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Smize! “Top Model” boss Tyra Banks says fans will play a part in the next cycle.
By Us Weekly
Johnny Wujek and Rob Evans are going to be on “Top”!
Tyra Banks and the CW announced Thursday that Wujek and Evans will be joining the cast of “America’s Next Top Model.” ?
Photos from Us: Stars’ first modeling gigs
“Welcome the fab Johnny Wujek & fine Rob Evans to the CW’s ANTM!” Banks, 38, tweeted. “Excited for some cuh-ray-zee challenges. Start practicin’ ur booty tooch!” The CW confirms that Wujek, who is Katy Perry’s stylist, will act as a creative consultant on the show and model Evans will join Kelly Cutrone on the judges panel as the third permanent judge.
And that’s not the only news Banks had to share about Cycle 19 of the hit CW show.
“Fierce news, Fam, the newest addition to America’s Next Top Model is you!” she wrote on Facebook. “Cycle 19′s judging panel will include your votes, comments and video messages. You will have a say in which models stay… and who goes home.”
Photos from Us: Take a look back at our favorite ‘Top Model’ contestants
How will it work?
“Twice a week, starting Thursday, May 24th, you’ll be able to use our Voting App to rank and sound off on all 13 models’ best photos,” Banks explained. “Your input will shape the competition and you’ll be able to see it play out in the Fall. It’s time for your voice to be heard; today on social media and soon on the show itself!”
“I know u get mad when we send girls home on ANTM,” the host tweeted. “So get ur judging smize on bc for Cycle19, you help make the choices!”
Photos from Us: Meet the ‘America’s Next Top Model All-Stars’ cast
On April 20, Banks, announced longtime “ANTM” members Nigel Barker, J. Alexander and Jay Manuel would no longer be on the show. “To my Nigel Barker, Miss J, and Mr Jay: Thank you for all of our years together on ‘America’s Next Top Model,’ ” she wrote. “Working with you is always an absolute pleasure. Excited for what the future holds for us.”
Are you excited that Johnny Wujek and Rob Evans are joining ‘ANTM’? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page!
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Mitt Romney‘s first general-election TV commercial promises he would introduce tax cuts and approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline on the first day of his presidency.
The Republican candidate released the ad Friday, coupling it with a fundraising pitch. The 30-spot is upbeat, in contrast to an ad President Barack Obama is running that criticizes Romney as a businessman. Romney has called the Obama ad “character assassination.”
In Romney’s commercial, his first since becoming the presumptive nominee, an announcer asks: “What would a Romney presidency be like?”
“Day One: President Romney immediately approves the Keystone pipeline, creating thousands of jobs that Obama blocked,” the announcer declares, referring to a pipeline Obama has delayed. Republicans insist his decision shows Obama’s hostility toward the energy industry.
“President Romney introduces tax cuts and reforms that reward job creators, not punish them,” the announcer says, repeating a familiar Republican theme.
Then, in an effort to ease conservative skepticism, the announcer says: “President Romney issues order to begin replacing Obamacare with common-sense health care reform.”
As governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed into law a health care overhaul that was a model for Obama’s health care law. Conservatives loathe the law’s requirement that individuals purchase health insurance or face penalties.
Romney does not speak in the ad. But it shows video and still photos of Romney appearing with U.S. workers, underscoring the campaign’s central pitch that Romney is the best candidate to improve the economy.
The ad ignores Congress’ role in fulfilling these promises, especially on the health care law. A full repeal would require votes from Republican majorities in both the House and Senate or Democratic support for repeal. Republicans currently control the House and have voted to repeal the law. But Democrats control the Senate, and the balance of power on Capitol Hill would have to shift in order to make Romney’s pledge a reality.
Congress also would have to act on taxes. The president cannot set tax rates.
Data provided to The Associated Press from TV stations and media buyers shows Romney is spending $1.3 million to air the ad in Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio, all critical battleground states. The campaign also released a Spanish language version of the ad.
The campaign has not aired commercials since Romney’s top Republican challenger, Rick Santorum, dropped out of the race for president in April.
Several conservative super PACs have stepped in instead, to air ads attacking Obama.
___
Associated Press writer Beth Fouhy in New York contributed to this report.
Duncan Niederauer, NYSE Euronext CEO and Scott Davis, UPS chairman and CEO, offer advice to Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg ahead of the company’s listing on the Nasdaq.
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A great post from ReelSEO.com just showing what video marketing can do. Yes Coca Cola and Peugeot have the money for a large video budget, and as a small business owner, you are probably thinking that video marketing is going to be expensive. How wrong you are. All you need is an inexpensive flip camera, even a web camera would do the job, and just talk about your business market. Offer advice, hints and tips. Create GOOD content!
Enjoy this post:
The adage ?Content is King? is now becoming something of a clich?, rolled out regularly to prove the author?s understanding that it?s not just hits that count, but how people perceive your message and what they do with it, turning viewers from passive observers to willing propagators of your content is obviously crucial. A central component of this ? creating a synergy between online video and social networking- to the extent that your audience become co-curators in your campaigns.
Coca Cola & the ?Content 2020 Project? ? Video + Social Marketing
There is a pressing need to go one step further than simply making an interesting or entertaining sales pitch. Coca Cola?s recent UK-focused marketing strategy is very prescient: their latest marketing plan ? the ?Content 2020 project? ? is a push to not just create interesting content, but to grasp the joint video and social nettle. Coca Cola?s mission statement; ?we will move from creative excellence to content excellence? ? a sign of the intent of the market leaders.
Developing what Coca Cola deem ?liquid content? (quick to change, adapt and grow with its audience across any medium) requires a planning process:? a shift from quantitative upfront research such as surveys and statistics, to more of an emphasis on engaging with customers and listening to their insights.
Coca Cola employed CommuniSpace, (http://www.communispace.com/home.aspx) which allowed them to create an online dialogue with customers to evolve ideas further. Coke has seized the ?70/20/10? model of content development, and have thrown their enthusiasm behind innovative, consumer and social-based strategies that would fit the ?10%? bracket (see below):
70% = Low risk content: takes up less time ? They know what works from experience. Standard, unremarkable stuff.
20% = Targeted at a more specific audience but still a broad scale. Innovate on what works well.
10% = High risk content: brand new ideas which will become tomorrow?s 70% and 20%s. Take risks, and celebrate both failure and success. If it works, it works big,
Coca Cola Social Network Marketing Package:
Coke?s original ideas? Encouraging conversations on Twitter with ?What?s the one thing you?d do to make the world a better place??,?and ?Your Stories? on FaceBook ? a collection of fan posts showing how people from around the world have helped make Coke into what it is today. For the specific UK focus, there is a blog featuring the mothers of Olympic Athletes topical, empathetic and appealing to a wide range of consumers. Top it all off with the Mark Ronson led live music events, videos and artist vlogs, and you have quite the interactive package:
Rubber Republica?s Video Marketing Campaign for Peugeot
Then there?s the original initiative of Rubber Republica?s ?Non-stop? campaign for Peugeot Rubber Republic describe themselves as;
?A boutique agency that make engaging and fun things happen to help brands thrive in a world curated by the likes of Twitter, FaceBook and blogs?
The synthesis of a video ad campaign and social media awareness is clear here.
When I spoke to Rory Ahearn of Rubber Republic, he said they received a clear brief from Peugeot?s agency ?Initial Marketing?, who had found the soundtrack (Rudimental?s ?Feel the Love?) that would become the music for an experiential road show, and furthermore would create the framework for the launch of the new Peugeot 208. Not just a channel, but a whole series of live events was organized around this product.
Rubber Republic?s challenge
Rubber was asked to create a video that would be the start of a much wider cross media campaign. Peugeot knew it needed something that would be digital and social as the best approach to reach the target demographic for the car which was for a younger and fashionable group.
Rubber Republic confirm this, saying
?The video needed to appeal to younger drivers, [and] genuinely offer YouTube audiences entertaining content while reinforcing the new Peugeot 208?s global advertising proposition ?Let Your Body Drive??.
How did they do this? With exhaustive casting and auditioning, in an attempt to create a new online hero, or a massive attempt to start an online trend? No ? they simply contacted an individual who was already a social networking sensation, as they confirm: ?We (along with the 43 million+ others) first noticed Marquese [Scott] last September when he uploaded one of YouTube?s most viewed videos of 2012: ?Pumped Up Kicks??, and made him a central component of Peugeot?s own ?Let Your Body Drive? channel.
Peugeot v Nonstop
In this piece we see Marquese working his way rhythmically around an empty multi-storey car park, as a camera slowly pans to follow him. According to Rubber Republica?s website,??The video was shot in one take. There are no edits, no visual effects and Marquese just turned up and did his thing without choreography?.
There is no on-screen mention of product, and the car itself is not even in frame all the time.
This led to wide coverage in blogs and comment sites, with the campaign debuting in the viral video chart at number four. As Rubber Republic put it, the campaign, Initial?s chosen soundtrack and Marquese ?was a match made in heaven?.
And the moral is?
When it comes to viral video and social content, Rubber state they had been trying to get various brands to take this approach to promoting their products and services for over ten years.
The three founders of Rubber had started their business by making things that people wanted to watch. They built an environment of ?enthusiasm for the next thing?. This would become the viral ?seeding? means for whatever they did in the future ? whatever that might be. The concept was to ask what will entertain and who will watch it and then what brand is a natural fit for that content. And the companies are coming on board to this.
Rory Ahearn deserves the last word:
?Traditional advertising won?t disappear, but finally, smart brands such as Peugeot have realised that a synergy of entertainment and existing cultural trends wins over a sales pitch for certain demographics, and is often a more interesting, valuable and ultimately profitable approach.?
New Firefox browser for Android comes with Flash support bit.ly/JvnMyD #themobileindian #news @firefox #TMIabout 2 hours agovia webRetweeted by 1 person
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc increased the size of its initial public offering by almost 25 percent, and could raise as much as $16 billion as strong investor demand for a share of the No.1 social network trumps debate about its long-term potential to make money.
Facebook, founded eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room, said on Wednesday it will add about 84 million shares to its IPO, floating about 421 million shares in an offering expected to be priced on Thursday.
Early investors, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Accel Partners’ James Breyer and investment manager Tiger Global Management will also sell more shares, the company said in a filing.
The expanded size, coupled with Facebook’s recently announced plans to raise the IPO price range, would make Facebook the third-largest initial share sale in U.S. history after Visa Inc and General Motors.
The social networking company is drumming up massive demand for the offering even as slowing revenue and user growth spur questions about the long-term Facebook story.
Those concerns over revenue growth were underscored on Tuesday, when GM said it planned to pull out of advertising on Facebook.
“This is much more a spectacle, a media event and a cultural moment than it is an IPO,” said Max Wolff, an analyst at GreenCrest Capital. “This is not a game of models and fundamentals at this point.”
GM’s announcement, while ill-timed for Facebook, should not seriously hurt the IPO’s reception for now as it may not be representative of advertisers’ overall attitude, said Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research Group.
“The demand for the IPO probably won’t be affected materially by this,” he said, adding, however, there were probably a lot of calls between underwriters and investors following GM’s announcement.
The IPO, Silicon Valley’s largest, eclipses the roughly $2 billion debut by Google Inc in 2004.
Facebook raised the target price range to $34-$38 per share in response to strong demand, from $28-$35, according to a Tuesday filing. That would value the company at $93-$104 billion, rivaling the market value of Internet powerhouses such as Amazon.com Inc, and exceeding that of Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc combined.
The increased price range made it very unlikely that Facebook shares would double on their trading debut as they might have if the company had come out at the low end of its initial price range, Wolff said. He expects a first-day gain of about 10 percent.
“No rational person thought they were buying the stock for $28,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Patcher, noting Facebook had traded as high as $44 in the secondary markets in recent months.
Facebook said in Tuesday’s filing that it arrived at the higher IPO price range after one week of marketing the offering – part of a cross-country roadshow in which CEO Zuckerberg has taken the stage to lay out his vision for the company’s money-making potential and its top priorities.
The price range hike, coupled with strong results from internet and social media players Groupon Inc and China’s Renren Inc, contributed to a dotcom rally on Wall Street on Tuesday. Shares of Pandora Media Inc rose 10.3 percent, Zynga Inc was up 7.7 percent, Groupon climbed 3.7 percent and Renren gained 6.4 percent.
LONG-TERM GROWTH
Before the IPO size was increased, Facebook would have raised about $12.1 billion based on the midpoint price of $36 and the 337.4 million shares on offer originally.
At this midpoint, Facebook would be valued at roughly 27 times its 2011 revenue, or 99 times earnings. Google went public at a valuation of $23 billion, or 16 times its trailing revenue and 218 times earnings. Apple Inc went public in 1980 at a valuation of 25 times its revenue and 102 times earnings.
Facebook’s IPO comes as some investors worry the company has not yet figured out a way to make money from a growing number of users who access the social network on mobile devices such as smartphones. Meanwhile, revenue growth from Facebook’s online advertising business, which accounts for the bulk of its revenue, has slowed in recent months.
With some 900 million users, it had $1 billion in net income on revenue of $3.7 billion in 2011.
The company has also extended the time frame for its $1 billion acquisition of mobile app maker Instagram, projecting the deal would close this year instead of the second quarter as it previously indicated.
It provided no reasons, though a source familiar with the matter told Reuters last week that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reached out to Google and Twitter as part of the agency’s standard review for deals of that size.
Facebook is scheduled to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. A host of Wall Street banks are underwriting the offering, with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs serving as leads.
(Additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Edwin Chan, Maureen Bavdek, Matthew Lewis, Richard Chang, Ryan Woo and Ian Geoghegan and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
Mozilla’s Do Not Track feature, which allows users to tell websites that they would like to opt-out of being tracked by third parties, is starting to gain some traction among both users and publishers. According to new data shared by Mozilla today, 8.6% of Firefox desktop users and 19% of mobile users now turn this opt-in feature on. The latest company to announce?that it will honor Do Not Track is Twitter.
After the Dancing With the Stars results show Tuesday night, it’s been confirmed that the first-ever all-star edition of the hit show will premiere this fall.
Who should compete among the best of the best? Or at least the most talked about? The possibilities over the past 14 seasons are nearly limitless.
“We can’t talk about the casting yet, but I’d love to see some of the fan favorites from past seasons,” ABC’s entertainment president Paul Lee said.
On last night’s episode, during which Maria Menounos was eliminated, host Tom Bergeron hinted that past DWTS champs would be invited back.
TV Guide reported that former contestants Mario Lopez, Gilles Marini, and Mel B could be back. Lopez even admitted he’s in talks with DWTS for it.
Season 7 Dancing With the Stars champion and current host Brooke Burke Charvet wouldn’t mind putting her dancing shoes back on, either.
“I haven’t danced ballroom since I left that season… I would love to [return],” Burke Charvet confided to Rachael Ray in a recent interview.
“And being on the show, it just makes me want to dance again.”
Who would you like to see compete among the Dancing With the Stars All-Stars? J.R. Martinez? Bristol Palin? Kate Gosselin? Sound off below!
Cannes Film Festival Artistic Director Thierry Fremaux poses during a photo call for Moonrise Kingdom at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
Cannes Film Festival Artistic Director Thierry Fremaux poses during a photo call for Moonrise Kingdom at the 65th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France, Wednesday, May 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau)
CANNES, France (AP) ? At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, there are directors in their 30s and their 80s, directors from Europe and North America, directors from Asia and the Middle East ? but no women.
Not, at least, among the 22 films competing for the coveted Palme D’Or, an absence that has drawn criticism from feminists ? and a defense from the festival’s artistic director. Thierry Fremaux argues it’s not his fault that filmmaking remains primarily “a male sport.”
“I don’t select films because the film is directed by a man, a woman, white, black, young, an old man,” said Fremaux, who has led the festival since 2001. “I select films because I think they deserve to be in selection.
“It wouldn’t be very nice to select a film because the film is not good but it is directed by a woman,” he added.
Last year, four female directors made the main competition lineup, including Britain’s Lynne Ramsay and Australia’s Julie Leigh. The festival’s critics say this year’s choice suggests that was a blip, rather than a trend.
The French feminist group La Barbe took the festival to task for excluding women with a petition published in Le Monde and The Guardian newspapers.
The letter, whose signatories included filmmaker Virginie Despentes and writer Nancy Huston, said sarcastically that the lineup “sends a powerful message … Above all, never let the girls think they can one day have the presumptuousness to make movies or to climb those famous Festival Palace steps, except when attached to the arm of a Prince Charming.”
It’s not that women are in short supply at Cannes. They abound ? most prominently on-screen and on the red carpet. The French Riviera film festival is synonymous with female glamour, from Sophia Loren and Monica Bellucci to Penelope Cruz and Angelina Jolie.
Women also are plentiful in off-screen cinema roles, from the traditional enclaves of hair and makeup to film editing, where experts like Martin Scorsese’s longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker are considered among the best in the business.
“There are a lot of women (in editing) because they are close to the directors, and the directors are men,” said Colette Farrugia, a film editor with 30 years of experience in the business.
Female feature directors remain rare, despite high-profile successes like Kathryn Bigelow, whose war film “The Hurt Locker” won six Academy Awards, including best director ? making her the only woman ever to win that prize.
Research by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that just 5 percent of last year’s 250 highest-grossing films were directed by women, a lower level than a decade earlier.
Some have suggested forms of affirmative action, or quotas, for female filmmakers, but directors oppose the idea.
“I would absolutely hate it if my film got selected because I was a woman,” said British director Andrea Arnold, whose films “Red Road” and “Fish Tank” both won prizes at Cannes. “It’s true the world over in the world of film, there are just not that many women film directors. That’s a great pity and a great disappointment.”
Fremaux acknowledges that cinema is still male-dominated, but says “it’s not the fault of Cannes.”
He stresses that female directors are not entirely absent from the festival, which runs Wednesday to May 27. The secondary competition, Un Certain Regard, features two, both French: Sylvie Verheyde (“Confession of a Child of the Century”) and Catherine Corsini (“Three Worlds”). There are also four women on the nine-member festival jury.
“If we really want to solve the problem it’s not here, and not in accusing Cannes. It is in asking the same question in January, everywhere in the world and every month,” he said.
Kate Kinninmont, chief executive of industry group Women in Film and Television, agreed that criticizing Cannes, or imposing quotas, would not solve the problem.
“I think it’s a big cultural thing that’s going to take a long time,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of very talented women making shorts. They will be the next generation that will start to change the balance.
“It’s only going to be done by the strength and confidence of women going forward.”
___
Associated Press Writer Hilary Fox contributed to this report.
Jill Lawless can be reached at http://twitter.com/JillLawless
How did they do this? With exhaustive casting and auditioning, in an attempt to create a new online hero, or a massive attempt to start an online trend? No ? they simply contacted an individual who was already a social networking sensation, as they confirm: ?We (along with the 43 million+ others) first noticed Marquese [Scott] last September when he uploaded one of YouTube?s most viewed videos of 2012: ?Pumped Up Kicks??, and made him a central component of Peugeot?s own ?Let Your Body Drive? channel.
themobileindian
Mozilla’s 