We are at an age where technological innovations happen here and there and from time to time. You can take for example the Internet and how it has grown for the past decade. You should also take note of those gadgets that have made its way to our lives for the past few years.
About Symbol Scanning
Perhaps one of the useful advancements in technology is symbol scanning or barcode scanning. It is the process wherein you use a device called a scanner to identify barcode images and the data those images represent. A barcode refers to an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows certain data on certain products. This scanning process is commonly seen or utilized in retail stores and similar establishments but is also being used in hospitals, warehouses, some types of businesses and others.
Discovering the Symbol Scanner & its Benefits
Symbol scanners are barcode scanners that are used in conjunction with a certain point-of-sale (POS) system. There are terms such as "barcode readers", "POS scanners", "price scanners", and "barcode decoders" that are being associated with those gadgets. Symbol scanners are very much beneficial and useful especially for those folks with businesses like retail stores.
The benefits of a symbol scanner can be summed up to one important thing: it makes the work of whoever uses it easier, faster and more accurate. Most common users of this particular handheld scanner are cashiers of retail stores or similar types of businesses. Once the cashier scans the product, all significant information such as pricing, product category, product code and others will become readily accessible. These details have been digitally recorded in a particular store's product database or system beforehand perhaps with the use of that scanning technology as well. Have you thought about what would happen if those scanners don't exist? Cashiers may have to search for the product by entering certain codes or keywords and sorting them out through lists in the system, which will definitely take more time and effort.
Symbol Scanners - Varieties
These barcode scanners can be grouped into different categories and each variety or type has its own unique features. There's a handheld scanner which can only scan barcode images at a short distance like a few inches away. There's one particular type of symbol scanner that can scan barcodes even at long distances. You may also have heard about laser scanners, pen wands and wireless barcode scanners. If you are planning to put up a retail store and are considering buying such scanners, you should learn about these varieties or types.
Programming a Symbol Scanner
Once you have all your resources, you may be tasked to program the scanner. The task includes installing the software to the PC, connecting the symbol scanner to the PC and others. This particular process may be too technical for some folks. That's why they hire someone to do it for them. However, if you'd rather do it on your own, then you can do so. Just follow the manual instructions carefully or find some useful tips online related to programming a symbol scanner.
Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Dan Tolleson, a researcher and writer with a Ph.D. in politics, has been out of work since 2009, except for brief stints as a driver. Still, he opposes President Obama’s call for Congress to renew extensions on unemployment benefits. “They’re going to end up spending more money on unemployment benefits, while less money is coming in on tax returns,” he said, suggesting that the government should focus on measures that might encourage businesses to hire. “Far better to relax some of these outrageous regulations.”
Make no mistake — Mr. Tolleson, 54, has collected unemployment checks, saying he had little choice. But his objection to a policy that would probably benefit him shows just how divisive the question has become of providing a bigger safety net to the long-term jobless, a common strategy in recessions.
President Obama wants to continue offering benefits for an extended period of time, a maximum of 99 weeks, as is now the case. The measure is part of his jobs bill, which he once again called on Congress to pass in a press conference on Thursday.
If the extension is not renewed, benefits for more than 2.2 million people will be curtailed by mid-February, according to the Department of Labor. The Obama administration estimates that with no extensions, a total of six million people will run out of benefits over the course of next year.
Unless job growth picks up sharply, many of those people will struggle to stay out of poverty. Unemployment benefits, which average $298 a week, help families and serve as economic stimulus because most of the money gets spent right away on basics. Liberal and many centrist economists say that the economy is too weak now to withstand the shock of a sharp drop in those payments.
Still, conservatives contend that extending benefits pulls money from other parts of the economy, discourages people from finding work and increases the unemployment rate. Some Republican politicians have gone so far as to suggest that people living on unemployment are simply lazy. Even President Obama’s pick for head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan B. Krueger, has acknowledged that increasing unemployment benefits prolongs unemployment, as conservatives were quick to point out when he was nominated in August.
To some taxpayers, unemployment extensions are just another big government expenditure that comes out of their pockets and goes into someone else’s. Some would rather see the money spent on projects with a return, like building highways and schools. Others prefer freeing businesses of expenses like the health care plan and new regulations.
Even among those struggling to find work, Mr. Tolleson is not alone in his views. In a recent survey of the unemployed by Rutgers University, more than one in four respondents was opposed to renewing the current extended unemployment benefits. Three out of five said recipients should be required to take training courses.
Mr. Tolleson, who lives in Houston and whose last good job was working for a group that aims to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, said he filed for unemployment after a church said it could not help him otherwise. But, he said, he knows the money is not free: “They either tax it from somebody who’s making money or they’re going to print it — either way, the economy goes down.”
Theresa Gorski, a pharmaceutical sales rep in Detroit before losing her job 17 months ago, once shared his skepticism of prolonging unemployment benefits.
“If you would have asked me five years ago, I would have said no, because I always considered myself a Republican,” said Ms. Gorski, 50. “But now being in this position, with a college education and lots of work experience behind me, I find myself swinging more liberal, and more Democrat. And that would never have happened before.”
This recession has left more people unemployed for longer than ever before. In September, nearly seven million people were receiving unemployment benefits, and the Census Bureau says the payments lifted more than three million people out of poverty last year. Keeping the extensions in place for another year would cost $49 billion, the White House estimates.
source : www.nytimes.com
Make no mistake — Mr. Tolleson, 54, has collected unemployment checks, saying he had little choice. But his objection to a policy that would probably benefit him shows just how divisive the question has become of providing a bigger safety net to the long-term jobless, a common strategy in recessions.
President Obama wants to continue offering benefits for an extended period of time, a maximum of 99 weeks, as is now the case. The measure is part of his jobs bill, which he once again called on Congress to pass in a press conference on Thursday.
If the extension is not renewed, benefits for more than 2.2 million people will be curtailed by mid-February, according to the Department of Labor. The Obama administration estimates that with no extensions, a total of six million people will run out of benefits over the course of next year.
Unless job growth picks up sharply, many of those people will struggle to stay out of poverty. Unemployment benefits, which average $298 a week, help families and serve as economic stimulus because most of the money gets spent right away on basics. Liberal and many centrist economists say that the economy is too weak now to withstand the shock of a sharp drop in those payments.
Still, conservatives contend that extending benefits pulls money from other parts of the economy, discourages people from finding work and increases the unemployment rate. Some Republican politicians have gone so far as to suggest that people living on unemployment are simply lazy. Even President Obama’s pick for head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan B. Krueger, has acknowledged that increasing unemployment benefits prolongs unemployment, as conservatives were quick to point out when he was nominated in August.
To some taxpayers, unemployment extensions are just another big government expenditure that comes out of their pockets and goes into someone else’s. Some would rather see the money spent on projects with a return, like building highways and schools. Others prefer freeing businesses of expenses like the health care plan and new regulations.
Even among those struggling to find work, Mr. Tolleson is not alone in his views. In a recent survey of the unemployed by Rutgers University, more than one in four respondents was opposed to renewing the current extended unemployment benefits. Three out of five said recipients should be required to take training courses.
Mr. Tolleson, who lives in Houston and whose last good job was working for a group that aims to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, said he filed for unemployment after a church said it could not help him otherwise. But, he said, he knows the money is not free: “They either tax it from somebody who’s making money or they’re going to print it — either way, the economy goes down.”
Theresa Gorski, a pharmaceutical sales rep in Detroit before losing her job 17 months ago, once shared his skepticism of prolonging unemployment benefits.
“If you would have asked me five years ago, I would have said no, because I always considered myself a Republican,” said Ms. Gorski, 50. “But now being in this position, with a college education and lots of work experience behind me, I find myself swinging more liberal, and more Democrat. And that would never have happened before.”
This recession has left more people unemployed for longer than ever before. In September, nearly seven million people were receiving unemployment benefits, and the Census Bureau says the payments lifted more than three million people out of poverty last year. Keeping the extensions in place for another year would cost $49 billion, the White House estimates.
source : www.nytimes.com
It took only hours on Wednesday night for Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography of Steve Jobs to shoot up the best-seller list on Amazon.com, eventually moving from No. 384 to the No. 1 spot. On Thursday morning, a book buyer at Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., quintupled its order of the book, to 500 copies. Simon & Schuster, the publisher, said it was accelerating the publication, moving the release date to Oct. 24 from Nov. 21. And by the afternoon, the publishing industry was marveling at the potential of the book, simply titled “Steve Jobs,” weeks before its release.
“We think it’s the biggest adult nonfiction book of the year,” said Patricia Bostelman, the vice president for marketing at Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest book chain.
Mr. Isaacson will appear on “60 Minutes” closer to its release date, two people with knowledge of publicity plans for the book said. An excerpt will run in Fortune magazine after the book is published.
The book is currently being printed and bound, but Simon & Schuster, adopting Jobs-like secrecy, would not say how many copies it expected to print. Industry experts said it could easily sell millions of copies in print, audio and e-book editions. George W. Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” published last year, sold more than three million copies, considered a huge number in the industry.
Much of the book’s allure comes from the promise of a peek into the private life of Mr. Jobs, who died Wednesday. Mr. Jobs’s public image was tightly controlled. But in meetings with book buyers, Mr. Isaacson promised that the book would deal with personal aspects of Mr. Jobs’s life, including previously unknown stories of his childhood and adolescence, not just the story of his business career.
The book will also appeal to admirers of Mr. Isaacson, who has written acclaimed biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger.
“The reason I think it’s going to be so important is that it’s not an instant book,” said Elaine Petrocelli, the owner of Book Passage, a bookstore with two outlets in the Bay Area. “This is a book that Isaacson has worked on and has his full knowledge and what he brings to a book.”
It will also appeal to a wide range of readers, not just those passionate about technology, Ms. Petrocelli said. “My children who are starting their careers are fascinated with him, and they’ll want to read it, and I want to read it,” she said. “I see it as a great Christmas present. I think everyone will want it.”
Despite some anti-Apple sentiment in Portland, Gerry Donaghy, a book buyer at Powell’s, said he expected the book to sell hundreds of copies, hardly small change at the $35 hardcover list price.
“There is a lot of naysaying about the ‘cult of Apple’ and whatnot, but as the major media is highlighting how he really changed consumers’ relationships with computers, technology, music and movies, I think more folks will be interested,” Mr. Donaghy said in an e-mail.
Interest in the book was not limited to big cities on the coasts. Jessilynn Norcross, an owner of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Mich., said the store had already printed small posters to hang on the registers, gently publicizing the book. They read: “iSad :(.”
“If anybody wants to order, this is our way of telling them about it without being obnoxious,” she said. “You know your customers are going to want it, but you don’t want to be insensitive. It’s a sad day.”
Mr. Isaacson had the cooperation of Mr. Jobs, who granted more than 40 interviews over two years as he battled pancreatic cancer. Mr. Isaacson, the chief executive of the Aspen Institute, also conducted interviews with Mr. Jobs’s family members and colleagues.
The book was originally announced by Simon & Schuster in April, bearing the title “iSteve: The Book of Jobs,” and scheduled for a spring 2012 publication. Simon & Schuster later moved up the release date to November and changed the title to “Steve Jobs.”
The publisher has said that Mr. Jobs did not ask for control over the content of the book, and that Mr. Jobs spoke “candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against.”
“We think it’s the biggest adult nonfiction book of the year,” said Patricia Bostelman, the vice president for marketing at Barnes & Noble, the nation’s largest book chain.
Mr. Isaacson will appear on “60 Minutes” closer to its release date, two people with knowledge of publicity plans for the book said. An excerpt will run in Fortune magazine after the book is published.
The book is currently being printed and bound, but Simon & Schuster, adopting Jobs-like secrecy, would not say how many copies it expected to print. Industry experts said it could easily sell millions of copies in print, audio and e-book editions. George W. Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” published last year, sold more than three million copies, considered a huge number in the industry.
Much of the book’s allure comes from the promise of a peek into the private life of Mr. Jobs, who died Wednesday. Mr. Jobs’s public image was tightly controlled. But in meetings with book buyers, Mr. Isaacson promised that the book would deal with personal aspects of Mr. Jobs’s life, including previously unknown stories of his childhood and adolescence, not just the story of his business career.
The book will also appeal to admirers of Mr. Isaacson, who has written acclaimed biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger.
“The reason I think it’s going to be so important is that it’s not an instant book,” said Elaine Petrocelli, the owner of Book Passage, a bookstore with two outlets in the Bay Area. “This is a book that Isaacson has worked on and has his full knowledge and what he brings to a book.”
It will also appeal to a wide range of readers, not just those passionate about technology, Ms. Petrocelli said. “My children who are starting their careers are fascinated with him, and they’ll want to read it, and I want to read it,” she said. “I see it as a great Christmas present. I think everyone will want it.”
Despite some anti-Apple sentiment in Portland, Gerry Donaghy, a book buyer at Powell’s, said he expected the book to sell hundreds of copies, hardly small change at the $35 hardcover list price.
“There is a lot of naysaying about the ‘cult of Apple’ and whatnot, but as the major media is highlighting how he really changed consumers’ relationships with computers, technology, music and movies, I think more folks will be interested,” Mr. Donaghy said in an e-mail.
Interest in the book was not limited to big cities on the coasts. Jessilynn Norcross, an owner of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Mich., said the store had already printed small posters to hang on the registers, gently publicizing the book. They read: “iSad :(.”
“If anybody wants to order, this is our way of telling them about it without being obnoxious,” she said. “You know your customers are going to want it, but you don’t want to be insensitive. It’s a sad day.”
Mr. Isaacson had the cooperation of Mr. Jobs, who granted more than 40 interviews over two years as he battled pancreatic cancer. Mr. Isaacson, the chief executive of the Aspen Institute, also conducted interviews with Mr. Jobs’s family members and colleagues.
The book was originally announced by Simon & Schuster in April, bearing the title “iSteve: The Book of Jobs,” and scheduled for a spring 2012 publication. Simon & Schuster later moved up the release date to November and changed the title to “Steve Jobs.”
The publisher has said that Mr. Jobs did not ask for control over the content of the book, and that Mr. Jobs spoke “candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against.”
“He just sat them there waiting for the day,” said Roger Faxon, the chief executive of the EMI Group, the Beatles’ label. “They were beautiful ads.”
As the man who introduced the iPod, iPhone and iPad to the world, Mr. Jobs became a kind of folk hero of American business for his intuitive understanding of consumer sentiment and his ability to make deals with some of the most obstinate players in entertainment and media.
He was, according to Bono of U2 in a statement on Thursday, “one of a very small group of anarchic Americans who through technology literally invented the 21st century. We all miss the hardware software Elvis.”
In many ways, the Beatles agreement was the perfect distillation of Mr. Jobs’s determination — and his complete confidence — in melding technology and culture. But for the media companies at the other end of those deals, Mr. Jobs was a far more complex figure. As executives in music, film and publishing have learned, a deal with Mr. Jobs and Apple meant inclusion in one of the most important digital marketplaces on the planet, and the potential for greater sales than from any other outlet. But the deals were inevitably made on Mr. Jobs’s strict terms.
“Steve’s approach to the magazine industry was, ‘My way or the highway,’ ” said Jann Wenner, the founder and editor of Rolling Stone, who dealt with Apple over the magazine’s iPad edition.
Of all media businesses, music has had the most fraught relationship with Apple. It was the first entertainment industry to find its basic business model shaken by the Internet, when Napster in 1999 ushered in mass illegal file-sharing. ITunes was clearly the only workable solution, said one senior executive at a major label, but Mr. Jobs’s demands that songs be sold individually and all at 99 cents made the labels uncomfortable.
“He was a genius and he was creative, but he was also fairly imperious,” said Bill Werde, the editorial director of Billboard. “When Apple has leverage, Apple uses leverage.”
Stories about Mr. Jobs’s efforts to persuade the leaders of the industry to his side are legion. For years, he remained stubbornly, victoriously inflexible about matters like pricing. He personally demonstrated iTunes to figures like Bono and Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M, wowing them in much the same way he did crowds of software developers and journalists at the company’s regular product introductions.
“We swallowed hard,” said the senior label executive, who did not want his name used because of Apple’s well-known secrecy about negotiations and contracts. “But if anybody could pull this off, Steve could.”
The iTunes store has sold 16 billion songs in its eight years in business. Yet for music companies, it has been a mixed blessing. Overall music sales declined 32 percent in 2010 from 2003, when the iTunes store was introduced, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Digital music, while still growing, has not made up for the money lost from CDs.
For many in other forms of media, however, Apple has all but saved the music labels from a far worse fate.
“The cautionary tale in music was not how they did business but that they waited,” said Robert W. Pittman, the chief executive of Clear Channel Communications and a former top executive at MTV and AOL. Music executives “didn’t realize that in the digital age, the consumer can get access to content in other ways that they had no control over,” he said.
For others, music has been an example of an industry that gave up too much control to Apple. The company faced a revolt from magazine and newspaper publishers this year when it insisted on keeping 30 percent of the money from subscriptions sold in its app ecosystem and on controlling all customer data for those transactions. With services like Google offering more favorable terms to publishers, Apple agreed to some flexibility.
As the man who introduced the iPod, iPhone and iPad to the world, Mr. Jobs became a kind of folk hero of American business for his intuitive understanding of consumer sentiment and his ability to make deals with some of the most obstinate players in entertainment and media.
He was, according to Bono of U2 in a statement on Thursday, “one of a very small group of anarchic Americans who through technology literally invented the 21st century. We all miss the hardware software Elvis.”
In many ways, the Beatles agreement was the perfect distillation of Mr. Jobs’s determination — and his complete confidence — in melding technology and culture. But for the media companies at the other end of those deals, Mr. Jobs was a far more complex figure. As executives in music, film and publishing have learned, a deal with Mr. Jobs and Apple meant inclusion in one of the most important digital marketplaces on the planet, and the potential for greater sales than from any other outlet. But the deals were inevitably made on Mr. Jobs’s strict terms.
“Steve’s approach to the magazine industry was, ‘My way or the highway,’ ” said Jann Wenner, the founder and editor of Rolling Stone, who dealt with Apple over the magazine’s iPad edition.
Of all media businesses, music has had the most fraught relationship with Apple. It was the first entertainment industry to find its basic business model shaken by the Internet, when Napster in 1999 ushered in mass illegal file-sharing. ITunes was clearly the only workable solution, said one senior executive at a major label, but Mr. Jobs’s demands that songs be sold individually and all at 99 cents made the labels uncomfortable.
“He was a genius and he was creative, but he was also fairly imperious,” said Bill Werde, the editorial director of Billboard. “When Apple has leverage, Apple uses leverage.”
Stories about Mr. Jobs’s efforts to persuade the leaders of the industry to his side are legion. For years, he remained stubbornly, victoriously inflexible about matters like pricing. He personally demonstrated iTunes to figures like Bono and Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M, wowing them in much the same way he did crowds of software developers and journalists at the company’s regular product introductions.
“We swallowed hard,” said the senior label executive, who did not want his name used because of Apple’s well-known secrecy about negotiations and contracts. “But if anybody could pull this off, Steve could.”
The iTunes store has sold 16 billion songs in its eight years in business. Yet for music companies, it has been a mixed blessing. Overall music sales declined 32 percent in 2010 from 2003, when the iTunes store was introduced, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Digital music, while still growing, has not made up for the money lost from CDs.
For many in other forms of media, however, Apple has all but saved the music labels from a far worse fate.
“The cautionary tale in music was not how they did business but that they waited,” said Robert W. Pittman, the chief executive of Clear Channel Communications and a former top executive at MTV and AOL. Music executives “didn’t realize that in the digital age, the consumer can get access to content in other ways that they had no control over,” he said.
For others, music has been an example of an industry that gave up too much control to Apple. The company faced a revolt from magazine and newspaper publishers this year when it insisted on keeping 30 percent of the money from subscriptions sold in its app ecosystem and on controlling all customer data for those transactions. With services like Google offering more favorable terms to publishers, Apple agreed to some flexibility.
THE widespread changes in consumer behavior and technology that are prompting marketers to rethink how they sell products are much on the minds of Madison Avenue. That was underlined on Wednesday by spirited discussions during the third day of Advertising Week 2011. Participants at a panel sponsored by Google and the Advertising Council talked about different approaches to embedding messages about social change in media like film and television as well as in advertisements.
Using movies to make a case for social change is “a great way to get people to the table,” said Wendy Cohen, director for digital campaigns and community at Participant Media, a film and TV production company that specializes in stories it deems socially relevant. Among Participant productions are fiction films like “Contagion” and “The Help” and documentaries like “An Inconvenient Truth.” In some instances, Ms. Cohen said, the role of film to inform viewers about important issues is “taking the place of what we used to get in a reported piece.”
For “Contagion,” about a pandemic, Participant created a public service announcement to accompany the movie, describing the causes of pandemics and how to prevent them.
•
Jason Rzepka, vice president for public affairs at the MTV division of Viacom, said social messages have always been an intrinsic part of the channel.
As part of a renewed focus on becoming “the cultural home of the millennial generation,” Mr. Rzepka said, MTV will present a two-hour film, “DISconnected,” about cyberbullying among teenagers at 9 p.m. Monday (Eastern Daylight Time).
There will be information on resources to help cope with cyberbullying, he added, after the film rather than during it —to avoid appearing “medicinal” to its target audience.
“It can’t be read as a two-hour P.S.A.,” Mr. Rzepka said, which would diminish its effectiveness.
According to Calle Sjoenell, deputy chief creative officer at the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, a marketer wanting to be integrated into social messages must “find an issue that really works with your brand.”
“If it doesn’t,” he added, “don’t do it.”
A success story for Bartle Bogle, Mr. Sjoenell said, was a campaign for the Google Chrome browser with a commercial devoted to the It Gets Better Project, meant to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teenagers who have been bullied.
The commercial ran in shows like “Glee,” Mr. Sjoenell said, during the National Basketball Association finals. “We got the message out to an audience that probably wouldn’t have paid attention before,” he added.
Eric Asche, senior vice president for marketing at the American Legacy Foundation, which produces the antismoking “Truth” campaign aimed at teenagers, said “Entertainment is a key component of how we go to market” because he considers the foundation “as a brand” rather than an organization.
As a result, American Legacy has teamed up with channels like MTV and ESPN for campaigns that spoof shows like “The Real World” and “Bassmaster.”
A thorny issue that arises when entertainment and advertising converge is whether consumers consider performers who work with brands as sellouts. The panelists at another session offered arguments against that perception.
“Our job is to try and balance the art and the commerce,” said Duff Stewart, chief executive of GDS&M, part of the Omnicom Group. He said agencies took great pains not to “bastardize” a band’s music. His agency paired songs by the group Black Keys with Zales, the jewelry retailer.
Lori Feldman, senior vice president for brand partnerships and music licensing at Warner Brothers Records, part of the Warner Music Group, said her label tried “to find brands that feel authentic and right” for its bands, especially because “every band is its own brand.”
The increasingly fragmented ways consumers learn about new music like podcasts and social media are being supplemented by brand partnerships to assist performers in gaining exposure.
Often, commercials have “replaced radio or music videos as a first driver for bands,” said Tom Gimbel, general manager of the PBS show “Austin City Limits.”
A panel on innovation focused on how profoundly digital media are changing marketing. The panelists agreed that they required more risk-taking.
source : www.nytimes.com
Using movies to make a case for social change is “a great way to get people to the table,” said Wendy Cohen, director for digital campaigns and community at Participant Media, a film and TV production company that specializes in stories it deems socially relevant. Among Participant productions are fiction films like “Contagion” and “The Help” and documentaries like “An Inconvenient Truth.” In some instances, Ms. Cohen said, the role of film to inform viewers about important issues is “taking the place of what we used to get in a reported piece.”
For “Contagion,” about a pandemic, Participant created a public service announcement to accompany the movie, describing the causes of pandemics and how to prevent them.
•
Jason Rzepka, vice president for public affairs at the MTV division of Viacom, said social messages have always been an intrinsic part of the channel.
As part of a renewed focus on becoming “the cultural home of the millennial generation,” Mr. Rzepka said, MTV will present a two-hour film, “DISconnected,” about cyberbullying among teenagers at 9 p.m. Monday (Eastern Daylight Time).
There will be information on resources to help cope with cyberbullying, he added, after the film rather than during it —to avoid appearing “medicinal” to its target audience.
“It can’t be read as a two-hour P.S.A.,” Mr. Rzepka said, which would diminish its effectiveness.
According to Calle Sjoenell, deputy chief creative officer at the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, a marketer wanting to be integrated into social messages must “find an issue that really works with your brand.”
“If it doesn’t,” he added, “don’t do it.”
A success story for Bartle Bogle, Mr. Sjoenell said, was a campaign for the Google Chrome browser with a commercial devoted to the It Gets Better Project, meant to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teenagers who have been bullied.
The commercial ran in shows like “Glee,” Mr. Sjoenell said, during the National Basketball Association finals. “We got the message out to an audience that probably wouldn’t have paid attention before,” he added.
Eric Asche, senior vice president for marketing at the American Legacy Foundation, which produces the antismoking “Truth” campaign aimed at teenagers, said “Entertainment is a key component of how we go to market” because he considers the foundation “as a brand” rather than an organization.
As a result, American Legacy has teamed up with channels like MTV and ESPN for campaigns that spoof shows like “The Real World” and “Bassmaster.”
A thorny issue that arises when entertainment and advertising converge is whether consumers consider performers who work with brands as sellouts. The panelists at another session offered arguments against that perception.
“Our job is to try and balance the art and the commerce,” said Duff Stewart, chief executive of GDS&M, part of the Omnicom Group. He said agencies took great pains not to “bastardize” a band’s music. His agency paired songs by the group Black Keys with Zales, the jewelry retailer.
Lori Feldman, senior vice president for brand partnerships and music licensing at Warner Brothers Records, part of the Warner Music Group, said her label tried “to find brands that feel authentic and right” for its bands, especially because “every band is its own brand.”
The increasingly fragmented ways consumers learn about new music like podcasts and social media are being supplemented by brand partnerships to assist performers in gaining exposure.
Often, commercials have “replaced radio or music videos as a first driver for bands,” said Tom Gimbel, general manager of the PBS show “Austin City Limits.”
A panel on innovation focused on how profoundly digital media are changing marketing. The panelists agreed that they required more risk-taking.
source : www.nytimes.com
Steven P. Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple who helped usher in the era of personal computers and then led a cultural transformation in the way music, movies and mobile communications were experienced in the digital age, died Wednesday. He was 56. The death was announced by Apple, the company Mr. Jobs and his high school friend Stephen Wozniak started in 1976 in a suburban California garage. A friend of the family said the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer.
Mr. Jobs had waged a long and public struggle with the disease, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment, introducing new products for a global market in his trademark blue jeans even as he grew gaunt and frail.
He underwent surgery in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. When he left, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.
“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”
By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and an array of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet. He had also become a very rich man, worth an estimated $8.3 billion.
Tributes to Mr. Jobs flowed quickly on Wednesday evening, in formal statements and in the flow of social networks, with President Obama, technology industry leaders and legions of Apple fans weighing in.
“For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Steve, it’s been an insanely great honor,” said Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder. “I will miss Steve immensely.”
A Twitter user named Matt Galligan wrote: “R.I.P. Steve Jobs. You touched an ugly world of technology and made it beautiful.”
Eight years after founding Apple, Mr. Jobs led the team that designed the Macintosh computer, a breakthrough in making personal computers easier to use. After a 12-year separation from the company, prompted by a bitter falling-out with his chief executive, John Sculley, he returned in 1997 to oversee the creation of one innovative digital device after another — the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. These transformed not only product categories like music players and cellphones but also entire industries, like music and mobile communications.
During his years outside Apple, he bought a tiny computer graphics spinoff from the director George Lucas and built a team of computer scientists, artists and animators that became Pixar Animation Studios.
Starting with “Toy Story” in 1995, Pixar produced a string of hit movies, won several Academy Awards for artistic and technological excellence, and made the full-length computer-animated film a mainstream art form enjoyed by children and adults worldwide.
Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design.
It was an executive style that had evolved. In his early years at Apple, his meddling in tiny details maddened colleagues, and his criticism could be caustic and even humiliating. But he grew to elicit extraordinary loyalty.
“He was the most passionate leader one could hope for, a motivating force without parallel,” wrote Steven Levy, author of the 1994 book “Insanely Great,” which chronicles the creation of the Mac. “Tom Sawyer could have picked up tricks from Steve Jobs.”
“Toy Story,” for example, took four years to make while Pixar struggled, yet Mr. Jobs never let up on his colleagues. “‘You need a lot more than vision — you need a stubbornness, tenacity, belief and patience to stay the course,” said Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist and a co-founder of Pixar. “In Steve’s case, he pushes right to the edge, to try to make the next big step forward.”
by : new york times
Mr. Jobs had waged a long and public struggle with the disease, remaining the face of the company even as he underwent treatment, introducing new products for a global market in his trademark blue jeans even as he grew gaunt and frail.
He underwent surgery in 2004, received a liver transplant in 2009 and took three medical leaves of absence as Apple’s chief executive before stepping down in August and turning over the helm to Timothy D. Cook, the chief operating officer. When he left, he was still engaged in the company’s affairs, negotiating with another Silicon Valley executive only weeks earlier.
“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s C.E.O., I would be the first to let you know,” Mr. Jobs said in a letter released by the company. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”
By then, having mastered digital technology and capitalized on his intuitive marketing sense, Mr. Jobs had largely come to define the personal computer industry and an array of digital consumer and entertainment businesses centered on the Internet. He had also become a very rich man, worth an estimated $8.3 billion.
Tributes to Mr. Jobs flowed quickly on Wednesday evening, in formal statements and in the flow of social networks, with President Obama, technology industry leaders and legions of Apple fans weighing in.
“For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Steve, it’s been an insanely great honor,” said Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder. “I will miss Steve immensely.”
A Twitter user named Matt Galligan wrote: “R.I.P. Steve Jobs. You touched an ugly world of technology and made it beautiful.”
Eight years after founding Apple, Mr. Jobs led the team that designed the Macintosh computer, a breakthrough in making personal computers easier to use. After a 12-year separation from the company, prompted by a bitter falling-out with his chief executive, John Sculley, he returned in 1997 to oversee the creation of one innovative digital device after another — the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. These transformed not only product categories like music players and cellphones but also entire industries, like music and mobile communications.
During his years outside Apple, he bought a tiny computer graphics spinoff from the director George Lucas and built a team of computer scientists, artists and animators that became Pixar Animation Studios.
Starting with “Toy Story” in 1995, Pixar produced a string of hit movies, won several Academy Awards for artistic and technological excellence, and made the full-length computer-animated film a mainstream art form enjoyed by children and adults worldwide.
Mr. Jobs was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design.
It was an executive style that had evolved. In his early years at Apple, his meddling in tiny details maddened colleagues, and his criticism could be caustic and even humiliating. But he grew to elicit extraordinary loyalty.
“He was the most passionate leader one could hope for, a motivating force without parallel,” wrote Steven Levy, author of the 1994 book “Insanely Great,” which chronicles the creation of the Mac. “Tom Sawyer could have picked up tricks from Steve Jobs.”
“Toy Story,” for example, took four years to make while Pixar struggled, yet Mr. Jobs never let up on his colleagues. “‘You need a lot more than vision — you need a stubbornness, tenacity, belief and patience to stay the course,” said Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist and a co-founder of Pixar. “In Steve’s case, he pushes right to the edge, to try to make the next big step forward.”
by : new york times
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