Apple hires John Browett, of UK's Dixons, to head retail business

LAT reports: The company said on Tuesday it had hired John Browett, chief executive of European technology retailer Dixons, to head Apple's global fleet of 361 stores, starting in April.  Apple's fast-growing chain of stores pulled in $6.1 billion in sales last quarter, a nearly 60% jump over the same period a year ago, and accounting for 13% of the company's revenue.

Apple stores are known for their clean, spacious look, attractive architecture, and attentive customer service members.  The company also has a penchant for opening the stores in marquee locations, including New York's Grand Central Station, which took the wraps off of an Apple store in December.

Meanwhile Dixons stores, like the PC World pictured here, are reminiscent of U.S. chains Best Buy and Fry's Electronics; lots of square footage, row upon row of shelves packed with products and, frequently, bright primary color schemes. (At Best Buy, the employees are known as "Blue Shirts.")

The apparent gap between that aesthetic and the minimalist, elegant look and feel of Apple stores led some observers to wonder whether Browett's approach might clash with Apple's. 

But Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive and Browett's new boss, wasn't worried. “Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we’ve met,” Cook said in a statement.

You can't stop Ryan Seacrest - you can only hope to contain him

LAT reports: Ryan Seacrest and his radio show partner Clear Channel Communications are taking their relationship to the next level.

Not only have private equity funds controlled by Clear Channel's majority owners, Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL) and Bain Capital, have committed up to $300 million to acquire and develop propeties with Ryan Seacrest Media, the producer and television and radio personality's holding company, but Clear Channel is also taking a minority stake in Seacrest's production company.

“We aim to build Ryan Seacrest Media into a leading multimedia company with diversified assets and interests,” Seacrest said in a statement. Already the host of a radio show that airs on Clear Channel stations, Seacrest also hosts Fox's "American Idol and has a growing television production company whose credits include E!'s "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and ABC's "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.”

For Clear Channel, the investment in Ryan Seacrest Productions allows the radio giant, which wants to expand further into entertainment, to stay in business with the ubiquitous Seacrest even if the radio show eventually goes away. Seacrest has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Matt Lauer when the latter's contract is up on NBC's "Today" show. Such a gig would likely mean Seacrest either moving his radio show to afternoons or scrapping it. 

“Ryan is an unmatched creative talent with success across more media platforms and involvement with a greater variety of programming and venues than anyone else in the industry,” said Bob Pittman, chief executive of Clear Channel parent CC Media Holdings.

Webinar on Best Practices for Establishing Your Web Presence in China

US-China Business Council is hosting a webinar on "Best Practices for Establishing Your Web Presence in China" - register for free here: bit.ly/xba9DF.

The session will be held Monday, February 6 @ 10:00am ET.

Mobile shopping up during the holidays

Tech Chroniclesreports: Holiday shoppers whipped out their mobile phones to help them find the best deals, in yet another sign of how the cell phone is becoming more and more of a shopping and e-commerce tool.

More than half of U.S. cell phone owners said they used their phones at least once during the holiday shopping season, using it to call a friend for shopping advice, to look up product reviews while they were in the store or to check for better prices elsewhere, said a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project yesterday.

Among shopping apps, Palo Alto’s shopkick announced today that its smartphone app drove $110 million in revenue to its retail partners, such as Target, Old Navy and Toys R Us. The app encourages shoppers to go into stores by rewarding them once they’re inside, giving them points that they can redeem for goodies such as iTunes gift cards and Facebook credit.

It also gives its 3 million users points for finding and scanning products in the store.

It calculated the $110 million figure by factoring in the number of shoppers that went into the store, scanned a product and purchased it or took advantage of special offers and deals in the app.

During the holidays, shopkick users saw 1 billion deals in the app, walked into 5 million stores and scanned 10 million products, the startup said.

FNC number one cable news net for past 10 years

FOX News Channel (FNC) press release states: FNC achieved a rare television milestone today in clinching ten years as the number one news network in cable television.  Having surpassed CNN in January 2002, FNC has now reigned over the cable news universe for an entire decade while continuing to outpace both CNN and MSNBC combined in total viewership, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Remarking on the feat, FOX News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes said, “We are extremely proud of the phenomenal achievement created by the hard work and talent of the FOX News Channel employees and recognize how difficult it is for a cable network to sustain this level of dominance for a decade. America has clearly embraced fair and balanced news.”

Ten years since becoming number one, FNC has sustained a 147% advantage over CNN and a 144% advantage over MSNBC in Total Day viewership.  In Adults 25-54, FNC beat CNN by 92% and MSNBC by 101%.  Meanwhile, in Primetime, FNC has surpassed CNN by 131% in total viewers and 58% in A25-54 while overtaking MSNBC by 142% in total viewers and 105% in A25-54, according to the Nielsen averages for January 2012.

HBO's Game Change Trailer

Trailer

When message campaign is in doubt - drop the "Third World" comparison

LAT's PolitCal reports: Gov. Jerry Brown is on a mission to prevent the United States from becoming a Third World country, and he says the solution is a high-speed railroad in California.

"We're not going to be a Third World country if I have anything to do with it," Brown said in a Friday morning interview on KCBS-AM in San Francisco. Fourteen countries already have high-speed rail, but the United States does not.

California's high-speed rail plan has come under increasing scrutiny as cost estimates rise, and the state auditor warned Tuesday that financing is "increasingly risky." Although $12.5 billion has been secured for a rail line stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the auditor said the entire project could end up costing $117.6 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $98.5 billion.

During the interview, Brown fired back at critics, saying the rail line will be cheaper than roads and airports in the long run.

"This thing is going to be a lot less than some of the critics have said," he said, adding that "this will transform Central California."

Good jam by Sam Roberts = Them Kids

Advertisers + Twitter = Profile Pages

Business Insider reports: Twitter is said to be planning to launch Facebook-style profile pages, allowing advertisers to enhance their tweets via a new environment. A "confidential" Twitter document reveals product specs, background designs, geographic targeting and other tools.

Frédéric Filloux on his model for digital newspapers

Many questioned his model for digital newspapers. On theguardian technology blog he provides a few helpful answers with advertising revenue, subscription revenue and mobile apps.

Ted Talk - Lisa Harouni: A primer on 3D printing

Shazam Bowl 2012

AdAge reports:  Shazam to power up to a third of Super Bowl ads this Sunday.

Shazam, the novel app iPhone once used as a selling point for its App Store, is in monetization mode. And with 175 million downloads and $32 million in venture backing, the company’s going beyond its simple, original mission of “name that tune.” With that kind of scale, Shazam has its sights set above mobile ads (the standard money maker for apps, which is still a relatively small slice of an ad budget) and into the big money: television.

Shazam now identifies ads and uses its app to direct users into abranded interaction. In 2010, Shazam was featured in one SuperBowl ad. “Last year, no one would bet their Super Bowl spot on a

test. Fifty campaigns and millions ofinteractions later, up to a third of the spots will be Shazamable,”said Evan Krauss, evp of advertising at the company. Client namesaren’t available until the Super Bowl advertising embargo lifts onFeb. 2, but Shazam has been particularly active with auto andentertainment advertisers, he said. Through ad campaigns with atleast 17 clients, this Super Bowl will be the most “Shazam-able” yet.Up to one-third of the ads will use Shazam, Krauss said. 

Shazam’s first Super Bowl ad on Shazam for TV, where its app identifies a commercial by sound and directs users to more content, information, coupons or giveaways, was an experimental giveaway for Dockers. Roughly 20,000 users Shazam-ed the ad, Krauss said. In the last year, the company has run campaigns from the likes of Old Navy, Bud Light and Unilever for more than 2 million interactions with consumers.

Obama and Google+ - 130,000 questions submitted

lostremote reports: President Obama has been popping up in live events and town halls on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and now in a Google Plus hangout, chatting with 5 lucky (and pre-selected) Americans in a live video stream. Over 130,000 total questions were submitted, and we’re waiting for the final audience numbers from Google+.

Unilever logo explained

“Unilever, the Anglo Dutch company with a portfolio of well known brands within nutrition, hygiene, and personal care. They appointed Wolff Olins to help create a new brand for the company, clearly expressing it’s vitality mission.

“The logo consists of twenty six icons intricately woven together to form a U, replacing the old logo that had been used since 1970. Working with creative director Lee Coomber, we used a fluid creative process whereby we thought about how and what Unilever does, whilst drawing icons and the U simultaneously.”

Miles Newlyn quoted.

For more information on the twenty-six icons, click here.

30 ideas for your 2012 Social Media plan

AdRants and Radian6 compile 30 ideas for a social media plan into an eBook.

Get a copy here.

Nevada GOP to report presidential caucus results via Twitter

Las Vegas Sun reports: How do you increase your number of Twitter followers exponentially in a matter of a few days? Use your account to report the official results of a major presidential primary contest.

The Nevada Republican Party announced today it will release its official caucus results live on Twitter and will also use Google maps to display the live results visually on its website.

While it’s the second time election results were reported via Google maps—Iowa did it in January—it’s the first time a live Twitter stream has been dedicated to reporting official results.

“The Nevada Republican Party wanted to be very innovative, very cutting edge, and utilize these platforms as a way to get these results out in the fastest most effective way we think that has been done to date,” said Jim Anderson of Cap Public Affairs, the consulting firm hired by the party to help conduct the caucuses. “We think we’ve got a tool for this caucus that could be a model tool moving forward for primaries and caucus for states all around the country.”

Before the results are released, Twitter will authenticate the party’s handle — @nvgop — to ensure the information is secure and accurate. That handle, which had only 609 followers as of noon Friday, will be used to report aggregate results.

A second Twitter handle will be established to report precinct-by-precinct results as they roll in. The name of that handle hasn’t yet been released.

Silicon Valley changes lobbying game

Politico reports: Silicon Valley was once criticized for not “getting” Washington and being slow to start lobbying. Now, as it celebrates what appears to be a victory in its Capitol Hill fight over fast-moving copyright bills, the tech industry may see itself as an innovator in lobbying, using the tools it created to beat the opposition at its own game on its own turf. “There’s a new kind of lobbying,” said Ron Conway, a prominent investor in the Valley. “It’s from the grass roots. It’s as pure as lobbying can get — individual to individual.” The events of the past week have been “a tremendous watershed moment in lobbying and advocacy,” said Andrew Shore, a tech industry lobbyist at Jochum Shore & Trossevin. “Anyone who doesn’t pay attention to it will be at a severe business disadvantage in the coming years.”
Read more here.

Breaking: Aneesh Chopra, WH CTO, is leaving his position

Aneesh Chopra, the White House chief technology officer, is leaving his position, an administration official confirmed to POLITICO. The White House is expected to put out a statement today. 

Obama campaign launches first TV ad and uses my favorite campaign word ever = "unprecedented"

AP reports: President Barack Obama launched his first television ad of his re-election campaign, defending his energy record against criticism from a Republican-leaning outside group in a sign that the presidential race is entering a new phase even though Republicans have yet to pick a challenger.

The ad, released Wednesday, responds to a $6 million ad campaign by a group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers accusing Obama of conducting pay-for-play politics in the bankruptcy of California energy company Solyndra, which imploded despite a $528 million federal loan.

 Obama's ad opens by citing "secretive billionaires attacking President Obama with ads fact-checkers say are not tethered to the facts." It says that the president has added 2.7 million clean energy jobs while reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil, calling Obama's record on ethics "unprecedented."

 The voiceover ends by saying, "President Obama. Kept his promise to toughen ethics rules and strengthen America's energy economy." The Obama campaign has bought ad time in Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Iowa and on national cable television, according to a campaign official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly about internal campaign strategy.  Here is the ad:

Why social media isn't a waste of time (infographic)

Courtesy of: Schools.com

Twitter able to censor tweets in individual countries

The Guardian reports that the censorship tool is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening.

Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.

The additional flexibility announced on Thursday is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.

But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or tweets, remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.

Before, when Twitter erased a tweet it disappeared throughout the world. Now, a tweet containing content breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed. That is similar to what internet search engine Google has been doing for years when a law in a country where its service operates requires a search result to be removed.

Read more here.

Study: Workers Spend $1,000 Yearly on Coffee

Fox 5 reports: American's weakness for coffee is proven once again in a new survey conducted by Accounting Principals .
In a telephone survey of 1,000 Americans who were currently employed, ages 18 or older, the participators were asked how much money they spend on "work-related" expenses.

Despite recent tough economic times, results showed that 50 percent of the American workforce regularly spent money on coffee. This totaled, on average, $1,000 a year on coffee alone.

Broken down ever further, it was found that more men splurge on coffee than women (54 percent versus 45 percent). And the younger crowd, ages 18-34, spent almost twice as much on coffee than their older co-workers ($24.74 versus $14.15 weekly).

comScore: U.S. Online Holiday Shopping Already Up 14 Percent To $9.7 Billion

TechCrunch reports: It looks like will be a joyful holiday season for many online retailers this year. comScore is reporting that holiday retail e-commerce spending for the first 20 days of the November to December 2011 season is already up 14 percent from the same period last year. Wednesday, November 16 was the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $688 million.

comScore is forecasting that total online retail spending for the holiday season will reach $37.6 billion, 15 percent increase from last year’s season. For background, the 2010 holiday shopping period saw a 12 percent increase from 2009.

In a recent survey conducted with consumers, holiday shoppers say that retailers’ promotional activity for the early part of the season has increased in relation to last year. Specifically, 33 percent of respondents indicated that they are seeing more discounts, sales and promotions vs. last year compared to just 7 percent who said there were fewer.

First Football Endzone Hashtag Touches Down in Mississippi

Mashable reports: :

The ol’ endzone dance just got even more social. When players in this Saturday’s Battle for the Golden Egg — the annual college football clash between Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi — celebrate after scoring a touchdown, they’ll be doing so on top of a massive Twitter hashtag.

In what’s believed to be a first for college football programs, Mississippi State has painted #HAILSTATE — the school’s traditional rallying cry and fight song — in its north endzone.

College teams typically decorate endzones with the title of their school, mascot nickname or a colorful pattern. But Mississippi State’s Twitter-based variation has already created buzz in the sports world.

“It’s a phenomenal idea,” Dallas Mavericks owner and Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban said in an email to Mashable. “It’s a fun way to involve social media at the game, and to TV viewers it’s going to stir up some emotions between both teams.”

“I can definitely see the the Mavs and other teams doing it,” Cuban added.

Mashable: “Tweet” and “Social Media” added to Merriam-Webster Dictionary

In further confirmation of social media’s penetration into the language, Merriam-Webster has added both “tweet” and “social media” to its Collegiate Dictionary.

M-W, which announced the move Thursday, is a bit late to the game. The Oxford English Dictionary just added “tweet” and “retweet,” not to mention “sext,” last week. Collins English Dictionary added “Twitter” as a verb and a noun in 2009.

M-W’s Collegiate Dictionary, the country’s best-selling dictionary, added 150 words, just a few of which are tech-related. Others include “m-commerce” and “crowdsourcing.” Among the other new additions are “fist bump,” “bromance,” “cougar” (in reference to middle-aged women on the prowl) and “helicopter parent.”

This was the first time M-W added new terms since 2009. Back then, the dictionary added “vlog,” “webisode,” “flash mob” and “pdf.”

Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large for the dictionary, says the new terms are decided upon in an informal manner. “It’s just a process of seeing a word used frequently and in many different sources,” he says, noting that inclusion in outlets like The New York Times is a big consideration.

NYT: Condé Nast deepens its social connections

Readers of the online versions of Condé Nast publications will have to look no further than the bottom of their screens to see what content other readers have deemed worthy of a “Tweet” on Twitter or a “like” on Facebook. And right below that social media will be a hefty dose of advertising.

On Monday, the magazine publisher will begin using a module called the Condé Nast Social Sidekick at the bottom of article pages for the Web versions of magazines like W, Style.com, Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue and Lucky. “Consumer engagement has become a top priority,” said Louis Cona, chief marketing officer at Condé Nast.

The company is hoping the new tool will encourage readers to view content from other Condé Nast sites, while giving advertisers like Gucci, the premiere sponsor, the option to showcase their own multimedia promotions.

In a statement, Robert Triefus, the worldwide marketing and communications director at Gucci, said the new module “allows us to reach the broad and highly qualified target audience associated with Condé Nast brands.”

NYT: In Britain, a meeting on limiting social media

British officials and representatives of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry met Thursday to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and periods of civil unrest, while trying to dodge charges of hypocrisy and censorship that trailed Prime Minister David Cameron’s call to restrict use of the networks after this month’s riots.

The government’s home minister, Theresa May, according to one account of the meeting, said that the aim was not to “discuss restricting Internet services,” but to instead “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior.” A spokeswoman for Ms. May said the government “would not be seeking any additional powers.”

DFP: GM reshuffles marketing unit again

General Motors continues to tweak its marketing department, one of the most turbulent during the company's restructuring, by creating global brand heads and shuffling some management.

Joel Ewanick, who took a newly created global chief marketing officer position in December, has pushed a two-pronged worldwide brand strategy, emphasizing Chevrolet and Cadillac. He started by encouraging Chevrolet's well-funded U.S. team to coordinate and share more with marketers in the other 130-plus countries that sell the brand. The next step, he said, was to create a global Chevrolet chief.

Chris Perry, Ewanick's former Hyundai colleague who had run all GM's U.S. marketing since early this year, now heads Chevy marketing worldwide, Ewanick said in an interview Friday. The U.S. marketing job, which had changed hands four times since GM's 2009 bankruptcy, has disappeared. Ewanick will supervise the global brand heads.

Management shake-ups have characterized GM's restructuring since its bankruptcy, with the marketing department having the fastest revolving door. Ewanick, of Hyundai fame, arrived last year after a several-week stop at Nissan, to run GM's U.S. marketing. He quickly scrapped plans and agencies for Chevy and Cadillac advertising and then, about a year ago, brought in Perry to run Chevrolet.

NYT: For top-ranked Djokovic, next makeover is in marketing

Pressed against a barricade, fans glimpsed Novak Djokovic and readied their cellphones. Necks craned. Cameras flashed. Djokovic, the Serb now deep into a historic tennis season, had created an impromptu mosh pit at a recent tournament here.

The scene underscored the defining characteristic of his season: change, on all fronts, with more promised. In the past year, in a relatively extreme makeover, Djokovic changed his serve, his diet, his publicist, his fitness regimen and, because of all of this, his standing in men’s tennis.

The next phase — making Djokovic a household name, among the world’s biggest sports stars — will continue next week in the United States Open, where he was named Wednesday the No. 1 seed in the men’s draw. While Djokovic has surpassed his rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer on the tennis court, he now hopes to at least join those two, who both reside on Forbes magazine’s list of the top 10 most powerful athletes, in areas such as endorsements, fame and global exposure.

“Of course, the world is looking at me differently,” Djokovic said. “I don’t want to sound like I’m pretending that I’m modest, but I don’t really consider myself a star, or something like that.”

Perhaps Djokovic was not widely regarded as a star — merely a very good professional tennis player — until his dominance this year. He has won 57 of 59 matches and nine tournaments since January because his game, a combination of speed and endurance and a counterattacking baseline style, robbed opponents of a precious element in tennis — time.

Suddenly, Djokovic himself is pressed for time. The task of coordinating the effort to boost his image falls to Goran Djokovic, Novak’s uncle and chief marketing strategist. This week alone, he planned 30 to 40 business meetings, while Edoardo Artaldi, the new publicist, handled the 30 or so daily media requests.

It takes time to appear on national talk shows (he taught Jay Leno and Katie Holmes a Serbian dance), time to sift through marketing pitches, time to pursue Djokovic’s next dream, acting, in Hollywood.

“Our job is also to show the world, to show the United States, that there is a new No. 1 in the world,” Goran Djokovic said, leaning forward Tuesday in the lobby of the Mondrian Hotel in Manhattan. “We have to adjust everything, what we are doing now. But let’s say we are preparing for that all our life.”

Gigaom: The Twitter effect: We are all members of the media now

Anyone who has gotten the latest news about Steve Jobs’ resignation or the revolution in Libya from Twitter is probably used to the idea that the real-time information network has become a powerful tool for journalism — a point we’ve made often. But that reality is still filtering down through the world of political reporting, as a recent piece in the American Journalism Review describes. Just as CNN created the 24-hours news cycle for television, Twitter has accelerated that news cycle to the point where news breaks every minute of every hour, and a tweet is almost as good as a page-one scoop. Not only that, but anyone can do it.

Read more from Mathew Ingram here: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/the-twitter-effect-we-are-all-members-of-the-media-now/