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by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News
A Penn State Medical School epidemiological study, reported by Science Daily, is urging physicians to not prescribe statin drugs for Parkinson's disease symptoms. Evidently, due to earlier studies, cholesterol reducing drugs were considered preventative of Parkinson's disease.
Amazingly, this practice had been going on for some time, thanks to several questionable, and conflicting studies of statin use and Parkinson's disease. The most recent study was conducted at the Penn State College of Medicine earlier this year (2017.)
Their conclusion asserts that statin drugs should not be used as a Parkinson's disease (PD) preventative. A previous study claimed patients who stopped taking statin drugs were more prone to Parkinson's disease, thus statin drugs were helpful for preventing Parkinson's.
The Penn State study provided evidence that the opposite is true. Statin drug use can lead to Parkinson's disease.
Understanding Parkinson's Disease (PD)
Parkinson's disease was named after British apothecary James Parkinson, who published "An Essay on the Shaking Palsy" in 1817.
The shaking palsy was not a new phenomenom, but it had not been categorized yet as a disease. There is historical evidence that shaking palsy has been around since ancient times.
Parkinson's disease is a progressive central nervous system disease with a prognosis of worsening symptoms. It is marked by uncontrollable tremors that often start with one hand, rigid muscles, slow sometimes halting movement, and imprecise motor control.
PD affects those aged over 60 and middle aged more than other age groups. But it can strike younger men and women also. It is associated with a deficiency of the neurotransmitter dopamine due to damaged and degenerated ganglia.
The ganglia is a lower part of the brain that connects to the upper spinal cord central nervous system. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter generally involved with memory, pleasurable reward feelings, cognition, attention, and behavior. Ganglia dopamine focuses more on physical movement.
Parsing the Parkinson's Study Statin Use Quandary
The Penn State researchers worked and corresponded with other researchers in other states to arrive at a conclusion that contradicted an earlier 2013 Taiwan study, which was often referenced as a guideline for secondary uses of statin drugs to inhibit Parkinson's disease.
That study concluded those who stopped taking fat-soluble statins were 58 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those who kept taking the drugs. But this 58 percent comparison was based on comparing users of fat soluble statin drugs to water soluble statin drugs, not those who stopped taking statin drugs all together.
Taiwan's public health system requires doctors to stop prescribing statin drugs upon reaching specific target levels of reduced cholesterol levels.
Study author Jou-Wei Lin, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Taiwan University in Taipei claimed Taiwan's statin prescription policy "Allowed us to see whether there was any difference in the risk of Parkinson's in people who stopped taking statins compared to the ones who kept taking them."
Their conclusion was based on the fact that fat soluble statin drugs are more able to penetrate the blood brain barrier. Because Parkinson's disease occurrences were 58 percent higher among those who were no longer prescribed water soluble statins than those who were taking fat soluble statins.
Therefore, that research team concluded that statin drugs are helpful at lowering Parkinson's disease risks. (Source)
That seems a conclusion worth revisiting and re-examination.
Some of the recent 2017 Penn State study researchers had been involved with an earlier (2015) study that easily demonstrated people with higher cholesterol readings were at lower risk for Parkinson's than folks with low cholesterol readings. (Study Source)
This is no surprise to those of us who know the importance of cholesterol for building brain cells and the central nervous system's protective myelin sheath, a fatty substance that also facilitates neuron communications.
Reducing cholesterol also reduces the materials needed for a fully functioning brain and protected nervous system.
The current 2017 Penn State study's data analysis found that prior statin use was associated with a higher risk of Parkinson's disease and was more noticeable during the start of the drug use. Penn State assistant professor of public health sciences, Guodong Liu, stated:
Statin use was associated with higher, not lower, Parkinson's disease risk, and the association was more noticeable for lipophilic [fat soluble] statins, an observation inconsistent with the current hypothesis that these statins protect nerve cells. In addition, this association was most robust for use of statins less than two-and-a-half years, suggesting that statins may facilitate the onset of Parkinson's disease. (Source)
Studies Based on False Premises Have False Outcomes
Unfortunately, many doctors are probably not aware of this latest research or the previous 2015 Penn State study that showed people with higher cholesterol were at lower risk for PD (discussed earlier).
As usual, the Penn State researchers were sure to advise taking statins as directed by their physicians as long as they were not taking them with the idea of preventing Parkinson's disease (PD).
What is usually ignored by mainstream medical research is the importance of cholesterol for several health factors, especially neurological. In addition to rising PD symptoms, many statin users stop taking statins due to symptoms of memory loss and Alzheimer's disease.
The risk for neurological disease using statin drugs is not worth using drugs which have been proven to not prevent heart disease, but can increase the risk of heart failure. Yet, the bogus cholesterol theory of cholesterol from dietary saturated fat causing heart disease persists.
Learn More About Cholesterol
Learn More About Statin Drugs
Comment on this article at HealthImpactNews.com.


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Stress. Stress sucks. Stress has now contributed to mood instability for a while, with today being a breaking point. Just too much physical pain combined with personal, family and work stress. Nothing over the top by itself – well, one is – but all combined I'm overwhelmed.
I want to check out. I need a break. What I probably need is a vacation, not a hospital stay. But vacation is out of the question financially.
It's not that I'm trying to work myself up to the point that I need to be hospitalized. It's more that I'm paying attention to signals and trying to utilize skills to defuse or tolerate painful emotions so that I'm not at the point of thinking death is the only option. It's hard not to think it's an option when life feels so stressful and there is no way to lessen the stressors. Sometimes life just sucks. I get that. I've known that deep in my bones for a very long time. Since bipolar blossomed and took over my life, deep depression and inability to see a way out sends me anxiously to the hospital for suicidal ideation when I get so overwhelmed.
So – how do I reduce stress? How do I find options so that I don't think there ARE no options? Life's stress is overwhelming right now. Breathing, mindfulness, tolerating distress, using rational responses – these are not getting at the root causes and essentially are band-aid approaches to get through painful moments. Not denigrating them, and there are times and places for them, especially when emotions are running high over normal life stresses. Life stressors are WAAAYYY too much right now, by anyone's standards. I need help.

subset: commoncrawl


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Each of the 30 baseball teams in the MLB plays 162 games per season. That's a lot of matchups. And, it's the very reason some say the sport doesn't get exciting until the actual World Series playoffs. That's also the reason why you don't often see celebrities in the stands until October each year.
Regardless of how you feel about the baseball season, we can all agree that right now is an exciting time for the sport itself. And, as this writer mourns the final hours of the Boston Red Sox as the reigning 2013 World Series champs, she also welcomes the title's successor.
Game six of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals is tonight at 8 p.m. EST on Fox. Until then, check out how celebs are rooting for their teams.
Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis share a kiss after a Royals win. We applaud her use of emojis, here.
Kansas City fans. I ran into @RobLowe and I shook throats with him. It's all good now. He's a nice fella. pic.twitter.com/VB0UrQw98J— Eric Stonestreet (@ericstonestreet) October 26, 2014
Eric Stonestreet and Rob Lowe illustrate their friendly(?) rivalry.
Kimye meets Barry Bonds, former left fielder for the Giants.
Oh, and Paul Rudd celebrated Kansas City's win that got them to the World Series by inviting everyone to a party at his mom's house. She's out of town. He's got a keg. Bring five bucks.


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Call for Entries
SlowExposures is the nationally-recognized juried photography exhibition that underscores the diversity, contradictions and complexity of the rural American South. Now in our ninth year, we invite photographers to submit their work.
SlowExposures is held during the last two weekends in September. Located an hour from Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson airport in the rural countryside of west central Georgia, the show is renowned for its intimate, relaxed environment where photographers and photography lovers from across the county gather to learn, share, and have fun. This year, our jurors Elisabeth Biondi and Peter Essick will join our 2011 faculty of professionals to offer cutting edge workshops, presentations, reviews and consultations.
Elisabeth Biondi has served as Visuals Director at The New Yorker magazine since 1996, helping to transform the look of the publication by collecting a group of impressive staff photographers and commissioning established masters as well as emerging talent, and utilizing portrait, fine art and documentary photography. Her earlier work at GEO, Stern and Vanity Fair has established her credentials as an accomplished, innovative professional in the field.
Peter Essick: For the past 25 years Peter has worked as a freelance photojournalist since studying photojournalism at the University of Missouri. Traveling to all seven continents in search of compelling pictures, he has produced 35 stories for National Geographic magazine. His story on story on nuclear waste (2002) won first prize at World Press Photos in Amsterdam.
Peter's images have been included in the Photography, Man and the Environment exhibit at Viterbo, Italy, the exhibit Thy Brothers' Keeper at the Flint Institute of the Arts, Michigan and a one-man exhibit at Lumiere Gallery in Atlanta. In April 2005, Outdoor Photographer magazine featured his efforts to photograph the effects of global warming. These images were seen on The Oprah Show, This Morning with George Stephanopolis and in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth. His images have been in Time magazine's Great Images of the 20th Century and the 100 Best Photographs of National Geographic. An exhibit of my landscape photographs was recently shown at Lumière Gallery in Atlanta.
How to Enter: Please visit our website SlowExposures for details. Deadline June 15th.


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Church Accounting Software - QuickBooks for Church or Religious organisation
Like any other organisation, QuickBooks helps Church to organise their financial records so that leaders or decision makers can monitor the financial trend of their organisations.
Part of QuickBooks for Church tutorials has been treated under QuickBooks for non-profitorganisation.
All you need to do as the financial secretary is to track all your revenue sources – from Church offerings, giving, donations, Pledges, Building funds, Seminar registration, missionary support and other fund raising initiatives.
The expense channels are not different from a small business expenses. You can refer to my tutorials on how to record business expenses in QuickBooks
What you need to do is to integrate all these listed items and categorize them under income account.
To add each of these items in QuickBooks, click List on the menu and select Item List.
Follow my post on how to add new items in QuickBooks to learn how add your offerings, donations, members' giving etc.
Fill the details as shown above.
Leave the Rate box and Sales VAT code blank - this is because church or religious organisations as NGO's do not have fixed price rate on their items and are exempted from tax respectively.
Use this procedure to add your core revenue channels.
Managing your Members
You can record your members details in QuickBooks as your customers – refer to my post on how to add new customer in QuickBooks for complete details and add also see my post on how to add new employees in QuickBooks for guide on how to add your church workers' profile
Recording Pledges:
Pledges like an invoice helps you to view summary of outstanding balances for a specific income – whenever your members make a pledge, you can create an invoice for a revenue item so that QuickBooks will assign the amount pledged to that member and at the end help you view report on your members' outstanding balances.
You can also refer to my post on how to set up budget for quick guide on planning your next year financial estimates.
Use this tips to learn church accounting software - QuickBooks for church or NGO's.


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Caracas born pianist Clara Rodriguez is often described as an ambassador of Latin-American piano music, and this concert celebrates South American dances and French influence on the music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
In this concert, mixing solo piano works and chamber music, Clara Rodriguez, alongside three guest musicians, performs pieces of music for which she feels special affinity and affection.
Beginning with the delicate Suite Bergamasque by Claude Debussy, which includes the famous 'Clair de lune', she continues with the London première of Three Preludes by the young Venezuelan composer Mirtru Escalona in which innovative sounds are explored, creating a world of reflection.
Mirtru Escalona lives and works in Paris, has won an array of prizes and his music is in much demand worldwide.
Clara Rodriguez also gives a performance of Villa-Lobos's 'Hommage à Chopin', an exuberant portrait of Chopin's poetry and passion from the view point of the Amazonian composer.
Two large compositions by Astor Piazzolla also feature in the programme – 'Le Grand Tango', dedicated to Mstilav Rostropovich, and the 'Four Seasons of Buenos Aires' . These pieces are played alongside the French cellist Jordan Gregoris and the Russian violinist Ilya Movchan.
To end the evening Clara Rodríguez plays with fellow Venezuelan percussionist Wilmer Sifontes dances from Cuba and Venezuela, as well as a Bambuco and a Pasillo (London premières) by the Colombian composer Germán Darío Pérez .
'Clara Rodríguez has been recognised for some time now as the ideal pianist to perform Latin American composers, her performances are alive with vitality'. Jonathan Woolf, Music Web
'Playing with a passion that keeps her from coming up for air, she delivers the contemporary classic works with a fluidity and grace that takes things to a whole other level of the game. One of those players that makes you wonder how she can make so much sound all by herself, a South American piano playing gem' Chris Spector, Midwest Record


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In addition to now being open year-round, the Cornell Soil Health Test Lab has expanded its services, now offering in addition to Basic and Standard packages:
- Add-on tests for landscape, urban and high tunnel situations, including soluble salt, heavy metal and hot water soluble boron tests.
- Low-cost individual tests for potentially mineralizable nitrogen, soil texture, wet aggregate stability, available water capacity, active carbon, and bean root bioassay.
- A field penetrometer available for loan.
Visit the lab's webpage for more information, or contact contact Bob Schindelbeck, (607) 227-6055,firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Sean Paul Day and Mirna Borne In London Taxi Radio : Subject, The Apps.
By Mirna Borne / May 29, 2018/ Podcast, SPD at LTR/
Host this week @seanpaulday, Presenters, @mirnaborne
SPD discusses App regulation and criticises the taxi hailing apps for not applying conditions to prevent unsavories from accessing the platform.
A call for Apps to declare their hand and commit to being 'plying' Apps.
Does this put Plying 4 Hire back on the map ? In our opinion it should never have gone away.
SPD asks, what movie and what track would you take with you to a deserted island ?
Also, TAXIAPP, Taxileaks News-Desk and much more ….
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS | More
from Taxi Leaks https://ift.tt/2kvdPae
via IFTTT https://ift.tt/2GZQOVR https://ift.tt/UJT069


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The Department of Veterans Affairs is mandating overtime for claims processors in its regional offices across the country as part of its effort to bring down the backlog that has frustrated hundreds of thousands of veterans and infuriated members of Congress.
The VA called the overtime plan "a surge" that will specifically target high-priority claims of homeless veterans, those with financial hardships, the terminally ill, former prisoners of war, Medal of Honor recipients and vets filing Fully Developed Claims – those with all military medical and personnel records and private medical records.
"This increased overtime initiative will provide more veterans with decisions on their claims and will help us achieve our goal of eliminating the claims backlog," VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said in the announcement.
Under the directive some 10,000 disability claims processors will work a minimum of 20 hours of overtime each month through the end of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, according to officials. The VA did not say how much the additional hours will cost in all but pointed out that overtime funding is included in the annual operating budget.
Adding overtime to the mix of solutions for ending the backlog is a good thing, according to Garry J. Augustine, national service director for the Disabled American Veterans.
The VA last month announced plans to grant provisional compensation to tens of thousands of veterans whose claims have been languishing in the claims system for more than a year. With that move, raters can make a decision on compensation based on the available evidence in the veteran's file. With a provisional decision, the veteran then has a year to submit additional information to support a claim before the decision becomes final.
"These tools, in connection with letting [VA employees] do some overtime … is only a good thing," Augustine said. "From an advocate's perspective, anything they can do to move these claims is fine with us, as long as they do them right."
Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, was pleased with the overtime decision and said he hopes it helps reduce the backlog. But Shinseki's decision, Rieckhoff said in a statement, "clearly shows that there is much more the administration can do."
"Bringing the backlog down to zero will not be achieved piecemeal … Instead of chipping away around the edges, veterans need a comprehensive strategy," he said.
Rieckhoff said he sees no sign that the administration will bring together the VA, the Defense Department and other agencies to deal with the structural problems at the root of the backlog. IAVA, along with a dozen other veterans' organizations and a number of lawmakers, have been pushing the White House to get directly involved in resolving the problem.


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Sunday, December 9, 2018
No events today
Monday, December 10, 2018
Small Business Summit Time: 4:00p - 9:00p Location: Morgan State University Student Center 1700 East Cold Spring lane Baltimore, MD 21251 Details:
Hosted By: The Maryland Bankers Community Reinvestment Group and Morgan State University
This summit will give small business owners the tools and resources to assist in starting and growing existing businesses.
This free Summit will feature:
- Speed Networking with Business Consultants
- Meet Procurement Officers Government and Private Industry Leaders
- One on One Session with a Credit Counselor
- Panel Discussion on Alternative forms Capital
- Workshop Sessions: Access to Capital; Manage Your Credit Personal and Business
- Social Media and Marketing
To register and review the event schedule, click here
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Ready Set Go! The Nuts & Bolts of Starting a Business Time: 1:30p - 4:00p Location: Rockville Library 21 Maryland Avenue Rockville, MD 20850 Details:
Hosted By: Small Busienss Development Center
This FREE workshop is for those who are interested in starting their first business, but want to find out more information on what to expect before they begin their first business. Our experienced business consultants will share with you everything to anticipate when starting a new business including, information on the legal and licensing requirements, the business plan, the different financing options, preparing a marketing strategy and all the perks and drawbacks that come with the life of an entrepreneur. (Open Session -2.5hrs.) FREE!
Building a Successful Business Plan Time: 6:30p - 9:00p Location: Leonardtown College of Southern Maryland 22950 Hollywood Road Details:
Hosted By: Small Business Development Center
This program is essential both for the start-up business owner and for the entrepreneur who is preparing to expand a successful business. Seminar leaders will discuss strategic planning, marketing, administration, personnel, finance, and accounting. You will learn to develop an effective business plan to manage your business; to create a marketing action plan that will help you to achieve your sales goals; to prepare financial projections; and to use financial information to make better and more informed decisions. The business plan is the single most important factor in a lender's decision-making process. Make sure your business plan will generate the financing you need and provide the strategies to ensure you will be successful.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
8(a) Government Certification Time: 9:30a - 12:30p Location: MD Center for Entrepreneurship 9250 Bendix Road Columbia, MD 21045 Details:
Hosted By: Small Business Development Center
Do you want to do business with the federal government? Did you know obtaining a federal certification can increase your chances of being awarded a federal government contract? Do you wonder whether your company would be eligible, and if so what the process is to apply for 8a certification? Agencies spend over $600 billion dollars in federal procurement annually and have a 23% small business goal. The SBTDC's 8(a) Certification workshop provides information on how small businesses can better position themselves to compete more effectively in the federal marketplace. Our subject matter expert on the 8(a) certification process will review this business development program and discuss the many federal set-aside opportunities available.
The workshop will provide information on the following:
- Eligibility requirements
- Benefits of the program
- Application process
- After approval, business development assistance available
- Overview on how set-aside contracts are awarded
Thursday, December 13, 2018
I-495 & I-270 P3 Program Industry Forum Time: 8:00a - 12:00p Location: 1739 W. Nursery Road Linthicum Heights, MD 21090 Details:
Hosted By: Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT-SHA)
The I-495 and I-270 P3 Program will include improvements for over 70 miles of I-495 and I-270 in Maryland. MDOT is currently considering delivering the P3 Program as a series of long-term design-build-finance-operate-maintain revenue risk concessions. Each concession would encompass a portion of the I-495 and I-270 P3 Program and be solicited in phases.
The Industry Forum is a half-day event where MDOT will present the status of the I-495 and I-270 P3 Program and includes an opportunity for developers and prime contractors to engage with firms including small, disadvantaged, minority and women-owned businesses in the P3 solicitation process.
Individual professionals are required to register for the event.
We look forward to a productive and successful event at MDOT's I-495 & I-270 P3 Program Industry Forum?. If you have questions about the Industry Forum or the registration process, please email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Separately from the Industry Forum, MDOT-SHA is offering qualified P3 firms opportunities for one-on-one meetings on December 13 and 14. Information regarding the qualification requirements and process to request a meeting can be found in the Pre-Solicitation Information Memo (PIM), which is available online 495-270-p3.com/p3-information/resources.
Smart Start Your Business Workshop Time: 1:00p - 5:00p Location: 7100 Baltimore Avenue Suite 401 College Park, MD 20740 Details:
Hosted By: Small Business Development Center
The Smart Start Your Business workshop is one in a series of three workshops highly recommended for new start-up businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs. Learn how to avoid common pitfalls, explore the feasibility of your idea and increase chances for success!
Professional presentations will be made by an attorney, an accountant, a banker and an insurance professional. Discover how to:
- Legally define your business and register your business name.
- Keep proper financial records and report taxes.
- Assess the insurance requirements needed to safeguard your business and personal assets.
- Evaluate alternatives for accessing investment and working capital
Knowledge is power in the business arena. So as you begin your business venture, be sure you are prepared with the facts and resources needed to legally run and successfully compete in your industry. To assist you, the Smart Start workshop also reviews relevant Maryland business law and provides an overview of the marketing resources available through the Corridor Region SBDC.
Friday, December 14, 2018
No events today
Saturday, December 15, 2018
No events today


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Ian Sample, "Massive: The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science" (Basic Books, 2010)
Document Type
Publication Date
Journal, Book or Conference Title
New Books Network
You've probably read about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It's the largest (17 miles around!), most expensive (9 billion dollars!) scientific instrument in history. What's it do? It accelerates beams of tiny particles (protons) to nearly the speed of light and then smashes them into one another. That's cool, you say, but why? Well, the simple answer is this: it was built to test the validity of the way most physicists understand the origins and essence of everything, that is, the "standard model."
You see, the standard model has a big gap in it: it can't explain why certain essential particles have mass. In the 1960s, however, a group of theoretical physicists proposed an answer. These massive particles, they said, were bathed in a dense, universal field of other particles, now called "Higgs bosons." The field gives them mass. To draw an analogy (always a dangerous thing to do in physics...), particles like protons have mass for the same reason straws stand up in milkshakes--they are "packed in," so to say. The trouble, to continue this awkward analogy, is that no one has ever "seen" the milkshake. The scientists working at the LHC are trying to find it. If they do, the standard model remains standard and Nobel Prizes all 'round. If not, well, back to the drawing board.
Ian Sample does a masterful job of telling the tale of the quest for the Higgs boson (aka the "God particle") in his new book Massive: The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science (Basic Books, 2010). You don't need to know a thing about physics (though the author clearly does) to enjoy it. Sample has a talent for explaining things that are often obscured by mathematics (a kind of crutch, I think, for many scientists) in straightforward English prose. This skill, combined with the fact that Sample is a great storyteller with a great story to tell, make Massive an excellent read. You may not have liked science in school, but trust me when I say you'll very much enjoy the history of science in the hands of Ian Sample.
Copyright © 2011 New Books In History


text: What is your rousing or uplifting identity that tells others who you are? Maybe you want others to know your call in life or maybe your cause? I want others to see how I try to live like Christ spoke the Truth because He was the Truth speaking. I want Christ to be my anthem. I may hit a wrong note at times but the conviction of my heart sets me back on track. I write & illustrate kids books because the anthem of #BookerWeed is sharing with kids that no matter what's happening at home, their neighborhood, or with their friends they have what it takes to make #goodchoices.


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How to Measure Social Media Advertising September 27, 2010Posted by David Card in Uncategorized.
Tags: analysts, HitWise, Nielsen Media Research
add a comment
Recent stories about social networking companies and third-party data suppliers highlight a key challenge currently facing social media: advertising measurement. Facebook cut some beta features out of its measurement tools for advertisers; Twitter said it would offer an analytics dashboard for the first time. Meanwhile, traffic tracker comScore introduced a new social media monitoring service and news leaked about a new metric from Nielsen.
Companies that best address the social advertising measurement challenge will be the ones to get more of what eMarketer says will be $2.1 billion in U.S. spending next year. How? Opportunistic suppliers will thrive by better measuring the unique characteristics of this new advertising medium and translating those metrics into ones that complement traditional media-buying.
What Social Media Adds to Advertising Analysis
In traditional media, day-to-day brand advertising measurement is about tracking efficiency in buying ad space. Advertisers usually measure brand objectives like increased preference or loyalty after the fact. And they tend to do marketing mix modeling — comparing the effect of different media on sales as well as brand objectives — rarely, due to cost and complexity.
Social media experiences, on the other hand, lend themselves to brand advertising rather than direct marketing techniques. Most advertisers use ads on social networks to raise awareness and consideration, rather than for direct conversion to sales.
And while most traditional advertising measurement concepts are applicable to social media — demographics, reach, frequency, duration, brand "halo effects," etc. — there are three things truly unique to social media advertising:
- Explicit preference. Whether it's Facebook Likes or Twitter followers, social media properties offer marketers the chance to observe users' self-professed preferences rather than relying on implied or survey-determined preference, or on actual purchase behavior.
- Advocacy and pass-along. Beyond preference, social media enables consumers to post reviews and recommendations and act as influencers for advertisers. Of course, viral word-of-mouth exists offline, but social media greases the wheels and accelerates it.
- Real-time feedback. Social media enables marketers and brands to take the pulse of their customers and prospects in real-time, where traditional media has to rely on slower market research techniques.
Social media marketers waste a lot of time debating "engagement." Some studies hint that marketing messages experienced on social networks engender better recall or brand affinity than those in other forms of media. But that idea doesn't differ much from what happens in traditional media, where advertisers choose which magazine or TV show runs their spot for context as well as audience type.
Where's the Opportunity?
Marketers can get some of those traditional and social metrics mentioned above from the social media companies where they happen, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, etc. But agencies and third-party tools like Google Analytics, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, WPP's Cymfony, Radian6 and others do a better job at aggregation and comparison. Social media properties that support and integrate those third-party tools will get more than their fair share of ad dollars, particularly if they can help agencies demonstrate those three aforementioned social attributes for campaigns and long-term marketing programs.
What's lacking that social media players and measurement companies need to provide?
- Benchmarks. Companies can track their own progress in achieving effective advertising. But advertisers would loosen their purse-strings faster if there were standard measures for things like how often a social user should see an ad before it becomes ineffective or the value of a follower versus that of a casual visitor. Case studies will have to suffice for the moment.
- Currency. Likewise, there's no single ratings currency online — let alone in social media — to fill the role of Nielsen ratings for television or ABC circulation data for magazines. Fragmentation remains across Nielsen, comScore, Hitwise and others.
- Cross-media comparisons. In theory, Nielsen is best positioned to deliver something like a gross ratings point that would be comparable across TV and online, enabling media planners and buyers to compare the efficiency of different properties. But industry inertia, expense, panel inconsistencies and new TV data from set-top boxes have distracted or slowed Nielsen so far.
Related Research: Multiple Models for Social Media Businesses
Question of the week
The Age of the Feed-Based User Interface September 13, 2010Posted by David Card in Uncategorized.
Tags: consumer electronics, consumer electronics manufacturers, information streaming, real time, real-time feeds, Seesmic, streaming information, user interface
2 comments
Last week, Google dramatically changed its core search user-interface with Google Instant. Instant search results look like a news feed and change dynamically as the searcher types. In moving toward a more feed-like UI, Google is following the trend established by Facebook and Twitter. Other feed-style UIs, meanwhile, appear on a broad range of applications and services, including Apple's new Ping music social network, Box.net's cloud-based content management system and Salesforce.com's Chatter enterprise collaboration platform.
With the trend of feed-like UIs continuing to gain momentum, it's worth taking a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages, as well as how businesses can implement and add value to them.
Pros and Cons of Feeds as UI
In contrast to a "seek, search, consume" model of content discovery and consumption, a feed presents a more passive approach for a user to gather information. Some feed UIs, like Facebook's news feed, contain algorithms that fine-tune what could otherwise be an overwhelming flow of information. In contrast, without such customization, Twitter's bare-bones approach defaults to a real-time stream from everyone you follow. That only works for Twitter users with relatively few followers.
Not all information, however, benefits from being optimized for passivity or immediacy. For instance, most online shoppers aren't just passively browsing, at least not until they put some parameters like product, price and color in place. Most news consumption benefits from categorization and importance, whether judged by professionals or by popularity. And although Google Instant feels like a mobile app, network bandwidth and latency currently prevent it from being implemented for phones.
Who Benefits?
So what kind of applications or services might next adopt feed-like interfaces?
- Television. Years ago, I saw a Canal+ demo of a carousel of picture-in-picture images of what was playing on other channels. I've seen similar items from TV middleware companies.
- Shopping. How about a stream of product thumbnails? Seesmic has a Zappos plug-in.
- News. I'd welcome an editorial hand to feed me prioritized news stories with graphical cues, though I'm not sold on social curation as the only organizing principal.
Adding Value
When properly enhanced, feed-based UIs can deliver great user experiences. They feel "modern" to web and mobile audiences, in contrast to static blocks of content. Many — if not all — information streams do benefit from being current. And there's a natural tendency for a user to re-visit them frequently, and to engage with them in a social fashion.
Feeds can be implemented as an RSS stream or API, making them open to mash-ups and plug-ins. Companies that offer information or communications services and are looking to implement feeds as UIs should offer the following directly to users, or as behind-the-scenes optimization tools:
- Aggregation. This isn't new, but Twitter clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic allow users to pull in multiple feeds from micro-blogging tools or status updates, and to post to multiple destinations. Box sucks in information from Salesforce.com and NetSuite into its feed. Seesmic just re-implemented its desktop client to accommodate plug-ins for other feeds or functions, e.g., local information from Foursquare. There's opportunity in promoting and pre-packaging collections of feeds to give users different views of information.
- Filtering. Facebook prioritizes the default view of its news feed via the user's prior behavior and the network activity around items, among other things in its algorithmic secret sauce. Trending topics is a popular device for exposing users to information that might come from outside their network. But ceding active control of filtering, sorting and searching to the user is also powerful: That's what made TweetDeck the choice of Twitter power users.
- Other utilities. In the spirit of Tufte, I'd suggest there is opportunity in offering features that better present quantitative and qualitative information atop of feeds. Color-coding or boldfacing feed items based on popularity or importance would be simple, but there's probably something like TheBrain that would illustrate relationships between items better than a threaded conversation does.
Related Research: Why Google Should Fear the Social Web
Question of the week
Can Apple Build a Real Social Network? September 6, 2010Posted by David Card in Uncategorized.
Tags: application programming interfaces, applications, consumer electronics, consumer electronics manufacturers, information streaming, Ping, streaming information
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Or maybe the question is, "Does Apple want to build a real social network?" Last week, at its usual September iPod product refresh, Apple rolled out Ping, a collection of social networking services tied to the iTunes Store. Much was written about how Ping did or didn't integrate Facebook. The term "walled garden" came up.
As it stands now, Ping is explicitly about selling music on the iTunes store. Om thinks it foreshadows the future of social commerce, but how far could Apple take Ping, and other initiatives like the Game Center services soon to be built into iOS? Could Apple build a social network that could challenge Facebook and Twitter?
What Makes a Real Social Network?
Social networks are challenging the web portals of the '90s (Yahoo, AOL, MSN) as the dominant content and communications paradigm. They're permeating mobile communications, affecting enterprise collaboration and even taking a shot at television. Let's take a quick look at what makes a social network, and how Apple measures up:
- User Profiles house information about the person and collect identification and authentication services. Ping profiles have very limited information about users' music preferences. Ping uses Apple ID, which enables credit card authorization and check-in, although almost exclusively to Apple — rather than third-party — products and services.
- Social Graphs map the relationships between profiles and the activities of the user, and offer potentially powerful marketing and advertising targeting. Ping users explicitly make music recommendations to their friends and followers. Apple was using collaborative filtering and favorite-watching to create recommendations and playlists before Ping.
- Platforms offer APIs and services so developers can build applications. Social networks also work as distribution channels — viral or otherwise — for those apps. Apple certainly knows platforms, but iTunes and its App Store aren't very social yet, and Apple hasn't revealed a Ping API strategy.
- User Interfaces and user experience are elements Apple practically defines itself by. Modern social networks have replaced the profile page with a stream of real-time information. Ping's UI mimics that approach, and features Apple's classic simplicity and elegance, but so far offers none of the charm or serendipity of iOS. Ironically, Apple hasn't contributed anything to social network UI; even its iPhone integration of third-party social networks is unexceptional.
Air and Electricity: Services or Applications?
Some analysts describe social networking as air, but perhaps the more relevant metaphor is electricity. In that view, companies and sites tap into social networking to create applications or experiences. Right now, Apple is treating social media as electricity to fuel its own shopping and communications applications.
Apple makes its money by selling products and "renting" its distribution channel. It likely won't hire an advertising sales force, and Apple Me.com is a weak collection of fee-based services. I suspect Apple's more comfortable creating social networking features that enhance its products and marketplaces, rather than building out a free-standing social network.
Competitive Implications
Standalone social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn probably won't face Apple as a head-to-head competitor for their audiences, advertisers or what they deliver as their core user experience. Apple doesn't appear to be interested in building a general-purpose social network, a short message broadcasting service or a professional connections network. MySpace is way ahead of Apple in gathering artists' pages and a social music audience, but Apple's ability to drive sales makes it a fierce competitor for label attention.
Those companies, and others like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, who aspire to provide social media APIs, services and even infrastructure, should cultivate, rather than compete with Apple, especially if they want to reach Apple's customers. That means they should license or, if Apple's in its usual DIY mode, integrate their own social networking technologies with Apple's. By the time you read this, Ping users may be able to find their friends via Facebook Connect.
Related Research:With Ping, Apple Builds a Social Network Inside a Walled Garden


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Author of the Month: Logan EsdalePublished: April 16, 2012
Ida A Novel
Edited by Logan Esdale, lecturer, English
Published in December 2011 by Yale University Press, the novel Ida by legendary Lost Generation author Gertrude Stein is now available in a workshopped edition created by English's Logan Esdale. Stein (1874-1946) was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Paris in 1903 for the rest of her life. She published Ida A Novel in 1941, eight years after she became famous for her best-selling Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. As Stein worked on this novel from 1937-40, she saved all of the manuscripts as part of constructing an archive of her life's work at Yale University Library. Esdale explains that by saving a complete record of the creative process, Stein showed her readers how she wrote. On her way to completing the novel, Stein incorporated four separate texts. In this edition, the first to display Stein's working process so comprehensively, readers will have a genealogy of the manuscripts, her letters, the novel's relation to other Stein texts, its reception in the popular press, essays by Stein and by her main interlocutor then, Thornton Wilder, and the story that the Ida character was based primarily on Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor who in 1936 prompted King Edward VIII's renunciation of the British throne so that they could marry. Ida is arguably Stein's most feminist text. In comparing the male desire to possess women with the media's stalking of celebrities, the narrative discusses the threat of violence that can accompany women-as-celebrities. Stein wanted Ida to be known as a novel about a woman in the age of celebrity culture and as a text with its own story to tell. "When Ida becomes a celebrity, instead of men following her and wanting things from her, now it is photographers," he explained. "They, too, think that they know her. They feel they can approach her, ask her questions and take her photo. She is a well-known figure." Stein compares the experience of being a woman with the experience of being a celebrity. With the publication of
this workshop edition of Ida, readers have the novel exactly as it was published in 1941 accompanied by the full record of its creation. Stein's careful and systematic preservation of all "Ida"-related materials for her archive at the Yale University Library was a conscious decision and an invitation for scholars to study her creative process. Esdale, a native of Canada, received his master's degree from the University of Western Ontario and his doctorate from SUNY Buffalo in 2003. He taught at Chapman University before joining CSULB.


text: Lately, I've read a lot about the Witcher 3 and watched the trailer that we put out recently. I really know nothing about the series beyond that, but they say that the world of the game is about 20% bigger than Skyrim, and that your choices in the game really shape how the world of the game develops. All of that seems really appealing, but does the game (series?) have a strong horror motif? It seems very dark, and thats not my thing. Do you level up? Is there a skill tree? I know that its called a RPG, but I also know that some people will call games that because of the character development and story moreso than the gameplay. I'm interested in another RPG, and I really have nothing on my gaming plate other than MLB The Show until the fall.


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How a Savvy Service Provider can Survive and Grow – Part III August 23, 2017Posted by Dominic Black in Uncategorized.
Tags: business communications, business growth, business telecoms, Business Verticals, Cavell, Cavell Group, Cloud Communications, Consulting, CRM integration, customer service, European VoIP Summit, events, Future of Voice, horizontal solutions, Hosted VoIP, Innovation, Instant Messaging, integrations, internet, IP telephony, IT, market opportunities, market reports, market research, market update, marketing Cloud services, Matt townend, mobile, network, Productivity, reports, Research, Service Provider, Service Providers, SME, technology, Telco, telecoms, UK Market, UK solutions, UK Telecoms, UK telecoms market, UK VoIP, USP, verticalisation, Voice, voice over IP, voice services, voicemail, voip, VoIP Consulting, VoIP Market, VOIP Market research, VoIP Providers, VoIP research
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Creating Bundles of Success
We have frequently heard that selling telephony services on features is simply emulating the old PBX sales approach and that hosted services benefits for a solution-based sale. Now we have figures to prove it. Cavell figures for 2016-17 confirm that where Service Providers in the channel are seeing success is in the SME where Service Providers are bundling a tight solution and with a very defined set of capabilities. The advantage of bundling is that it creates a solution-based proposition with a vertical or horizontal approach where the Channel understands their pricing, margin and the commercial and technical solution.
Vertical bundles are very strong, enabling the Service Provider to sell down a single vertical and targeting on features needed by that vertical. Cavell has seen a number of Service Providers target specific verticals by integrating into key business solutions that that vertical works with. It requires that the Service Provider understand the business processes of the customer and demonstrates this value to the customer.
Horizontal solutions can be equally strong with specialised CRM integration, or solutions with voicemail control options for road warrior use. Bundles can be commercial or technical, the secret is to tailor them to your target market and demonstrate an understanding of their requirements. A sound business approach for a Service Provider would be to start with commercial bundles and then develop into a technically integrated bundled solution as the customer requirements become clear. The approach for the Service Provider is to analyse your USPs, examine your customer base and products and then look at the rest of the market to determine your competition.
Bundling is more about how to do better with what you already have than about offering anything new.
Service Providers who embrace these opportunities and build solutions with specific value in mind are most likely to be the winners in the market.
If you wish to read more about how the market is changing, please get in touch for more information on Cavell's market reports due to be released next week on Thursday, August 31st.
How a Savvy Service Provider can Survive and Grow – Part I August 11, 2017Posted by Dominic Black in Uncategorized.
Tags: 8x8, Analytics, Analytics Solutions, BREXIT, business communications, business growth, business telecoms, call centre, Call recording, Contact Center, contact centre, cost saving opportunities, customer service, events, Innovation, Market Data, market opportunities, market reports, market research, market update, marketing Cloud services, messaging, Productivity, reports, Research, Service Provider, Service Providers, technology, Telco, telecoms, Telecoms Market, UK, UK Market, UK solutions, UK Telecoms, UK telecoms market, UK VoIP, Voice, voice over IP, voip, VoIP Market, VOIP Market research, webinar
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Many businesses in the UK, small, medium and large are suffering. Pressures created by fears of what BREXIT may bring, austerity reducing the flow of money and challenging economic conditions, mean they are searching for efficiencies and cost saving opportunities to maintain and grow. These are requirements that the savvy Service Provider can meet to grow their own business. Services have become increasingly competitive and the number of Service Providers in the UK now exceeds 95, so business customers have choice, and this creates the need for Service Providers to increase the attractiveness of their offerings creating stickiness to maintain their current clients and to introduce new value-added services to increase their client base.
Value Added Services that Improve Customer Service
Good customer service is key to business success in every sector and the market research firm Cavell are reporting an increasing demand for call centre features for business telephone users beyond the contact centre. They surmise that this is a direct result of the drive to improve customer services. The business goal is to collect data from communications that will provide information to help the business to make customer communications better and enable multiple communication channels to be utilised beyond voice, including social media and instant messaging. Call Recording and Analytics are the two key basic call centre offering in demand and large platform providers are increasingly developing these capabilities, or collaborating to be able to offer these services to SME and large enterprise businesses.
Call recording has been available for a while and is a mature product. The key applications have been MIFID II for financial Service tracking and PCI compliant call recording for where credit card details are collected over the phone. The recent change, is that there is an increasing use of Call Recording to provide the business with the data to target areas for improvement through staff training and to secure details of customer interactions for future reference and to improve customer service.
Analytics is the second growing offering. Businesses are increasingly using Analytics on every customer inbound channel to gather information to help them to sell better and to understand what media their customers are using to communicate with them. This data helps them to understand how their customer is interacting. Demand for these analytic products is very high. Service Providers such 8×8 have invested in building their own analytics solutions and others are collaborating with providers like Akixi, Dubber and Tollring to be able to offer analytics solutions. The data provided helps the business to understand how to manage calls effectively and to identify future possibilities for new products.
Stay tuned for our upcoming posts where we will be covering what else we have seen makes Service Providers successful in this ever-changing and highly-competitive market.
Also, if you wish to contribute to our market research (due to be released on August 31st), please follow the links below. All participants will receive one ticket at our upcoming European VoIP Summit and have the opportunity to join our webinar on September 7th where we will be communicating our top-level results and some of the main trends we have seen in the UK Hosted VoIP and SIP Trunking market in the last six months.
BT Openreach separation agreed but still part of BT Group March 10, 2017Posted by Dominic Black in Uncategorized.
Tags: access, broadband, BT, fixed broadband access, internet, openreach, talktalk, technology, UK Market, UK Telecoms, UK telecoms market, UK VoIP, voip
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This morning it was announced that BT and Ofcom have reached agreement on a long-term regulatory settlement that will see Openreach become a distinct, legally separate company with its own Board. However, the new entity will still report to the BT Group and ultimately the BT CEO Gavin Patterson.
The new company, Openreach Ltd, will have its own separate logo without BT and report to an independent board. It will also transfer over 32,000 employees to the new company however their pension rights etc. will be upheld.
The BT Announcement stated:
"This Board will set Openreach's medium term and annual operating plans and determine which technologies are deployed, within a strategic and financial framework defined by BT. Openreach will be free to explore alternative co-investment models in private with third parties.
The Openreach CEO will report into the Openreach Chairman, with accountability to the BT Group Chief Executive with regards to certain legal and fiduciary duties that are consistent with BT's responsibilities as a listed company."
The question will be exactly what does this mean in terms of independence, and what benefits it will bring. TalkTalk responded favourably in a statement this morning but did reinforce that Ofcom's job is not over yet.
Dido Harding, Chief Executive Officer, TalkTalk commented:
"We welcome the agreement to create a legally separate Openreach. The new company will be better placed to deliver the improved investment and service that consumers and businesses deserve. This deal will require robust Ofcom monitoring and enforcement to ensure it delivers the improvements the regulator expects. We hope this is the start of a new deal for Britain's broadband customers, who will be keen to see a clear timetable from Openreach setting out when their services will improve."
In essence, this seem a very positive move and we hope it brings what BT Gavin Patterson stated:
"I believe this agreement will serve the long-term interests of millions of UK households, businesses and service providers that rely on our infrastructure. It will also end a period of uncertainty for our people and support further investment in the UK's digital infrastructure.
The concept of selling UC is dying! Service Providers offer industry/sector specific propositions to meet customer demand September 13, 2016Posted by Dominic Black in Uncategorized.
Tags: Business Verticals, Cavell, Cavell Group, Contextual Communications, Hosted VoIP, illume Research, Market figures, Matt townend, Research, Service Providers, SIP trunking, telecoms, Telecoms Market, UC, UK Market, UK Telecoms, UK telecoms market, UK VoIP, Unified Communications, verticalisation, voice over IP, voip, VoIP Figures, VoIP Market, VOIP Market research, VoIP research
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For well over a decade, the industry has been talking about Unified Communications, with vendors trying to push the idea that end users want to unify all their communications through one interface (normally vendor specific), and that they need to utilise a number of new communications mediums through this interface (including: Video, Presence, Collaboration, etc.).
When we look at the players who have been successful in selling hosted communications both in the UK and Europe, we see that very few are selling a concept of UC at all. What they have done well is they have segmented their customer base and they have produced bundled solutions that understand the "Context" within which the customer is operating and have offered solutions accordingly. Yes, there are some customers who want an all-singing, all-dancing UC experience, like you see in most vendors videos, but this appears to be a minority.
Our recent research on the Hosted Comms market shows that most service providers have developed their segmentation further, and they are now offering solutions that are designed to suit their customers' needs in relation to the Vertical industry segment they operate in.
Figures have shown that 41% of the service providers tracked by Cavell, offer a selection of vertical solutions, 66% of which offer a public sector proposition, some providers selling solutions specifically tailored for one of the following public sector segments: local government, central government, education, healthcare, housing, public administration, justice, and emergency services.
The main commercial segments have been Financial (41%), Retail (38%) and Hospitality (23%). Other prevalent business categories vertically targeted by service providers are construction, media, travel & transport, and organisations operating in the legal sector. Cavell has also witnessed signs of verticalisation in technology, automotive, recruitment, logistics, manufacturing, third sector and professional services.
Matthew Townend, Director of Research & Consulting at Cavell stated: "The increased verticalisation shows an increasing requirement for Service Providers to offer solutions that recognise the context that their customers work and communicate in, rather than attempting to offer a broad based UC solution that attempts to dictate how they should communicate".
Cavell Group have launched their latest UK Hosted VoIP and SIP Trunking market reports on the 2nd of September. For more information, please read our previous blog post.
UK SIP Trunking market shows strong growth but mainly from a few specialist Service Providers February 22, 2016Posted by Dominic Black in Uncategorized, VoIP Numbers.
Tags: Cavell Group, Hosted VoIP, illume Research, ISDN, PSTN, SIP, SIP research, SIP Trunk research, SIP trunking, SIP Trunking figures, Sip trunking research, UK Market, UK Telecoms, UK telecoms market
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The SIP Trunking market has seen strong growth, especially in the Large Enterprise segment with the midmarket also growing faster then expected. By the end of December, the UK SIP Trunking market had grown by 232,070 Trunks (13.73%) since June 2015. This was one of the largest growth periods that Cavell has tracked only surpassed by the same period in 2014.
This has however led to 2015 showing the largest growth the whole year as the market added a total of 453,131 Trunks (31%). Cavell expects that the SIP market will continue to show strong growth as Service Providers take advantage of the end-of-life of the ISDN and PSTN networks. Cavell is already starting to see signs of how Service Providers are using this announcement as valuable marketing material, sowing the seeds of uncertainty to potential customers who are still utilizing those networks.
We are seeing growth in SIP driven by a focused set of Service Providers, both specialist SIP players and some traditional Tier 1 & 2 operators. As competition hot's up Cavell believes that there will be continued pressure on pricing and possibly even further pressure for market consolidation. We are already seeing certain Service Providers look at how they can differentiate from SIP Capacity type services by looking to integrate more advance applications as completion and customer requirement changes.
Cavell will be releasing the full report on the UK SIP Trunking market in the next few weeks which includes:
- Five year forecast for the market size by customer size
- Market revenues and Forecast for Channel and Voice revenue streams
- Pricing analysis
- Future drivers and roadblock to future market expansion
- Technology changes
- List of Service Providers selling SIP Trunking services in the UK
- Other important developments and analysis on the SIP Trunking market
The report is available to pre-order from our website here: http://www.cavellgroup.com/index.php/research/reports
SME drives strong growth in the Hosted VoIP market March 24, 2015Posted by Dominic Black in Uncategorized.
Tags: Cavell Group, Hosted VoIP, illume Research, intelepeer, Matt townend, UK Market, VoIP Figures, VoIP numbers
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Cavell have released our latest Hosted VoIP report that focuses on the trends and developments in the last six months of 2014 and also includes our 5-year forecast for seat numbers and revenues.
Cavell have seen the market fulfill the strong growth that was forecast in our midyear report with the SME segment, where average employee size is between 10-50 seats, driving growth. As of 31st December 2014, there were 1,649,219 Hosted VoIP seats in the UK, growing by 245,489 seats (17.49%) in the last six months. The large enterprise segment (1000+ seats) has also seen stronger growth than in previous years as some large bids that had been won earlier in the year were finally in deployment phase.
The market is still very fragmented with over 80 providers serving the UK market although what is interesting now is that many are speaking to Cavell about looking to expand overseas. We have also seen US giants Thinkingphones and Vonage setting up operations in the UK, who join other large international providers such as 8×8, RingCentral and Nfon who have entered in the last few years.
What has been interesting in this report is the impact of fibre, which has not had the predicted effect on driving growth in the midmarket. Although BT is on target to reach their fibre rollout figure, the fibre is still not in the right areas, which is making it difficult for providers and channel partners alike to offer it as a service, especially as the availability and price ranges differ so significantly depending on location.
If you would like more details on the full report please contact Dominic Black at firstname.lastname@example.com for all enquiries or purchase at http://www.illumeresearch.com/shop-research.html
Redcentric acquire InTechnology's Managed Services business. November 20, 2013Posted by Dominic Black in Uncategorized.
Tags: Acquisition, Cavell Group, Hosted VoIP, illume Research, Intechnology, M&A, Redcentric, Redstone, SIP trunking, UK Market, voip
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Considering we saw little M&A activity in the Hosted VoIP market at the start of 2013, the last few months have seen significant changes in the makeup of the market. We have already seen Broadsoft acquire HIPCOM in August and 8X8 purchase Voicenet Solutions last week and now Redcentric has announced that they have bought InTechnology in a £65 million cash acquisition.
Redcentric, a spin off of Redstone, purchase signifies a move which Tony Weaver, CEO of Redstone, claims will create "the leading independent managed services business in the UK".
This move has formed so far the third biggest B2B networking and data player in the UK market with only Daisy and Easynet who are significantly larger then Redcentric now are. With an increasingly fragmented market, moves such as these are giving companies a way to push through the barrier of being 'midmarket' and with further M&A activity the makeup of the market could be set for a significant change.


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An estimated 700 people turned out last Wednesday to learn about businesses and services catering to local senior citizens during the Fort Bend Star's fourth annual Senior Expo.
Held at the Stafford Centre, the Senior Expo featured more than 60 vendors and showcased three expert speakers during the four-hour event.
"There was a lot of excitement from the attendees," said Fort Bend Star Publisher Frank Vasquez. "We saw a lot of engagement with the vendors. Our initial feedback from our attendees was that this was our best expo yet."
The speakers included representatives from Skin Cancer Specialists Dermatology, Dr. John from Advanced Dentistry, and Sugar Land Functional Medicine. Vendors provided information on a wide variety of subjects, including healthcare, insurance, dental, housing, home repair, wealth, retirement, travel, entertainment, and much more.
Seniors were invited to enjoy complimentary coffee and doughnuts at the start of the event and then conclude the day with a complimentary boxed lunch.


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Grove Park W4 Professional Rug & Carpet Cleaning Company
You are expecting important visitors tomorrow night and you just spill an entire glass of red wine in the middle of the room floor, so what can you do? The easiest and most reliable way to get rid of this unsightly and embarrassing stain is to use the professional services of 1st Carpet Cleaning Ltd.
The company provides very effective deep and stain and spot removal along with a full range of residential and commercial carpet cleaning services for the individuals and local business of Grove Park W4 and the area. The best news for you is that the professional carpet and rug cleaning company provides the same day (emergency) cleaning service at the very best price in the area.
- Totally free viewing and surveys on site
- Available weekends and bank holidays
- Affordable fees, no deposit
- 24/7 customer care service Booking combined services get big discounts
And so, no matter what time of the day or night it is, just call on 020 3404 5123 or send an online inquiry, and the 24/7 client care service will give you a totally free quote in the next 2 hours!
The Types of Mats and Rugs Which Can be Efficiently Cleaned
The cleaners can clean most types of rugs, including:
Silk Mix Rugs, Persian Rugs, Area Rugs, Tibetan Rugs, Indian Rugs, Chinese Rugs, Turkish Rugs, Shaggy Rugs, Egyptian Rugs, Handmade Rugs, Antique Rugs Wool Rugs Floor Mats, Rubber Mats, Industrial Mats, Logo Mats, Entrance Mats, Play rugs, Anti fatigue mats
Go ahead and reserve your carpet cleaning service at this moment!
More Information About the Professional Cleaning Company
The company was first established in Grove Park W4 in 2005, and started off as a small service provider with only a couple of cleaners. Today, the number of cleaners and the available equipment, transportation and cleaning products is sufficient to cover the need for carpet cleaning for commercial and domestic properties as well in Grove Park W4 . All cleaners are trained continuously and extensively supervised by the superiors and high quality inspectors of the company.
All solutions are Petrochem and are 100% safe for children, pets and allergic people, plus they are fully biodegradable so they are eco-friendly as well. The company offers a wide variety of professional cleaning services, which can be booked individually, as well as in combinations, depending on the individual demands of the clients.
Types of carpet materials which can be efficiently cleaned
- Chenille, Organic Fibre, Nubuck, Acrylic
- Synthetic, Wool, Leather, Suede
- Cotton Plush, Linen, Silk, Viscose
Types of Services Provided
The carpet service offered by the company includes an initial full inspection, to assess the level of dirtiness and the types of unsightly stains which need to be pre-treated before the deep carpet cleaning. All stains, such as oily stains, wine, paint, blood, tea, coffee, rust, vomit stains and moth damage are pre-treated with probably the most suitable stain removal product.
The cleaners bring more than five types of stain removal products and solutions with them. After that, the cleaners give the carpet a good hoovering, and then continue with the deep cleaning. It can be done either by steam cleaning which is actually shampoo treatment done with a hot water extraction machine, or by the dry foam carpet cleaning method, which utilizes no water and is gentler on the rug or carpet. On request, the cleaners can offer additional odour deodorizing or neutralizing.
More About Cleaning Company
1st Carpet Cleaning Ltd. is one of the top preferred professional cleaners in Grove Park, because it has placed the clients and their safety and comfort as its top priority. All solutions utilized for the deep stain removal and carpet cleaning, and for any other projects are 100% safe for children, allergic people and pets, and are also completely eco-friendly and completely biodegradable.
All of the cleaners are thoroughly checked before being hired, and are trained extensively and then assessed frequently for compliance to the safety and quality procedures implemented in the company. The cleaners can also provide: curtain, drapery, blinds, mattress, bed bug mattress cleaning and other professional services.
Methods for Booking the Professional Carpet Cleaning Services
Booking one or more cleaning services is pretty straightforward. Call 020 3404 5123, or fill out the online booking form and the customer support service which is available 24/7 will be right back with a written confirmation for your booking. If you choose to book a mix of services, such as carpet and upholstery cleaning, you will get an amazing discount from the rates of these services.
No deposit is needed for booking, so book your service for any day of the year right now!
free quote 24/7
Call us now - Get your discount
The nearest tube station serving W4 Grove Parkis Gunnersbury.


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- Prayer and Worship
- Beliefs and Teachings
- Issues and Action
- Media
- Bible
- Catholic Giving
- About USCCB
Twenty five years ago our nation and our Church underwent a metamorphosis of sort. The old paradigm of one nation, a melting pot of immigrants primarily from Europe was being challenged. People of color in the United States redirected America's moral compass of equality and justice. As the nation was challenge, so was the Church. The signs of the time as well as the atmosphere for equality captured the attention and the hearts of the Catholic Bishops as they posed the question "What does it mean to be brothers and sisters to all? This acknowledgement of the need, value and joy of human friendship became the focus of the Pastoral Letter.
Our history is littered with the debris of broken promises and treaties, as well as lynchings and massacres that almost destroyed the Indians, humiliated the Hispanics and crushed the Blacks.
-Brothers and Sister to Us- pg. 5
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California State Standards for Parents
Today's students are preparing to enter a world in which colleges and businesses are demanding more than ever before. To ensure all students are ready for success after high school, the California State Standards establish clear, consistent guidelines for what every student should know and be able to do in math and English language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The standards were drafted by experts and teachers from across the country and are designed to ensure students are prepared for today's entry-level careers, freshman-level college courses, and workforce training programs. The State Standards focuses on developing the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills students will need to be successful. Forty-three states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) have voluntarily adopted and are moving forward with the standards.
The new standards also provide a way for teachers to measure student progress throughout the school year and ensure that students are on the pathway to success in their academic careers.
Questions? Find answers here
Building on the best of existing state standards, the California State Standards provide clear and consistent learning goals to help prepare students for college, career, and life. The standards clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level, so that every parent and teacher can understand and support their learning.
The standards are:
- Research and evidence based
- Clear, understandable, and consistent
- Aligned with college and career expectations
- Based on rigorous content and the application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills
- Built upon the strengths and lessons of current state standards
- Informed by other top-performing countries to prepare all students for success in our global economy and society
According to the best available evidence, the mastery of each standard is essential for success in college, career, and life in today's global economy.
With students, parents, and teachers all on the same page and working together toward shared goals, we can ensure that students make progress each year and graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college, career, and life.
The standards focus on core concepts and procedures starting in the early grades, which gives teachers the time needed to teach them and gives students the time needed to master them.
The standards draw on the most important international models, as well as research and input from numerous sources, including educators from kindergarten through college, state departments of education, scholars, assessment developers, professional organizations, parents and students, and members of the public.
Because their design and content have been refined through successive drafts and numerous rounds of state feedback, the standards represent a synthesis of the best elements of standards-related work in all states and other countries to date.
For grades K-8, grade-by-grade standards exist in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. For grades 9-12, the standards are grouped into grade bands of 9-10 grade standards and 11-12 grade standards.
While the standards set grade-specific goals, they do not define how the standards should be taught or which materials should be used to support students. States and districts recognize that there will need to be a range of supports in place to ensure that all students, including those with special needs and English language learners, can master the standards. It is up to the states to define the full range of supports appropriate for these students.
No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety of abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom. Importantly, the standards provide clear signposts along the way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students.


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(Female version) Hope this isn't an annoying question lol, but I'm having such a hard time deciding since I love both characters.
Sherlock: http://postimg.org/image/56yv6cfex/
The coat I found for this costume: http://postimg.org/image/am7l7b6yx/
Tenth Doctor: http://postimg.org/image/t9fp17w21/
The coat I found for this costume: http://postimg.org/image/ur15cs0sp/
What do you think? :3 Ahh I hope I can make a decision soon.. Thank you~!
Who to cosplay as for Halloween, BBC Sherlock/ Tenth Doctor?
Looking for cosplay ideas? Have an idea but need better pictures? Try shouting here!
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Posts Tagged 'steroids'
A body to die for?
Recently I went on holiday to Madrid, and like any self-respecting gayer, I hit the gym with a vengeance beforehand, and strutted my way to Heathrow Airport with shoulders that looked a little like I had cannonballs stuffed in them and tits that, in my opinion, gave Jordan a run for her money.
OK, so that's not strictly true, but man did I feel confident. Months of hard labour and comments from friends about my newly-bulging biceps had left me feeling like I could more than hold my own against the muscle boys of Madrid.
On the first day at the Lido I realised what the phrase "body beautiful" really meant.
Everywhere I looked I saw perfection. Beautiful, bronzed, speedo-wearing perfection.
You know that scene in Spider-man where Peter Parker comes home after being bitten by the little radioactive bastard in the lab? He rips off his shirt to reveal a puny, skinny body before he passes out on the floor, then wakes up the next morning with pumped up pecs and a six pack. All of a sudden he's a new man.
Now imagine that scene in reverse and you get an idea of how I was feeling as I stood at the entrance to the Lido. I spent most of the first day lying on my front, drilling a hole into the concrete from my stonking boner and trying to cover up my sorry excuse for a beach body.
You have to put in a lot of hard work into achieving a body like those guys had, unless you take the easy option and use steroids. But what happens when you take it too far?
I used to know a guy who was addicted to exercise. We're not friends any more – I couldn't put up with him to be honest. He ran every morning, swam every lunchtime and went to the gym for an hour every evening, usually with a spinning class after that. He used to turn down dates and offers of socialising with us so he could train more.
I would have felt sorry for him if he hadn't spent most of the time he wasn't training loudly putting other people down when they were slightly overweight or less attractive than him.
As well as the obvious dangers of steroids, I've also read reports of guys taking a powerful stimulant called Epehdrine before they work out so they can train harder. I've noticed a few people in the gym who seem anxious or jittery and often wonder if they're on it. I also know for a fact that Ephedrine causes chronic insomnia, so usually they turn to sleeping pills or booze in order to get to sleep.
Now I'm not going to deny that these examples of hard training look amazing, but seriously, if they don't die of organ failure because of their ridiculously low calorie intake, they'll probably either get cancer from sunbed abuse, or a heart attack from all the drugs they're using to help them on their way to the body beautiful.
Is being perfect really worth that?
As the days rolled on by the Lido I got so used to the constant parade of plucked, preened and pumped bodies walking around that they all started to become curiously unsexual. I mean, every single one of them looked the same!
My boyfriend at the time asked me what on earth I saw in him when there were all these Adonises walking around to tempt me.
"I fancy you because you don't look like one of them" was my reply
Screw the body beautiful. Give me a real human being any day.


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Which Coffee Grinder Parts Is Most Important?
A burr grinder generates less heat during the grinding process and produces better uniformed grounds. In a way, a burr grinder does have its own benefits but it does not necessarily entail that it is the most important of coffee grinder parts.
My point of view is that it's just a matter of who uses the coffee grinder. I mean, if you find the quality of grounds produced in a blade grinder good enough for your everyday morning coffee then the blade actually is the most important of coffee grinder parts for you and there really is nothing wrong with that, right?
Although, the choice of which grinder to purchase and use may be affected by factors like budget, brand, etc., still, I believe that a person will not settle for anything less than what they really want especially if they have the means to get it.
If you're wondering, which coffee grinder would I recommend; I'll have to say that coffee grinders in the market that I find awesome in both appearance and performance are the Capresso grinder and Braun grinder. I will only recommend brand names; you can choose your own type of grinder as you please, blade or burr.
The general public opinion may be proof that there are more coffee enthusiasts who prefer to use the burr grinder over the blade type; still the fact that there are still those who use the blade grinder only proves that the burr is not the ultimate important coffee part.


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It's not too late to pick up am Amazon gift card for a friend or family member [1]! They are still available to be sent my e-mail or for you to print off for your recipient. 🙂
As I've shared before, my go-to this year and every year for those hard to buy for loved ones is Amazon gift cards. Everyone really loves them them and other than a Visa gift card that you have to pay a fee for, there is not other gift card that is going to offer a recipient as much flexibility as these do. Amazon carries just about everything imaginable and their prices are generally fantastic too.
Amazon gift cards are redeemable store-wide, have no fees, and never expire.


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Just move forward
"If you can't fly, then run, if you can't run, then walk, if you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward." — Martin Luther King Jr.
It's all too easy to give up on something when it gets hard. I'll even admit to giving up on so many things that I've lost count, but every time I give up, I'm filled with regret of how good I could have become. One in particular is Tae Kwon Do, which I did for years, even getting close to getting a black belt. The master even got one for me, with my name on it, and hung it up with other belts that were waiting to be earned. I loved Tae Kwon Do, and I wanted to reach black belt so bad, but I had to stop because I didn't have time for it anymore, once I got to high school. And just like that, getting a black belt was over. Now that I'll be leaving for college soon, I know it's pointless to go back and try to get the belt, so now every time I see someone do martial arts, I think back to that black belt with my name on it, just hanging there, never earned, and I feel guilty for never going back to get it. What I wish I had done is rather than go three times a week, go once a week, and slowly work my way up to black belt. I didn't have to keep going as often as I did before, as long as I made progress towards getting that black belt. That's why I'm here to tell you that if you really love doing something or want something, but you don't know if you can keep doing it, you can slow down, as long as you keep going.


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Follow the Liberian Quest for Justice
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On January 30th 2014, Thomas Jucontee Woewiyu was placed under investigation in the U.S. for seven counts of crimes of perjury and two counts of fraud related to his immigration papers. On the 12th of May of the same year he was arrested in Newark Airport, returning from Liberia. In October, a bail was paid and he was granted temporary release before his trial under the condition that he stayed under house arrest.
For large stretches of the first Liberian Civil War (1989 – 1996) most of the country was under control of the NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia), led by Charles Taylor. The faction is responsible for a very large number of international crimes, including sexual slavery, mass murders and conscription of child soldiers. Over 60,000 human rights violations committed by the NPFL were formally recorded by the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
According to the indictment, Thomas Woewiyu served as the faction's spokesman and worked to justify its mission and objectives to high ranking foreign officials. Since 1972 Woewiyu had been living in the United States where is has legal permanent residency, occasionally returning to Liberia. On January 23, 2006 he made an application for United States citizenship by submitting an Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") Form.
Woewiyu is accused of having lied in order to obtain citizenship, failing to disclose his association with the NPFL as well as the fact that he was connected to crimes committed by the NPFL.
Woewiyu faced trial starting 11th of June, 2018. He was convicted of 11 out of 16 counts on 03rd July 2018. He faces up to 110 years in prison. His sentence will be determined on 15 October, 2018.
Civitas Maxima monitored the trial in cooperation with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld LLP.
Below, Civitas Maxima posts daily summaries of the hearings.


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Future Applied sciences, Inc. Genetics, energy, supplies, mind, and data technologies will be the nice enablers of the long run. Partnering with tutorial and industrial leaders we develop new applied sciences to support our future product strategies. He has been a correspondent for Nationwide Public Radio and contributed to media shops together with Time, Fortune, the Washington Submit, Nature, Expertise Evaluate and the Discovery Channel.
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Students shall be exposed to the fundamentals of engineering, primary of electronics, digital circuits and the strategies that are utilized in analyzing and creating the same Publicity to hardware like superior Microprocessors and Micro controller Systems can be given throughout the course. Justin Sanchez joined DARPA as a program manager in 2013 to discover neurotechnology, mind science and techniques neurobiology.
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His portfolio includes the Survivability, Software program Techniques, Electronic Warfare, Weapons, Sensors, Cyber, and Anti-Tamper Know-how teams. Kress-Gazit received her Ph.D. and in electrical and methods engineering from the College of Pennsylvania, and a in electrical engineering from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. Previous to founding Galois, Dr. Launchbury was a full professor in computer science and engineering on the Oregon Graduate Institute (OGI) College of Science and Engineering, which was subsequently integrated into the Oregon Well being and Science University.