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I.H.T. Special: Social Media Firms Move to Capitalize on Popularity in Middle East
Label: World
Suhaib Salem/Reuters
Egyptian protesters look at Facebook during a demonstration in Cairo on January 14.
DUBAI — For its most recent advertising push, the Saudi Arabian telecommunications giant Mobily did not turn to the street or television to engage with customers. Mobily paid to promote itself on Twitter.
The use of social media exploded during the Arab Spring as people turned to cyberspace to express themselves. On the back of that, social media networks, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, have moved into the region commercially, setting up offices to sell advertising products to companies like Mobily, which has over 200,000 Twitter followers, to capitalize on the growing audience.
“In Saudi, social media gets everyone talking to everyone, which is something we just don’t have in the streets here,” said Muna AbuSulayman, a Saudi development consultant and formerly a popular television talk show host, who has over 100,000 followers on Twitter.
“It’s a unique opportunity that lets people have conversations in a boundary-less way that wasn’t possible before,” Ms. AbuSulayman said. “In addition to promoting social and political discussion, it carries a powerful economic incentive for businesses, too.”
The rise of social media in the Arab world is changing the game for regional advertisers, pushing growth in digital advertising in a part of the world where traditional methods like television and print advertising have so far remained dominant.
Digital advertising in the Middle East and North Africa accounts for only about 4 percent of the region’s total advertising spending, at a value of $200 million, according to the most recent available estimate, but it has become the fastest-growing media platform in the region, said a study by the business services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, published in 2011. Deloitte’s Arab Media Outlook projected growth in digital advertising spending in the region of 35 percent a year over the next three years, generating about $580 million across the region by 2015.
“The fact is that consumers are online, so brands need to be online,” said Reda Raad, chief operating officer of TBWA\Raad, the Middle East arm of the global advertising agency TBWA. “The use of digital channels has continued to increase dramatically after the Arab Spring and advertising on social media has become a highly targeted, cost-efficient way of communicating with consumers.”
Major brands, including Pepsi Arabia, are taking note. Saudi Arabia has the highest number of Twitter users in the Arab world, holding 38 percent of the region’s two million users, according to a report by the Dubai School of Government’s Arab Social Media Report released in June. In the past year alone, the number of Twitter users in the Arab world tripled, according to Shailesh Rao, Twitter’s vice president for international operations.
Thanks to the platform’s popularity in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, Arabic is now the fastest-growing language on the Twitter platform.
“We prioritized a list of regions where we wanted to have a business presence, and the Mideast rises toward the top because the region’s user base is one of the fastest-growing in the world,” Mr. Rao said during an interview. “This represents a huge opportunity for brands looking for a large audience that is rapidly growing.”
Twitter has formed a partnership with the Egyptian digital advertising company Connect Ads to market and sell advertising services across the Middle East and North Africa region. Connect Ads will offer brand managers and marketers Twitter’s products, which include promoted tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends.
Through these, a brand can reach broad Twitter audiences or more narrowly defined geographic or demographic segments. They can even target users of specific smartphone brands, like iPhones. Brands that have signed up so far include Mobily, Pepsi Arabia, the resort company Atlantis The Palm, and the events portal Dubai Calendar.
“Companies can learn a few things about their customers by optimizing for country and targeting those with specific interests,” said Mohamed El Mehairy, managing director of Connect Ads.
“They can probably uncover this type of information through market research,” he added, but it would come “at a higher expense and with more time and effort.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 7, 2013
A previous version of this article misspelled the name of the advertising agency TBWA. It is TBWA, not TWBA.
Monster Worldwide reports loss; exits Brazil, Mexico & Turkey
Label: Technology(Reuters) – Online recruitment company Monster Worldwide Inc, which is up for sale, reported a quarterly loss and said it had exited its businesses in Brazil, Mexico and Turkey.
The company also said it sold its China operations to Saongroup, a Dublin-based recruitment firm, and took a 10 percent stake in the combined business.
Monster said in November it would sell its money losing business in China to focus on its core North American and European businesses.
Monster has been hurt by weak job markets in the United States and Europe, which generate the lion’s share of its revenue, as well as growing competition from social networking sites.
The parent of Monster.com retained Stone Key Partners and Bank of America Merrill Lynch in March 2012 to review strategic alternatives including a sale of the company.
Monster reported a net loss of $ 73 million, or 66 cents per share, in the fourth quarter, from $ 10.9 million, or 9 cents per share, a year earlier.
The company recorded pre-tax charges of $ 23 million during the quarter ended December, and said it expects additional charges in the range of $ 27 million to $ 37 million in the first half of 2013.
Excluding items, the company earned 8 cents per share.
Revenue dropped 10 percent to $ 211.2 million.
Monster’s shares have dropped about a fourth since the company said it was reviewing strategic alternatives. They closed at $ 5.85 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore; Editing by Akshay Lodaya)
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Channing Tatum, Charlize Theron Join Oscars Telecast
Label: LifestyleChanning Tatum and Charlize Theron
Dave Kotinsky/Getty; Dave M. Benett/Getty
PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive, Channing Tatum, will make his debut on the Academy Awards stage this month as one of four newly announced special guests who are joining the Feb. 24 broadcast.
Oscar winner Charlize Theron, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe are the other three actors who will make special appearances, producers said Thursday.
The four join a list of previously announced Oscar presenters, including Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Octavia Spencer, Meryl Streep and Mark Wahlberg.
"We are quite excited to have Charlize, Chan, Joe and Dan join us on the show," said telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. "We are happy to feature them as special guests in our production."
Musical performers on the show will include Adele, Norah Jones, JUstin Timberlake and Barbra Streisand.
The 85th annual Academy Awards will air live on Sunday, Feb. 24, on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
New whooping cough strain in US raises questions
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.
Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.
"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.
An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.
The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.
In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.
The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.
In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.
"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.
The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.
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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org
Stock futures dip after Tuesday rally, earnings in focus
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures dipped on Wednesday, indicating the S&P 500 may pull back from a rally of more than 1 percent a day earlier as the index struggles to push past 5-year highs.
Walt Disney Co
With the benchmark S&P 500 index at its highest since December 2007, investors are finding it a challenge to continue a move upward amid a dearth of fresh trading incentives, analysts said.
"We are a little bit at stall speed," said Keith Bliss, senior vice-president at Cuttone & Co in New York.
"We will continue to see earnings but it wouldn't surprise me a bit to see us consolidate around this level on the S&P 500 for the next day or two, in the absence of some real compelling news, which is always a risk."
According to Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning, of 278 companies in the S&P 500 <.spx> that have reported earnings, 68.7 percent have beat analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.
In another positive sign for corporate profits, 66 percent of companies have topped revenue forecasts. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are now expected to rise 4.5 percent, according to the data, above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season.
S&P 500 futures fell 4.4 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures lost 30 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 11.5 points.
The benchmark S&P index rose 1.04 percent Tuesday, its biggest percentage gain since a 2.5-percent advance on January 2, when legislators sidestepped a "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax hikes that could have hurt a fragile U.S. economic recovery.
Visa
Zynga Inc
Time Warner Inc
European stocks were mixed at midday as the previous session's tentative recovery lost steam, with euro zone banks sliding on renewed concerns over the health of the region's economy. <.eu/>
Asian shares rose, with Japanese equities climbing to their highest since October 2008 on hopes of central bank monetary policy easing and optimism about the prospects for a global economic recovery.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
IHT Rendezvous: The Phantom Province in China's Economy
Label: WorldBEIJING – China has a “phantom province” pumping out nearly 5.8 trillion renminbi (about $930 billion) in gross domestic product last year, about equivalent to the output of its richest province, Guangdong, Chinese media reported this week.
How so?
Deliberately inflated figures from local officials are largely to blame, domestic media reported, as officials seek promotion for delivering the high growth demanded by the state. And the problem of systemic exaggeration in the economy is growing, not shrinking, as the country becomes richer and is increasingly integrated into the global economy.
The world is accustomed to remarkable growth from China, which is now the world’s second-largest economy after zooming up the list to overtake Germany and Japan, and is projected by some to challenge the economic dominance of the United States. And other nations have grown accustomed to looking to China to drive global growth with those high numbers. As Yi Gang, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, “I think China’s growth rate will be about 8 percent this year.”
Yet back home, officials are faced with figures that can be off the mark by millions, billions or trillions of renminbi, meaning no one is entirely sure what’s going on. (The government in Beijing has its own way of dealing with the problem: The incoming prime minister, Li Keqiang, once reportedly said financial data in China was “man-made” and he relied instead on three indicators: electricity consumption, rail cargo and bank loans.)
This week, Chinese media reported widely on China’s “phantom province,” the G.D.P. excess that resulted when the economic growth figures from 31 provinces, municipalities and regions were added up and compared to the different, national G.D.P. figure that the government uses. In 2012, the discrepancy reached a remarkable 5.76 trillion renminbi, its biggest ever and the equivalent of the output of Guangdong province, itself an economic powerhouse, the media said.
For 2012, the national G.D.P. figure is estimated to be nearly 52 trillion renminbi (about $8.3 trillion,) while the provincial total was nearly 58 trillion (about $9.3 trillion.)
“Media exposes total G.D.P. of all provinces exceeds national G.D.P. by over 5 trillion renminbi,” (the exact figure was 5.76 trillion,) a headline announced in the 21CN News.
The gap is getting bigger, fast: in 2009, total provincial G.D.P. was nearly 2.7 trillion more than national G.D.P.; in 2010 it was more than 3 trillion; in 2011 it was 4.6 trillion, the Beijing News reported.
In a chain of exaggeration that begins at the village or county level, the figures pile up until they overreach any possible national total, the articles indicate.
The cause of the problem? “G.D.P. ‘achievement,’” said an article in the China Youth Daily, which is run by the Communist Party’s Youth League, referring to the system whereby officials are promoted for achieving high growth rates so they deliberately exaggerate.
The government has tried to stop the mendacity by launching investigations and threatening to punish offenders, but the problem is stubborn, the article said.
The solution?
“Only painful and determined reforms can change the achievement-based evaluation system,” the article said, including: sustained checking of officials’ reporting, increasing the rights of ordinary people to evaluate officials, taking away local officials’ sole responsibility for G.D.P. growth, the environment, public services, people’s prosperity and sustainable development.
Zynga 4Q loss narrows as game maker cuts costs
Label: TechnologyNEW YORK (AP) — Online games company Zynga said its loss narrowed in the latest quarter even though revenue was largely unchanged as the company cut expenses by laying off workers, closing offices and shutting down poorly performing games.
The results exceeded Wall Street’s muted expectations, and Zynga Inc.‘s battered shares increased nearly 7 percent in after-hours trading after the release of the results. After a difficult 2012 in which Zynga saw its stock price decline by 75 percent, CEO Mark Pincus called 2013 a “pivotal transition year” for the company as it seeks to cut costs further and broaden revenue sources, especially from mobile games.
Zynga went public in December 2011 with a lot of promise. Games such as “FarmVille” and “CityVille” were popular on Facebook, as the social media company was itself preparing for a highly anticipated initial public offering of stock.
But Facebook’s stock stumbled, and Zynga’s tumbled with it. Demand for Zynga’s games weakened, and investors were worried both about Zynga’s overreliance on Facebook for its revenue and signs that the two were growing apart. Zynga’s stock ended 2012 at $ 2.36, well below the IPO price of $ 10.
Zynga responded by announcing in October that it was cutting about 5 percent of its full-time workforce of roughly 3,200 employees. The San Francisco company also killed 13 older games and closed development studios in Boston and elsewhere.
Those cuts helped.
Zynga said Tuesday that it lost $ 48.6 million, or 6 cents per share, in the October-December period. That compares with a loss of $ 435 million, or $ 1.22 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Zynga began trading publicly on Dec. 16, 2011, and was privately held for most of the 2011 quarter.
Zynga’s revenue was largely unchanged at about $ 311 million. But it was well above analysts’ average estimate of $ 250 million, as polled by FactSet.
Zynga cut fourth-quarter expenses by two-thirds, to $ 274 million from $ 798 million.
Though its fortunes have faded, Zynga is still the most popular maker of games on Facebook. As of the end of the year, it had five of the top 10 games played on the world’s largest social networking site. “FarmVille 2,” which launched in September, performed well — the company said it was its most successful game launch in two years.
Zynga said it had 298 million active users each month on average in the fourth quarter, up 24 percent from 240 million a year earlier. But that’s down 4 percent from 311 million in the third quarter of 2012.
Like Facebook, Zynga is trying to position itself as a mobile company as people spend more time on smartphones and tablet computers. The company said it had 72 million monthly players on mobile devices.
“Mobile, however, remains a more fragmented experience. Despite the incredible growth in mobile gaming, it’s still hard for any of us to find people to actually play with,” Pincus said in a conference call with analysts. “We’re amazed that the number one way our ‘Words With Friends’ players find new opponents in their games is through the ‘random’ button. We know we can offer them something more compelling than that.”
Zynga’s chief operating officer, David Ko, said in an interview that growing the company’s paying mobile user base is “part of a long-term strategy for us”
“Two years ago, about 20 people were focusing on mobile,” he said. “Today we have almost the entire company focused on (the) mobile opportunity.”
For the current quarter, Zynga said it expects an adjusted loss of 5 cents to 4 cents per share and revenue of $ 255 million to $ 265 million. Analysts were predicting a loss of 1 cent per share and revenue of $ 268 million.
Shares climbed 19 cents, or 6.9 percent, to $ 2.93 in after-hours trading after gaining 18 cents to close at $ 2.74 during the regular session. Zynga’s stock has traded from $ 2.09 to $ 15.91 in the past 52 weeks.
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Sean Lowe Blogs: Selma's 'Unwillingness to Compromise' Cost Her a Rose
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The Bachelor
From left: Selma Alameri, Sean Lowe and Tierra LiCausi
Kevin Foley/ABC(3)
Sean Lowe is the star of season 17 of The Bachelor, which airs Mondays on ABC. The hunky Dallas businessman and entrepreneur will be blogging about his romantic journey for PEOPLE.com.
I was anxious to get to Canada and forget all about my discouraging week filming The Bachelor in Montana. It started off so promising with Lindsay and then quickly unraveled with the drama surrounding Tierra. Canada was my chance for a clean slate, and I was eager to start the week off on a great first date with Catherine.
I had just recently started to develop real feelings for Catherine. Our relationship was slower to develop than some of the others, but being with her felt natural. There was never a shortage of laughs, and she seemed like someone who truly fit the "best friend" description I had been searching for.
Between driving the ice bus, sledding down hills and drinking hot cocoa, our glacier date was perfect and so much fun. We turned up the romance that evening in our ice castle. We were able to bounce between serious moments and goofy moments so well. The night ended with kisses in the falling snow and I didn't want to say goodnight. The date helped put me back in a positive mental state. I felt hopeful again.
Icy Group Date
I want a girl who isn't afraid to step outside of her comfort zone and will seize the moment. That's why the "polar bear plunge" was the perfect group date. Nobody wants to jump in freezing cold water – I know I didn't! – but I was looking to see who would step up and make a memory that will last forever. It was absolutely freezing that day. The air temperature was right at 32 degrees and the wind was blowing. The canoe ride alone made me want to head back to the hotel where it was warm.Some of the women were willing to jump in the water, others were more reluctant – and then there was Selma. It didn't bother me that she didn't want to participate. It bothered me that she didn't even consider it. Later she told me that when she says no, nothing can change her mind. As if that's a good thing! I thought you were supposed to compromise and talk things through in a marriage. That reasoning was a large part of why I didn't give Selma a rose that week.
Anyway, we all took the plunge, and almost everyone was glad they did. Except Tierra, of course. She was whisked away by medics and I honestly thought she was experiencing hypothermia. In hindsight, I'm not so sure ... but she played the part well.
Later that evening I was convinced of something: I knew Sarah was not the one for me and I needed to send her home. I could have waited for the rose ceremony, but I wanted to explain myself. I didn't think it was fair to make her wait two more days when I'd already made up my mind. Sending Sarah home was one of the hardest things I did during the season. It hurts me that she left feeling the way she did. She's such a beautiful, bright woman, and some man is going to love her forever. I just knew that man wasn't me.
Date with Des
My final date of the week was with Des. She and I had chemistry from the beginning. I was anxious to spend the day with her because she started to lose confidence in our relationship in Montana. She's another woman I always have fun with. Between repelling down a mountainside, having a picnic in a meadow and climbing a tree, I couldn't have imagined a better date.That evening we had dinner in the coolest teepee, tucked away in a forest of the Canadian Rockies. She opened up to me about her childhood and how growing up with very little money has made her who she is today. It made perfect sense to me after hearing her story why Des sometimes hides her true feelings behind a smile. She probably had to put on a brave face during tough times as a kid. I found myself wanting to be the man that supports her and makes her feel safe. Des and I finished the evening kissing and making finger puppets on the walls of our teepee. Once again, she was at the top of my list.
Tough Goodbyes
The rose ceremony was tough because I had to say goodbye to two great girls. I never imagined sending Selma home. After our one-on-one date in Joshua Tree, I thought she might be the one. But in the end, her unwillingness to compromise told me that she probably wasn't the girl for me.And Daniella was equally as hard to say goodbye to, because she was so much fun to be with. We just ran out of time. Our relationship started too late and my feelings for the remaining women were a little bit stronger.
I can tell you, though, I felt so much better about the future after leaving Canada than I did leaving Montana. I felt rejuvenated and hopeful, and the women seemed to have their focus back on love.
Thanks for watching!
Sean
Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.
With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.
"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.
City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.
"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.
Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.
"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.
Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.
While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.
Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.
Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.
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