Little Fanfare as Yahoo Leaves China

The announcement that Yahoo will close its Beijing office has had almost no impact on the digital community in China.

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/little-fanfare-as-yahoo-leaves-china_30.html

Lawn Care Services Offered on Amazon Soon

Could Amazon be the next place people go to hire a landscaper?

Starting today Monday March 30, small businesses in select markets nationwide will be able to offer services to customers through the eCommerce site up until now known mostly for selling products.

A report from TechCrunch notes that Amazon will re-launch its Amazon Local Services as Amazon Home Services.

The new service will allow businesses like plumbers, house painters, vehicle mechanics, and other service-based operations to sell their skills on Amazon.

The new Home Services can be viewed as direct competition to a site like Angie’s List, which also connects local service businesses with potential customers in need of their skills.

TechCrunch notes that Home Services predecessor Amazon Home Services, launched back in 2014 was originally dedicated primarily to services related to products Amazon sold. For example, Amazon might sell a customer a flat screen TV and then in some markets also offer the services of a handy man who would mount that TV to your wall.

But with the new service, the list of service providers is expected to expand. And companies offering services not related to Amazon products will be able to use Home Services as another platform to market their businesses and generate sales.

But indications are that Amazon will not add just any business to its service offerings on Home Services. The company will do screenings on companies before they allow them to sell their services through the e-retail site.

The expanded line of services purportedly will include things like auto repair, tech support help, interior decorating, and lawn care services offered. This is according to a list of services posted on an Amazon site believed to be tied to the new launch.

Here are the cities where Amazon is rolling out Home Services first: Miami, San Francisco, New York, Houston, Seattle, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose, Portland, Minneapolis, Detroit, Denver, Riverside, Tampa, Orlando, Austin, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Cincinnati, Charlotte, and St. Louis.

And offering services through Amazon comes with another little hitch.

Businesses signing up to become part of the Home Services program should be aware that the eCommerce giant will be taking its cut, as always.

For every standard service provided via an online sale, Amazon will take 20 percent of the sale price. For customized services, Amazon takes 15 percent. Amazon takes a 10 percent cut on any recurring services purchases, according to the company’s site.

Image: Amazon Web Services

This article, “Lawn Care Services Offered on Amazon Soon” was first published on Small Business Trends

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/lawn-care-services-offered-on-amazon.html

Will You Jump at the Chance? BlackBerry Leap Pre-orders Begin

On Monday, March 30, BlackBerry announced the new BlackBerry Leap will be open for pre-orders. Pre-orders will be available in five regions but supplies will be limited. Blackberry did not announce just how many phones are available so if you are interested you might not want to wait.

Currently availability is only offered for the US, UK, Germany, France, and Canada. For buyers in France pre-orders already started on March 26. Pre-orders will begin in the US, UK, and Germany starting on March 30. Unfortunately for interested parties in Canada a pre-order date has yet to be announced.

The Blackberry Leap features a 5-inch HD display that is all-touch instead of the more common keyboard that Blackberry phones typically feature.

With a listed pre-order price of $275 the Blackberry Leap falls under the affordable smartphone category. However carriers will be limited. The Leap will not work on Verizon, Sprint, or US Cellular networks.

Image: Blackberry

This article, “Will You Jump at the Chance? BlackBerry Leap Pre-orders Begin” was first published on Small Business Trends

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/will-you-jump-at-chance-blackberry-leap.html

The Promised Land: Cocaine And Faith In The Amazon (Full Length)

	The Promised Land: Cocaine And Faith In The Amazon (Full Length) Peru is now the world’s main supplier of coca, the raw plant material used to manufacture cocaine. In the last five years, coca production has grown the most in the tri-border region, an area deep in the Amazon where Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet. The tri-border region is home to a messianic sect with apocalyptic beliefs whose members dress in biblical robes. Known as “Israelites,” the religious group migrated to the Peruvian Amazon in 1995 in search of a promised land that’s now infested with coca plantations. VICE News traveled to Alto Monte de Israel, the sacred land of the Israelites, to meet them and understand how they cope with the existence of coca crops on their land, and whether they’re involved in the drug trade. Watch “Peru: The New King of Coke” – http://bit.ly/1zchU6u Inside the Peruvian Sect Accused of Growing Coca in the Amazon – http://bit.ly/1GGRfRe Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideos	From: VICE News Views: 124 7 ratings
	Time: 26:13	More in News & Politics

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-promised-land-cocaine-and-faith-in_30.html

Why You Should Use Credit Reports to Vet B2B Customers

You probably wouldn’t dream of loaning large amounts of money without credit information on the borrower, right?

But do you pull credit reports on the companies with whom you do business?

The comparison is clear enough: In business-to-business transactions, credit is often extended directly or indirectly.

A baker who delivers to restaurants with “net 30″ terms can have thousands of dollars in bread out there while he waits a month for payment.

A roofing contractor can pay out thousands in employee wages on a project long before he collects anything more than a deposit for materials.

Yet, despite the fact that they’re routinely extending credit in a major way, many small business owners don’t use credit reports. Matthew Debbage, president of U.S. operations for Creditsafe, Inc., a business credit reporting bureau, says that half of the company’s new customers have never used a credit report.

So what kinds of small businesses should use credit reports to vet their customers? Just about all of them, according to Debbage. In an interview with Small Business Trends, he explains:

“Obviously key industries are those that exist and work in a supply chain, and so have business suppliers and customers – transportation and wholesale are good examples … The only businesses that don’t have to worry about them are those that work in industries where everyone always gets paid on time and nobody ever goes bankrupt.”

Why the Hesitancy to Use Business Credit Reports?

Debbage says a typical comment he hears is, “Well, they’re not for people like me because our company is so small.”

He also says many small business owners don’t even know business credit reports exist, and others think they’re too expensive or difficult to understand.

Are They Expensive?

If you don’t need them very often, you can pull a single business credit report from an online provider. Dun and Bradstreet, for example, offers options that include their “Credit eValuator Plus Report” for $61.99. They allow you to do a company search before paying so you know they have the necessary report available (and they claim to have credit reports on “millions of companies”).

Other online providers include Experian and Equifax.

Creditsafe handles only B2B reports and sells a subscription. Rather than pay for each report separately, your subscription gives you unlimited access.

Asked, as an example, how much an air-conditioning company that grosses $500,000 annually would have to pay to run credit reports on customers, Debbage explained the cost would typically be around $100 a month.

Are They Difficult to Understand?

The example reports Dun and Bradstreet have on their website make it clear that credit reports are getting easier to read for the average user. Debbage touts the “ease of use” of Creditsafe’s reports as well, adding, “While they contain all the data an experienced user would need, they can be quickly understood by the time-pressed non-expert user.”

Here’s his description of the process a small business owner goes through to get a credit report:

1. Open a subscription.
2. Go to the website and log in.
3. Search for and select the company.
4. View the report.

How Do Customers Feel About Them?

But how will your customers feel about having a credit report pulled? It turns out that your customers will never know the difference.

Unlike with credit inquiries for individuals, with business credit reports you don’t need a signed authorization from anyone.

So will your customers mind? “Since nobody knows when a report is taken on them (in the B2B world) the answer is no,” Debbage says.

Is Your Business Ready to Start?

If your business sells products or services and doesn’t collect payment at the time of delivery, you can probably benefit from using credit reports.

Like many small business owners, you might be unaware that trouble is coming until an invoice isn’t paid, when it could be too late to collect. That’s a situation business owners can prevent, as Debbage explains:

“If they had accessed a credit report first, they would have seen that their customer had begun taking longer to pay bills or had been hit with a legal judgment. Having that type of information allows a small business to take steps before a slow-paying customer has morphed into a non-paying customer.”

Even small businesses can have customers who owe them thousands of dollars. Preventing non-payment on one such account would pay for years of business credit reports. That makes them worth considering.

Credit Report Photo via Shutterstock

This article, “Why You Should Use Credit Reports to Vet B2B Customers” was first published on Small Business Trends

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/why-you-should-use-credit-reports-to.html

Coca Invades The Rainforest: Cocaine And Faith In The Amazon (Part 2)

	Coca Invades The Rainforest: Cocaine And Faith In The Amazon (Part 2) Watch Part 1: http://bit.ly/1EUJy80 Watch Part 3: http://bit.ly/1Ed0Hwd Peru is now the world’s main supplier of coca, the raw plant material used to manufacture cocaine. In the last five years, coca production has grown the most in the tri-border region, an area deep in the Amazon where Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet. The tri-border region is home to a messianic sect with apocalyptic beliefs whose members dress in biblical robes. Known as “Israelites,” the religious group migrated to the Peruvian Amazon in 1995 in search of a promised land that’s now infested with coca plantations. VICE News traveled to Alto Monte de Israel, the sacred land of the Israelites, to meet them and understand how they cope with the existence of coca crops on their land, and whether they’re involved in the drug trade. In part two of a three-part series: Coca has begun to grow in the Amazon basin near where the messianic sect known as the Israelites have settled, and Brazilian authorities have their suspicions that members of the sect have become involved in the area’s growing drug trade. Watch “Peru: The New King of Coke” – http://bit.ly/1zchU6u Read “Meet the Man Helping Peru’s Foreign Drug Mules Get Home” – http://bit.ly/1qT9i1j Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideos	From: VICE News Views: 48351 354 ratings
	Time: 08:47	More in News & Politics

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/coca-invades-rainforest-cocaine-and_30.html

Optimizing Your Brand Performance on Shopping Ads

Utilizing shopping campaign priorities allows us to bid differently on brand searches compared to other less intent-driven generic searches.

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/optimizing-your-brand-performance-on_30.html

The Harsh Reality of Oil Spill Cleanups (Excerpt from ‘Pipeline Nation’)

	The Harsh Reality of Oil Spill Cleanups (Excerpt from ‘Pipeline Nation’) Watch the full documentary: http://bit.ly/1EG1HE1 A pipeline network more than 2.5 million miles long transports oil and natural gas throughout the United States — but a top official in the federal government’s pipeline safety oversight agency admits that the regulatory process is overstretched and “kind of dying.” A recent spike in the number of spills illustrates the problem: the Department of Transportation recorded 73 pipeline-related accidents in 2014, an 87 percent increase over 2009. Despite calls for stricter regulations over the last few years, the rules governing the infrastructure have largely remained the same. Critics say that this is because of the oil industry’s cozy relationship with regulators, and argue that violations for penalties are too low to compel compliance. VICE News traveled to Glendive, Montana, to visit the site of a pipeline spill that dumped more than 50,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River, to find out why the industry has such weak regulatory oversight. In this excerpt, VICE News heads to the site of the Yellowstone River pipeline spill where the EPA’s Onsite Coordinator talks about the difficulties of recovering oil once it’s polluted the water, and whether pipe degradation has contributed to the increase in pipeline spills across the United States. Watch “Cursed by Coal: Mining the Navajo Nation” – http://bit.ly/1Gpy0cS Read “What Is the US Government Doing to Prevent the Next Oil Pipeline Disaster?“ – http://bit.ly/19KYgnM0 Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideos	From: VICE News Views: 14643 181 ratings
	Time: 02:37	More in News & Politics

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-harsh-reality-of-oil-spill-cleanups_30.html

Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou On Life In Prison (Trailer)

	Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou On Life In Prison (Trailer) In 2007, John Kiriakou became the first Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official to publicly confirm that agency interrogators waterboarded a high-value detainee, terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah — a revelation that had previously been a closely guarded secret. Five years after this unauthorized disclosure to ABC News, the veteran CIA officer pleaded guilty to leaking to journalists the identity of certain individuals who were involved with the CIA’s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Group. He was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison. VICE News caught up with Kiriakou for a wide-ranging interview just a few days after he was released from prison. He detailed how his CIA training became a technique for survival behind bars, and how the government turned him into a “dissident.” Watch “The Architect” – http://bit.ly/1IKnChi Read “The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion” – http://bit.ly/1G9jc3z Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideos	From: VICE News Views: 17 1 ratings
	Time: 00:38	More in News & Politics

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/ex-cia-officer-john-kiriakou-on-life-in.html

Emphasis Added: The Media and The Islamic State

	Emphasis Added: The Media and The Islamic State Emphasis Added on VICE News brings together a group of journalists, academics and other smart folks to argue about the role the media play in actually effecting the outcome of the stories they cover. Hosted by VICE News Editor-in-Chief Jason Mojica (https://twitter.com/elmodernisto), our first episode examines media coverage of the Islamic State. We want to hear from you: Did the media fail or succeed in covering the Islamic State? Do you think the media should have shown propaganda videos released by the Islamic State? Let us know your questions on Twitter with the hashtag #EmphasisAdded, or send us a video message on Skype. To leave a Skype video message, follow the instructions here: http://bit.ly/1NOXkOC Joining us live for our first episode: Steven Livingston (https://twitter.com/ICTlivingston): Professor of Media and Public Affairs, The George Washington University Santiago Lyon (https://twitter.com/slyon66): Vice President and Director of Photography, The Associated Press Lina Khatib (https://twitter.com/LinaKhatibCMEC): Director, Carnegie Middle East Center Phil Chetwynd (https://twitter.com/philchet): Editor-in-Chief, Agence France-Presse Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News Check out VICE News for more: http://vicenews.com Follow VICE News here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicenews Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/vicenews More videos from the VICE network: https://www.fb.com/vicevideos	From: VICE News Views: 73625 641 ratings
	Time: 53:09	More in News & Politics

from Blogger http://evangelinagius.blogspot.com/2015/03/emphasis-added-media-and-islamic-state_30.html