BASEL (Reuters) - Luxury watchmakers expect sales growth to slow this year as a recovery in the United States and buoyant Middle East demand fail to offset a China slump more deep-rooted than a temporary blip caused by anti-corruption moves.
The heads of Swatch Group's biggest brand Omega and LVMH flagship brand TAG Heuer as well as high-end independents Patek Philippe and Ulysse Nardin all said demand in Greater China had tumbled, particularly for high-end models.
A weaker gold price, which hit a two-year low this month after gaining 52 percent over the last three years, was no help as most manufacturers had hedged their purchases.
"I bought my gold a year in advance," Walter von Kaenel, head of Swatch's midrange brand Longines told Reuters at the Baselworld watch fair this week.
Omega chief Stephen Urquhart said a lower gold price also made gold watches less appealing, particularly for those consumers who were buying them as an investment.
Luxury watch makers have expanded at breakneck speed in recent years in Greater China, which includes Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well as the mainland - and enjoyed double-digit sales growth rates there until last summer.
But their latest comments reinforce the view that the region, to which luxury group Richemont is the most exposed, is being hit by more than the government's crackdown on gifts for favours, which often involve watches, and is feeling the draught from a wider slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.
"All watches costing more than 1,800 francs are having difficulties in China at the moment," said TAG Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Christophe Babin, soon to be head of LVMH's jewelery brand Bulgari.
TAG Heuer's watches sell for an average price of 4,500 Swiss francs and Omega's and Patek's price tags are well above that.
"We have felt the impact of the anti-corruption campaign in China," Patek Philippe's Thierry Stern said in an interview.
He said Patek had introduced new models at lower prices in Asia to address the drop in demand for pricey items.
But the head of Omega, one of the most popular luxury watches in China, said he was confident sales to Chinese customers worldwide would grow in 2013 - albeit at a slower pace than in 2012 - as they still bought a lot of watches abroad.
One bright note, Urquhart said, was that consumer confidence in mainland China had picked up after this year's leadership transition, meaning single-digit growth should be possible.
Patrik Schwendimann, analylst at Zuercher Kantonalbank, said: "It's a positive surprise that Omega still expects sales growth in single digits in mainland China this year."
Longines's von Kaenel said the midrange price category -- Longines is leader in the 800-3,000 franc segment-- was not affected by China's current frugality and slower sales in mainland China were compensated by strong demand in Hong Kong.
Swiss watch exports to China fell by more than 25 percent in the first quarter of 2013. Sales to Hong Kong, the biggest market for Swiss watches where mainland Chinese buy timepieces to avoid high taxes, were down 9.1 percent.
"We believe China's new President Xi Jinping's tough stance on corruption practices and extravagant spending are likely to limit the recovery of the illegitimate component of luxury demand this year ("gifting")," Citi said in a note.
"This is perhaps likely to have a greater impact on high-end watches as compared to the mid-range segment."
Consultancy Bain & Co is confident about demand for watches costing over 10,000 Swiss francs, forecasting their exports to rise about 9 percent annually until 2015 but high inventories in Greater China may hold back exports this year.
"We did interviews in China with retailers and it seems that in 2012 the sell-out (sales to end customers) rates were growing more slowly than the exports rates from Switzerland," said Gyorgy Konda, a partner at Bain & Co in Milan.
Longines' von Kaenel said Chinese retailers had excessive stock levels for some brands, but not for Longines, whose more affordable watches were not targeted by the anti-corruption drive.
Omega, Longines and Hublot executives agreed a healthy recovery in the United States and buoyant growth in the Middle East, particularly Dubai, would generate single-digit growth this year, a marked slowdown versus 11 percent growth in 2012.
GEORGETOWN, Colo. (AP) ? Authorities have recovered the bodies of five snowboarders who were killed in a backcountry avalanche on Colorado's Loveland Pass.
Clear Creek County Sheriff Don Krueger said multiple search and rescue crews located the bodies Saturday. A sixth snowboarder was caught in the slide. That person's condition was unknown.
Krueger said authorities are pretty certain the snowboarders triggered the avalanche, which he said was about 600 yards wide and eight feet deep.
We Brits are continuing our love affair with video.? With 323 million hours watching online videos in February 2013, I?m surprised our eyes aren?t square!
When I discuss creating videos and video marketing with local businesses, I often get the same replies?
Video marketing is too expensive
My business doesn?t lend itself well to video
I don?t have the equipment or technical know-how
I don?t look good on camera (I can relate to that!)
Oh, we?ll get a video made when? (insert event that never comes off here)
Let?s address the two main issues and look at how easily you can use video in your business.
1. Creating a video is expensive
The cost of video creation is perhaps the number one reason many businesses do not use video in their local online marketing mix.? I?m not saying that you shouldn?t save for a professional video shoot.? Often, small businesses are on a very tight budget ? do shop around.
The great thing is that viewers aren?t looking for something that looks like a multi-million pound blockbuster.? Your potential customers are looking for basic information about your products or services such as:
before and after examples,
testimonials,
your product in action,
how-to?s
the people behind your business
All simple stuff.? By using video as well as images, you can connect with your potential customer on a much deeper level.
You can do that with a smartphone?
Even basic video cameras cost less than ?200 these days ? I have my eye on this Kodak Pocket Video Camera when I get over myself and talk on camera!? Oh, and if you go down buying a camera route, do get one that accepts an external mic.
You don?t need a video camera to create videos for your business.? I get traffic from YouTube daily from my screencast videos.? Ok, I?m not specifically a local business. Any consultant, coach or similar service can use the same technique.
I use Camtasia (admittedly not to its full potential!) and you can try it free for 30 days.? If the budget isn?t stretching to Camtasia, there is free screencast software available.? Try Camstudio or Ezvid.
You can take things even simpler and produce video slideshows of your images set to music.? You don?t even need to speak!? Windows has Movie Maker bundled in or if you want drag and drop, click a few buttons simple, try Animoto.
And, if you want some eye candy, well you can always do something like this?
Try Sparkol free for 7 days.
I think the key take away is don?t let a limited budget stop you from tapping into the video market.
?2.? My Business Isn?t Suited To Video
This excuse makes me chuckle.? I honestly can?t think of a business that could not use video as part of their marketing mix (if you can, please shout out in the comments!)
Video isn?t just about ads and how-to?s.? It can be used in so many ways and really humanises your business.
Entertainment
I think we?ve all heard of the ?Will it blend? videos from Blendtec.? It?s a blender ? can?t get much more unexciting.?
Yet, for six years they?ve been producing ?Will it blend? videos, destroying everything from glow sticks to iPhones and Justin Beiber to show how good their blenders are.? A bit of fun that caught the imagination of many and no doubt put their blender in front of people who wouldn?t have previously considered it.
Take a look at some of their early videos, they?re not as swishly produced as this Blending of Beiber?
Staying in the fun mode, down the road from me Warrington Market jumped in on the Harlem Shake craze and produced their own.? It even got them air-time on local TV too, that?s free publicity.? In the midst of a horse meat crisis, it tickled me to spot the panto horse dancing by the butchers?
Improve communication
On a more serious note, video can really help with your customer service and inspire trust in your business.? I watched a webinar by SEOMoz a few weeks back about using video in local marketing.? The example they gave was so simple, yet effective.
It was a construction based company, they installed windows, fascias and the like.? With an iPhone and an app to draw arrows (no fancy production) the contractor kept the client informed of where work was up to.? Just simple shots of their house and him chatting ? today we did this and this, tomorrow we?re finishing off that?
The videos were uploaded to YouTube, and the company has built a nice video portfolio of work that can be found in local searches as well as highlighting their communication.? How simple is that?? Watch the webinar here.
Support your clients
A couple of months ago, I was looking up some info on grief and I came across a video series on a funeral directors website.? It took a little while for me to dig the site back out.? Chandler Funeral Services Ltd are in Liverpool, Nova Scotia ? that explains how I found the site in the first place, obviously looking for something in Liverpool down the road?
On their website they have a grief video series, which provides a support service to their clients.? What I also discovered when I found the site again last night were the videos on the obituary pages.? They were really simple, tasteful slideshows of photos, ?Remembering the life of??? I thought it was a lovely touch.
Whatever line of business you?re in you can use simple videos to entertain, educate, inform and support.? These are not ads.? You?re not directly selling anything.
You are expanding your reach, providing information in a format people want to see and driving targeted traffic to your website.
Video Marketing Helps Sell Too
The Experian stats referred to right at the beginning of this blog post also found that online retailers benefited most from our love of video.? 16% of video viewers left to go directly to a transactional page.
Even a local business can expand reach by selling online, either through your own website or building a store on large sites such as Amazon, eBay, Folksy or Etsy and more.
Citation Building
As part of my Google Local package, I create a short slideshow video for my clients and upload it to a YouTube channel (also created for them).?
Both the video description and the channel have the business name, address and telephone details ? providing another simple citation source ? not to mention the videos also rank well in video search and with a bit of a prod rank well in local searches too.
Find out more about my Google Local packages
Local business video marketing needn?t be difficult or overwhelming. Simple videos really work well to drive traffic to your website and are fairly straight-forward to rank locally too.? I?ll cover that in another post.
Over to you?
Do you use video to expand your online reach and drive traffic to your website?? I?d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.
BEIJING (Reuters) - A strong 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit a remote, mostly rural and mountainous area of southwestern China's Sichuan province on Saturday, killing at least 156 people and injuring about 5,500 close to where a big quake killed almost 70,000 people in 2008.
The earthquake, China's worst in three years, occurred at 8.02 a.m. (0002 GMT) in Lushan county near Ya'an city and the epicenter had a depth of 12 km (7.5 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake was felt by residents in neighboring provinces and in the provincial capital of Chengdu, causing many people to rush out of buildings, according to accounts on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service.
State media said 156 people had been confirmed dead with more than 5,500 injured.
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang said all efforts must be put into rescuing victims to limit the death toll.
After arriving at the disaster zone by helicopter, Li directed earthquake relief efforts from a plaza in Longmen township in Lushan, Xinhua said.
Li asked that a road be opened to Baoxing county, one of the most affected by the earthquake, and that rescuers "act quickly" in their efforts, Xinhua quoted Li as saying.
"The current most urgent issue is grasping the first 24 hours since the quake's occurrence, the golden time for saving lives," Xinhua news agency quoted Li as saying earlier.
Xinhua said 6,000 troops were heading to the area to help with rescue efforts. State television CCTV said only emergency vehicles were being allowed into Ya'an, though Chengdu airport had reopened.
Most of the deaths were concentrated in Lushan, where water and electricity were cut off. Pictures on Chinese news sites showed toppled buildings and people in bloodied bandages being treated in tents outside the hospital, which appeared only lightly damaged.
Rescuers in Lushan had pulled 32 survivors out of rubble, Xinhua said. In villages closest to the epicenter, almost all low rise houses and buildings had collapsed, according to footage broadcast on state television.
This aerial photo released by China's Xinhua news agency shows destroyed houses after a powerful earthquake hit Taiping town of Lushan County in Ya'an City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, ... more? This aerial photo released by China's Xinhua news agency shows destroyed houses after a powerful earthquake hit Taiping town of Lushan County in Ya'an City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Saturday, April 20, 2013. The powerful earthquake jolted Sichuan province Saturday near where a devastating quake struck five years ago. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Liu Yinghua) NO SALES less? ?
"We are very busy right now, there are about eight or nine injured people, the doctors are handling the cases," said a doctor at a Ya'an hospital who gave her family name as Liu.
The hospital was seeing head and leg injuries, she added.
"SHAKES AND TREMORS"
The China Meteorological Association warned of a possibility of landslides occurring in Lushan county on Saturday and Sunday, the agency said in a statement on its website.
A resident in Chengdu, 140 km (85 miles) from Ya'an city, told Xinhua he was on the 13th floor of a building when he felt the quake. The building shook for about 20 seconds and he saw tiles fall from nearby buildings.
Ya'an is a city of 1.5 million people and is considered one of the birthplaces of Chinese tea culture. It is also the home to one of China's main centers for protecting the giant panda.
"There are still shakes and tremors and our area is safe. The pandas are safe," said a spokesman with Ya'an's Bifengxia nature park, a tourism park that houses more than 100 pandas.
Shouts and screams were heard in the background while Reuters was on the telephone with the spokesman.
"There was just an aftershock, an aftershock, our office is safe," he said.
Numerous aftershocks jolted the area, the largest of which was magnitude 5.1.
Sichuan is one of the four major natural-gas-producing provinces in China, and its output accounts for about 14 percent of the nation's total.
Sinopec Group, Asia's largest oil refiner, said its huge Puguang gas field was unaffected.
The U.S. Geological Survey initially put the magnitude at 7, but later revised it down.
The devastating May 2008 quake was 7.9 magnitude.
(Additional reporting by Melanie Lee and Lu Jianxin in SHANGHAI and Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Editing by Jonathan Standing and Sanjeev Miglani)
But Apple says that six months after a Siri request or command is made, the phone number of the user is 'disassociated' with the audio clip in question.?
By Matthew Shaer / April 19, 2013
A user enters a command for Siri, Apple's voice-activated personal assistant.
Reuters
Enlarge
According to the privacy agreement for Apple's Siri service, Apple is authorized to collect and store data from user commands. But how long can Apple keep that data? This was the question posed earlier this week by a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, who registered her concerns in an interview with?Robert McMillan of Wired.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
And now we have an answer, courtesy of Apple spokeswoman?Trudy Muller: Two years. "If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data," Ms. Muller told Wired.
In addition, she explained, six months after you issue a command or query to Siri, your phone number will be "disassociated" from the audio recording (although it will not be fully scrubbed from Apple servers for another 18 months after that). Apple says it uses all that data to help improve the Siri platform, and to better understand how consumers use the service. ?
As Darrell Etherington notes over at TechCrunch, Apple isn't exactly doing anything new here.?
"The bottom line is that if an app or service requires a data connection, in all likelihood there?s a back and forth transmission of information going on, and if privacy is one of your top-of-mind concerns, you should be cautious in any such situation," Etherington writes. "Apple?s policies with Siri seem no more or less egregious than any other, but it is nice to see the company spell it out in no uncertain terms."?
Monitor readers may remember that back in March of last year, IBM revealed that it had?banned employees from using Siri on company iPhones. The reason was simple: IBM has no control over (and not much information on) what Apple does with the data. ?
"We're just extraordinarily conservative," an IBM exec said at the time. "It's the nature of our business."
The open canoe, long embraced as the proud symbol of outdoor living, now sits abandoned and rotting away on many cottage properties. What happened? Why have we lost our love for the traditional pleasure of canoeing in an open canoe?
Proud Canoe Heritage
The open canoe has always held a special place in the hearts of Canadians. Our history and outdoor culture have been defined by it, and in a 2007 CBC poll, Canadians rated the canoe as one of the Seven Wonders of Canada.
Most of us have fond childhood memories of canoeing at a camp, and the famous film footage of a former prime minister paddling his canoe inspires a sense of patriotism in even the harshest of his critics.
For the legions of Canadians who spend their summers in cottage country, the tradition of canoeing is a core part of their wilderness identity.
At least, it used to be.
A Bit Of History We all know the canoe played an integral part in the early development of Canada. The First Nations communities, the voyageurs, and the Hudson?s Bay Company relied on canoes to navigate this great country, develop the fur trade, and in turn, the Canadian economy.
By the mid 1800?s the fur trade was essentially dead, but the canoe still had a large fan base of recreational users.
In Peterborough, from the early 1850?s until the 1960?s a number of companies produced a variety of wooden canoes. The market for these traditional canoes was strong until the 1920?s, but when outboard motors began to gain in popularity, it signalled the beginning of the end for wooden canoe makers.
By the late 1950?s, aluminum and fiberglass canoes had hit the market providing cheaper options for canoeing enthusiasts. Canoeing remained popular, but the less expensive and more durable models changed the industry, and the demand for hand-made wooden canoes was soon reduced to a fraction of its former level.
A Canadian Legend As the seventies arrived, cottagers were mostly using outboard motors to get around the lake but recreational canoeing still had widespread support, and a lot of the credit goes to one man.
You may think that Pierre Elliot Trudeau was the most famous Canadian canoeist, but the most influential man in a canoe was arguably Winnipeg born Bill Mason. Known by many enthusiasts as the father of canoeing in the 20th century, Mason?s books, films, and wilderness adventures inspired Canadians across the country during the 70?s and 80?s to embrace the art of canoeing as a means of getting in touch with nature.
While the sport of whitewater canoeing has continued to draw more participants, the passion for casual canoeing that was inspired by Mason has struggled to find support with the next generation. In recent years, the popularity of the open canoe has fallen. Fewer people go to summer camps for their holidays, kayaks have become cool, and older cottage owners have taken up new hobbies.
Canoeing can be hard work, requires a bit of practice, and is usually done with two or more people. These characteristics used to be perceived as appealing and were responsible for pulling people of all ages into the sport.
Now, the easy road and trendy path are the routes we often search for when considering our outdoor recreation.
The Appeal of Kayaks In the past decade, the popularity of competitive canoeing and kayaking has surged. Extreme sports are all the rage, and recreational kayaks are becoming very fashionable on the lakes and rivers of cottage country.
The kayak, which is classified as a type of canoe, has certainly caught the attention of both young and older cottagers alike. It is easy to understand why. Just as skiers switched to snowboards, would be canoeists are choosing kayaks. The kayak is easier to use and is probably better suited for one person if the objective is to simply go for a stroll on the lake.
I don?t have anything against kayaks, but in my opinion the open canoe just offers us so much more, and it is a shame it is being abandoned. Not only is it the foundation of our culture as wilderness explorers, it also represents everything that early cottagers searched for when they headed to the lakes and rivers looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life.
The sublime pleasure one gets when paddling a canoe, silently streaming across the smooth surface of an early morning lake is unmatched. I know you can do this in a kayak, but it just isn?t the same.
Family, Photos, And Fishing A day-long canoe trip with a stop on an island for a picnic or shore lunch is still a great way for families to spend quality time together. The activity is not only a fantastic form of exercise, it also requires a bit of sibling teamwork.
For the cottage shutterbug, wildlife photography is often best done using a canoe when searching for those magical shots that would otherwise be impossible to get. Loons, herons, eagles, moose, deer, and otters are generally more tolerant of a canoe than an approaching motor boat.
And cottage anglers have cut themselves off from some of the best fishing opportunities in the areas around the cabin. Secluded walk-in lakes and bays separated by low water, rapids, or vegetation, are often only accessible by canoe. Fishing out of the canoe in these forgotten hot spots often produces some of the best action of the year.
New Canoe Routes Despite the loss of its popularity, something exciting is on the horizon for the open canoe. A new 900 kilometre water route planned by the Trans Canada Trail will run from Thunder Bay to Manitoba. Named the ?Path of the Paddle? after Bill Mason?s famous canoeing book, the route will consist of five sections and provide canoe trippers with some of the most spectacular canoeing opportunities on the continent.
Hopefully, the new ?Path of the Paddle? will also inspire a few cottagers to consider pulling the lonely old canoe out of the bush or off the rack behind the shed and rediscover the pleasures of canoeing at the cottage.
Kirk Wipper And The Canadian Canoe Museum Another famous Canadian canoeist, who recently passed away, is Kirk Wipper. Originally from Manitoba, Wipper created the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, ON by donating his extensive personal collection of canoes. As the world?s largest, the museum has over 100 canoes on display and is well worth a trip if you are in the Peterborough area.
Wipper was a great advocate of outdoor education and also helped found the Canadian Recreational Canoeing Association, now called Paddle Canada.
Written and photographed by: Andrew Walker This article was also published in the April 2013 edition of the Lake Of The Woods Area News magazine.
Go to the Canoe Paddling Tips page. Go to the Hiking Tips page. Go to the Boating Safety Tips page.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) ? A judge in Oregon noticed an unexpected glow on a juror's chest while the courtroom lights were dimmed during video evidence in an armed-robbery trial.
The juror, it seemed, was texting.
Marion County Circuit Judge Dennis Graves cleared the courtroom and excused all jurors except 26-year-old Benjamin Kohler.
According to a news release from the Marion County Sheriff's Office, Kohler had no explanation for his actions.
Jurors in Oregon are given explicit instructions at the outset of each trial not to use cellphones in court.
Graves held Kohler in contempt, and Kohler spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday in the county jail. He was released Wednesday night.
Neither the nature of the text message nor its recipient was disclosed.
Kohler did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.
An alternate juror took his place. Sheriff's spokesman Don Thomson said the trial ended Thursday with the defendant found guilty.
There's been a few weeks of silence following the Boeing 787's successful battery testing, but the FAA has finally weighed in on the proposed design tweaks. Today the organization approved Boeing's battery fix, which means the aircraft maker can take the next step in returning the fleet of 50 Dreamliners to the air. The real action will come next week, when the FAA will issue instructions for making changes to the 787s and -- according to an official statement -- "publish in the Federal Register the final directive that will allow the 787 to return to service." Airlines operating the Dreamliner -- including United and ANA -- will be required to install containment and venting systems for the batteries in addition to replacing the batteries with the new, modified components.
We already know what Page and Co. will be packing along with Glass, but now that participants of the Explorer program have begun picking up the wearable hardware, we're getting a second-hand unboxing experience. For those in need of a refresher, the glasses will be accompanied by a microUSB cable and charger, a pouch and an attachable shade and clear lens. Though there isn't much to glean from the stream of images, one of Mountain View's adventurers noticed that users will be able to send navigation directions straight from a smartphone to the eyewear. Click the source links below to take a gander at the photos, or hit the jump to watch a video shot with Glass by a Googler.
Update 1: We've slotted in a video after the break of Glass user Dan McLaughlin extracting his device from its packaging. The footage is a bit choppy, but it certainly provides a closer look at the hardware.
Update 2: The intrepid folks at Tinhte managed to get their mitts on Google's headgear and have given us a tour -- albeit in Vietnamese -- of the contraption, replete with close-ups and solid video quality. Head past the break to watch the footage.
Everyone has a message, a life story, or a body of knowledge that is valuable and useful to others. Once you identify what yours is, that message and knowledge can be monetized as an info product.
People are often overwhelmed by the idea of creating an info product, but as former mortgage broker and digital information business expert, Susan Lassiter Lyons would tell you, it is far from an unattainable goal. She speaks from experience, having gone from mortgage broker to online mogul in relatively short order. Many people, just like her (and you), create information products such as e-books, CDs, DVDs, workbooks, seminars, and other programs to add value to their target audience every day.
Marci Shimoff is a former stress management consultant who wrote the book ?Happy For No Reason?. Now she offers audio courses, teleseminars, and a home study course on? how to be happy.
Gary Vaynerchuck worked at his parent?s liquor store in New Jersey and is a self-taught wine expert. He went on to start WineLibrary.tv, an online wine webseries, and WineLibrary.com to sell wine online. Now he is a sought-after expert in social media and teaches companies how to build their brands online.
Ben Ford is a retired engineer who now sells e-books on how to build solar panels and wind farms. His sales generate more than $30,000 a week!
Susan Lassiter-Lyons was a former mortgage broker who closed her business in November 2008 after the ?Mortgage Meltdown?. She launched her digital information business and real estate investing blog in January 2009 based around her expertise in real estate investing and hit six figures in July 2009. ?She didn?t stop there ? now she?s well into the seven figures.
Let their stories bear witness that you don?t have to be well-known in order to market a successful info product. Third party online marketplaces like ClickBank.com make it easy for you.
ClickBank offers more than 50,000 digital products covering topics as diverse as how to manage menopause, how to get rock-hard abs, and how to build a solar panel! All these products have TWO things in common:
They are sold and delivered online
They are created by regular people just like you and me
How to Identify Your Expertise
Begin by taking an inventory of your knowledge:
-????????? What do people always ask you about?
-????????? What have you studied extensively?
-????????? Most Importantly: What do you love to do?
Once you?ve identified your specific message or body of knowledge that you wish to focus on, start brainstorming particularly pressing questions about that topic you can address in your info product.
As a useful info product hack, go to answers.yahoo.com and type your topic in the search bar. Each of the top questions that come up can be a chapter in your e-book! Write it in a Word doc and save as a PDF and there you have it! The first draft of your e-book.
Once you start getting fancy, have a designer format it and add graphics. If you don?t have easy access to a designer, use a freelance network like Elance.com or oDesk.com to help you find one.
With that product you will want to implement Susan?s three-step framework to really grow it into a profitable online business.
Remember, when creating an info product, identifying your expertise is the first and most crucial step. Choosing a topic that you aren?t passionate about will inevitably result in failure. Pick something you love to do and that you won?t mind putting some elbow grease into. Once you find that perfect topic, it will just flow ? I promise!
About the author...
Stephan Spencer ? who has written 1 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Stephan Spencer is author of Google Power Search (O'Reilly 2011) and co-author of The Art of SEO, now in its 2nd Edition (O'Reilly 2012). In 1999, Stephan founded leading SEO firm, Netconcepts and has been heavy into the science of SEO since then. In 2010, Netconcepts was acquired by software/services agency Covario. Stephan is also the inventor of the automated pay-for-performance natural search technology platform GravityStream (re-branded as RIO SEO Website Optimizer). He contributes to a vast array of publications, including The Huffington Post, Practical Ecommerce, MarketingProfs.com, Search Engine Land and Multichannel Merchant. Stephan regularly presents at industry events, including Shop.org, Internet Retailer and SMX, about SEO and other online marketing topics. He is on the advisory board of CrowdGather and holds an M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Physician entrepreneurs are key contributors to new medical devicesPublic release date: 16-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Connie Hughes connie.hughes@wolterskluwer.com 646-674-6348 Wolters Kluwer Health
New rules on financial relationships might slow medical innovation, suggests study in Medical Care
Philadelphia, Pa. (April 16, 2013) - Startup companies founded by physician entrepreneurs are an important source of patents used in developing innovative new medical devices, suggests a study in the May issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
"Device manufacturers gain more from the patents of physician-founded firms than from those of non-physician-founded firms in their subsequent invention and innovation efforts," according to the study by Sheryl Winston Smith, PhD, and Andrew Sfekas, PhD, of the Fox School of Business at Temple University, Philadelphia. They raise concern that too-strict policies on financial relationships with physicians could hinder innovation in the medical device industry.
Doctors Make Key Contributions to New Medical Devices
The researchers analyzed a total 170 premarket approval applications (PMAs) filed by four major medical device companies between 1978 and 2007. The study also included data on patent applications from 119 startup companiesall of which had received investment dollars from the medical device industry. All four device makers had active corporate venture capital programs during the study period.
Using a sophisticated text-matching algorithm, Drs Smith and Sfekas assessed the information contributed by physician-founded startup companies versus non-physician-founded startups. The study focused on class III medical devices: the highest-risk classification, requiring significant testing to prove device safety and effectiveness.
The two groups of startups produced roughly the same number of patents. However, patents from physician-founded startup companies were cited more heavily in the PMAs, compared to those from non-physician-startups. "On average physician-founded companies account for eleven percent of the information in PMAs, compared to four percent from non-physician-founded companies," Drs Smith and Sfekas write.
Two-thirds of PMAs overlapped by at least ten percent with patents from physician-founded startups, compared to about one-fourth with patents from non-physician startups. Of PMAs with at least twenty percent information from external sources, about 80 percent included information from physician-founded startups versus 40 percent from non-physician-funded startups.
Could New Rules Hinder Device Innovation?
Facing intense pressure for constant innovation, the medical device industry relies on corporate venture capital as a source of new ideas and patents. By assessing information overlap between PMAs and patents, the study algorithm helps in identifying which patents are more versus less important in developing successful new products. The results suggest that startup companies founded by physician entrepreneurs make uniquely important contributions to the development of new medical devices.
Historically, physicians have played a central role in the development process. Various types of financial relationships between physicians and medical device manufacturers are common, but are increasingly subject to policies regarding disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. These include the "sunshine provisions" of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, under which drug and medical device manufacturers are required to report any financial relationships they have with physicians.
The new findings raise concerns that, if conflict of interest rules are too tight, they could have the unintended effect of slowing the pace of new advances in the medical device industry. Drs Smith and Sfekas write, "[R]estrictions on financial relationships between providers and industry, while potentially improving patients' trust, may result in reduced medical innovation if physicians found fewer startups or if incumbent firms reduce investments in physician-founded startups."
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About Medical Care
Rated as one of the top ten journals in health care administration, Medical Care is devoted to all aspects of the administration and delivery of health care. This scholarly journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers documenting the most current developments in the rapidly changing field of health care. Medical Care provides timely reports on the findings of original investigations into issues related to the research, planning, organization, financing, provision, and evaluation of health services. In addition, numerous special supplementary issues that focus on specialized topics are produced with each volume. Medical Care is the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association
About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.
LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry.
Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2012 annual revenues of 3.6 billion ($4.6 billion).
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Physician entrepreneurs are key contributors to new medical devicesPublic release date: 16-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Connie Hughes connie.hughes@wolterskluwer.com 646-674-6348 Wolters Kluwer Health
New rules on financial relationships might slow medical innovation, suggests study in Medical Care
Philadelphia, Pa. (April 16, 2013) - Startup companies founded by physician entrepreneurs are an important source of patents used in developing innovative new medical devices, suggests a study in the May issue of Medical Care. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
"Device manufacturers gain more from the patents of physician-founded firms than from those of non-physician-founded firms in their subsequent invention and innovation efforts," according to the study by Sheryl Winston Smith, PhD, and Andrew Sfekas, PhD, of the Fox School of Business at Temple University, Philadelphia. They raise concern that too-strict policies on financial relationships with physicians could hinder innovation in the medical device industry.
Doctors Make Key Contributions to New Medical Devices
The researchers analyzed a total 170 premarket approval applications (PMAs) filed by four major medical device companies between 1978 and 2007. The study also included data on patent applications from 119 startup companiesall of which had received investment dollars from the medical device industry. All four device makers had active corporate venture capital programs during the study period.
Using a sophisticated text-matching algorithm, Drs Smith and Sfekas assessed the information contributed by physician-founded startup companies versus non-physician-founded startups. The study focused on class III medical devices: the highest-risk classification, requiring significant testing to prove device safety and effectiveness.
The two groups of startups produced roughly the same number of patents. However, patents from physician-founded startup companies were cited more heavily in the PMAs, compared to those from non-physician-startups. "On average physician-founded companies account for eleven percent of the information in PMAs, compared to four percent from non-physician-founded companies," Drs Smith and Sfekas write.
Two-thirds of PMAs overlapped by at least ten percent with patents from physician-founded startups, compared to about one-fourth with patents from non-physician startups. Of PMAs with at least twenty percent information from external sources, about 80 percent included information from physician-founded startups versus 40 percent from non-physician-funded startups.
Could New Rules Hinder Device Innovation?
Facing intense pressure for constant innovation, the medical device industry relies on corporate venture capital as a source of new ideas and patents. By assessing information overlap between PMAs and patents, the study algorithm helps in identifying which patents are more versus less important in developing successful new products. The results suggest that startup companies founded by physician entrepreneurs make uniquely important contributions to the development of new medical devices.
Historically, physicians have played a central role in the development process. Various types of financial relationships between physicians and medical device manufacturers are common, but are increasingly subject to policies regarding disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. These include the "sunshine provisions" of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, under which drug and medical device manufacturers are required to report any financial relationships they have with physicians.
The new findings raise concerns that, if conflict of interest rules are too tight, they could have the unintended effect of slowing the pace of new advances in the medical device industry. Drs Smith and Sfekas write, "[R]estrictions on financial relationships between providers and industry, while potentially improving patients' trust, may result in reduced medical innovation if physicians found fewer startups or if incumbent firms reduce investments in physician-founded startups."
###
About Medical Care
Rated as one of the top ten journals in health care administration, Medical Care is devoted to all aspects of the administration and delivery of health care. This scholarly journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers documenting the most current developments in the rapidly changing field of health care. Medical Care provides timely reports on the findings of original investigations into issues related to the research, planning, organization, financing, provision, and evaluation of health services. In addition, numerous special supplementary issues that focus on specialized topics are produced with each volume. Medical Care is the official journal of the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association
About Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is a leading international publisher of trusted content delivered in innovative ways to practitioners, professionals and students to learn new skills, stay current on their practice, and make important decisions to improve patient care and clinical outcomes.
LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry.
Wolters Kluwer Health is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with 2012 annual revenues of 3.6 billion ($4.6 billion).
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Apr. 15, 2013 ? Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere have decoded the genome of the platyfish, a cousin of the guppy and a popular choice for home aquariums.
Among scientists, the fish are meticulously studied for their tendency to develop melanoma and for other attributes more common to mammals, like courting prospective mates and giving birth to live young.
Known scientifically as Xiphophorus maculatus, platyfish sport a variety of spectacular colors -- brilliant oranges, yellows and a lovely iridescent silver -- and myriad striped and speckled patterns. And when melanomas develop, they are easy to spot, even to an untrained eye.
"In platyfish, melanomas typically develop as black splotches along the tail and fins," says senior author Wesley Warren, PhD, a geneticist at Washington University's Genome Institute. "These fish are an ideal model for exploring the many unknowns of cancer, including how, when and where it develops in the body as well as its severity."
Scientists at Washington University, the University of W?rzburg in Germany and Texas State University led an international team involved in sequencing and analyzing the platyfish genome. Their findings are available online in Nature Genetics.
"Now that we have the genome in hand, we can tease apart the way genes interact with one another to cause melanoma," says co-lead author Manfred Schartl, PhD, of the University of W?rzburg in Germany. "Just as in human melanoma, genes that play a role in pigment cells also influence the development of melanoma in platyfish."
The platyfish genome includes some 20,000 genes, roughly the same number found in the human genome. But unlike humans and other mammals, the chromosomes of the platyfish, like those in other fish, have remained remarkably intact over some 200 million years of evolution.
"It's very much a mystery as to why these chromosomes are so structurally similar among fish species over long time periods of evolution because they live in vastly different aquatic environments," says Warren.
The platyfish is a prolific breeder. But while most fish lay eggs, platyfish females give birth to live young, often in broods of more than 100.
Comparing the genes of platyfish to those in mice and other mammals that give birth to their young, the scientists found a number of altered genes in the fish involved in live-bearing birth.
"Surprisingly, we found that the platyfish retain some yolk-related genes typically found in fish that lay eggs to produce their offspring, and genes involved in placenta function and egg fertilization displayed unique molecular changes," says co-lead author Ron Walter, PhD, of Texas State University.
While humans are known for their higher-level thinking and behaviors, platyfish and other fish have evolved their own set of complex behaviors, like courting, schooling and avoiding predators that far exceed the abilities of amphibians, reptiles and other lower vertebrates. Looking through the platyfish genome, the researchers found a number of gene copies linked to cognition in humans and other mammals that could underlie these behaviors.
"These gene copies were retained at a high rate in the platyfish, which give them a chance to evolve different functions," Warren explains. "In this case, we believe the extra gene copies gave platyfish and other related fish the ability to develop more complex behaviors, which is unexpected for many lower-level vertebrates."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University School of Medicine.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Manfred Schartl, Ronald B Walter, Yingjia Shen, Tzintzuni Garcia, Julian Catchen, Angel Amores, Ingo Braasch, Domitille Chalopin, Jean-Nicolas Volff, Klaus-Peter Lesch, Angelo Bisazza, Pat Minx, LaDeana Hillier, Richard K Wilson, Susan Fuerstenberg, Jeffrey Boore, Steve Searle, John H Postlethwait, Wesley C Warren. The genome of the platyfish, Xiphophorus maculatus, provides insights into evolutionary adaptation and several complex traits. Nature Genetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2604
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Fires in Central AmericaPublic release date: 12-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
On April 11, 2013, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Mexico and Central America, and acquired this true-color image of dozens of fires burning across the region.
Fires dot the landscapes of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in this image. Each red mark that appears is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than the background which means that most likely those dots are fires.
As these dots appear in satellite images during April, the dry season and also planting season, these areas may either be wildfires that were caused by the dry, hot conditions or by lightning strikes, or they could be agricultural in nature. Fires are often set deliberately by farmers in order to clear out old crops and prepare the soil for new planting.
Also interesting in this image is the shiny, silver-toned band aligned in a north-to-south direction. It is sunglint the reflection of the Sun off the surface of the water.
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NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner
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Fires in Central AmericaPublic release date: 12-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
On April 11, 2013, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Mexico and Central America, and acquired this true-color image of dozens of fires burning across the region.
Fires dot the landscapes of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in this image. Each red mark that appears is an area where the thermal detectors on the MODIS instrument recognized temperatures higher than the background which means that most likely those dots are fires.
As these dots appear in satellite images during April, the dry season and also planting season, these areas may either be wildfires that were caused by the dry, hot conditions or by lightning strikes, or they could be agricultural in nature. Fires are often set deliberately by farmers in order to clear out old crops and prepare the soil for new planting.
Also interesting in this image is the shiny, silver-toned band aligned in a north-to-south direction. It is sunglint the reflection of the Sun off the surface of the water.
###
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Remember back in the day, when taking a photo meant lugging a bulky camera around your neck, making sure you had extra rolls of film, and that you were using the right aperture and f-stop? Then, if you were like my family, when the roll was full we'd put it in a desk drawer and wait until we had a couple of rolls before taking it to the store to be developed. Confession: sometimes months or even years later we'd find rolls of film that were forgotten, just taking up space in the back of a desk drawer. Sadly, even if the film could still be developed, a lot of our photos weren't nearly as good as we'd hoped.
Now, armed with just a smart phone we can take pictures of anything, anywhere and immediately see if we had enough light, the subject was in focus, etc. The ability to capture the everyday moments of my kids has probably made me a little snap happy. I sometimes end up with dozens of pictures of them just posing, playing in the yard, or even eating a meal.
At the moment I have hundreds of photos taken with my phone, just sitting there taking up memory. In the process of moving them to my Skydrive and deleting duplicates, I learned about a new app from Johnson & Johnson, where one photo can make a difference. The donate a photo app, is a free app (available on iOS or Android) that allows you to give back to one of three causes, by simply uploading a photo. And, if you take a lot of photos like me, you can donate one photo a day, every day!
For every photo you donate, Johnson & Johnson gives a $1 to the charity you choose*! As the campaign kicks off there are three charities you can choose from:
Safe Kids: One photo helps protect a child from a sports injury Keep America Beautiful: One photo helps restore a public park Save the Children: One photo helps a newborn get medicine to thrive
When a charity reaches its goal, a new one will be added to take its place! All donations must be made from your mobile device, but you can access the the experience (including a photo gallery, progress achieved for each charity, etc.) at Donate a Photo.
* Johnson & Johnson has curated a list of trusted causes, and you can donate a photo to one cause, once a day. Each cause will appear in the app until it reaches its goal, or the donation period ends. If the goal isn't reached, the cause will still get a minimum donation.
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Follow Kristin Barclay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Zanymomintx
Obesity has increasingly received public attention for being a major health issue in modern societies.? In 2010, more than one third of children and adolescents were overweight or obese.? Genes, environment, and behavior all contribute to developing obesity.? Now, researchers have identified four genes associated with severe childhood obesity and an increased burden of rare structural variations in severely obese children.
The researchers found that structural variations can delete sections of DNA that help to maintain protein receptors known to be linked in the regulation of weight.? They believe that these receptors could be targets for the development of new drugs against obesity.
Children with a severe case of obesity are more likely to have a strong genetic contribution.? The study is enhancing the understanding of how common and rare variants around certain types of genes are involved in severe childhood obesity.
?We?ve known for a long time that changes to our genes can increase our risk of obesity. For example, the gene FTO has been unequivocally associated with BMI, obesity and other obesity-related traits.? In our study of severely obese children, we found that variations in or near two of the newly associated genes seem to have a comparable or greater effect on obesity than the FTO gene: PRKCH and RMST,? Dr. Eleanor Wheeler, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, was quoted as saying.
The results showed that different genes can be associated with in severe childhood obesity compared to obesity in adults.? Rare genetic changes in LEPR, one of the newly associated genes, cause a severe fomr of early onset obesity.? A more common variant in this gene was identified.? It was found in six percent of the population.
Some children involved in the study had an increased number of structural variations of their DNA that delete G-protein coupled receptors, which are important in regulating weight.? They are key targets for drug development and may have therapeutic implications for obesity.
?Some children will be obese because they have severe mutations, but our research indicates that some may have a combination of severe mutations and milder acting variants that in combination contribute to their obesity.? As we uncover more and more variants and genetic links, we will gain a better basic understanding of obesity, which in turn will open doors to areas of clinically relevant research,? Sadaf Farooqi, co-lead author and professor at the University of Cambridge, was quoted as saying.
The UK10K project team is now exploring all the genes of 1,000 children with severe obesity who have not had a diagnostic mutation found.?
?Our study adds evidence that a range of both rare and common genetic variants are responsible for severe childhood obesity,? Dr In?s Barroso, co-lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, was quoted as saying, ?This work brings us a step closer to understanding the biology underlying this severe form of childhood obesity and providing a potential diagnosis to the children and their parents.?
SOURCE: University of Cambridge and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
Provided by ArmMed Media
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Nuclear fusion, the energy source that fuels the sun and other active stars, could one day propel rockets that allow humans to go to Mars and back in 30 days, researchers say.
Fusion-powered rockets promise to solve problems of deep-space travel that have long plagued plans for manned missions to Mars ? long journeys, high costs and health risks, among them. Scientists at the University of Washington and a space-propulsion company named MSNW say they are getting to closer to creating a feasible fuel for travel to other planets.
"Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth," John Slough, a UW research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics, said in a statement. "We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making?interplanetary travel?commonplace."
Previous estimates have found that a roundtrip manned mission to Mars would require about 500 days of space travel. Slough, who is president of MSNW, and his colleagues calculated that a rocket powered by fusion would make 30- and 90-day expeditions to Mars possible.?The project is funded in part through NASA's?Innovative Advanced Concepts Program and received a second round of funding under the program in March.
For comparison, past NASA studies have centered on Mars flights that would take two years to complete, and could cost $12 billion just to launch the fuel needed for the mission, according to Slough's team.
Nuclear fusion?occurs when the nuclei of two or more atoms combine, resulting in a release of energy. The sun and other stars convert this energy into light, and the same process gives hydrogen bombs their destructive power.
But to use fusion to power a manned spacecraft, a more controlled process is needed.
Lab tests by Slough and his team suggest that nuclear fusion could occur by compressing a specially developed type of plasma to high pressure with a magnetic field. A sand-grain-sized bit of this material would have the same amount of energy as current rocket fuel, the team says.
To get this fuel to propel a rocket to?Mars, the team says a powerful magnetic field could be used to cause large metal rings (likely made of lithium) to collapse around the plasma material, compressing it to a fusion state, but only for a few microseconds. Energy from these quick fusion reactions would heat up and ionize the shell of metal formed by the crushed rings. The hot, ionized metal would be shot out of the rocket nozzle at a high speed. Repeating this process roughly every minute would propel the spacecraft, the researchers say.
Slough said the design is fairly straightforward. The next step of the team's work is to combine each of the isolated tests they've already completed successfully into a final experiment that produces fusion using this technology.
"We hope we can interest the world with the fact that fusion isn't always 40 years away and doesn't always cost $2 billion," Slough said in a statement.
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The open canoe, long embraced as the proud symbol of outdoor living, now sits abandoned and rotting away on many cottage properties.
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