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The Comunicano Communique for Monday February 29th 2016

The Comunicano Communique

Ici La Bas--A little of this, a little of that today.  Post Mobile World Congress Week, a lot of buzz still (elsewhere on Apple vs. The FBI) on breaking the San Bernadino Phone...Lots of Oscar news (elsewhere) Here you'll find news you should read...My friend Om Malik has his Seven Things To Read This Weekend, (worth signing up for) I'm giving you more than double that to read today.... You can also catch me today on a pre-recorded Business Rockstars as Ken and his merry Metal members are marauding around to the Seed Vault this week...All that and more in today's Communique...read on..!!     Snapchat falls foul of CEO impersonation, hands over employee pay data Snapchat says it is "impossibly sorry" after being duped by a cyberattacker who impersonated the CEO and was able to elicit employee payroll information from the firm. In a blog post on Sunday, the messaging service revealed that a targeted phishing campaign which involved a cyberattacker impersonating chief executive Evan Spiegel was successfully levied against the company, leading to the release of payroll information.     [continue...]     HzO's Waterproofed Smartphones Demoed at MWC The Next Web is out and about at Mobile World Congress this week, and at the Showstoppers event tonight we met some of the tech companies looking to make a name for themselves at this year's flagship mobile industry event in Barcelona.     [continue...]     8 things keeping security professionals up at night Whether it's due to a high-profile security breach, the tenuous nature of consumer data or just trying to get ahead of a data-disaster, security is on everyone's mind.     [continue...]     11 Apps to Help You Find Your Focus 11 Apps to Help You Find Your Focus Sometimes, it feels impossible to focus with (seemingly) hundreds of things pulling at our attention at any given point in time. You know what we're talking about: the "ding!"     [continue...]     Inside ESPN's mobile strategy: "If we're thinking about anything else, we're failing the audience" ESPN is at a crossroads. Its business model, which has long been dependent on cable subscription fees, is becoming tenuous as more people cut the cord. ESPN president John Skipper said last week that the network is in discussions to offer broadcast options on additional streaming services.     [continue...]     Microsoft to start shipping $3,000 HoloLens developer kits on March 30 Starting today, February 29, Microsoft will begin allowing invited developers to buy the Development Edition of Microsoft's HoloLens mixed-reality goggles, which will start shipping March 30. In addition to including the HoloLens goggles and developer environment, the Developer Edition will come with a Bluetooth clicker; carrying case; charger and cable; microfiber cloth; nose pads; and overhead strap, Microsoft officials said today.     [continue...]     Supercharged Raspberry Pi 3 adds Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and more speed, but still costs $35 Raspberry Pi has an in-store treat on its fourth anniversary. It is now shipping the Raspberry Pi 3 computer, which at the same $35 price as its Pi 2 predecessor packs a more powerful 64-bit CPU, and for the first time, has built-in wireless capabilities.     [continue...]     Moleskine: The Brand to Give Nomads a Mobile Identity A family of untethered objects built on inspiration, exploration and productivity Next Tuesday, PSFK Labs will launch The Nomad Class: an insights report which examines the new technologies and services that enable people to maintain productive and fulfilling working lives, while still living a life of adventure and exploration.     [continue...]     What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team Like most 25-year-olds, Julia Rozovsky wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life. She had worked at a consulting firm, but it wasn't a good match. Then she became a researcher for two professors at Harvard, which was interesting but lonely. Maybe a big corporation would be a better fit.     [continue...]     Sallie Krawcheck: This Is the Future of Work     Sallie Krawcheck, once a Wall Street titan and now a serial entrepreneur, has long been an important member of Fortune's Most Powerful Women community. So it's fitting that we will kick This is particularly timely advice on the eve of Fortune's March 1st Most Powerful Women International Summit in Hong Kong.     [continue...]     Hackathon Be Gone Last weekend I attended the MHacks: Refactor hackathon on behalf of my company. I acted as a representative of my company as well as a mentor for the hackers. I saw a lot of amazing projects and helped a lot of students. The energy of the students and their output was phenomenal.     [continue...]     Conferences waste too much of my time The Question Sunday, media maven @mikebutcher asked women to weigh in on what they are looking for in a conference. Without meaning to impugn Mr. Butcher's sincerity, this question does get asked from time to time. As simple as it is to give in to the urge, it is deserving of more than the usual snarky and/or ranty responses.     [continue...]     Study Reveals Habits of Highly Successful Airbnb Hosts If you're looking for the best hosts on Airbnb the most efficient way to find them is to count user reviews, according to a new study. Everbooked and LearnAirbnb, two sites that provide hosting tips and pricing insights to Airbnb hosts, released a joint State of Airbnb Hosting study that looked at booking and listing activity in the top 200 markets in the United States.     [continue...]     The Tools Early-Stage Startups Actually Need to Understand Their Customers After 18 months of struggling to get traction with two product ideas, Segment started its turnaround. What followed was a two-year stretch of growth from four to 60 people, thousands of new customers and $44 million over several rounds of financing. What was the trigger for such a significant inflection point?     [continue...]

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Talk To Your Amazon Echo From Anywhere

Thanks to a company I advise, Telzio, I'm now calling my Amazon Echo and accessing it anywhere my CounterPath Bria client can connect to the Internet. Using only two taps and the dial button Alexa, the Amazon AI babe in the tube, takes the call and then executes on my requests.

Everything from adding items to my shopping list, reminders or my calendar, I'm doing all that from my Bria softphones on my laptop, iPhone, iPad or Android devices. Now that's well beyond what I like to refer to as "me too, me also" as most VOIP companies tend to be these days as they all deliver the same features.

With the Amazon Echo integration Telzio is squarely in the Me Different space of next generation companies on the grow.

The Comunicano Communique for Monday February 22nd 2016

The Comunicano Communique

Mobile World Congress started today in Barcelona. Usually I attend that event but the past two years I've skipped in as it's not a "startup" event really. Those take part around the fringes of it. The big stories coming out of it and from around it are really focused on two key forward looking areas. 5G which is as much a land grab as the mobile world has ever seen with patent holding giants like Qualcomm, Ericsson, Nokia and InterDigital all engaged in massive chess games while companies like FaceBook, Apple and Google look at things very differently. And the other story is the Apple vs. The FBI encryptionwar that has to have every despot led country leader just chomping at the bit for the skeleton key to emerge. Hardware and devices, which normally get the noise are less visible but wait a day, for news at Mobile World Congress is like San Francisco weather. Ask me in a minute. All that and more in today's Communique...read on..!!     5G Is a New Frontier for Mobile Carriers and Tech Companies On the outskirts of this sleepy commuter town just south of London, plans are underway to build the fastest cellphone network in the world. The work is being done at the University of Surrey, where a leafy campus is dotted with rundown brutalist-style buildings.     [continue...]     Facebook wants to do to 5G what it has already done to the datacenter Facebook wants telecoms operators and manufacturers to work with it on open designs for the next generation of wireless networks. Facebook's users are increasingly sharing their cat photos, videos, and other updates over wireless rather than wired networks.     [continue...]     Ericsson, Nokia offer contrasting timelines for 5G network upgrades BARCELONA Ericsson (ERICb.ST), the world's top supplier of wireless equipment, said on Monday it expects 150 million users to be on next-generation 5G networks five years from now, steering clear of an industry debate over whether network upgrades could start far earlier.     [continue...]     Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: Google + GSMA announcement on RCS is no gamechanger As widely hinted in recent months, GSMA has tried to re-animate the RCS corpse once more, this time with Google playing the role of Dr Frankenstein. My initial take: Its announcement this morning ( link) is a bit of a damp squib.     [continue...]     Wireless's Future Belongs to VR and Cloud, Some Say The "Extreme Submarine" is a colorful installation at the booth of South Korean telecom operator SK Telecom here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.     [continue...]     How the U.S. Fights Encryption-and Also Helps Develop It Agencies are developing encryption tools for secure communications, even as the FBI battles for access to an encrypted iPhone Researchers in London last year discovered an online jihadi handbook with instructions on sending encrypted instant messages that would be indecipherable to law enforcement.     [continue...]     Amazon Echo As A Medical Device? My initial impression of the Amazon Echo was that this is simply a Bluetooth speaker that looks like a portable humidifier with a little bit of artificial intelligence. The next thing I discovered is that the Echo always needs to be plugged in for it to work.     [continue...]     96% of Australian hotels offering 'free' Wi-Fi An industry wide survey of 3, 4 and 5 star hotels and serviced apartments by Tourism Accommodation Australia (TAA) has revealed that 96% of Australian hotels surveyed* offer some level of free Wi-Fi to guests.Tourism Accommodation Australia represents the interests of hotels, motels and serviced apartment     [continue...]     Rogers customers reporting WiFi calling is now enabled on the iPhone With the release of iOS 9 on September 16th, Rogers promised to launch WiFi calling, which was a long-awaited feature for iPhone users. However, upon updating the new OS customers were faced with errors when attempting to connect.     [continue...]     Cable could be losing its grip on your set-top box The Federal Communications Commission wants to liberate you from your cable company's set-top box. You probably didn't even realize you needed to be freed from this tyranny. But that's the message from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who is on a mission to make sure that consumers have choices when it comes to their set-top box.     [continue...]     The Top 10 Equity Crowdfunding Campaigns of 2015 - Crowdfund Insider Regulation A+ crowdfunding rules were released by the SEC in June of 2015, three years after these rules were initially introduced in the 2012 JOBS Act. The debut of the long-awaited regulations led to a flood of companies rushing to capitalize on this new method of funding.     [continue...]     The Untold Casualties of the Drone War Early one evening in November, Brandon Bryant, a former Air Force officer and perhaps the world's most famous drone program whistleblower, sits on the sofa in a Manhattan hotel suite, writing a letter to President Obama. A grey hoodie is pulled over his baseball cap, the sleeves half-covering a red dragon and Nordic tribal tattoos on his arms and hands.     [continue...]     Journalists under threat, from within Journalism is under threat from all sides. The last few years have been some of the most dangerous in history for journalists around the world; they have been killed, injured and detained in record numbers. But journalists are under threat from within as well, as some media companies seem content to eat their own.     [continue...]     Blogging Ain't Sexy But It's A Marketing Workhorse Blogging ain't sexy but it a rock-solid marketing workhorse. I recently got a pretty good lead from a company that I highlighted in a late-2014 blog post. In many ways, it was a much-needed shot in the arm about my commitment to blogging.     [continue...]     Homer Simpson: Disruptive Innovator On the May 15th broadcast of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson will be broadcast live for three minutes. It's not clear exactly what he'll say or do, but it will take place in real-time. More precisely, the actor who plays Homer, Dan Castellaneta, will be connected to motion-capture technology.     [continue...]     8 Startups Changing How Payments Work Join us in a city near you at Entrepreneur's Accelerate Your Business event series kicking off Feb 23. View cities and dates " Back in the day, making a payment as a business or a consumer was pretty straight-forward. You could pay by cash or check. Then came credit cards followed by debit cards.     [continue...]     The Full Dataset on What VCs are Thinking About Funding in 2016 | Bothsides of the Table Every year at Upfront we try to analyze the venture markets. We try to look at the sources of capital, the valuations, exits and trends. We use this try to draw some context that informs our funding decisions. Of course we fund companies in good markets and bad.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Communique for Thursday February 18th 2016

The Comunicano Communique

Great to see YIPTV adding Chromecast, making it easier for their customers to watch international television programming on big screens and monitors.  And video of all forms is hot today, with Twitter and Skype making news, while Yahoo shuts down their magazines...but will keep video...All that and more in today's Communique...read on..!!     YipTV Android App Now Compatible with Chromecast YipTV users can now cast their favorite entertainment or music from their Android smartphones and tablets to their TVs through the YipTV Android app available as a free download in the Android Play store.     [continue...]     Twitter will now let you record and share videos in Direct Messages Twitter may be in the middle of an existential crisis of sorts over where to take its slow-growing social network, but the company keeps plugging away at basic features to bring the service up to speed with competitors like Facebook Messenger.     [continue...]     Announcing group video calling for mobile phones and tablets Just a few weeks ago, we announced the next evolution of Skype - group video calling on mobile phones and tablets. Tens of thousands of you pre-registered to get a sneak-peak, giving us invaluable feedback that helped us fine-tune the experience. So a huge thank you for helping us get group video calling on mobile...     [continue...]     Yahoo Closes Online Magazines, a Costly Experiment by Marissa Mayer Marissa Mayer, the embattled chief executive of Yahoo, is gutting one of her signature projects: A cluster of digital magazines devoted to topics like food, autos, real estate, travel and technology.     [continue...]     Japan Airlines trials customer-facing robot at Haneda Airport The latest example of how robotics technology can impact the passenger experience can be found at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, where Japan Airlines has partnered with Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. (NRI) to trial a service robot.     [continue...]     Pushing UC in a New Direction Jim Burton | February 18, 2016 | All eyes at UCStrategies.com are on workstream communications and collaboration tools, given their capacity to move UC forward. Over at UCStrategies.com, group collaboration tools like Cisco's Spark and Unify's Circuit have been drawing quite a bit of attention from our team members -- and with good reason, given their capacity for moving UC in a new direction.     [continue...]     The Definitive Guide on How to Find (or Create) Free Images for Your Articles Have you ever wondered what it takes to make a successful blog post? I can probably name a few: a great title, maybe a powerful first sentence, and valuable content. But is that it? Perhaps less obvious, successful publishers and bloggers will tell you that you that it is also important to have great images, yet this is often left as an afterthought.     [continue...]     The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens When Pizza reached 100,000 followers on Tumblr, she posted a picture of a pizza box, takeout chicken wings, and an orange soda spread out on her bed: " pizza and chicken wings 2 celebrate." One fan replied, "CONGRATULATIONS GIRL! YOU DESERVE IT!" Another: "MOTHER OF GOD 100K?!?!"     [continue...]     A Guide to Pizza Styles of America Pizza is as American as apple pie. Which is to say, it's not from here but once it arrived, we latched on and never let go. The first known appearance of pizza stateside occurred in New York City in 1905-a fact that New Yorkers love to lord over the rest of the country.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Communique for Tuesday February 9th 2016

The Comunicano Communique

The news today is more about the changing landscape of the news. With the NY Times going Flash free and all HTML5, the Wall Street Journal using LINE as a social platform and seeing growth, Wired about to market and sell an ad free, subscription service and Snapchat being the media force it is, there's some changes clearly afoot in media delivery.....that and more...so enjoy your day and enjoy the news..     StubHub takes on Ticketmaster with new platform for both primary and secondary tickets StubHub has announced big plans to infiltrate the primary ticketing market as the eBay-owned company looks to take on the might of Ticketmaster in the lucrative live events realm.     [continue...]     Line is The Wall Street Journal's fastest-growing platform Messaging app Line has been having a growth spurt. Carla Zanoni, executive emerging media editor at The Wall Street Journal, claims it has been the Journal's fastest-growing social channel, reaching over 2 million followers since it launched on the Japanese app 15 months ago.     [continue...]     My Little Sister Taught Me How To Snapchat Like "The Teens" An investigation.     [continue...]     Wired Is Launching an Ad-Free Website to Appease Ad Blockers More than 1 in 5 people who visit Wired Magazine's website use ad-blocking software. Starting Feb. 16, the magazine will give those readers a choice: stop blocking ads, pay to look at a version of the site that is unsullied by advertisements, or go away.     [continue...]     New York Times Goes Flash-Free with Video in 2016 Read about how we turned off Flash support for VHS, the New York Times video player.     [continue...]     The Resetting of the Startup Industry | Bothsides of the Table Much has changed in the past four months of the technology startup world and how outsiders value the business. Of course it's too early to predict whether this is a trend or an aberration but the smartest people I know in the industry are predicting the former.     [continue...]     And The Winners Of The 9th Annual Crunchies Are... Silicon Valley is getting dressed up tonight to celebrate startups, their founders and CEOs, VCs and angels, and the products they make during our 9th Annual Crunchies awards show at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. Tonight's show is hosted by comedian Chelsea Peretti.     [continue...]     Why we built Relay - our Slack app - The Art of Engagement Marketing Last week, the Knowtify team released a fun little product called Relay. Relay is a Slack app that intelligently streams user activity from your product to Slack. It's a great little app that allows you to manage user events coming from Segment, Stripe (or directly via our API) and selectively stream them to multiple Slack channels.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Communique for Monday February 8th 2016

The Comunicano Communique

The Super Bowl News Hangover continues, as most of the news is still tied to the Big Game. News releases, news accounts, what made the game happen, news behind the news is all pouring out. And there's some good one from after and before the game worth reading. But there's more out there, including some stories from late last week you may have missed. Also, catch me today February, 8th at 1:45 PM PST for my live discussion on @BizRockstars  - with Ken Rutkowski across the nation and watch my interview live on  under the watch live tab at BusinessRockstars.com. May today be YOUR SUPER DAY.  Enjoy your day and enjoy the news..     Hashtags In Super Bowl Ads Slightly Dropped To 45% For 2016 Hashtags were in 45% of Super Bowl 50 ads, down 45% last year and the lowest percentage since Marketing Land has been tracking their usage with Super Bowl ads over the past five years. Still, it was a pretty healthy percentage. Twitter and Facebook tied the most mentioned social networks though neither was explicitly mentioned much.     [continue...]     Super Bowl 50's data deluge: How much is too much? Do you remember the "Announcerless Game?" On December 20, 1980, an otherwise insignificant game between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, teams trudging toward the end of dreary seasons, became famous - or infamous - because of a controversial experiment by the NBC television network.     [continue...]     In Silicon Valley, N.F.L. Eyes Its Future SAN FRANCISCO - On any given Sunday during football season, the N.F.L., a league that promotes itself as a standard-bearer of innovation, produces games that are analog at their core. The leather ball has been stitched the same way for decades, and the chain gangs hold the first-down markers like crossing guards at a busy street corner.     [continue...]     Here Are the Tech Companies Breaking the Bank for Super Bowl 50 Ads If there's one thing tech likes, it's scale. And what has more scale than the Super Bowl? It's a really big audience, all in one place, riveted to the screen. That's why Internet companies are willing to toss aside their better instincts about data-savvy consumer segmentation and spend for a TV appearance during the big game.     [continue...]     Why Amazon is doubling down on lobbying     Amazon nearly doubled its lobbying expenditures in 2015 versus the previous year, spending $9.4 million dollars trying to sway Congress and executive agencies. The jump puts Amazon's lobbying efforts in the same league as other tech giants like Microsoft and Facebook -- and reflects how the company's expanding business interests have raised the stakes of its relationship with the government.     [continue...]     Wildly Popular App Kik Offers Teenagers, and Predators, Anonymity The allegations are beyond chilling: two Virginia Tech freshmen charged with the premeditated kidnapping and killing of a 13-year-old girl who, authorities say, communicated with her murderer online. But the way they chatted - on a wildly popular messaging app called Kik - has increasingly become a source of concern for law enforcement.     [continue...]     Google virtual reality should be WAY better than Cardboard Google is readying a new VR headset, say rumor-mongers. The inevitable "people familiar with its plans" have scurried out the woodwork to spill these fascinating legumes. Well, it's fascinating if you believe that VR is The Next Big Thing. But not so much if you see it as a load of over-hyped nonsense.     [continue...]     Google confirms Hangouts will now use peer-to-peer connections to improve call quality and speed Google Hangouts has received a small but important backend upgrade: peer-to-peer (p2p) connections. Google confirmed to VentureBeat that the functionality started rolling out to all users this week. Reddit user kxra spotted the addition in their Hangouts for Android app yesterday. We reached out to Google to gauge what exactly the feature meant for users.     [continue...]     Uber's design boss leaves following disastrous rebranding Logo is a circle with a square in the middle set for riders Hexagon with a square in middle has been designed for drivers Logos reflect concepts of 'bits and atoms' and small floor tiles The man behind Uber's radical redesign of the brand has left the firm.     [continue...]     How Mick Jagger's HBO Series 'Vinyl' Will Pay Tribute To David Bowie - Noah Bean Set To Play 'Starman' Singer TV The Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese-produced series was already deep into production when rock icon David Bowie died in January. The series, which revolves around the music business in the 1970s, already planned a cameo by Bowie, of sorts.     [continue...]     It's not Cyberspace anymore. - Data & Society: Points It's been 20 years - 20 years!? - since John Perry Barlow handed out paper copies of his " A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace " to the government and corporate leaders who descend on a certain snowy resort town each year as part of the World Economic Forum (WEF).     [continue...]     What Do Industry Insiders Think Will Happen in VC in 2016? | Bothsides of the Table "This is the year the tortoise may gain on the hare." There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets - both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. They point to some widely known facts: financings & valuations are up massively ...     [continue...]     Email sucks for building a working relationship Messaging apps make me a better VC As a VC, I spend my life helping startups. I'm constantly looking for ways to do it more and do it better. I was giving the White Star team an update on one of our EU portfolio companies recently.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Communique for Tuesday February 2nd 201

The Comunicano Communique

The changing landscape of mobile and impact of T-Mobile in the USA is clearly being felt at AT&T with changes at the top of the mobile business. With TMO being very much about delivering streamed music and video, AT&T goes out and spends money on DirectTV, forgetting its lessons from Cruisecast and cable tv deals (right ideas, wrong team, time). Where AT&T is about owning, T-Mobile simply says "we're a pipe, fill it" and as stats are showing, they're gaining not only customers but improving their network, getting close to the USAs best network for data, Verizon. We also have some news about client YipTV today, some insights on the European tech scene, how streaming music now counts towards gold and platinum record status and more... Enjoy your day and enjoy the news..     AT&T shuffles leadership to tie video, mobile services together AT&T shook up the responsibilities of its upper ranks as it starts to position the combination of video and mobile at the forefront of its business. The Dallas telecommunications giant appointed longtime mobile head Ralph de la Vega vice chairman and put him in charge of the business and international parts of the company.     [continue...]     New OpenSignal Report Is Really Good News for T-Mobile T-Mobile's 700MHz rollout is making a big difference. According to a new report from wireless testing firm OpenSignal, T-Mobile's LTE coverage now "nearly matches AT&T...and is closing the gap with Verizon." T-Mobile also won the most awards out of the four carriers in OpenSignal's latest "State of Mobile Networks: USA" report, which came out today and involves tests from Oct.     [continue...]     Is Iliad poised to wreak havoc in the UK mobile market now?      Telecoms group Iliad is regarded as a cautionary tale, since its Free Mobile unit threw the French mobile market into disarray, and the group's chairman Xavier Niel has made it clear he would like to repeat the trick outside his home country.     [continue...]     YipTV Plugs Into Akamai YipTV said has hooked into with Akamai's cloud-based platform to deliver an OTT service that features more than 100 "channels," including 18 live TV streams. Launched in May 2015, YipTV's no-contract, $14.99 per month service focused on Spanish-language video services is offered on several platforms, including iOS and Android mobile devices, select smart TVs, Web browsers, Apple TV boxes and via the Google Chromecast streaming adapter.     [continue...]     The RIAA Finally Bows to Streaming, Making 17 Artists' Albums Go Gold and Platinum Call it the Anti effect, or just call it getting hip to the times. The Recording Industry Association of America just announced one of the biggest rule-changes in its history: As of Monday, the RIAA will now count streaming sales as part of its singles and albums certification process, making 17 albums automatically certified gold (500,000) or platinum (1 million) with the news.     [continue...]     Roku Launches Hybrid OTT & Enhanced Home Screen Offering for Operators Roku recently announced that it is developing a hybrid set-­‐top box that will enable operators to offer linear and streaming services through a single device to consumers. Sky will be the first Roku Powered operator to deploy the new hybrid set-­‐top box later this year as part of its popular NOW TV service in the UK.     [continue...]     Uber Cuts Prices-and Kneecaps Drivers NEW YORK - If anger sums up the mood of this election season, then some of it seems to have rubbed off on the city's Uber drivers. A crowd of 600 drivers gathered outside the Uber office in Long Island City, Queens to protest a 15 percent reduction in fares last month, which also means 15 percent lower wages.     [continue...]     William Shatner's Negotiator Priceline Pitchman Is Dead Again Priceline.com has revamped its website, apps, and marketing, transforming its television advertising pitchman William Shatner from The Negotiator to a faceless narrator based in part on changing traveler behavior. The new online and offline advertising campaign includes Facebook mobile targeting that's personalized as consumers "learn of their friends' life moments from status changes," Priceline.com states, and a Super Bowl pre-game ad.     [continue...]     Better inflight wifi over North Atlantic is months away: Intelsat CEO Passengers flying across the North Atlantic are growing increasingly accustomed to having the option to connect to the Internet in-flight. Lufthansa, Aer Lingus, United and select American flights are among those offering Panasonic Avionics' Ku-band connectivity solution on board, and Delta is fitting its longhaul fleet with Gogo Ku.     [continue...]     Once Deemed Evil, Google Now Embraces "Paid Inclusion" Back when Google was an upstart search engine, one way it distinguished itself was to fight against a pay-to-play business model called "paid inclusion." Indeed, paid inclusion was one of the original sins Google listed as part of its "Don't Be Evil" creed.     [continue...]     European Tech Exits Report: In 2015, we tracked 594 deals worth €136.75 billion (up 71% from 2014) - Tech.eu Since we started, one of the key aims of the team at Tech.eu has been to track all of the funding rounds and exits in Europe, providing the most comprehensive and accurate record and analysis of the European technology scene.     [continue...]

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The Comunicano Communique for Monday February 1st 2016

The Comunicano Communique

Last year when asked what I do, I started to describe Comunicano as being in the value creation business for our clients. Some peers initially questioned the terminology, but I continue to contend with forty former clients who have successfully exited, that what we do as an agency is exactly that, create value for the founders and investors. That's why the first article is all about what we have been saying, and it's always nice to have third party validation by one's peer, directly or indirectly. The numbers also don't lie. Of the 40 clients, the publicly known number related to value created is $2.1 billion, with another $400 million between the other 18 that didn't disclose actual acquisition price. Humbly speaking, I'm not including MGI-USA, an apparel company we helped with their Handcuff's line, which was acquired or any of the large company M&A's which have occurred either like Nokia, AT&T or AOL.  This article supports also our direction of Comunicano being more than a PR firm, with PR being one of the things we do. At our core we look at communications as strategic leverage for the leadership of a company to deploy, not simply a tactical publicity effort. This starts, as the article points out, with the company's story. That drives positioning and in turn provides the basis for the external and internal messaging. It's also why we believe that the CEO needs to be the company's best storyteller, not simply a figurehead, who comes out only a few times a year when the company is in its early stages. CEO's need to be the stars of the team, with a supporting cast who can also tell the same story, and go deep in lock step with the CEO's storyline, another point the article points out. Read on...and tell me what you think...     CEOs May Be Worth More Than the Businesses They Lead-And Communicators Play a Big Valuation Role According to a new international poll of analysts, city editors and correspondents, exceptional CEOs, in the view of more than a third of respondents, represent 50% or more of the value of the businesses they lead. In December 2015 and January 2016, London-based Houston PR canvassed the views of editors, correspondents, analysts and in-house communications professionals in the UK and the U.S.     [continue...]     Donald Trump's tantrums drive web traffic-helping him game the entire American media Donald Trump's latest media kerfuffle with Fox News over its anchor Megyn Kelly is just the most visible conundrum he's presented to America's media. Trump's withdrawal from the Jan. 28 debate, the last before the Iowa caucuses, seems to have dragged down Fox's ratings, which ultimately should translate to lower revenue.     [continue...]     Uber customers have saved $30 MILLION since it launched in Australia Uber customers saved more than $30 million on fares since app launched Average fare is 20 per cent less than average taxi price, new report found Wait times for uberX users are almost more than three minutes shorter Deloitte Access Economics studied Uber's performance since April 2014 See the latest news on Uber at www.dailymail.co.uk/uber Uber customers have saved more than $30 million on fares since the ride-sharing app launched in Australia, a new report has found.     [continue...]     NYC Launches Investigation Into Hackable Baby Monitors Few scenarios conjure up digital nightmares darker than a hacked, Internet-connected camera pointing at a baby's crib. After a string of incidents in which hackers have watched or even verbally harassed children through baby monitors, the devices have come to represent everything that's wrong with the Internet of things.     [continue...]     Hollywood Studios Leading $50M Investment in Mobile Movie Ticketing App A trio of Hollywood studios are leading a $50 million investment in startup Atom Tickets, an online movie ticketing app that's set to launch this summer, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Atom is designed to increase moviegoing among friends and groups by polling preferences and suggesting times that are good for everyone.     [continue...]     Inside the FCC's audacious plan to blow up the cable box FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler dropped a bomb on the cable television1 industry yesterday with his proposal to allow any manufacturer to create cable boxes that can access pay-TV service. (The FCC is calling this plan #unlockthebox, because 1. "competitive head-end navigation" is a terrible name and 2.     [continue...]     New Technologies Give Government Ample Means to Track Suspects, Study Finds WASHINGTON - For more than two years the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies have warned that encrypted communications are creating a "going dark" crisis that will keep them from tracking terrorists and kidnappers.     [continue...]     Nike's 'Better for It' Women's Campaign Gets Brand's First-Ever Scripted YouTube Series Last April, Nike launched "Better for It," its largest and most integrated women's campaign to date. It was mostly traditional in its format-commercials, print ads, digital, etc.-if not in its message, which refreshingly acknowledged the average athlete's insecurities and other obstacles on her way to self-improvement and empowerment through sport and fitness.     [continue...]     Your Most Creative Ideas Are the Hardest to Sell-But They Don't Have to Be In the early 1990s, a group of screenwriters proposed something that had never been done at Disney: they wanted to make an animated movie based on an original concept. Departing from a half century of hits with time-honored tales like Cinderella and Snow White, they set out to write a fresh story from scratch.     [continue...]     Should you Pitch First or Last at Demo Day? Consider this scenario: Demo day at your accelerator is coming up soon and the organizers have asked you and the other start-ups in your cohort to sign up for a time to deliver your pitch to investors. Should you pick the first slot, the last slot, or a time in the middle?     [continue...]     Fast Food Feud: Wendy's And Burger King Have A Tweet-Off Fast Food Feud: Wendy's And Burger King Have A Tweet-Off Subscribe to UPROXX for More: https://goo.gl/wWFK2D Check out more of UPROXX here: http://www.uproxx.com https://twitter.com/uproxx https://facebook.com/uproxx UPROXX.com tracks the best of pop culture by tapping into the film, TV, music and sports zeitgeist on the internet.     [continue...]

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