March 28, 2024

A Canadian Campus Focused on Tech and Enterprise

BlackBerry, the company formerly called Research in Motion, grew out of a student project there, and for years the school served as a reliable pipeline of stellar engineering talent straight into the nearby offices of the smartphone maker. In 2007, when BlackBerrys still defined smartphones, about 400 students were on paid internships with the company, positions that more often than not led to full-time jobs.

But after years of being a first-choice destination for University of Waterloo graduates and interns, BlackBerry is now a last resort. In its place, American technology giants including Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft have more than filled the hiring void.

Increasingly, graduates are following the lead of Mike Lazaridis, who nearly 30 years ago helped found BlackBerry, and creating start-ups of their own like Pebble, the smartwatch company founded by a University of Waterloo grad, and BufferBox, a parcel delivery system recently acquired by Google.

Because of that, the consequences of the recent layoffs of 5,000 employees at BlackBerry are nearly invisible here in the company’s home city or its immediate neighbor, Kitchener.

The local unemployment rate of 6.2 percent in December was stable from a year earlier and well below the national rate of 7.1 percent. Out on the main street in a cafe and whiskey bar called Death Valley’s Little Brother that appears to have been dropped in from a fashionable part of Brooklyn, seats are scarce despite prices that could make a New Yorker wince.

Google’s logo on a former leather tannery in Kitchener, a relic from the region’s past as Canada’s shoemaking capital, provides a vivid illustration of the way that, when a company starts to slip, the best talent goes elsewhere. BlackBerry aims to reverse its fortunes with radically new smartphones and equally innovative software that runs them. It introduced the phones to the public last week to strong reviews.

Steven Woods, the director of engineering for Google in Kitchener, said that the search engine company established an operation here about eight years ago and expanded into the tannery building in 2011 as part of a broad plan to absorb foreign talent and sensibilities.

Most of the company’s other new operations were put in major metropolitan centers, including New York, London and Tokyo.

“Waterloo is different,” Mr. Woods said, sitting in a scaled-down version of Google’s Silicon Valley office, down to a gourmet, no-charge cafeteria. “It’s got this amazing university which has long been one of our top three recruiting universities for Google as a whole, worldwide,” said Mr. Woods, who earned a doctorate at Waterloo.

“Waterloo grads do well at Google, they do very well.”

The University of Waterloo did not achieve its exalted status by being venerable. It received its first students, who were initially taught in temporary buildings plopped into a corn field north of town, only in 1957.

Nor did it buy its way to the top. Its alumni, particularly Mr. Lazaridis, the former co-chief executive and current vice chairman of BlackBerry, have been generous, with $121 million in personal donations to date. Mr. Lazaridis, who also donated $150 million to establish an independent school of theoretical physics in Waterloo, developed what became Research in Motion’s first product while still an undergraduate student, and dropped out weeks before finishing his studies to found the company in 1984.

But like most universities in Canada, Waterloo is a public institution with relatively low tuition subsidized by Canadian taxpayers. In 2011, the federal and provincial governments provided $243 million, or 42 percent, of its operating budget. Its endowment is only $261 million, a fraction of the $16.5 billion Stanford holds or the $10.3 billion of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two of America’s top engineering universities.

Different approaches, rather than money, have instead enabled it to attract prominent faculty members from around the world as well as Canada’s top engineering and computer science students.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/technology/a-canadian-campus-focused-on-tech-and-enterprise.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Media Decoder Blog: Madison Avenue Reveals More of Its Super Bowl Playbook

Super Bowl XLVII is now only IX — er, um, make that nine — days away, and the closer the game draws, the more information Super Bowl sponsors are sharing about their plans.

What follows is the most recent news about nine marketers that are buying commercial time during the game, which will be broadcast by CBS on Feb. 3.

Anheuser-Busch InBev: The Anheuser-Busch division of Anheuser-Busch InBev is to release a teaser clip on Monday to promote a Super Bowl commercial for a new beer, Beck’s Sapphire.  After several days of teasing on Facebook and YouTube, the full commercial will get a preview on YouTube on Feb. 1 and 2 before it runs during the game.

The commercial, by the ad agency Mother, will feature an animated goldfish — black, the same color as the Beck’s Sapphire bottle — singing a version of the hip-hop hit “No Diggity” by an Australian musician, Chet Faker.

Anheuser-Busch also plans a sneak peek in full of a second commercial, for Budweiser, beginning on Wednesday. The company’s four other planned commercials — two for Bud Light and two for another new beer, Budweiser Black Crown — will be the subjects of teaser clips but will not be shared in full before they run during the game.

E*Trade Group: The E*Trade “talking” baby will return for another Super Bowl, the company said on Friday. The 30-second spot, in the third quarter, is being created by Grey New York, part of the Grey unit of the Grey Group, a WPP agency.

Go Daddy Group: The company posted online on Friday one of the two commercials it plans to run during the game. The 30-second spot promotes registering .co domain names with godaddy.com and features a cameo by longtime Go Daddy endorser Danica Patrick.

Both Go Daddy commercials are being created by Deutsch, part of the Lowe Partners unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Hyundai Motor Group: The company’s Kia brand will offer moviegoers an advance look at one of its two Super Bowl commercials. A 60-second spot for the Kia Sorento titled “Space Babies” will begin to be shown next Friday in movie theaters that offer the FirstLook preshow program from NCM Media Networks.

Milk Processor Education Program: For its first Super Bowl commercial — a 30-second spot to run in the second quarter of the game — the national organization that encourages milk consumption signed Dwayne Johnson, the actor known as the Rock, for a humorous look at how far a father will go to get milk for his children’s breakfast.

A report about the commercial is scheduled to appear on “CBS This Morning” on Thursday, during which the spot is to run in full. A 60-second version will then be posted on Web sites like Facebook, milkmustache.com and YouTube. Deutsch is creating the milk commercial as well as the commercials for GoDaddy.

The previews of the milk spot will help it get wider viewership, said Vivien Godfrey, chief executive of the organization, known as MilkPEP. “We want to reach as many people as we can.”

The Super Bowl spot is the centerpiece of a $10 million campaign, Ms. Godfrey said, that will include promotions, social media, print ads, in-store marketing and a tie-in with a program called Fuel Up to Play 60, sponsored by the National Football League and the National Dairy Council.

Mondelez International: The company began sharing additional information on Friday about a commercial for Oreo cookies that it plans to run during the first half of the game.

The 30-second commercial will focus on the longtime argument among Oreo devotees over which part they prefer, the cookie or the cream filling, known in Oreo parlance as “creme.” Brand fans will be directed to Instagram to continue the dispute. The spot is being created by Wieden Kennedy.

PepsiCo: The PepsiCo Beverages unit of PepsiCo is disclosing details about one of the two commercials it will run during the game, for Pepsi Next. (The other, for Pepsi-Cola, will promote the Beyonce halftime show being sponsored by that brand.)

At the end of the 30-second Pepsi Next commercial, viewers will be directed to a Web site (URL to be announced later) to apply to receive a coupon for a free two-liter bottle of Pepsi Next. The plans call for giving away a million coupons. TBWA/Chiat/Day, part of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group, is creating the Pepsi Next spot.

Research in Motion: The company said on Friday that it would buy a commercial in Super Bowl XLVII to promote the new BlackBerry 10; it had not disclosed that previously.

The spot, which will run 30 seconds, will come four days after the official start of an extensive introductory campaign for the BlackBerry 10. The spot is being created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, part of the BBDO Worldwide unit of Omnicom.

Unilever: The company plans to release in full on Monday morning its first Super Bowl commercial for Axe products. The 30-second spot, called “Lifeguard,” is being created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, part of Publicis Groupe.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/madison-avenue-reveals-more-of-its-super-bowl-playbook/?partner=rss&emc=rss

French Twitter Case Is Latest Skirmish Over Net Speech

The court order came in a lawsuit brought by French groups who said the Twitter postings, which were made under pseudonyms, broke French law against racist speech. Twitter has said that under its own rules, it does not divulge the identity of users except in response to a valid court order in the United States, where its data is stored. Twitter has already removed some of the content at issue from its site in France, in keeping with company policy to remove posts in countries where they violate the law.

On Thursday, Twitter said in a brief statement that it would review its legal options after the French ruling; officials at the company’s San Francisco headquarters did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

It remains unclear whether French prosecutors will press their case across the Atlantic and force Twitter’s hand in an American court under a time-consuming process detailed in a so-called mutual legal assistance treaty.

The case revolves around the broad question of which country’s laws have jurisdiction over content on the Internet. This question has become increasingly complicated as vast piles of information are stored in sprawling data centers, known as the cloud, that are accessible over the Internet anywhere, anytime.

“It is a big deal because it shows the conflict between laws in France and laws in the U.S., and how difficult it can be for companies doing business around the world,” said Françoise Gilbert, a French lawyer who represents Silicon Valley companies in courts on both continents.

In this case, the jurisdictional issue has an additional wrinkle because Twitter does not have an office in France and does not face the prosecution of its employees here, a problem that other Web companies, like Facebook and Google, have faced elsewhere. Twitter is popular in France, nonetheless. It is available to anyone with an Internet connection and sells ads on its site here. This could embolden French authorities to try to apply its laws to the service.

With 200 million users, most of them outside the United States, Twitter has confronted these conundrums over hate speech and free expression before, especially in Europe.

In October, at the request of the German government, Twitter blocked users in Germany from access to the account of a neo-Nazi group banned there. It was the first time Twitter acted on a policy known as “country-withheld content,” announced last January, in which it agreed to block an account at the request of a government.

In 2011, British authorities went to court in California to extract information about a Twitter user who went by the pseudonym Mr. Monkey and was accused of defaming members of a British town council. The company complied.

Twitter says in its online help center that foreign law enforcement agencies can seek user data through what is known as a “mutual legal assistance treaty.”

“It is our policy to respond to such U.S. court-ordered requests when properly served,” the company says on the site.

But Twitter is not the only Web company facing government requests for personal data. Google said this week that it received more than 21,000 requests in the last six months; more than 8,000 from the United States, which was followed by India, France, Germany and Britain.

Twitter, though, has sought to cast itself as a special defender of free speech, sometimes describing it as a competitive advantage. On occasion, it has fought unsuccessful battles with prosecutors in the United States seeking to extract data on Twitter users.

The French case is also part of a brewing fight between the United States and Europe over the data controlled by American Web companies and stored in the cloud. European lawmakers worry about American companies sharing data about Europeans with the United States government under American laws that authorize surveillance on foreign citizens. This case flips that objection on its head, with European authorities seeking information on its citizens from an American company.

Chris Wolf, an American lawyer who was in Brussels this week at a conference debating European data protection laws, said it was proving difficult to interpret jurisdiction laws in the digital age.

He offered a paper analogy. If French authorities sought access to files stored in an American company’s offices in Paris, they could physically get their hands on the material and use it in a court of law.

Eric Pfanner reported from Paris and Somini Sengupta from San Francisco.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/technology/twitter-ordered-to-help-reveal-sources-of-anti-semitic-posts.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

You’re the Boss Blog: This Week in Small Business: Facebook Search

Dashboard

A weekly roundup of small-business developments.

What’s affecting me, my clients and other small-business owners this week.

The Economy: Housing Starts Soar

The bull market may be on shaky ground. Machine tool orders fall 11 percent. Manufacturing slows in the New York region. But there is also good news: home prices, retail sales and factory output all rise, and housing starts (PDF) soar. Job seekers per opening fall to a four-year low, and jobless claims are at a five-year low. Consumer prices rose only 1.7 percent in 2012, and the producer price index is down. Builder confidence holds steady. House Republicans agree to lift the debt ceiling. Here is a rundown of all the approaching fiscal deadlines and their consequences. The threat of sequestration looms over the manufacturing sector. Ben S. Bernanke wants Congress to get rid of the debt ceiling.

Facebook: A Busy Week

In the same week that Justin Timberlake helped introduce a new and improved MySpace, Facebook took on Google with its new graph search, introduced a free calling service for the iPhone and disrupted the server business. Here are five things Facebook’s new search function means for business. Christopher Wallace believes that Facebook’s timeline makes promoting a business more effective. This is how two sisters used Facebook to get a puppy and @brettryland tweeted: “I waited four years for a Justin Timberlake song for this?”

Around the Country: Liberals Pay Extra

December’s home sales in Southern California were the highest in three years, which must mean California is back from the brink! Or is it? (And the state’s former governor takes some time out to answer questions on Reddit.) A Michigan-based company encourages entrepreneurs to let all of their business frustrations (and joys) out into the world through competitive storytelling. A Utah small business that sells smoothies charges liberals a dollar extra. The owner of a machine shop in Ohio reveals his biggest mistake. These are the worst cities for bedbugs. The national flu outbreak is affecting small businesses. Startup New York is helping small businesses after Sandy, and New York City is encouraging the growth of businesses owned by women. FedEx announces the winners of its small-business grant competition. A turnaround expert is looking for companies to fix for a new TV series.

Around the World: Japan Chooses Stimulus

The World Bank cuts its growth forecasts as developed nations lose steam. Euro zone factory output falls, but Italian machine tool orders rose 3.5 percent in 2012. Britain is expected to drop from the world’s top 10 economies by 2050. Germany’s economy shrinks. A third of Greek workers are uninsured for social security benefits. Paul Krugman admires Japan’s recent stimulus efforts. United Airlines is now offering Wi-Fi on some overseas flights. Some feel that the road for a start-up in Africa can be like a video game: each time a player slays a monster, a larger one appears. These are the smartest cities in the Asia-Pacific region, and these are the most polluted cities in each industrialized country. A worker outsources his job to China and makes a profit.

Health Care: Premiums Rising

As 2014 approaches, more small businesses are worrying about exceeding the 50-employee limit. Health insurance premiums have been rising, and consumers may experience another series of price shocks later this year (and 18 human heads are found at O’Hare Airport). The Department of Health and Human Services publishes new rules on Medicaid expansion and state exchanges. Support for Medicaid expansion is growing among governors of both parties. A Gallup poll finds that American workers who are engaged in their work and workplace are more likely to report a healthier lifestyle than their counterparts.

Management: A Party Boy Explains

Dan Smith wonders what you would do if someone tried to steal your success. A college party boy explains how he built the company behind the Golden Globes (but no one can explain Jodie Foster’s speech). These are the five biggest Internet entrepreneurs of 2012. More than 60,000 people have signed up for a Darden business school professor’s free online course on how to expand a company. Matt Wilson believes that a great way to get ahead is to become a “university entrepreneur.” And The Onion reports that most small businesses fail within the first six hours of being on fire.

Employees: Wal-Mart and Public Relations

Here is why some employers are paying employees to lose weight. Wal-Mart says that it will hire any military veteran honorably discharged within the past 12 months (but is it just public relations?). Bank of America cuts 14,600 employees. This may be the greatest penalty shot ever.

Finance: Looking for Sponsors

Mariah Courtney believes that factoring gives invoice financing a bad name. An online learning company raises $103 million. A new online service hopes to help entrepreneurs connect with the next generation of business leaders. Read this to remind yourself how long you should keep your business documents.

Mobile: Are You Prepared for SoLoMo?

Galaxy S device sales top 100 million. Tablets now surpass smartphones in paid search advertising spending, and last month 11.3 billion online video ads were watched. A Pitney Bowes survey finds that 27 percent of consumers ages 18 to 34 say they activate quick response codes. Court Cunningham lists 10 trends to watch in local marketing and predicts that the number of small and midsize businesses with mobile sites will triple. A webinar this week will explain how to prepare your brand for today’s SoLoMo — social, local, mobile — environment.

Marketing: How to Manage Sales Executives

Rohit Bhargava receives the best birthday promotional e-mail ever. An Experian marketing survey finds that e-mail still generates traffic and revenue. Joshua Lockhart has 10 great tips for dealing with angry, trollish or rude e-mail. Andy Crestodina says you should avoid making Web site navigation mistakes, like having a nonstandard style: “Putting your navigation in standard places makes your site easier to use. That means a lower bounce rate, more pages per visit and higher conversions.” Josh Pigford explains how to write fun and engaging survey questions. Chris Keller suggests marketing methods for small businesses that have the best return on investment. Steve Reeves says the secret to managing sales executives is “not to bother.” An idea: combine the return of the National Hockey League with your own promotional items. G.B. Oliver believes that including your business card is never a bad idea.

Social Media: S.M.O.?

Allison Stadd has the essential social media acronym glossary, including terms like S.M.O. (social media optimization). Farhad Manjoo is passionate about why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. This is how the tennis star John Isner aces social media. Mark Schaefer asks whether everybody really needs a social media strategy. Monster.com and Score team up to provide a social media marketing workshop. According to the latest social media statistics, approximately 172,000 new members join LinkedIn per day. Community forums are among the seven viral marketing tools Abel Velazquez says you might not know about. What if businesses could rate customers the way customers rate businesses?

Retail: Google’s New Coupon

Retailers had an unexpectedly strong December, and many are remaking their store strategies. Google shows off a new digital coupon product to take some of the pain out of using coupons in a grocery store. PayPal expands its retail store payment service. A Twitter vice president tells retailers how to start on social media. Nathan Hanks suggests five ways to win when serving local businesses, including: “Live amongst your customers.”

Red Tape: Home Office Deduction

While a pretend president practiced for the inaugural, the real president took on the gun industry. These tax loopholes slipped under the fiscal cliff radar. The Internal Revenue Service announces an optional $1,500 home office deduction in lieu of depreciation. A fan sues the San Antonio Spurs for resting top players. The Small Business Administration announces changes in a contracting program for small businesses owned by women and introduces an online marketplace that streamlines the government contracting process for small businesses.

Technology: Rogue Clouds

Here’s a recap of what mattered to small businesses at the Consumer Electronics Show. PC sales slump, despite Microsoft’s Windows 8 release. Here are three more reasons businesses are sticking with Windows XP. “Phablets” are catching on. CNET becomes embroiled in a scandal. Mathew Ingram considers ditching his precious iPhone: “the main attraction is the openness of the ecosystem that Android takes advantage of.” This is what would happen if Jesus had an iPhone. Heather Clancy shares eight options for taming small-business expenses. A new app can send self-destructing files to users that are just perfect for undoing a bad decision. A new Symantec global survey reveals a surge in rogue clouds and other hidden costs.

Tweet of the Week

‏@EricKleefeld
BREAKING: House GOP now refusing to raise debt ceiling unless Jodie Foster explains her speech from last night.

The Week’s Bests

Jon Ferrara explains how to build presence for truly social selling: “Identify those individuals and companies whose needs mesh with your strengths. Formalize connections and continue to talk, listen and watch (and even keep an eye on your competition and gather a bit of intelligence!).”

Paul Morin says a sense of purpose is especially important during tough times: “Without a ‘why’ or sense of purpose, it’s likely that regardless of how precise and well-thought-out your goals may be, you will find it hard to persevere toward achieving them, especially when the inevitable tough times come along.”

This Week’s Question: Will Facebook’s new search capabilities help your business?

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/this-week-in-small-business-facebook-search/?partner=rss&emc=rss

You’re the Boss Blog: This Year in Small Business: Not Impressed!

Dashboard

A weekly roundup of small-business developments.

Another year of The Dashboard is behind us, and it’s time to look back at our favorite comments, blogs, opinions and videos of 2012, the ones that had the biggest impact on small-business owners. Enjoy.

Lesson From Sandy Mark Thoma, an economist, offers a lesson learned from the enormous natural disaster: “If inequality and the economic and political power that come with it continue to grow, the belief that capitalism is unfair could become widespread. This, in turn, could bring about the kinds of changes to the market system that free-market advocates fear so much.”

Post-Election Advice Politics aside, J. Jennings Moss creates a list of opportunities for small businesses as a result of the November elections, including Big Data: “This sector would have boomed regardless of who won the White House. But it might get an extra boost with the return of Obama, who created the job for a chief technology officer on his first day in office in 2009.”

Start-Up Angle The best take on the 2012 start-up scene is Adam Fletcher’s nine signs you’ve become a start-up hipster, including: “You use the word social at least 15 times a day. A true ‘stipster’ understands that for any business to succeed it must be ‘social.’ Exactly what social means, stipsters aren’t sure, but it probably involves a crude Frankensteining of Twitter, Quora, Facebook and cats that look like Hitler.”

Best Videos The best videos of the year include Pat Stansik’s description of what it’s like to turn 24 years old, the executive chef of McDonald’s showing us how to make a Big Mac, and a touching display of kids supporting a classmate with cerebral palsy.

Way to Manage This employee-management advice comes from Mark Lengnick-Hall, a professor with the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Business, who says that we should manage our teams to be like the San Antonio Spurs: “Create a sense of shared purpose and interdependence. The Spurs constantly stress passing the ball and making plays as a team. They are all committed to one goal: coming together as a team. Businesses, too, need to create an overarching goal that brings employees together in a common pursuit.”

Advice for Naming a Product Tom Grasty, an entrepreneur, offers three tips, including: “Make sure the domain name is available. Because you never know which domain extension is going to be the next one to take off, my advice is to purchase as many domain extensions as possible. I know .cc (the domain for the Cocos Islands) may seem completely unnecessary today, but the last thing you want to do is be held hostage by some domain squatter who had the foresight to buy your domain before you did.”

Social Media Lessons David F. Carr offers seven lessons he learned from social business leaders, including one take-away from Ford Motor: “Let business drive technology, not the other way around.” And Gaz Copeland’s helpful suggestions on how to look stupid in 140 characters should not be missed.

Look Into the Future Are you familiar with self-healing concrete, counterintuitive metamaterials or deflexion? If you’re preparing your business for the future, you should be. And these are just a few of the cool technologies on the way, according to this report from Ilya Leybovich.

Thoughts on Retail No matter what kind of business you run, you should read Shashi Bellamkonda’s “thoughts while having a pedicure,” including: “Reach out to potential customers through your existing customers. Maybe a sign that says, ‘Your partner or spouse will love us too. Bring them in!’”

Tweet of the Year I have no interest in making the most money in the world. I have an interest in having the most people at my funeral. — @garyvee

Going Mobile Chris Gaylord’s reports on how cookie sales are soaring for the Girl Scouts is a great example of the impact that mobile technology can have on any small business, even a nonprofit organization.

Getting Ready for Crowdfunding An accountant, Jim Brendel, explains the promise of crowdfunding: “It’s a hot topic for businesses because they are always looking to raise capital. Now several funding portal Web sites have risen to fill the crowdfunding void. Anyone, even if not incorporated, will be able to use crowdfunding. It is only limited by the attractiveness of your idea and your ability to present it.”

Reality Check Erica Douglass offers insights on the harsh realities of being an entrepreneur: “To really succeed, you have to have the guts to not listen to basically anything that’s popular in our society. If you have weak goals, you won’t be motivated to work on them. And if you’re scared of criticism, you won’t make it.”

Boss of the Year My favorite small-business story of the year is Caine’s Arcade, which is about a 9-year-old who spent his summer building an elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad’s used auto-parts store — and a community that came together to make his day. The video “has inspired millions and launched a movement to foster creativity and entrepreneurship in kids.”

Living Well Leo Babauta explains how: “Want little, and you are not poor. You can have a lot of money and possessions, but if you always want more, you are poorer than the guy who has little and wants nothing.”

In Conclusion This author, however, thinks President Obama and McKayla Maroney best summed up the year for me and my small business. Here’s to a more impressive 2013!

Gene Marks owns the Marks Group, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa., consulting firm that helps clients with customer relationship management. You can follow him on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/this-year-in-small-business-not-impressed/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Bucks Blog: Thursday Reading: Testing Newfangled Electric Corkscrews

December 13

Thursday Reading: Testing Newfangled Electric Corkscrews

Testing newfangled electric corkscrews, Facebook changes privacy settings again, New York may test apps for hailing cabs and other consumer-focused news from The New York Times.

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/thursday-reading-testing-newfangled-electric-corkscrews/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Stocks Slip Awaiting Budget Movement

Wall Street stocks edged down on Friday, the final trading day of the month, amid a cautious mood as investors kept their focus firmly on budget talks in Washington.

The Standard Poor’s 500-stock index slipped 0.3 percent by midday, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.2 percent and the Nasdaq composite index fell 0.3 percent.

Trading has been choppy lately, as investors buy on sporadic dips in the market and react to mixed reports regarding progress in talks on averting the spending cuts and tax increases that will come into effect in the new year.

“Thus far, we have nothing,” said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist, at Miller Tabak Co. in New York, of results of the White House’s discussions with Congress.

Still, “it appears that the market remains comfortable John Boehner’s perspective that there is still a workable framework behind the negotiations,” he said.

House Speaker Boehner said Thursday that no substantive progress had been made in fiscal negotiations with the White House, and criticized Democrats for failing to get serious about including spending cuts in a final deal.

Among individual stocks, Facebook and Zynga revised terms of a partnership agreement between the companies; under the new pact, Zynga will have limited ability to promote its site on Facebook. Zynga shares were down 7.5 percent. Facebook shares were down 1.2 percent.

Whole Foods Market announced a special cash dividend of $2 per share. In expectation of higher dividend tax rates in 2013, companies have been shifting dividends or announcing special payouts to shareholders.

Japan’s Nikkei average hit a seven-month closing high on Friday as a weaker yen, driven by expectations the Bank of Japan will act more boldly under a likely new government following Dec. 16 elections, lifted the shares of exporters.

European shares ended mixed at 15-month highs as investors squared the books on the final trading day of the month, with eyes on American budget talks. The FTSE 100 index in London was up 0.1 percent.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Facebook Cancels Shortcut Over Concern for Security

SAN FRANCISCO — What was supposed to be a shortcut for Facebook users to log into their pages ended up exposing their e-mail addresses — and, in some cases, potentially allowing access to their accounts as well.

A Facebook spokesman said on Friday that the company had created the shortcut, called auto login, to let some users go directly to their pages by clicking on a Web link sent to their e-mail addresses. Once they clicked on the link, they could get into their accounts, rather than having to go to Facebook.com and log in.

Some of the links required users to type their passwords, while others did not, the company said.

On the Web site Hacker News, a technology discussion board, Matt Jones, an engineer at Facebook, said the company had offered the service for “ease of use” and never made the Web addresses “publicly available.”

But they did become publicly available, as the discussion on Hacker News revealed on Friday.

The Facebook spokesman, Frederic Wolens, said some users may have posted the links on the Web, allowing anyone to search for them. Those links could give a stranger access to the Facebook pages connected to them, as well as the e-mail addresses of those users. Mr. Wolens said he had no explanation why someone would post the links.  

When Facebook found the problem, it discontinued the shortcut.

The Hacker News thread said over one million Facebook accounts had been affected. Facebook could not confirm that figure on Friday afternoon.

TrendMicro, a private security company that offers safety tools for Facebook users, said Web address shortcuts were inherently dangerous because they could ultimately end up on the Web.

“Many, many hackers are targeting these portals because of the ubiquitous trust and use of them,” said Tom Kellermann, vice president for cybersecurity at TrendMicro. He added, “You don’t take shortcuts through the woods in cyberspace.”

The news of the security hole comes a week after a Bulgarian blogger, Bogomil Shopov, said he had bought 1.1 million Facebook users’ names and e-mail addresses on the Web for $5. He found the information for sale on a marketplace site, gigbucks.com. The items are no longer available.

Mr. Wolens of Facebook said the data had been acquired and compiled by someone who took whatever information Facebook users made public on their pages — and from other publicly available data about those users.

Mr. Kellermann of TrendMicro said the problem with the shortcut could explain how the names and e-mail addresses that Mr. Shopov had found became public. Facebook said the security flaw and the user data for sale had nothing to do with each another.

“We have no reason whatsoever to believe that these two incidents are related,” Mr. Wolens said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/technology/facebook-cancels-shortcut-over-concern-for-security.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Media Decoder Blog: Book by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Will Be Published in March

Knopf has set a publication date of March 2013 for a new book by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, that was written “to encourage women to aspire to and pursue leadership roles,” the publisher said on Thursday. “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” reflects on Ms. Sandberg’s own personal and professional experiences and discusses the latest research on equality in the workplace. Knopf is planning to print 400,000 copies in hardcover.

In a telephone interview, Ms. Sandberg said that the book grew out of a TED talk that she gave two years ago; a video of the talk has been viewed millions of times online and has prompted a flood of letters to Ms. Sandberg on gender issues in the workplace.

“Real equality means that women can do anything,” she said on Thursday. “Real equality means that men have to be more fully engaged at home. The book isn’t just written for women, it’s written for men.” Ms. Sandberg first discussed the book in August.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/book-by-facebooks-sheryl-sandberg-will-be-published-in-march/?partner=rss&emc=rss

You’re the Boss Blog: How a Diner Gets the Most Out of Social Media

On Social Media

Generating revenue along with the buzz.

One of Squeeze In's Foursquare mayors, Nikki McCarroll, with son, Angus.Tourine Johnstone One of Squeeze In’s Foursquare mayors, Nikki McCarroll, with son, Angus.

Squeeze In is a modest little breakfast-and-lunch diner with four locations in the greater Reno, Nev. area. The restaurants are open seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. While online commenters rave about the food, I can’t get over how creatively this little chain has managed its social media. It has a Web site and a custom mobile site. It promotes the business through Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

“We want to reach our guests where they are: on their phones, in their homes, on their laptops or desktops, on their weekends and at their charitable events,” said Misty Young, 50, the company president. “We want to be in their heads when they think breakfast or lunch.”

The diner has a custom smartphone app. In 2010, the company invested $2,500 in building the app for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry phones. It took four months to develop and to date, 2,795 people have downloaded it. If you browse the menu on the way over, you will find app-only deals to show your server once you’re seated. The deals have been redeemed nearly 2,000 times.

Servers have been trained to offer to take a group picture if they see a smartphone on the table. This, of course, is a terrific way to generate Instagram and Facebook photos that are posted directly by guests and then linked to by Squeeze In in its Flickr photo stream (the app also has a built-in tip calculator). Everything that’s done in social media is quantified. “Our Foursquare newbie offer for first time check-ins has been unlocked 1,151 times,” said Ms. Young. “The mayor special has been unlocked 140 times. People are actively using this stuff.”

The restaurant has 6,800 “likes” on Facebook, more than 42,000 views of its YouTube videos, more than 1,000 followers on Twitter and more than 52,000 members of its Egghead Breakfast Club, a guest loyalty program that uses a customized magnetic swipe card system. The transaction data taken from the cards drive marketing and sales decisions, promotions and initiatives. The program also helps lead members to social media review sites, and the chain responds to every review posted on Yelp. Not surprisingly, if you type the restaurant’s name into a Google search, you will find it holding the top three positions. And it never pays for online advertising.

The people who work at Squeeze In seem to have a lot of fun. “For example, we created an energetic parody video just for a good time and to feature our cool staff,” said Ms. Young. “It cost us a whopping $600 to produce.” The parody video is the staff’s take on the popular Black Eyed Peas song “Imma Be.” The Squeeze In version is called “Omma Lette.” It has been viewed more than 2,500 times.

The online presence helped the chain land a spot on the Food Network’s “Throwdown With Bobby Flay.” When Ms. Young asked a producer how the network had found Squeeze In, the producer responded, “We troll the Web, and we look for and listen to what people are saying.” The Food Network exposure immediately increased revenue 25 percent, Ms. Young said, and encouraged the company to speed up its expansion plans. “It’s called social for a reason,” she said. “We’ve multiplied our Twitter presence by 450 percent in a year. We’ve run contests, promoted specials, posted photos and videos, engaged. We’ve been social to keep growing.”

Squeeze In has 270 nonfiltered reviews on Yelp, and one of the owners of the restaurant has responded to every review. “Being responsive, social, relevant and listening has been a key to our social success,” said Ms. Young, who runs the business along with her husband, her daughter and her son-in-law, all of whom own a stake in the company. When the reigning mayor of FourSquare stops by, she is treated to a complimentary mimosa (yes, Squeeze In serves liquor at 8 a.m. to people who order bloody marys or champagne with their omelettes). Customers can also get free breakfasts on their birthdays and free champagne on their anniversaries.

The chain also uses social media in its internal operations. A private Facebook group, for example, helps communications with the 96 employees and has improved camaraderie, job satisfaction and job retention. And it uses multiple public Facebook pages to engage the surrounding communities. Each of the four locations has its own page to allow for check-ins and special offers, but they also offer community information — if there’s a cat lost, they post about it; if there’s a high school production or a breakfast event, they’ll support it and post it on their fan page.

This kind of social media effort does not come free. Squeeze In’s social media efforts are handled by three people: Ms. Young, who is really the face of the company in social media; her daughter, Shila Morris; and Eva Litson, a full-time communications manager. Ms. Young estimates that she spends an hour a day on social media, mostly in 15-minute bursts, monitoring the brand across all social media accounts and engaging with customers. Ms. Morris handles day-to-day operations and monitors Yelp. Ms. Litson handles external marketing efforts, including managing the Web site, the monthly newsletter and e-mail blasts, and she reviews the metrics of all the company’s social media efforts.

Of course, none of this would matter if people didn’t like the food. “All our communications tactics are lame and ineffective if we can’t back it up at the table,” said Ms. Young.

Melinda Emerson is founder and chief executive of Quintessence Multimedia, a social media strategy and content development firm. You can follow her on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/how-a-las-vegas-diner-gets-the-most-out-of-social-media/?partner=rss&emc=rss