwide, this "Connecting Generations" report also confirms the need for educating all consumers, from teenagers to grandparents, about Internet safety and the steps they can take to help protect themselves online.

While most respondents — teens, parents and grandparents — wish they knew more about how to keep personal information private (58 percent), and how to safeguard their devices (50 percent), the younger generation wants more information than older respondents about using social networks more safely (38 percent compared to 27 percent).

There is also a disconnect between how teens deal with online content that makes them feel uncomfortable and their parents' perception of how they are dealing with such images and information. Nearly half of parents (49 percent) say their teens know to come to them when they see something online that makes them uncomfortable, yet less than a third of teens (29 percent) say they actually would know to go to their parents to talk about it. And while 49 percent of parents say the lines of communication between them and their teenage children remain open, only 37 percent of teens agree.

"Teenagers and young adults are very knowledgeable about technology, but their parents and grandparents often have better judgment and greater wisdom born of experience," said Jacqueline Beauchere, Director, Trustworthy Computing for Microsoft. "Together, AARP and Microsoft are helping generations of Americans stay connected, and are providing the tools and guidance they need to help each other have safer online experiences."

Tips Can Help Families Stay Safer Online

AARP and Microsoft offer these tips to help families connect the generations when it comes to online safety:

1) Use social networks more safely

Look for Settings or Options in services like Facebook and Twitter to manage who can see your profile or photos tagged with your name, how people can search for you and make comments, and how to block people.
Don't post anything you wouldn't want to see on a billboard.
Be selective about accepting friends; regularly reassess who has access to your pages, and review what they post about you.

2) Help protect sensitive personal information

Before you enter sensitive data, look for signs that a webpage is secure — a web address with "https" and a closed padlock beside it.
Never give sensitive info (like an account number or password) or call a number in response to a request in email or IM or on a social network.
Think carefully before you respond to pleas for money from "family members," deals that sound too good to be true, or other scams.

3) Parents and grandparents should have regular conversations with kids, keeping communications open:

Negotiate clear guidelines for web, mobile and online game use that fit your children's maturity level and your family values.
Watch your kids for signs of online bullying, such as being upset when they are online or a reluctance to go to school.
Be the administrator of your home computer; use age-appropriate family safety settings to help you keep track of what your kids are doing online. For example, in all editions of the Windows 7 operating system, you can create separate accounts for each family member. Using Parental Controls (found in Control Panel), you can:
- Specify the exact days and times when children can use the computer.
- Prevent kids from playing certain games, based on title, content, or age-rating.
- Block access to certain programs — for example, those that store sensitive financial data.
- To keep communications open, the Parental Controls icon is always visible so children know when the feature is in use.
Pay attention to what kids do and whom they meet online. Revisit regularly.

For those who truly want to make online safety a family affair, Beauchere recommends that they teach themselves and their family about computer security, data privacy, and online safety by using Microsoft's interactive Digital Citizenship in Action Toolkit.

Understanding the Research

"Connecting Generations" is based on data gathered in a nationwide online survey of 2,126 people in four different age groups:

Teens (13-17 years old)
Young adults (18-25 years old)
Adults ages 39-58
Adults ages 59-75

The quantitative survey was followed by two salon discussions in New York City in mid-November, co-hosted by AARP and Microsoft, to explore more deeply some of the issues identified in the survey. The first discussion was conducted with a group of teenagers (ages 13-17). The second was with a group of adults (ages 43-68), many of them parents or grandparents of teens or adults.

Excerpts from these discussions can be found here.

"By conducting both qualitative and quantitative research, we were able to gain insights not only about how people were using technology to communicate and stay connected, but also about the attitudes behind the actions," said Jeffrey Love, Ph.D., Director of Strategic Issues Research for AARP. "Both the survey and the discussions were remarkable for what they revealed about the similarity, and the diversity, of experiences and attitudes among people of different age groups concerning online communication, social networking and Internet safety."

For the full "Connecting Generations" report please go to www.aarp.org/technology/safer-internet.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

About AARP
AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a membership that helps people 50+ have independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial and affordable to them and society as a whole. AARP does not endorse candidates for public office or make contributions to either political campaigns or candidates. We produce AARP The Magazine, the definitive voice for 50+ Americans and the world's largest-circulation magazine with nearly 35 million readers; AARP Bulletin, the go-to news source for AARP's millions of members and Americans 50+; AARP VIVA, the only bilingual U.S. publication dedicated exclusively to the 50+ Hispanic community; and our website, AARP.org. AARP Foundation is an affiliated charity that provides security, protection, and empowerment to older persons in need with support from thousands of volunteers, donors, and sponsors. We have staffed offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

SOURCE AARP

Public Launch of the SocialFlow Optimized Publisher Gives Businesses of Any Size the Ability to Maximize the Value of Their Soci

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:35:17 -0500

SocialFlow is the first reliably intelligent way for businesses to respond to real-time shifts and growing audiences on the social graph

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- SocialFlow, the leading social media content optimization platform, today announced the public availability of the SocialFlow Optimized Publisher for brands and businesses of all sizes. Using applied mathematics and language analysis to understand audiences, topics, attention and engagement on the real-time social graph, the Optimized Publisher lets businesses know and leverage the precise value of each piece of content they publish. SocialFlow's powerful optimization technology has helped beta clients such as the Economist, Buzzfeed, New York Public Library, Pepsi and Human Rights Watch make content selection and publishing decisions that have translated into dramatic, sustained growth.

Through unparalleled access to the Twitter and Facebook data streams, SocialFlow's research team has shown that language, not demographics or so-called "influencer" status, is the best predictor of affinity and action. In internationally recognized studies of millions of social media messages, SocialFlow has offered groundbreaking insight into the spread of information on social networks through the proprietary scoring capability that powers the Optimized Publisher. SocialFlow is able to help businesses grasp the meaning of data on the ever-changing social graph, leading the way to a new perception of the value of language in real time.

"Businesses can't just rely on crossing their fingers and hoping for the best on social networks like Twitter and Facebook," said Frank Speiser, CEO and co-founder, SocialFlow. "As the business value of social media has increased, so has the urgency to create intelligent tools that can respond to split-second shifts and growing audiences. SocialFlow's Optimized Publisher uses the power of predictive analytics and technology to remove the time-consuming guesswork from social media strategies. Now brand managers and publishers can use their time to focus on creating the unique and engaging content their audiences require."

SocialFlow also announced today a new strategic partnership with Engage121, an enterprise technology provider that will extend SocialFlow's reach into countless new applications and user bases. Engage121 works with franchises nationwide to stimulate sales and foot traffic to their establishments through a range of social media management tools. Through an integration with the Engage platform, SocialFlow will allow a whole new range of customers to make sure their messages are reaching their audiences at optimal times to return enhanced ROI and engagement.

"Our partnership with SocialFlow will help us ensure that more than four hundred brands, including Tasti D-lite, Edible Arrangements and The Vitamin Shoppe, will be able to extract the greatest value from the content they develop," said Jon Victor, CEO, Engage121. "Many businesses are moving away from using demographic data to refine their brand messaging and are looking for ways to capture the real-time data offered through social media channels. We are thrilled that we can give our clients a leg-up in this highly competitive and ever-changing landscape with SocialFlow's Optimized Publisher."

Inspired to find a better way to publish their own social media content, co-founders Frank Speiser and Mike Perrone began developing the scientific algorithms that would become the foundation for SocialFlow. Through intensive research of real-time data from Twitter, Bitly, Facebook and other sources, they developed the SocialFlow AttentionScore™ technology that determines the value of content on the social graph in real time. Once content has been scored, the SocialFlow Optimized Publisher uses the data to accurately determine when an addressable audience is available and in what topics they would most like to engage.

SocialFlow recently released a plug-in for WordPress and a module for Drupal, extending the functionality of two of the most popular and flexible content management systems in the world with the industry's leading social media optimization technology. No longer will publishers need to post new articles to Twitter and Facebook as a separate step -- with the SocialFlow plug-in or module, optimized publishing is a seamless part of their workflow.

SocialFlow is available as a monthly or annual subscription on a self-service basis at www.socialflow.com. For enterprise customers, a full suite of account management and support packages are available.

About SocialFlow Optimized Publisher

The Optimized Publisher is the industry's first intelligent publishing platform that analyzes real-time audience availability, topical receptivity and potential attention and engagement on the social graph. The Publisher lets businesses know and leverage the precise value of each piece of content they publish using the SocialFlow AttentionScore™ technology, which makes the task of maximizing clicks, likes, shares, Retweets, mentions and follower growth scalable and efficient. The Publisher finds and optimizes of-the-moment opportunities for brands and businesses of all sizes and publishes the best Tweet or status update at the best time.

About SocialFlow

SocialFlow is the first social media optimization technology to apply a scientific approach to understanding the real-time value of content on the social graph. With unparalleled access to the Twitter and Facebook data streams, the company developed the SocialFlow AttentionScore™ technology that is able to understand and quantify audience, attention, topics and engagement to provide an accurate value assessment of social media content for brands and businesses. This technology powers the company's Optimized Publisher to help clients extract value from their social media content resulting in increased and sustained growth for companies. Founded in 2009, SocialFlow is home to a world-class research team whose work has been featured in Reuters, the UK Guardian, Fast Company, Xinhua, the Huffington Post, MIT'sTechnology Review, Nieman Journalism Lab, Business Insider, International Business Times, Salon and many others. SocialFlow is based in New York City and services a variety of clients, including the Economist, Pepsi, Forbes, Buzzfeed, New York Public Library and Human Rights Watch.

SOURCE SocialFlow

Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. Join Forces to Deliver the Future of Customer Service for Large Businesses

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:35:16 -0500

Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. announce agreement to combine the power of "Big Data" and natural user interfaces into a new enterprise cloud platform for customer service.

CAMPBELL, Calif. and REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. and 24/7 Inc. today announced an agreement to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service for businesses. The agreement includes Microsoft merging its interactive self-service assets (clients, people and technologies) into 24/7 Inc. The agreement also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7 Inc.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

Microsoft has pioneered the use of NUIs, including gestures and speech, across a broad range of devices, and the broad adoption of NUIs by consumers has changed the way people interact with technology, companies and one another. 24/7 Inc. is a leading innovator in harnessing the power of Big Data for customer service, using Internet-scale data and advanced analytics to help businesses predict customer preferences and deliver proactive, efficient and intuitive consumer experiences. With this agreement, Microsoft and 24/7 are combining technologies that span interactive self-service across mobile, Web and voice channels, Big Data analytics, and speech and conversational interfaces to create a next-generation cloud platform for customer service. The combined Predictive Experience (PX) platform will manage more than 2.5 billion speech and online self-service interactions annually, enabling large businesses to derive and apply insight and intelligence across these customer service interactions and delivery channels. With this combination, 24/7 Inc. will be positioned to generate total revenues of more than $250 million annually by delivering solutions and services that enable large businesses to anticipate consumer needs, simplify the consumer experience and learn from every consumer interaction.

"Microsoft is an industry leader in NUI and established natural, intuitive consumer experiences on mobile and entertainment devices," said Zig Serafin, general manager, Online Services Division at Microsoft. "From speech to touch to gestures, consumers expect and demand more natural and intuitive ways to interact with technology. This same demand will change how consumers interact with businesses, and it creates an inflection point for how people will expect businesses to provide customer service. "

Consumers today not only expect businesses to deliver service in more natural and intuitive ways but also expect these same businesses to be able to reach out and interact intelligently with them across a wide variety of channels, including on mobile devices, through social media, on the Web and even through the living room TV. This consumer expectation has created a key need for businesses to gather, analyze and gain insight by using Big Data to proactively anticipate and predict customer needs.

"The ability to exceed customer service expectations through Big Data analytics across all service channels offers unique value for businesses," said PV Kannan, CEO of 24/7 Inc. "By bringing Microsoft's interactive self-service technology together with 24/7 Inc.'s predictive consumer experience technology into one unified cloud platform, we will deliver solutions and services that truly enable businesses to differentiate through customer service."

Enterprises already working with Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. are applauding the solution and believe it will accelerate their ability to deliver more natural and intuitive customer service experiences, and this agreement will enable 24/7 Inc. to accelerate delivery of solutions and services for the future of customer service.

"24/7 Inc. and Microsoft are helping Avis deliver customer experiences in the way that customers want to be served," said Thomas M. Gartland, president, North America, Avis Budget Group. "We applaud the agreement between the companies that will harness the power of Big Data, apply advanced analytics to that data, and bring more intuitive experiences to customers. We see the future of customer service and are working together to lead the way."

"Today, consumers are engaging with businesses in more channels than ever with the proliferation of mobile devices and social media. As a result, their expectations of customer service are changing," said Daniel Hong, lead analyst of Customer Interaction at Ovum. "Enterprises that embrace these trends will uncover opportunities to deepen their relationships with customers and optimize their investments in customer-enabling technologies (such as self-service) across channels. We feel the PX platform, along with the partnership between 24/7 Inc. and Microsoft, creates opportunities for businesses to better anticipate their customers' needs, simplify their consumer experiences, and learn from every consumer interaction."

"United has been working closely but independently with 24/7 Inc. and Microsoft to improve customer service," said Martin Hand, senior vice president Customer Experience, United Airlines. "We believe this agreement will better position them to help us innovate across our service channels by leveraging Big Data and natural user interfaces. We look forward to working together to achieve our customer service goals

Additional Details

Microsoft will merge its interactive self-service assets (clients, people and technologies) into 24/7 Inc.'s PX solutions.
24/7 Inc. and Microsoft will forge an R&D partnership moving forward, and 24/7 Inc. will utilize Microsoft Tellme speech and natural language technologies for natural user experiences in customer service. 24/7 Inc. will also be integrating its solutions with Windows Phone, Bing and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. have also agreed to a shared technology road map and a long-term IP licensing agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for speech-related technologies.
Microsoft will take an equity stake in 24/7 Inc.

About 24/7 Inc.

24/7 Inc., (www.247-inc.com), the intuitive consumer experience company, provides software and services that make life simple for consumers to connect with large companies to get things done. 24/7's software helps companies anticipate what consumers want, simplify interactions, and learn from those interactions so that future experiences get better all the time. 24/7 is based in Campbell, California.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

Don't Miss the GLIDE1 Revolution: Pre-Register for Your Free Account Now: The Next "Big Thing" in Cloud Computing

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:35:25 -0500

GLIDE1 Brings the Cloud to You

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The most popular WebOS, Glide OS http://GlideSociety.com, is launching the all-new GLIDE1 application soon. You can pre-register today at http://GlideSociety.com/Glide1. Register for a Glide OS account today and get 30GBs of free storage.

GLIDE1 is an application that you install on your desktop, tablet and smartphone. It manages all of your files that are scattered across various devices and cloud services. GLIDE1 is revolutionary because it provides a single point of access to all files stored on PCs, tablets, smartphones and cloud services like Dropbox, Flickr, YouTube, etc. With Glide, it is now easier than ever to share your files securely with friends & colleagues or publish to services like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

"Walled clouds defeat the purpose of cloud computing," said TransMedia Chairman & CEO, Donald Leka. "GLIDE1 is designed to connect various proprietary devices and disconnected cloud services to realize the inherent efficiencies of cloud computing."

The Problem

The typical consumer might have a Windows PC at work, a Mac at home, a Google Android Smartphone and an Apple iPad. This is born out by the fact that Microsoft Windows continues to lead the personal computer market with over 85% market share; Google Android leads the smartphone market with about 50% market share; and Apple iOS (iPad/iPad2) leads the tablet market with over 70% market share. Consumers are also using various disconnected cloud storage and sharing services for photos, music, video and documents like Flickr, YouTube, Dropbox and Box.

The GLIDE1 Solution

GLIDE1 will provide a single point of access to all user files and information stored on PCs, tablets, smartphones and dedicated cloud file storage and sharing services. Utilizing Glide's cross platform synchronization application and browser components for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, GLIDE1 will sync all user file directories across devices and cloud services consolidating the directories and user data on Glide's servers. Utilizing the Glide Cloud Operating System http://GlideSociety.com/, users will have automated file compatibility across platforms, granular permissions-based security in-between platforms and a comprehensive suite of collaboration and productivity applications to work with.

GLIDE1 Facilitates "Bring-Your-Own-Device" (BYOD)

With Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) - employees using their own devices and cloud services for work - becoming widely accepted, enterprise IT administrators are struggling to address the associated security risks. Currently, the majority of businesses don't have any policies, procedures or IT systems in place to manage the use of personal devices in corporations. GLIDE1 provides organizations with a solution for centralized rights based administration of files and information residing on employees' and members' personal devices and 3rd party cloud storage services.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50133194&lang=en

Contacts

Press:
TransMedia
Marcus Farny, 646-202-2555
press@transmx.com
TransMedia: http://www.transmediacorp.com

SOURCE TransMedia

Sentiment Analysis for Business, Finance, and Social Media Showcased at May 8, New York Symposium

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:35:24 -0500

Symposium will feature speakers and panelists from American Express, Fidelity Investments, Kraft Foods, the Red Cross, Thomson Reuters, and Yahoo, start-ups, and academia

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Analytics visionary Seth Grimes has released the speaker line-up for the fourth Sentiment Analysis Symposium, slated for May 8, 2012 in New York. Grimes states that with speakers and panelists from leading firms (including American Express, Fidelity Investments, Kraft Foods, the Red Cross, Thomson Reuters, and Yahoo), start-ups, and academia, the New York symposium will be the best yet.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120207/CG47994)

The Sentiment Analysis Symposium bridges technology and business in one of the most exciting applications to emerge in recent years: software that discovers business value in opinions and attitudes in social media, news, and enterprise feedback. Keynotes kick off the morning sessions:

Prof. Jan Wiebe of the Univ of Pittsburgh is a sentiment-analysis pioneer. She will speak on Sentiment, Subjectivity, and Sense, providing a leading researcher's view of the state of sentiment, and where we're heading.
Drinking from the Fire Hose authors Chris Frank (American Express) and Paul Magnone (Openet Telecom) are slated to tackle (working title) Emotional Versus Rational in Customer Decision Making.

Registration is online at http://www.sentimentsymposium.com/registration.html.

The Sentiment Analysis Symposium series has drawn steadily growing numbers, from 95 attendees in April 2010 to 120 (capacity) in April 2011 to 154 in San Francisco last November. (Videos of the last two symposiums' presentations are online.) The symposium both builds on past success and aims to stay on the leading edge of sentiment technologies and applications. The symposium showcases ground-breaking sentiment-analysis applications and provides unique learning opportunities.

In addition to talks by Prof Jan Wiebe and a new presentation by Prof. Ronen Feldman of Hebrew University, who co-founded solution provider Digital Trowel — Feldman will speak on Unsupervised Learning: Insight in Business News, Medical Forums, and Public Filings — the symposium will once again have a half-day, day-before Practical Sentiment Analysis tutorial, on May 7, this year taught by Prof. Bing Liu, another sentiment/opinion-mining expert. Liu was featured in a January 26 New York Times article, For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews.

Other May 8 speakers include two San Francisco symposium panelists, Banafsheh Ghassemi of the American Red Cross (A Multi-Channel Proposition: Customer Sentiment and (Much) More) and Carol Haney, now with Toluna (Tween Pants Cut Too Low!! (or, Combine Survey Research & Social Monitoring to Discover the Unknown)). Rich Brown from Thomson Reuters is another repeat, a highly rated presenter at the April 2010 symposium. Brown's title this go-around is Forecasting Financial Market Response from News and Social Media Sentiment.

New to the symposium is Andera Gadeib, CEO of German-based Dialego AG, speaking on Market Research Beyond Sentiment: Differentiating the Engaged and Pleased.

Talks will teach attendees how to use sentiment analysis and how to combine it with data from diverse online and enterprise sources and cover beyond positive/negative analysis that help user understand and exploit emotion, mood, and opinion in the spectrum of sources. The symposium also focuses on User Perspectives in a series of three shorter presentations followed by a panel discussion:

Can automated sentiment analysis be less accurate than flipping a coin? — Dana Jacob, Yahoo
Who are the most loyal customers? — Sobhan Hota, Fidelity Investments
"How Can I Listen If I'm Talking?": The Power Of Social Media Listening — Frank Cotignola, Kraft Foods

As usual, the symposium will have a series of 5-minute lightning talks just before the lunch break:

Sentiment As A Service — Michael Tupanjanin, Metavana
Political Sentiment Analysis — Dr. Stuart W. Shulman, Texifter
Sentiment Visualization — Vsevolod Gavrilyuk, SemanticForce (tentative)
Data-driven Sentiment Analysis of Financial News — Matt Sommer, MarketChorus Inc.

And features a new Innovators & Innovation panel to close this year's program, with Leslie Barrett (The Ladders), Prof. Bing Liu (University of Illinois at Chicago), and Romi Mahajan (Metavana).

Lastly, in order to maximize networking opportunities, the symposium will once again planning evening-before and post-symposium receptions.

Sentiment Analysis Symposium information is online at sentimentsymposium.com. Symposium organizer Seth Grimes singled our sponsors Attensity, Lexalytics, and NetBase for thanks, given their support that makes the symposium possible.

Media Contact: Seth Grimes Alta Plana Corporation, 3012700795, grimes@altaplana.com

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

SOURCE Alta Plana Corporation

Akamon Launches its First Game on Facebook: Chinchón

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:35:21 -0500

BARCELONA, February 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

The company expects a turnover of more than 1 million euros in 2012 for activity generated through the social networking site

Akamon Entertainment Ltd., the leading international online social gaming company in traditional games, has launched its first game on Facebook with the aim of expanding its network of users who play simultaneously and share a gaming community. The company, which operates through the leading Spanish portal Mundijuegos.com and the Brazilian Ludijugos.com, is the first in Spain to launch a game that allows players to be connected to the entire gaming community independently of which gateway they have entered through - be it one of the company's portals or Facebook - so creating the best social game experience.

Akamon plans to follow up the launch of Chinchón on Facebook with the incorporation of a further six games on to the social networking site during the first quarter of 2012, including Ruleta (Roulette), Parchís, Brisca, Tute, Buraco and Dominó (Dominoes). The company expects its presence on Facebook to represent at least 15 per cent of its turnover for 2012, estimated at 9 million euros.

Vicens Martí, CEO at Akamon Entertainment Ltd., states that "the move onto Facebook is part of an ongoing strategy to offer new gateways to our players, which complement our own portals and those of our affiliates. We hope that the number of daily users (DAU) of Chinchón, which currently stands at 30.000, will increase tenfold during the first months of being active on the social networking site."

Chinchón is a traditional Spanish card game that is played throughout the world with small variations. The Akamon development team, which is made up of more than 20 engineers based in Valencia, has dedicated more than 5.000 hours to the creation of the game and its adaptation to different platforms. As Daniel G. Blázquez, director of Art and Design at Akamon, explains: "we have succeeded in creating a competitive product that operates synchronously on different portals and Facebook, and which merges the appeal of traditional games with the social features that players look for in a social networking environment."

About Akamon

Akamon Entertainment Limited is an online social gaming company specialising in traditional games. Founded by Spanish entrepreneurs with Spanish capital, the company operates in the south of Europe and Latin America via the local portals Mundijuegos.com in Spain and Ludijugos.com in Brazil. These sites will be complemented in 2012 with new portals resulting from the company's expansion into France, Argentina, Mexico and Italy.

With its headquarters in Malta, Akamon has a development team based in Valencia and a business intelligence team in Barcelona, and has a total of 35 employees who are highly specialised in the online sector.

Akamon's portfolio consists of 27 traditional local casino-based games such as Parchís, Chinchón, Buraco, Mus, Poker and Dominó. All the games incorporate social features and users are connected to the entire gaming community via Akamon's portals, those of the affiliates who offer the games on their platforms and, as of February, on Facebook.

For further information visit http://akamon.com or contact:
Georgina Rifé i Domènech - +34-902-999-343
press@akamon.com / Twitter: @AkamonLTD

Photos available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/akamon/

SOURCE Akamon

FEARnet Celebrates the Dark Side of Valentine's Day with Its "Tainted Love" Sweepstakes

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:33:25 -0500

Winner Receives Sony Bloggie Touch Camera, DVD Movie Pack and More: Only at www.FEARnet.com

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- FEARnet.com, the web's #1 genre site, will hand out "Tainted Love" this Valentine's Day. Starting today through February 15, 2012 at 5 p.m. PT, movie fans that hate the sight of colorful heart-shaped candy expressing romantic sentiments, and prefer dead roses to long stem red ones, will find FEARnet has the solution to what ails them with its latest sweepstakes.

The "Tainted Love" prize pack that will have even Cupid celebrating the dark side of Valentine's Day includes:

Sony Bloggie Touch Camera
iTunes Gift Card
"Drag Me to Hell" DVD
"Jennifer's Body" DVD
"Let Me In" DVD
"Let The Right One In" DVD
"What Lies Beneath" DVD
"Supernatural" Season 1 DVD
"A Perfect Getaway" DVD
DL & Co. 7 Deadly Sins Candle Set
FEARnet Swag

Fans can enter the "Tainted Love" Sweepstakes starting today through February 15, 2012 at: http://www.fearnet.com/holidaysweepstakes. It is open to all residents of the United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 years of age or older. One entry per person per email address per day will be allowed.

The "Tainted Love" Sweepstakes is the latest addition to the list of amazing sweepstakes featured on FEARnet.com. FEARnet also recently gave fans chances to win amazing prize packs with its Friday the 13th Sweepstakes, Holiday Sweepstakes, and its trip giveaways to four of America's most haunted cities including New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

Follow FEARnet on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/FEARnet) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/FEARnet) for all the latest news and updates on horror, thriller and suspense entertainment.

About FEARnet

FEARnet is the premier cable television channel for fans of horror, thriller and suspense entertainment. Featuring original series and movies, its unrivaled modern horror library unites Sony Pictures Television (SPT: US), Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), the two top studios producing and distributing the genre, and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) (NASDAQ: CMCSK), the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services. FEARnet is also available online at FEARnet.com and On Demand.

FEARnet launched its traditional cable channel October 31, 2010 and is available on Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner, Verizon FiOS, and other MSOs. The channel provides more than 300 movies a year including regularly scheduled world, broadcast and network premieres, as well as new series, and original interstitial content, and is offered in both standard and high-definition. FEARnet On Demand has generated over 600 MM views, is the #1 Free Movie VOD network, and is available on AT&T U-Verse, Bresnan, Comcast, Cox Communications, Guadalupe Valley Systems, Insight Communications, Time Warner, Verizon FiOS, Wyandotte Municipal Services, and others. FEARnet.com, the web's #1 site for genre fans, has over 270K registered users and PC Magazine named it among "The 15 Best Websites for Movie Fans" where users can explore the world of genre entertainment on a visually arresting video-rich environment packed with movies, news, interactive community features and fresh original content.

SOURCE FEARnet

MWW Group Hires Mara Mazzoni Vice President, Digital Operations

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:34:28 -0500

Mazzoni Brings Expertise Leading Digital Project Management for World Class Brands including Dove, Ben & Jerry's, American Heart Association, Pepsi and United Airlines

NEW YORK, Feb. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- MWW Group (www.mww.com), one of the top ten global independent public relations firms, announced today that Mara Mazzoni has joined the firm as vice president, digital operations in Dialogue Digital, MWW's award-winning digital marketing, social media and visual branding practice. In this role, Mazzoni will manage cross discipline teams working strategically and tactically to bring digital and social media programs to life.

Mazzoni will work closely to continue building strategic technology and platform partnerships to ensure MWW remains an industry leader in the digital space. In addition to leading digital operations, she will oversee the growth of MWW's Community Management practice and development of digital IP offerings. Mazzoni reports to Jared Hendler, executive vice president, global director of digital & creative at MWW Group.

"The lines between traditional marketing, PR and digital have blurred, requiring project management that simultaneously reaches across an array of disciplines and platforms. Mara's demonstrated excellence in bringing innovative programs to life for world class brands will be a significant asset as our team continues to lead the industry in developing breakthrough campaigns that leverage traditional and digital channels," said Hendler.

Prior to joining MWW Group, Mazzoni worked for Edelman Digital in New York, where she served as vice president, producer. She played a key role in the strategic planning and execution of several major client initiatives including the launch of Unilever's Dove brand's global Facebook page, and of the first global brand Facebook pages, the first consumer packaged goods augmented reality iPhone application to use markerless tracking technology for Ben & Jerry's, and the rebranding of the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women. Before transferring to New York, Mazzoni served at Edelman Digital's Chicago office, where she led the digital launch of Fuel Up to Play 60, a joint venture between the National Dairy Council and NFL to increase physical activity and access to healthy foods in schools. In addition to Dove, Ben & Jerry's, the American Heart Association, the NDC and NFL, Mazzoni has worked for a number of other iconic brands such as Pepsi, eBay, Heinz, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric and United Airlines, among others.

MWW Group's Dialogue Digital practice consists of creative, social savvy industry specialists with deep expertise in aligning digital and traditional media to engage key stakeholders.

Mazzoni will be based in MWW Group's New York office. She holds a bachelor's degree in communications from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.

About MWW Group

MWW Group is one of the nation's top mid-sized public relations firms and one of the ten largest independent global agencies. The company is industry-recognized for its work in consumer lifestyle marketing, digital marketing and social media, corporate communications, public affairs and government relations, consumer technology, healthcare and visual branding.

Through its "Network PR" approach, MWW Group helps its clients re-architect the conversation surrounding their brands to increase trust and relevance and drive action among key stakeholders. Among its numerous awards for client work, the agency has been recognized as 2011 "Midsize Agency of the Year" and 2010 "Strategic PR Agency of the Year" by the Holmes Report and has received accolades from PR News for "Team of the Year," "Digital Firm of the Year" and "Top Places to Work in PR."

To learn more about MWW Group, visit www.mww.com, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE MWW Group

Microsoft Unveils Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:35:32 -0500

Next Microsoft Dynamics CRM service update will include a new, cloud-based, cross-platform, native mobile application.

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced that Microsoft Dynamics CRM will release its next service update in Q2 2012. This service update will deliver the capability for customers to access the complete functionality of Microsoft Dynamics CRM on virtually any device with a new cloud-based, cross-platform, native mobile client service for Windows Phone 7, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile devices.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

"In today's hyperconnected world, customers need to be able to access their business-critical data on the device of their choice from wherever they are," said Dennis Michalis, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "These advancements, combined with the strength of the Microsoft platform, make Microsoft Dynamics CRM an obvious choice for any business."

Maintaining Microsoft's commitment to delivering rapid innovation to customers, the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Q2 2012 service update also includes enhanced social functionality and new enterprise-class features, and adds multiple Web browser options for users, including Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari, running on PC, Macintosh and iPad devices.

Delivering CRM on Virtually Any Mobile Device

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile will deliver customers a fast and familiar experience, helping sales, customer service, marketing and management professionals connect with their customers and each other on multiple mobile devices through a security-enhanced environment. For instance, sales and marketing representatives will now be able to quickly capture and convert leads 24/7 and develop marketing campaigns on the go.

Using the cloud-based, cross-platform, native mobile client service, customers will be able to sync their information and sales pipelines offline, helping them stay connected on the road and on their terms.

Through the power of xRM, the flexible application development framework of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, customers will also be able to easily mobilize their extended CRM applications by having seamless integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile and their existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM environment.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile will be available at a starting price of $30 (U.S.) per user, per month and supports the use of up to three devices per user.

Additional Social Enhancements

Building on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM November 2011 service update, the new release will include more social capabilities with Activity Feeds that give people the ability to like and unlike status updates, improved status filtering, and the capability to view all statuses relating to a particular record view, which will make it even easier for users to stay on top of all relevant customer information to help them be more productive.

Complete information on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Q2 2012 service update is available in the Release Preview Guide and a blog post from Michalis on CRM Connection. Those who want to follow and engage with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Twitter community can do so at @MSDynamicsCRM, using #MSDYNCRM and #crm2011.

About Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP solutions empower your people to be more productive and your systems to last longer and scale as your business grows, while enabling you to derive the insights necessary to respond quickly in an ever-changing world of business.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

Vringo's Facetones™ App Surpasses 1 Million Downloads

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:35:25 -0500

Vringo Reaches Key Download Milestone in Less Than 6 Months of Marketing

NEW YORK, Feb. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Vringo, Inc. (NYSE Amex: VRNG), a provider of software platforms for mobile social and video applications, today announced that its recently launched Facetones™ app has surpassed the milestone threshold of 1 million downloads this week. The Facetones™ app is integrated with Facebook® and generates an automatic, visually exciting slideshow of photos displaying your friend's face and other social content each time you communicate with that friend using your mobile device.

"Reaching 1 million downloads is a significant accomplishment," said Andrew Perlman, Vringo's President. "The Facetones™ application has quickly become popular with users around the world, and the excitement of enhancing phone calls and texts with pictures and social content from sites such as Facebook® is spreading rapidly. We believe this new type of interaction will help define the future of social mobile experiences."

Jon Medved, Vringo's CEO, said, "As the awareness of Facetones™ continues to grow, we expect downloads to accelerate through viral marketing as critical mass is achieved. We are thrilled about Vringo's expanding growth potential with Facetones™ and believe the application will become even more attractive for our advertising partners now that it has surpassed the strategic 1 million download milestone in less than six months of marketing."

Facetones™ initially connects with Facebook®, the world's leading social media site, providing for a significantly enhanced mobile experience for users of social media. Vringo expects to integrate Facetones™ with other social media networks and photo sites in the near future.

Facetones™ is a trademark of Vringo, Inc. and is not sponsored or endorsed by Facebook nor is Facebook affiliated with Vringo, Inc.

About Vringo

Vringo (NYSE Amex: VRNG) is a provider of software platforms for mobile social and video applications. With its award-winning video ringtone application and other mobile software platforms - including Facetones™, Video Remix and Fan Loyalty - Vringo transforms the basic act of making and receiving mobile phone calls into a highly visual, social experience. Vringo's video ringtone service enables users to create or take video, images and slideshows from virtually anywhere and turn it into their visual call signature. In a first for the mobile industry, Vringo has introduced its patented VringForward technology, which allows users to share video clips with friends with a simple call. Vringo's Facetones™ application creates an automated video slideshow using friends' photos from social media web sites, which is played each time a user communicates with a friend using a mobile device. Vringo's Video ReMix application, in partnership with music artists and brands, allows users to create their own music video by tapping on a Smartphone or tablet. Lastly, Fan Loyalty is a platform that lets users interact, vote and communicate with contestants in reality TV series that it partners with, as well as downloading and setting clips from such shows as video ringtones. Vringo's video ringtone application has been heralded by The New York Times as "the next big thing in ringtones" and USA Today said it has "to be seen to be believed." For more information, visit: www.vringo.com

For comprehensive investor relations material, including fact sheets, white papers, conference calls and video regarding Vringo and its applications, please follow the appropriate link: Investor Portal, White Paper, Overview Video and Facetones™ Video.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements, which may be identified by words such as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "projects," "intends," "should," "seeks," "future," "continue," or the negative of such terms, or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to: our ability to raise capital to fund our operations, the continued listing of our securities on the NYSE Amex, market acceptance of our products, our ability to protect our intellectual property rights, competition from other providers and products and other factors discussed from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Vringo expressly disclaims any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Contacts:

Investor Contact:
Vringo, Inc.
Cliff Weinstein, VP Corporate Development
646-794-4226
cliff@vringo.com

Media Contact:
The Hodges Partnership
Caroline Platt & Stacey Brucia
804-788-1414
VringoPR@hodgespart.com

Financial Communications:
Trilogy Capital Partners, Inc.
Darren Minton, President
Toll-free: 800-592-6067
info@trilogy-capital.com

SOURCE Vringo, Inc.

FordDirect's New DealerConnection Video Showroom Makes Vehicle Inventory Search Social

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:32:42 -0500

New web 2.0 platform allows consumers to search up-to-date vehicle inventory directly from dealership's digital platforms including Facebook, YouTube, and blogs

DEARBORN, Mich., Feb. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- FordDirect, a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and its franchise dealers, today launched a new web 2.0 platform, based on SiSTeR's Technologies' VSHOC and Publisher platform, DealerConnection Vehicle Showroom (VSR) for its Ford and Lincoln dealers. FordDirect VSR seamlessly integrates with a dealer's digital marketing or social media platform including blogs, Facebook and their YouTube pages so that consumers can search the most current new and used vehicle inventory without clicking out of their original destination.

The service will be available to all 3,500 Ford and Lincoln Dealers that have DealerConnection websites, and offered for no additional charge to dealers that currently have both DealerConnection Elite and DealerConnection Premier Advanced Inventory Service (DCPAIS) web services.

The VSR's unique interactive filtering and keyword search functions provide users with their desired selection in real time. Furthermore, unlike other video inventory tools, VSR switches automatically to an HTML 5.0 version for users who access it via a smart phone or tablet to maximize the users' experience and the dealer's ROI.

DealerConnection VSR maximizes the effectiveness of a dealer's digital marketing and social media platforms and enhances the user experience by offering consumers the ability to not only search for a new vehicle by make, model and price, but can also submit an inquiry directly to the dealer or refer a vehicle to others without ever leaving the digital or social platform. VSR also automatically displays the desired vehicle on the dealer's website for visitors who come from YouTube and, if such a vehicle is sold, lists of similar vehicles are displayed, saving the users from the annoying "search again" issue.

"We are finding that consumers are turning to social media and other digital platforms to initiate their research for a vehicle purchase, so it's important for Dealers to capture their attention with the most current information in an interactive way," said Valerie Fuller, COO of FordDirect. "DealerConnection Vehicle Showroom provides consumers with an enhanced online experience so that they can find the vehicle that they are looking for and be able to connect with a dealer without the hassle of having to visit numerous websites."

A recent study from Autoguide.com states that 2.4 million in-market shoppers used Facebook in some way to make a vehicle purchase decision. In addition, 58 percent of consumers are likely to mention their new car and/or buying experience via social media and 82 percent of mentions about car purchases on social media are positive. (1)

"Over the last eight months we have worked on perfecting the details of our video product for FordDirect, ensuring it meets the needs of both dealer and consumer," said Israel Alpert, CEO of SiSTeR Technologies. "Today, we are proud to be taking a huge step forward – publishing the inventory beyond the Dealer's website and making shopping even easier for potential car buyers."

DealerConnection websites average more than 2.5 million monthly unique visitors and drive more than 55,000 monthly leads for Ford and Lincoln dealers. For more information, visit www.forddirect.com/dealercenter.

About FordDirect
FordDirect (forddirect.com/dealercenter) is a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and its franchised dealers to create a comprehensive Web presence for dealers and provide digital marketing services that help dealers sell more cars and trucks. FordDirect provides dealers new and pre-owned marketing services, call tracking, lead management solutions, dealer Websites, search optimization and marketing, database marketing, marketing services for regional dealer advertising groups and other marketing services. Sales from FordDirect Internet referrals represent 22 percent of Ford Motor Co. retail sales. FordDirect is headquartered in Dearborn, Mich.

About SiSTeR Technologies
SiSTeR Technologies, based in Dallas, Texas, is a premier provider of automated video production, distribution and vSEO for auto retailers, manufacturers, and industry partners. SiSTeR provides its clients with cutting edge video marketing solutions that integrate easily into existing online and mobile platforms including third party sites, YouTube, Google and Facebook.

SiSTeR developed the Pic2Vid process that creates video using still images and TrueVoice ™ technology several years ago and has been licensing it to many resellers and business partners since 2005. Recently, SiSTeR was awarded a U.S. patent that covers the automated production of video files from still images, text and pre-recorded audio eliminating the need for laborious manual process.

(1) http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/11/08/how-mobile-tablets-and-social-are-changing-the-face-of-automotive-marketing/

SOURCE FordDirect

Note to Social Networking Giants: Friendio is Booming

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:35:16 -0500

ORLAND PARK, Ill., Feb. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Social Networking has long been known as an easy way to keep up with friends and family. Yet with the introduction of Timeline by the world's largest social network the whole concept of social media is suddenly modified as Timeline transforms profiles into scrap booking pages. With these constant changes and too many privacy issues making headlines a group of Facebook® users wanted change.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120203/CG47536LOGO)

With some real ambition Friendio, Inc., an Orland Park, Illinois based company, was born. This new rival offers people classic social networking with strong privacy and popular features. "Friendio does not modify privacy settings, nor do we force people to create a scrapbook of their life," said Doug Freitag, the company's President. The site's slogan, "It's all about you!" really sums it up. People can customize profile layouts, change the site's theme to their liking, add music, insert Places, add company Pages and create their own circle of friends through custom lists. It's simple, easy to use, and makes sense. It's a way for people to further express their personal style, and share more about who they are.

Even more, the company has already opened their API to developers, allowing connection to the network from the outside for the development of apps. The 'Like Button' is already available to Website & blog owners. With this addition the network can quickly grow to a global scale.

People are flocking to Friendio and the site is booming. Although many people never heard of it until now they are sure to hear about it a lot more in the future. The company is a private corporation but has considered an IPO or private placement to further its reach.

To learn more visit www.friend.io where people can start inviting friends.

About Friendio

Friendio is a growing global provider of alternative social networking services and is synonymous with privacy. The company provides its members with convenient access on a computer or mobile device. With a growing brand and the ability to share with friends & family without the privacy concerns, Friendio's network holds the capability to serve millions of people around the world with a new way to connect, create and share.

Disclaimer: Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc., herein incorporated for reference. Friendio, Inc. has no affiliation whatsoever with the company or its trademarks.

CONTACT: Doug Freitag, 1-866-932-0383, friendio@friend.io

SOURCE Frendio

Super Bowl 2012 Streams Live Through Facebook Via FreeCast.com

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:35:21 -0500

A simple Facebook TV app may provide the NFL and NBC with a large share of its Internet viewers for this Sunday's Super Bowl XLVI

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Everybody now knows that NBC and the NFL are streaming this Sunday's Super Bowl LIVE over the Internet, but now one very special Facebook app, built by FreeCast.com, will provide Facebook users with the ability to watch it right from their profile pages while socializing and commenting about the big game with their many friends simultaneously.

FreeCast.com is billed as "Your Personal Channel Guide", delivering over 7000 TV, Movie, Radio, News, Sports, Show, and Event Channels over the Internet, and now FreeCast's Facebook app will guide Facebook users to the available Super Bowl streams.

"Facebook users will now see the huge benefit of our FreeCast app with the coming of this highly visible event. Not only will they understand that they can watch TV on their Facebook profile pages, but they will be sharing, commenting, and enjoying the game with their friends, which is what Facebook is all about," says William Mobley, President of FreeCast.com.

The FreeCast executive also pointed out that while he doesn't believe Facebook is an alternative to our big screen TV experience this Sunday, he feels it can provide a huge convenience for those who don't have television, like the millions of college students in dorms, military sites, certain workplaces, and many other locations with Internet but no televisions.

FreeCast.com removes the need for multiple web, mobile or TV apps to be built on a channel-by-channel basis, instead delivering over 7000 channels directly from the Internet. With over 1.5 million new video files crawled and categorized each day by FreeCast.com, Mobley is naturally excited about the future. "Our next delivery will be Android, iPhone, Samsung Smart TV, Vizio, and Google TV multi-channel apps, in the next 30 days," concluded Mobley.

To find out more about the FreeCast free Facebook app, please visit: http://apps.facebook.com/freecasttv.

About William Mobley
Mobley's experience would suggest he knows at least a few things about the Internet television marketplace, having launched MegaChannels.com in 1999, which quickly grew to serving over 800,000+ streaming videos per day, while also partnering with several major studios' content when the average modem speed was 56K-128K. All of this took place at a point in time when Yahoo was averaging 2M visitors per day, in comparison.

http://www.freecast.com

http://apps.facebook.com/freecasttv

Chad Marx - Publisher, PublicWire.com
Email: sales@publicwire.com

This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com.

SOURCE FreeCast.com

Infragistics Acquires SouthLabs

Molly Bernhart Walker — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:16:45 -0500

Introduces SharePlus App to Extend Reach of SharePoint to Mobile Devices

Cranbury, New Jersey & London, England - January 31, 2012- Infragistics, the user experience software company and a world leader in user interface (UI) development tools, announced today the acquisition of SouthLabs, developers of SharePlus, the mobile SharePoint app. Through the acquisition, Infragistics expands its business solutions further into the enterprise and empowers professionals to access and turn SharePoint data into action -- in the office, at home and on the road.

"Global enterprises are deploying tablets and other mobile devices throughout their workforce in rapidly increasing numbers," said Dean Guida, CEO of Infragistics. "SharePlus addresses a gap in the market by providing an exquisite experience for users of SharePoint on those devices. The innovations of the SouthLabs team and the scale and reach of Infragistics' sales and services organization allow us to deliver exceptional value and productivity to our enterprise customers."

SouthLabs was founded in 2009 by Gabriel Lopez and Daniel Gomez, software strategists with expertise in the development of mobile software applications for smart phone platforms. The team created SharePlus, a universal app for SharePoint that is available on iPad, iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry devices. SharePlus has been deployed by enterprises worldwide across many industries.

SharePlus: Mobile Productivity

"SharePlus addresses several challenges for global enterprises," adds Guida. "Strong authentication and centralized deployment ensure that corporate data remains secure. The intuitive user interface dramatically improves upon the mobile browser SharePoint experience. The simple configuration eliminates IT resource drain, as time spent configuring devices and training users is minimal."

SharePlus Lite, a free version, enables business users to navigate corporate information while on the road, read documents offline and view e-mail, calendars, IM, video conferencing and shared documents by connecting to Office 365.

SharePlus Pro builds on SharePlus Lite with added features of read and write to shared documents on SharePoint, auto-sync of offline documents when a connected environment is restored, Passcode Lock, WiFi sharing and management of local files.

SharePlus Enterprise is the most robust offering in this suite and provides enterprises with added security such as multi-factor authentication and remote swipe to keep company intelligence private. The configuration broadcast enables enterprise IT to configure application settings once and push to all corresponding devices, freeing up IT resources for other efficiency-enhancing projects. With customizable options, enterprises can augment or trim features, including application rebranding to company specifications. Premium support is offered with SharePlus Enterprise.

"Intelligence is going mobile and the environment for mobile SharePoint is in its infancy. SharePlus is essential for enterprises that use SharePoint as their main collaboration tool and use mobile technology for business productivity," concluded Guida.

Please see the SharePlus page for a complete list of features in SharePlus Lite, SharePlus Pro and SharePlus Enterprise.

Pricing and Availability

The SharePlus suite (each sold separately) is available today for iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry devices and can be downloaded from iTunes, the Android Market and BlackBerry App World.

SharePlus Lite is available for free. SharePlus Pro (for iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry), is priced at $19.99 USD (MSRP).

SharePlus Enterprise pricing is driven by customer requirements and can be obtained by calling Infragistics at 800-231-8588 or sales@infragistics.com.

For additional insight, perspective and community interaction on Infragistics solutions and services visit Infragistics Blogs, Forums and Community. Or view the latest Infragistics Performance Whitepapers . Follow us on Twitter @Infragistics, on Facebook and on LinkedIn.

About Infragistics

As the user experience software company and a world leader in user interface (UI) development tools, Infragistics empowers developers to build and style immersive user experiences and rich data visualization in line of business applications across all platforms - Windows Forms, WPF, ASP.NET, Silverlight, jQuery, Windows Phone and SharePoint. Infragistics SharePlus business solutions deliver exceptional value and productivity to enterprise customers across all computing devices. Infragistics also has a range of value-added services including UI testing tools, support, training and consulting services. For additional information on Infragistics, products and career opportunities, please call us in the U.S. at +1 (800) 231-8588, +1 (609) 448-2000; in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa (EMEA) at +44 (0) 20 8387 1474; or in Japan at +81 3 5474 8040.

Inbound Marketing Trends In The Staffing Industry: Case Study

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:34:45 -0500

EATONTOWN, N.J., Feb. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- [By Koleen Singerline, Senior Vice President of Grass Roots Marketing, Inc.]

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120201/CG45370)

Grass Roots Marketing, Inc., an inbound marketing company that specializes in staffing industry marketing, recently announced the results of a case study called "Inbound Marketing for Staffing Agencies". The case study examines the current usage of effective, online marketing tactics for U.S. staffing agencies by comparing typical staffing firms with the top companies in the field.

If you're unfamiliar with the methodology, inbound marketing is based on attracting qualified leads to an optimized website, the hub of your marketing and sales efforts. Using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, social media, blogging, email marketing and public relations to collectively support your content-rich website will help increase brand awareness and drive sales.

The study specifically looks at the website grades and social media platform activity (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging) of approximately 250 staffing firms; 233 staffing firms identified as members of the American Staffing Association (ASA) as well as 25 of the largest staffing firms in the U.S. as identified through research and Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA). Results showed that in nearly all of the analyzed categories, the top 25 staffing firms ranked better than their 233 staffing firm counterparts in inbound marketing usage. While many of the companies had a decent handle on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, there is still a greater need to them to leverage the power of social media.

Our study falls in line with current trends of companies using inbound marketing strategies to substantiate their marketing campaigns and extend public reach to generate business. A recent 2010 study analyzing the Internet habits of U.S. citizens found that 78% of all U.S. Internet users say that they use the Internet to research products, indicating a continuous, upward trend. In its 2010 Staffing Company Survey, Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) analyzed the highest bang-to-buck marketing & sales tactics for staffing firms. Survey results showed that six of the eight marketing tactics that were said to be the most effective in generating sales were internet-related:

Company website
E-mail blasts
Social media
Search engine optimization
E-mail newsletters
Search engine advertisements The key takeaway of this research is that typical staffing firms can increase their sales by investing more resources into inbound marketing tools. Technology and software has made it possible for these smaller companies to be just as effective as the top 25 staffing firms.

It is important that this industry grows through the use of productive inbound marketing strategies that help staffing agencies improve their online presence to attract clients and talent. While this research is industry specific, the principles of inbound marketing can be applied toany type of business in any industry.

"Inbound Marketing for Staffing Agencies" discusses the case study in greater depth, as well as provides insight and tips for how any type of company can use inbound marketing strategies for their business. The study provides insight into the practices of the industry and how to create sales by using inbound marketing strategies. Click here (or visit http://www.grmwebsite.com/inbound-marketing-for-staffing-agencies) to get your FREE copy!

About Grass Roots Marketing, Inc. (GRM)

GRM's HubSpot Certified professionals provide inbound marketing programs for the staffing industry. Enhance brand awareness and drive your sales by attracting qualified leads to your website through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, email marketing, public Relations, social media and blogging. GRM is recognized as the first company in the nation with HubSpot Certified professionals to serve the staffing field. For more information about GRM, please visit www.grmwebsite.com or call 732-380-8400.

Media Contact:

Tony Popowski Grass Roots Marketing, Inc., 732-380-8400, tony@grootsmarketing.com

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

SOURCE Grass Roots Marketing, Inc.

New Joomla! 2.5 Released; Open Source Content Management

Molly Bernhart Walker — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:34:07 -0500

New York - January 24, 2012 - Joomla, one of the world's most popular open source content

management systems (CMS) used for everything from websites to blogs to Intranets, today announced the immediate availability of Joomla 2.5. Along with new features such as advanced search and automatic notification of Joomla core and extension updates, the Joomla CMS for the first time includes multi-database support with the addition of Microsoft SQL Server. Previous versions of Joomla were compatible exclusively with MySQL databases.

"Multi-database support is a huge step forward for Joomla, which is already powering more than 1.6 million websites worldwide. It ensures companies and organization, both large and small, will save even more money and time by adopting Joomla," said Ryan Ozimek, president of Open Source Matters, a non-profit created to provide organization, legal and financial support to the Joomla project. "No longer will Joomla developers be tied down to a particular database or have to spend more money and time integrating other software to get Joomla to communicate with their database. This enhances Joomla's scalability immensely."

Other key features in Joomla 2.5 includes:

Automatic notification when a Joomla or extension update is available. When logged into the control panel, site administrators will instantly have access to new notification buttons that allows them to see and act on the latest updates. In addition to updates for the Joomla CMS, a second button offers third party extension notification updates.

A better natural language search engine to the Joomla core. Complete with auto-completion and stemming (for example if you type "running" in a search field you also see run), it is faster and more versatile than the standard search.

"We literally received thousands of pieces of input at ideas.joomla.org into what functionality should be added to Joomla 2.5, and overwhelmingly enhanced notifications and more elegant search topped the list," said Mark Dexter of the Joomla Production Leadership Team. "In fact, the automatic notification for core and extension updates received the most votes for a feature that people wanted in 2.5. But we didn't stop with just those two. Joomla 2.5 is a major overhaul with more than 24 new features that we have highlighted at joom.la/25features."

Joomla 2.5 adheres to Joomla's newly-adopted six-month release cycle that began with the previous Joomla CMS release of Joomla 1.7 in July, 2011. Downloading the latest version of Joomla is the best way to ensure organizational and personal security needs are being met since it will have the most recent updates to protect against the latest security threats.

Joomla 2.5 is truly a collaborative community-driven software project developed with the feedback gathered from more than 2.5 million Joomla forum posts, 540,000 Joomla forum members and data from more than 8,800 Joomla extensions. To download Joomla 2.5, go to http://www.joomla.org/download.html.

Joomla is one of the world's most popular open source content management systems (CMS). With 2.8 percent of the Web running on Joomla, it is used for everything from small personal websites and blogs to some of the largest enterprise, highest trafficked websites and Intranets including those operated by Citibank, eBay, General Electric, Harvard University, Ikea, McDonald's, Sony, many large nations and more. Due to its power and elegance, the most inexperienced user to the most seasoned web developer can use it. Since its inception in 2005, Joomla has been 100 percent community owned and operated.

The Joomla community does not rely on contributions from large software development companies and the project is a true collaboration of thousands of open source developers and millions of everyday users who account for its software being downloaded more than 28 million times to date. For more information, visit www.joomla.org.

About Joomla!

Joomla's newest version includes multi-database support with addition of Microsoft SQL Server compatibility

Vertical Nerve Selected as a Google Analytics Premium Authorized Reseller

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:34:24 -0500

Enables businesses to leverage online data for increased revenue and lead generation

DALLAS, Jan 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- Vertical Nerve, a nationally recognized analytics and search marketing firm, has entered into a strategic agreement with Google to become a Google Analytics(TM) Premium Authorized Reseller, building upon its existing status as a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

Leveraging Google Analytics Premium, Vertical Nerve will help businesses with high-volume web traffic improve their lead generation efforts and online sales activity by providing them with data guarantees and actionable recommendations for optimizing the online experience.

"Our clients have always loved Google Analytics -- it's easy-to-use and provides valuable insights to help them better manage their businesses," said Ernie Cote, Vertical Nerve's General Manager. "Google Analytics Premium adds extra processing power, advanced analysis tools, SLAs, and dedicated support requested by large enterprises."

Google Analytics Premium is an enterprise-class online measurement tool that helps businesses get the most out of their websites and online marketing strategies. It offers greater processing power for accelerated reporting, increased monthly limits and data guarantees.

Google Analytics Premium Authorized Resellers provide dedicated account management, advanced implementation, on-going technical support and extensive training on Google Analytics. For more information, download a Fact Sheet or watch a two-minute video.

"Google Analytics Premium provides a refreshing alternative to a market full of over-complicated solutions with under-whelming support," said Tyson Kirksey, Vertical Nerve's Director of Analytics.

Vertical Nerve will be hosting a 30 minute webinar on Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 10:00 AM (CST) to educate marketers on the value of Google Analytics Premium. We invite anyone interested in learning more to sign up for the webinar here.

About Vertical Nerve

Vertical Nerve, Inc. helps companies grow their online revenue through highly effective Search Marketing, and improve their online conversions through Web Analytics and Design. Serving national brands since 1999, Vertical Nerve is a Google Analytics Certified Partner and Premium Authorized Reseller, a Google AdWords Certified Partner and a Microsoft Advertising Preferred Agency. Learn more at www.verticalnerve.com.

Contact:
Ernie Cote
erniec@verticalnerve.com
800.330.9450

SOURCE Vertical Nerve

Teradata Aster Analytics Empower Social Network Firm Mzinga

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:34:23 -0500

Enables analysis of social interactions to understand and support community relationships and influence

WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Teradata (NYSE: TDC), the world's leading analytic data solutions company announced today that Mzinga® , a pioneer in social software and analytics solutions for business, is using the Teradata Aster SQL-MapReduce® framework to analyze social interactions on a large scale. The analyses help ensure deeper insight into the most influential users and hottest topics within Mzinga OmniSocial® online communities, which in turn can be leveraged to reward advocates, drive up user engagement and learn which initiatives and conversations are most relevant to achieving a variety of business goals.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090909/TERADATALOGO )

Mzinga's flagship suite, OmniSocial, enables organizations to create end-to-end collaborative and social experiences for their employees, customers, partners and prospects. This provides insights including the identification and impact of community influencers and evaluation of the popularity of specific types of content. These insights can be leveraged to further personalize user experiences, increasing user time on the platform and resulting in a sharper competitive edge for sponsoring organizations.

Mzinga's solutions span 15 thousand sites in 160 countries, and support over 40 million users and 2.5 billion social interactions per month.

"Our social network analysis relies on our ability to perform advanced analytics focused on identifying and forecasting connections, relationships, and influence among individuals and groups," said Navdeep Alam, Director of Data Architecture at Mzinga. "With Teradata Aster, we are able to capture, store, and analyze critical data and provide our customers with near real-time insights to make more informed decisions on brand-building and user engagement. Being able to easily analyze multi-structured data sets to better understand and improve our ability to service our users is critical. We believe that together with Teradata Aster, we have developed a solution that is unmatched within the marketplace."

Deep data exploration for social network analysis allows Mzinga to better serve its customers by measuring critical data related to user engagement, influence, and reputation, which ultimately enable organizations to gain a more advanced understanding of the interests and drivers that motivate their employees, customers and partners. Aster's extensive suite of pre-built analytic functions, completely MapReduce-enabled, provide developers with the ability to easily bring the power and functionality of MapReduce to any enterprise.

Mzinga is using multiple Aster SQL-MapReduce analytic modules including Aster nPath which allows pattern analysis via a single pass over the data, and modules for easily clustering of items into natural segments, as well as graph functions to identify and weight social connections. Each function built on Aster's analytic platform further enables Mzinga to process large volumes of multi-structured data such as user comments as well as run advanced analytics in-database to deliver faster, deeper insights without the need to extract or sample data to run analytics on a separate tier.

"We are excited to be working with Mzinga. Our delivery of SQL coupled with MapReduce makes it easier for customers such as Mzinga to take advantage of highly-advanced analytic applications that leverage the power of MapReduce for processing diverse data types – both structured and multi-structured data generated by social networks and other systems," said Tasso Argyros, Co-President, Teradata Aster. "Enabling organizations to gain deeper insight into their businesses and ensuring our customers can leverage their data for advanced analytic applications and powerful data exploration is not only a unique capability, it is the Teradata Aster advantage."

The power and scalability of Teradata platforms support businesses of every size whose increasingly complex business demands are driven by robust growth requirements and the emerging need for pervasive business intelligence.

Relevant News Links

Mzinga Case Study, video: Teradata Aster MapReduce Drives Deep User Analysis
The Mzinga Video Vault: CEO & associates on cutting edge social media
Get Started in Big Analytics: Teradata Tells How - video, Teradata & Aster experts
Big Data: It's Going Mainstream and It's Your Next Opportunity – Merv Adrian
The Rise of Multi-structured Data, Big Analytics and Why It Matters - Dan Graham
Scott Nicholson, LinkedIn Senior Data Scientist & Teradata Aster user – YouTube podcast
Database Trends webcast with Barnes & Noble on Big Data Analytics

About Mzinga

Mzinga is a pioneering provider of social software and analytics solutions that improve business performance. Through a combination of enterprise-class technology, strategy and online moderation services, Mzinga social solutions enable businesses to increase revenue and lower costs by improving brand visibility, workplace satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Mzinga supports more than 15,000 communities and 2.5 billion monthly page requests from 40 million unique visitors in 160 countries worldwide. To learn more about Mzinga, visit www.mzinga.com.

About Teradata Aster

The Teradata Aster MapReduce Platform is the market-leading big data analytics solution. This analytic platform embeds MapReduce analytic processing for deeper insights on new data sources and multi-structured data types to deliver analytic capabilities with breakthrough performance and scalability. Teradata Aster's solution utilizes Aster's patented SQL-MapReduce® to parallelize the processing of data and applications and deliver rich analytic insights at scale. For more information, visit www.asterdata.com or for more about Teradata, visit teradata.com.

Get to know Teradata.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/teradatanews
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Teradata
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/teradata
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/teradata/products

Teradata is a trademark or registered trademark of Teradata Corporation in the United States and other countries

SOURCE Teradata

Spredfast Launches Facebook Tab Management to Engage the Social Customer

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:33:46 -0500

Expanded Facebook Functionality Allows for the Creation of Richer Brand Experiences

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Spredfast, a leading social media management system provider, today announced Facebook tab creation and management functionality to allow enterprises, brands and agencies to engage social customers with a richer brand experience. By incorporating the new tab functionality into the Spredfast social media management platform, users can not only use tabs to expand their Facebook presence for a more customized interaction with their community, but can continue to maintain a holistic view of all social media programs from one system.

"We are constantly evaluating how social networks are expanding their capabilities to determine the potential benefit these features can provide in helping our customers better achieve business goals using social," said Keith Zoellner, Spredfast CTO. "Building Facebook tab functionality into our platform is just one example of our pursuit to continually improve our product and it further adds to our ability to provide value to our customers by helping them be as innovative and successful in their social media initiatives as possible."

Facebook tabs provide enterprises and agencies with a unique opportunity to interact with customers and prospects in a more engaging and interactive way. However, creating, managing and updating these tabs can pose a challenge to social media teams of all sizes. Using the Spredfast social media management platform, users can streamline this process by choosing from a library of flexible, built-in template layouts and modules to create a tab that's supported across multiple browsers and is reliably hosted by Spredfast. Users can also collaborate with the Spredfast Facebook experience team for help in creating a more customized tab layout and look that aligns to an organization's brand identity and objectives.

The new platform functionality provides Spredfast users with the ability to:

Design custom Facebook tab layouts – Users can choose from the built-in library of templates and widgets to design layouts that incorporate text, photos, videos, quizzes, contests, promotions and registration forms.
Implement different versions of tabs based on country or language – Organizations can quickly create various versions of a Facebook tab that maintains corporate branding, but resonates with a more targeted audience based on language or country for improved localization.
Create sophisticated layouts with multiple tabs, levels of navigation, sub-navigation and fan-gates – Users can create tabs that are as simple or sophisticated as needed to achieve their company's business objectives or campaign goals.

About Spredfast:

Based in Austin, Texas, Spredfast provides social business software for social media management that allows organizations to manage, monitor, and measure their social media programs, and the effectiveness of each piece of content, across multiple social media channels. Spredfast allows its clients to extend their branded content and engage with its audience from a single administration interface to the blogosphere and the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Foursquare. Some of the enterprise and agency adopters on board with Spredfast include AARP, Nokia, Bayer, HomeAway, Porter Novelli, ING Direct and AGAIN Interactive. For more information, visit http://spredfast.com/.

Media contact:
Brittany Edwards
Spredfast
pr@spredfast.com
(512) 538-0460 x1206

SOURCE Spredfast

Perceptive Software Adds Process Mining Capabilities with Perceptive Reflect

Molly Bernhart Walker — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:50:39 -0500

SHAWNEE, Kan. - (25 Jan. 2012) Perceptive Software, creator of enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) solutions, announces the general availability of its Perceptive Reflect process mining and visualization product. Perceptive Reflect allows users to quickly visualize how applications and people are working in the business environment, and most importantly, identifying resource-wasting process breakdowns.

By performing historical workflow visualization and analysis, Perceptive Reflect can pinpoint bottlenecks and improve process transparency to support continuous process improvement.

"Perceptive Reflect makes your processes transparent so that you can address the true bottlenecks at a fundamental level, instead of spending your time trying to discover and define them," said Darren Knipp, Chief Technology Officer, Perceptive Software. "The result is an accurate, objective picture of how things are really working, and more importantly, objective data for future decision-making. The analytics and visualizations provided by Reflect are game-changing."

Perceptive Reflect can mine and visualize processes managed inside of Perceptive Software's products and other applications.

"All of our customers, across all sectors, are focused on doing more with less while still increasing customer satisfaction. Reflect provides them the ability to tune their processes precisely and achieve dramatic improvements rapidly," added Knipp.

Product functionality within Perceptive Reflect includes:

Visual representation and customizable presentation of processes activity including social network graphs
On-screen controls can instantly select how much detail a process model should show
The ability to identify exceptions or unusual transactions outside normal business rules, supporting compliance
Filtering controls to focus on specific process data by personnel, departments, date ranges, or any other definable subset

About Perceptive Software (www.perceptivesoftware.com)
Perceptive Software, a stand-alone business unit within Lexmark International, builds enterprise content management and business process management software to help organizations fuel greater operational efficiency. Organizations around the world rely on Perceptive Software ECM and BPM solutions to optimize business processes and give users the most relevant information to make the most effective decisions at any point in the process, wherever they are.

VCE Showcases Leading Vblock Infrastructure Platforms at Cisco Live London

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:35:16 -0500

Unified Infrastructure Solutions Simplify IT and Drive Fast European Cloud Adoption

LONDON, Jan. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- VCE today kicked off a series of customer and partner events at the Cisco Live conference that showcase the unique capabilities of its leading Vblock™ Infrastructure Platforms and help IT organizations throughout Europe simplify and accelerate the transition to cloud computing.

VCE, Cisco, EMC and partners are demonstrating a variety of solutions utilizing the capabilities of Vblock Infrastructure Platforms, which bring together leading technologies from Cisco, EMC and VMware into a single, integrated and pre-configured converged infrastructure platform with end-to-end support.

As part of activities around the event, VCE Chairman Michael Capellas will speak to an audience of leading CIOs about how the cloud is changing the market landscape and spurring new business models for increased agility and competitive advantage. In addition, VCE this week is also expanding its European presence with the opening of a new sales office in London to meet growing customer demand. VCE has become a force in the IT industry with an order rate that exceeds $800 million on an annualized basis.

VCE's activities at Cisco Live this week include:

Expert demonstrations on Vblock systems featured prominently throughout the ICC London ExCeL venue including the EMC, Cisco and VCE booths.
Customer and partner presentations on accelerating the journey to the cloud using Vblock platforms as well as hands-on labs where attendees can get expert guidance in areas including deploying virtual desktops (VDI) with Vblock FastPath Desktop Virtualization Platform, a turnkey system for fast planning and completion of VDI projects.
Live demonstrations of a VCE workload mobility solution with EMC^® VPLEX^® to enable fast and easy application mobility, high availability and infrastructure migration in real-time with no disruption or downtime.
A technical breakout session on Vblock platforms with Cisco's Intelligent Automation for Cloud (CIAC) technologies to further automate data centers for simpler and faster response to business needs.

For additional information about Vblock Platforms, please visit VCE in booth #P4 at Cisco Live in London, January 30-February 2.

Supporting Quotes

Todd Pavone, executive vice president, Products and Solutions, VCE

"Customers throughout Europe are taking advantage of the business benefits of cloud computing at a rapid pace by deploying converged infrastructure solutions and VCE is expanding to meet that demand. With Vblock Infrastructure Platforms, IT organizations can get to the cloud faster and at lower costs while making sure critical information is secured and managed in the data center. "

Rick Snyder, vice president of global strategic partner organization for Cisco

"Workforces are becoming increasingly mobile and distributed, presenting a complex business challenge requiring IT organizations to be more agile. At Cisco Live, attendees can see how Cisco and VCE are delivering game-changing Vblock platforms that include Cisco's market-leading Unified Computing System and Nexus networking solutions - helping clients successfully navigate their journey to the cloud."

Additional Resources

Follow VCE on twitter

Follow VCE on Facebook

VCE YouTube Channel

About VCE

VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment Company formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock platform, delivers the industry's first completely integrated IT offering with end-to-end vendor accountability. VCE's prepackaged solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating and managing IT infrastructure. For more information, go to www.vce.com.

VCE and Vblock are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

EMC and VPLEX are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions

Cisco is a registered trademark or trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries.

All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE VCE

Adrianne Curry Stars as a Sexy Cupid in CrowdGather's Social Media Campaign for Erox

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:34:20 -0500

Erox, scientifically proven to increase feelings of arousal, excitement, social warmth, and friendliness in both female and male users

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CrowdGather, one of the leading networks of forum communities on the Internet, introduces its new social media campaign featuring reality star, winner of America's Next Top Model, and enthusiastic lover of all things geek, Adrianne Curry. Created for CrowdGather's new social media fragrance, Erox, the campaign includes a series of videos and comic strip parodies that poke fun at mainstream culture, characters, and events.

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please click http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/adrianne-curry-stars-as-a-sexy-cupid-in-crowdgathers-social-media-campaign-for-erox-138086248.html

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a new comic strip currently available for viewing on http://www.erox.com and named, "Geek's Revenge: Using Science to Win!," pays homage to the retro comic style Charles Atlas ads of the 1940s. Adrianne stars as a beautiful, modern-day cupid who uses Erox to help a fellow geek find love and confidence. The campaign will be introduced through social networks such as forums, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as via online advertising.

The lovely Adrianne is best known as the first winner of the now-iconic reality television series America's Next Top Model, as well as for her starring roles in two VH1's hit series, "The Surreal Life" and "My Fair Brady." She can currently be seen as the returning celebrity Judge on the Sony PlayStation Network's hit show, "The Tester:3", premiering February 7, 2012.

"I wear Erox regularly, and I love getting immediate feedback on how people feel about the product across social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube," said Adrianne Curry. "It's great to see a fun product like Erox grow in popularity."

Erox is the first commercial product to contain Human Pheromone Sciences' patent pending Muricin Aglycone (ER303), a compound that has been shown to increase arousal, excitement, social-warmth, and sensuality in both men and women during a double-blind placebo-controlled study. Prior to Erox, the compound ER303 had never before been available in a consumer product. Erox also contains two human pheromones, Androstadienone (ADO) and Estratetraenol (ETE), which have been proven to increase feelings of confidence and well being in both wearers and those around them.

Erox body spray is currently available in a 40mL bottle at www.erox.com.

Visit us on Facebook to get real user feedback and testimonials: https://www.facebook.com/ER303

About CrowdGather, Inc.

With its growing portfolio of special interest forums and enthusiast message board communities, CrowdGather (www.crowdgather.com) has created a centralized network to benefit forum members, forum owners and forum advertisers. CrowdGather provides a highly interactive and informational social network for members, a management and revenue-sharing resource for third-party forum owners, and a largely untapped advertising network for marketers worldwide.

SOURCE CrowdGather, Inc.

Vid.ly Universal Video Platform Reveals Android Gaining on iOS in Mobile Video Wars

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:34:56 -0500

Vid.ly Makes HTML5 & Mobile Video Strategy Easy - High-Quality Video Pre-Transcoded into 24 Formats for 6000+ Devices

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Encoding.com, the world's largest video encoding service, announced year-end Vid.ly video consumption trends across mobile platforms. Vid.ly, the universal video platform deployed one year ago to solve the complexities of delivering video to HTML5 browsers and mobile devices, show trends that represent a dramatic gain in mobile video viewing from Android OS-based cell phones and tablets versus Apple iOS devices (iPhones / iPads) in 2011.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110124/SF34134LOGO)

Vid.ly automatically transcodes source videos into 24 different video formats and stores them for delivery. It uses powerful browser/device detection to deliver the appropriate video format for the best quality viewing experience specific to each feature phone, tablet, smart phone or browser on the market. With millions of videos viewed on Vid.ly from mobile devices in 2011, Android OS-based devices are quickly gaining on Apple iOS devices.

2011	Android OS	iOS	*Other Mobile
Q1	10.2%	80.9%	8.9%
Q2	20.5%	69.5%	10.2%
Q3	20.5%	59.4%	20.4%
Q4	24.0%	40.6%	35.4%

*Other Mobile devices include: Blackberry, Linux, Windows, Symbian, and Nokia

"While mobile video views on Vid.ly were dominated by Apple iOS devices early in the year, we've seen video viewing from Android devices growing significantly in the second half of 2011," said Jeff Malkin, President of Encoding.com. "I believe this is a lagging trend of not only increased Android device sales throughout the world, but an improvement in devices to better support viewing video."

About Encoding.com

Encoding .com, the world's largest video encoding service and provider of Vid .ly, the universal video platform, powers over 3,000 companies, including leading brands across media and entertainment, eLearning, retail, telecommunications, lifestyle, and advertising. Blending a flexible SaaS model, using cloud-computing platforms, Encoding .com enables publishers and developers to instantly scale, while eliminating expensive video infrastructure investments. Encoding.com supports all popular web and mobile formats, utilizing its proprietary Encoding Intelligence™ to accelerate processing, reduce errors and optimize video for any device. Gartner recognized Encoding.com as a "Cool Vendor 2011." For ongoing Company updates, please see http ://blog .encoding .com or follow @encodingdotcom on Twitter.

SOURCE Encoding.com

Customers Embrace Windows Intune to Simplify PC Management and Security

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:34:07 -0500

Windows Intune helps businesses manage and secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7 Enterprise.

REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- To help manage and secure the desktops of their highly mobile workforces through the cloud without any on-premises investment, organizations of all sizes have turned to Windows Intune, Microsoft Corp. announced today. Global nonprofit Save the Children, professional services company goetzpartners and e-discovery firm eLitigation Solutions have all implemented Windows Intune to help solve some of their most pressing IT challenges.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

While these three organizations vary in industry and size, they have one thing in common: Their employees expect to work anytime, anywhere, with access to their information and resources. As such, each organization needs to ensure its PCs are highly secure and well-managed to help protect data and assets, keep employees productive, and streamline the cost of delivering routine management and security.

Technology challenges have become more frequent and time-consuming as workforces grow and spread across the globe. Issues ranging from computers infected with malicious malware to missing or delayed software updates kept IT staff at all three organizations operating in a reactive mode instead of preventing these issues from the outset.

"It's our job to ensure that consultants can work productively in the office and on the road, but we didn't have the right tools," said Hakan Kutlug, head of Information Technology at goetzpartners.

Windows Intune helps solve these challenges, especially for companies that have field and contract employees, off-network employees, or limited IT resources. Windows Intune brings together Windows cloud services and a Windows 7 Enterprise subscription to simplify PC management and security, delivering the benefits of a modern operating system. The solution also provides remote assistance, software updates, hardware and software tracking capabilities, and the ability to set security policies.

"By using Windows Intune, we can save $20,000 a year in malware costs and $50,000 in Windows 7 licenses for staff at headquarters," said Ken Supersano, senior director of Technology, Save the Children U.S. "That's money we can funnel back into field programs that benefit children in more than 120 countries around the world."

Windows Intune also allows IT staff to get a simple snapshot of what is going on with their PC environments — including status of updates, software, endpoint protection, licensing and more. With this snapshot, IT staff can efficiently and proactively identify trouble spots or areas that need to be addressed.

"We've streamlined our PC environment and reduced costs by adopting Windows Intune, which helps us run a leaner, more competitive organization," said David Hyre, vice president of Technologies, eLitigation Solutions.

Today, IT staffers at Save the Children, goetzpartners and e-Litigation Solutions rely on Windows Intune to help ensure the security and reliability of all desktops within their respective organizations. In turn, their workforces now have more reliable computing tools that allow them to realize their organizations' missions and visions no matter where they are.

More information about Windows Intune is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windowsintune/pc-management.aspx.

More information about Save the Children's Windows Intune experience is available in its Microsoft case study at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9797727.

More information about goetzpartners' Windows Intune experience is available in its Microsoft case study at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9797728.

More information about eLitigation Solutions' Windows Intune experience is available in its Microsoft case study at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9797726.

About Save the Children

Save the Children is the leading independent organization creating lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world.

About goetzpartners

With 10 offices in eight countries, goetzpartners is an independent European advisory firm with a global reach. Headquartered in Munich, Germany, it provides corporate finance and management consulting services.

About eLitigation Solutions

eLitigation Solutions collects and processes data and delivers it to attorneys for review, serving many of the largest corporations and law firms in the United States.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.