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Posts Tagged ‘retail’

Samsung will soon have a bit of competition in Best Buy’s 3D TV department. A $2,899 Panasonic VT20 plasma, Blu-ray player and 3D glasses bundle will go on sale tomorrow expect not all Best Buy stores. It’s a Magnolia exclusive

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Best Buy Magnolia stores to sell Panasonic 3D bundle starting tomorrow

So long, Adamo XPS . It was wonderful knowing you while we did. We can’t help feeling like you had too short of a life though

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The Dell Adamo XPS has been discontinued along with our hopes and dreams

What is it with the last three letters of the alphabet?

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LG announces availability of the X300, their fancy ultrathin laptop

Warner Bros. has agreed a new deal with Redbox that will give Redbox access to its DVDs, but only 28 days after the retail release

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And now Redbox will have to wait 28 days for new Warner Bros. DVDs

I noticed the fellas from PoketyPoke each carrying around an iMac box after the Digital Experience event at CES last week.

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Two-week iMac rentals for $8.56 per day?

Most press releases are extremely boring. They all say the same things. Not this one.

Today, my inbox was graced by pitch that can only be described as stimulating. It made me laugh, it made me question if it was real, and it made me a little creeped out — all in one. But it is actually relevant to something I’m particularly interested in right now: Location. It’s for a service called FapMapper, a location-based service that allows you to show where you masturbate and/or where you have public sex. Yep.

There are plenty of tagged places in San Francisco already. For example, here’s one that reads, “jerked it watching my neighbor water plants. Hot” — and yes, it includes the address where that took place. Here’s another, “post lunch office bathroom.” At least it was post-lunch, I suppose.

Generally, it’s very poor form to just copy and paste a press release into a post, but this one is just too good for everyone to miss. And honestly, anything I say can’t do this service (which works on the web and through the web interfaces of the iPhone, Droid, Pre and other phones) more justice than how they lay it out. I mean, “mastur-beta” and ““fap” is a euphemism for masturbation that is increasingly popular among young, tech-savvy Web users.” Brilliant stuff. Read the whole thing below:

There’s a Fap for That: Masturbation Mapping Utility FapMapper.com Launches

VAN NUYS, Calif. – At long last, proud masturbators and public sex act aficionados have a fully functional utility with which to document their sexual exploits; FapMapper.com (www.fapmapper.com) is out of ‘mastur-beta’ and ready for primetime.

Compatible with desktop computers, as well as the iPhone, Droid, Palm Pre and other web-capable mobile devices, FapMapper quickly picked up a relatively small but dedicated member base after its beta launch in September.

“We’ve had hundreds of users putting the FapMapper through its paces and submitting suggestions for a couple months now, and we’re finally ready to unveil the official web app,” said Kim Kysar, brand and product manager for Pink Visual, the porn studio behind FapMapper.com. “It’s very gratifying to see this important tool for sexual self-expression ready for widespread use at last.”

While the name FapMapper is a reference to masturbation (“fap” is a euphemism for masturbation that is increasingly popular among young, tech-savvy Web users), Kysar said there’s more going on within the map grids of FapMapper than self-pleasuring alone.

“We’ve got couples posting about having sex on camping trips, people just marking places where they spotted a particularly beautiful woman walking down the street, even things that have nothing whatsoever to do with sex or masturbation,” Kysar said. “That’s just the nature of any social networking tool; once you release it out into the world, the community develops on its own, and decides for itself what to do with the utility you have provided.”

In addition to comments from users, FapMapper now offers revealing statistical data, like the top fapping cities, states and individual users. The map also features icons identifying adult stores where FapMapper users will find Pink Visual titles stocked on the shelves.

“Just in case FapMapper users are in need of extra inspiration for their fapping, we thought we’d throw them a bone, so to speak, and let them know where they can find the latest and greatest Pink Visual titles,” Kysar said. “It’s a great value-add for our retail partners, too, as they are being advertised to a population of truly dedicated masturbators and porn fans without spending a dime for the exposure.”

At the moment, a user named “Bigbwoy” from Toronto owns the top spot on the Frequent Fapper charts, while California is the top state, and San Antonio, Texas is the city with the most “Fap Pins” placed thus far. Kysar said it’s still too early to declare any individual, city or state the “perversion champion” based on FapMapper’s data, however.

“I have to believe that once this thing really gets rolling, you’ll see San Francisco climb the charts from its current position as the fourth place fapping city,” Kysar said. “We clearly don’t have the penetration we need in the southern Atlantic coastal states, either; how can Florida, the ancestral home of Spring Break festivities, not even be in the top 10 Fap States? That’s just downright shameful.”

For more information, visit www.fapmapper.com. Warning: you may learn more about your neighbor’s masturbation habits than you ever wanted to know.

Not sure this beats the best man who rigged his friends’ bed to tweet during sex, but it’s close.

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Feel like this holiday season is a bit cheerier than last year’s? You’re not alone. According to some new data from personal finance site Mint (which was acquired by Intuit for $170 million earlier this year), the holiday season has been accompanied by a major bounce in consumer spending. After a dismal shopping season in 2008, many retailers specializing in everything from electronics to high-end clothing have seen big jumps in the last few months. In a post called ‘The Return of Retail: Holiday Spending 2009′, Mint has illustrated these trends in a number of attractive infographics (we’ve included a few below).

So where does this data come from? To your everyday consumer, Mint is great for a lot of things — it can help you manage your budget, find deals on credit cards, and plenty of other other good stuff. But Mint can also look at aggregate spending trends to see how the economy, and even individual retailers are doing. Mint didn’t do much with this merchant data for a long time, but last August it leveraged it to show how grocery stores were weathering the downturn (unsurprisingly, high end stores like Whole Foods took the biggest hit). They generated a report for Black Friday, and have used similar methods for today’s infographic.

Of course, this data has much more lucrative potential uses, and you can be sure that Mint’s new parent company Intuit is exploring them.

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After many months in private alpha, VOKLE is officially launching its live video platform to the public. VOKLE is an embeddable application that allows users to broadcast their live video and audio to a virtual auditorium of viewers and take live video calls and text questions from the audience.

While being all web-based, VOKLE gives hosts the option to broadcast live video questions, text questions, and Twitter questions from the audience. It also can easily assign remote co-hosts, screeners to approve video callers behind the scenes, and an editor to cut between single or multi-shots in real-time.

Unlike Ustream, Justin.tv, and Livestream, what VOKLE is focusing on is more town hall style video broadcasts with lots of audience participation which sites like Digg and The Huffington Post might use for their community interaction and town hall style meet-ups.

In a market that is already crowded with both computer streaming services and mobile streaming services, it’s hard to see VOKLE getting that much traction. After all, everything is web-based, and inside the browser — no pop ups. Some may say that’s a good thing, but in my opinion, I would like the controls of the stream in a separate window.

What VOKLE does really well is its live, one-click editing. You have the ability to go from one camera, to another, or both in the matter of one to two clicks. Being able to pull viewer questions and video on the live broadcast is a feature that really makes VOKLE unique, but I guess over time, we’ll see how the live video market evolves.

VOKLE is announcing the following performers will be using VOKLE over the next few weeks for their shows and broadcasts: Alex Albrecht, the Creator/Co-host of The Totally Rad Show and co-host of Diggnation; Eisner award-winning MF Grimm, who will be joined by Spawn comic creator / producer Todd McFarlane; comedy troupe Reckless Tortug;, music band The Rest; and popular voice-actor Rob Paulson.

VOKLE originally demoed their product at the DEMO 2009 conference, and is based in Santa Monica, CA.

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We heard reports that Friendster was going to shopping itself to an Asian technology company but tonight, the news was released that MOL Global, a Malaysian payments company, has purchased social network Friendster. The full press release is below. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but we’ve heard that the purchase price is around $100 million.

Friendster, which was founded in 2001, has raised over $45 million in venture capital to date, and is sitting on some potentially lucrative IP. The acquisition makes sense because while Friendster is no longer hot in the U.S., it’s most definitely still has members in the Asia/Pacific region.

The social network, which just rolled out a much-needed redesign, appointed Richard Kimber as its new CEO, who used to head Sales and Operations in South East Asia for Google.

MOL Global and Friendster already had a partnership power the payments ecosystem of the Friendster Wallet and its payments platform.

MOL Retail and Payment Channels and Leading Online Social Network Combine to Form Massive Content Distribution and E-commerce Platform in Asia for Over 100 Million Users

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ — MOL Global Pte. Ltd. (”MOL Global”), an affiliate of leading online payment solutions provider MOL AccessPortal Berhad (”MOL”), and Friendster, Inc. (”Friendster”), the operator of a top global web site based on traffic and a leading social network in Asia, announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which MOL Global will acquire 100% of Friendster. The principal shareholder of MOL is Tan Sri Vincent Tan, the Chairman and CEO of Berjaya Corporation Berhad, a leading, diversified Malaysian conglomerate that has annual revenues in excess of US$1.8 billion. Following the acquisition, the operations of MOL and Friendster will be combined to create Asia’s largest end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network, pairing MOL’s offline retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster’s large online footprint, social network and user community in Asia.

“The merger with Friendster will continue to transform the social networking industry, combining a highly intuitive and successful social media site and online marketing channel with an integrated payment platform and content network which includes games, goods, gifts, music and video. We are creating a unique company that will be well positioned to provide content to a huge, regional user base, here in Southeast Asia,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, president and chief executive officer of MOL.

MOL uses the leverage of a network of over 500,000 physical and virtual payment channels across 75 countries worldwide to collect payments for content and services. Its core markets are Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and India. MOL has relationships with over 70 online game publishers that have a suite of over 200 online game titles. It also has partnerships with music, movie and video content owners and distributors across the region.

“Friendster and MOL are both industry pioneers and are close partners. This combination is a natural progression of our relationship and will be an industry-changing event,” said Richard Kimber, chief executive officer at Friendster. “The new combined entity gives Friendster the kind of financial backing, retail distribution, and e-commerce infrastructure that will enable us to accelerate our strategy and create a locally relevant, fun experience for our users in Asia, both on and offline.”

In 2003, Friendster pioneered social networking, and today is a leading web site in Asia, with over 75 million registered users and over 90 percent of daily traffic coming from the region. Asian youths have embraced Friendster and use it as their primary means of connecting to and keeping in touch with friends, self-expression, sharing content and news with friends, and as a source of entertainment. Friendster users also enjoy local music, gifting, photo sharing, online games, and using Friendster on their mobile devices. All of these are incorporated in Friendster’s product suite and will be further developed over time with MOL, specifically with Asian youths in mind.

Friendster and MOL entered a global partnership in October of this year where MOL was appointed to provide an integrated payments platform, as a foundation for The Friendster Wallet and The Friendster Gift Shop, for Friendster’s users. The new combined entity will now build upon that initial set of products to deliver a content distribution network and e-commerce platform, enabling a wide array of content to be distributed to Friendster’s community and monetize via micro-transactions using MOL’s payment platform. MOL will use the leverage of its physical distribution networks to localize and extend the online reach of social networking in Southeast Asia to the physical world through Tan Sri Vincent Tan’s substantial assets across Malaysia and the region, including retail franchises in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia such as Starbucks, 7-Eleven, Borders, Krispy Kreme, Wendy’s and Papa John’s Pizza, just to name a few.

Friendster recently launched a new brand and web site packed with new features representing a significant milestone in the company’s history and further signifying the company’s evolution to focus on the Asian youth market. The notable changes include a new fun-centric brand, and a redesigned web site with a focus on local relevance, fun and simplicity.

The combined entity will maintain offices in various locations, around the world, including Mountain View, CA (USA), the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. Ganesh Kumar Bangah will become the Group Chief Executive Officer of the combined entity while Richard Kimber will become the Non-Executive Chairman.

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Cyber Monday might have turned out to be better than expected. Online retailers saw a 13.7 percent increase in sales compared to last year, and 24.1 percent more than on Black Friday 2009. The latest data comes from Coremetrics, a Web analytics service used by more than 500 retailers including Abercrombie & Fitch, Bath & Body Works, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Office Depot, and Williams-Sonoma.

The average online order was $180.03, compared to $170.19 on Black Friday and $130.24 last year. Consumers also bought 10 percent more indivual items than on Friday, and 30 percent more items than last year.

The average session length across Coremetric’s sample was 7:32 minutes, down from 8:23 minutes last year, but the percentage of visits that actually resulted in an order increased to 5.26 percent from 3.99 percent last year.

Coremetrics is just one set of data about Cyber Monday sales, and reflect the large retailers who use its product. Those retailers did better on Black Friday (up 24 percent) than broader estimates from comScore suggested for the online retail sector as a whole (up 11 percent). ComScore has not yet released its Cyber Monday data.

Photo credit: Flickr/garethjmsaunders

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