Daily Digest for 2008-10-06
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1:01am | rss.com Domain Name set for 750,000 USD Sale |
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1:05am | Website to Transform Discovery of Sporting Talent |
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1:11am | (??) Ask.com Delivers Next Generation of its Site |
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1:17am | Hannah Montana’s Miley Cyrus Celebrates Her Sweet 16 at Disneyland With Friends and Fans |
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6:53pm |
Reviewed 6 websites on StumbleUpon. (Show Details)
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7:02pm |
Favorited a website on StumbleUpon.
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Hannah Montana’s Miley Cyrus Celebrates Her Sweet 16 at Disneyland With Friends and Fans
Event Celebrates Youth Volunteers With $1 Million Disney Gift
Fireworks will sparkle in the night sky at Disneyland as more than 5,000 party guests sing Happy Birthday to Disney star Miley Cyrus tonight at Miley’s Sweet 16 - Share the Celebration, a music filled bash kicking off Disney’s What Will You Celebrate? invitation to guests of all ages.
Miley, star of the wildly popular Disney Channel series Hannah Montana, will celebrate her milestone birthday with family, friends, fans and special guests from Youth Service America, an organization that shares her passion for promoting youth volunteerism.
In one of the evening’s big highlights, Disney CEO Bob Iger will present a special gift of $1 million to Youth Service America on behalf of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Disney has worked with YSA since 2004, providing Disney Minnie Grants to support youth-led community service projects that engage young people between the ages of five to 14 from around the world.
On behalf of everyone at Disney, I’m happy to wish Miley a very happy birthday and celebrate this special occasion with a donation to Youth Service America, Iger said. We’re delighted to have Miley join in Disney’s great legacy of giving back through volunteerism while encouraging kids everywhere to do the same.
Miley will arrive at the Disneyland bash on a purple carpet (her favorite color), joined by pals and her fellow Disney Channel stars.
I always love coming to Disneyland but celebrating my birthday here with my family, friends and the kids from YSA is really awesome!, Miley said. This is a night I’ll never forget.
Guests of the Sweet 16 party will celebrate like rock stars alongside Miley and other celebrities who are expected to attend, including actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, actor Steve Carell, super model Cindy Crawford and “Dancing with the Stars” performers such as Cristian De La Fuente. The party will come to life for fans in a big way as the world’s most popular teenager rocks the Rivers of America, singing four of her popular songs as well as a duet with her star father Billy Ray Cyrus. The Hollywood Records musical artist will dazzle the crowd by boarding a floating stage to cross over to the banks of the river, getting up close with her fans.
Miley also invited 10 Service Stars from Youth Service America to the party to honor their extraordinary volunteer service. They will join Miley and her fans for the fun in Disneyland park, riding favorite attractions such as Splash Mountain and Haunted Mansion, watching a “Stars in Cars” celebrity cavalcade, and playing at the party zones, including Rock Out Stage and Hannah Montana Makeover Zone.
The gala will end with a spectacular farewell in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle, featuring Miley, her father Billy Ray and a beautiful birthday cake. Everyone will get to smile for a commemorative photo and sing Happy Birthday. Just as Miley makes a wish and prepares to blow out the birthday candles, the sky will light up with a glitzy fireworks display set to the Hannah Montana smash hit, Best of Both Worlds.
Beginning in 2009, guests at Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort in Florida are invited to bring their own celebrations to life at Disney theme parks. And for the first time ever, anyone who comes to Disneyland or Walt Disney World Resort can get free admission to one of the theme parks on their birthday in 2009. A valid ID and proof of birth date are required. See details at http://www.disneyparks.com/.
Celebrations of all kinds will continue at Disney Parks as Disney makes it easier than ever for guests to plan and take celebration vacations, a newly identified trend in which families celebrate special milestones by taking a trip together. For more information or to book a Disney “celebration vacation,” guests can visit http://www.disneyparks.com/, call 407/W-DISNEY or contact their local travel agent.
Source: Disneyland
(中文) Ask.com Delivers Next Generation of its Site
Ask.com, an operating business of IAC, today announces a new version of its site that includes significant relevance, user interface, and speed enhancements.
The new site, going live in the US on 6th October and in the UK on 20th October, is the result of extensive consultation with Ask.com’s users whose input guided developers and designers towards creating this next generation search engine.
Cesar Mascaraque, European Managing Director of Ask.com said: “It’s our business to give answers. But this time we were asking the question: How did our users want us to improve? And they were very clear. They told us they wanted faster, more relevant answers in an enjoyable and simple user interface. We listened, and now we’ve delivered the best possible search experience on the web.”
He added, “This relaunch of Ask.com is the spearhead of a series of plans for growth and brand enhancements that we look forward to announcing over the coming months.”
Better Search Relevance
Through a combination of recent enhancements to its proprietary search technology, Ask.com has made significant advancements in its core relevance versus this time last year.
Better Search Speed
Additionally, Ask.com has reduced the loading times for its site by 67% versus this time last year, helping to get customers the best answer faster - and this improved site latency has already had a positive impact on customer frequency and retention rates.
The Best Answer, The First Time, Everytime
“Ask.com’s goal is to reduce the average number of clicks it takes customers to find what they are searching for online. We want to get from three clicks to one click of the search box,” said Cesar Mascaraque.
Ask.com is now able to deliver more direct answers front and centre on the results page, helping customers avoid the back and forth clicking between Web pages. For Reference-related searches like “Is it safe to eat seafood during pregnancy?” Ask.com now pulls and instantly displays answers such as “Fresh, raw seafood is potentially risky because it can contain parasites,” real-life examples taken from user-generated and professional content sites, right on the results page.
Building on Ask3D’s innovation, Ask.com has simplified its user interface and now ranks and integrates content from a broader and more comprehensive set of content types - such as recipes, blogs, images, music and videos - right into the centre panel - with more content such as breaking news, shopping and business listings to follow.
Search Technology and Performance Advancements
Building on these enhancements, Ask.com will shortly be launching innovative new DADS (Direct Answers from Database)SM, DAFS (Direct Answers from Search)SM, and AnswerFarmSM technologies which break new ground in the areas of semantic search, web extraction and ranking. These product enhancements are the first of several new search technology innovations Ask.com will introduce in the coming months across its site.
About Ask.com
Ask.com is an operating business of IAC (NASDAQ: IACID). The Ask Network of sites has more than 138 million worldwide unique monthly users, according to August 2008 comScore data. Ask.com syndicates its search technology and advertising solutions to a network of affiliate partners. Combined with other Internet properties of IAC, the total unduplicated reach of the Ask.com networks among U.S. Internet users is 42.5% and 17.2% globally.
Ask.com UK
The Ask Network remains the 13th largest Internet brand in the UK, reaching 25.6% of the Internet Population [source Nielsen]. Over the last 12 Months, Ask.com’s unique users have grown 38.6%, faster than any of the other major search engines. From July to August alone, Ask.com unique users grew from 6.5 million to 6.9 million. Source - Hitwise August 2008
Source: Ask.com
Website to Transform Discovery of Sporting Talent
UsportStar.com Launches on Tuesday October 7, 2008
A highly original website that showcases new sports talent is being launched at Chelsea Football Club on October 7, in conjunction with the opening of the major football business exhibition, “Leaders in Football”.
UsportStar.com is the first in a series of community driven portals by Dreamscape Media and is designed to target people with genuine sporting talent. By combining the worldwide appeal of Youtube with the extraordinary popularity of reality television shows, UsportStar.com generates content from video clips uploaded by the public. This user-created content promotes the skills and sporting ability of athletes of any age who believe they may possess star potential.
The use of the site to register and upload videos of sporting prowess and skills will be open to everyone. It is a concept which will reach out to people of all ages and backgrounds, drawing them even closer to the sports they love and increasing their sense of involvement. For many it will fuel dreams of discovery and achievement by showcasing the talent and skills of athletes of any age and ability who think they have what it takes.
Usporstar.com is expected to become a primary source of talent for professional team scouts, managers, major brands, agents and academies. The site will be a major point of reference for all professionals who are constantly on the look out for promising young sportspersons.
UsportStar.com has been developed with attention to detail, to ensure its broad appeal, ease-of-use, effectiveness and ethicality. All teams, scouts and agents will be thoroughly vetted and authorised, and all videos checked and verified; parental approval and protection of young people is intrinsic to the site’s design.
UsportStar.com’s ambition is to become the largest online sports community the in the world.
Pargat Mangat, a Director of Dreamscape Media, the owners of Usportstar.com, said: “UsportStar.com will not only allow users from around the world a chance to showcase their sporting talent, it will also provide new and incredibly diverse search options for teams, brands and organizations to view and contact these users, who previously may never have had the opportunity.”
Dreamscape Media plans to become the first global media company to embrace the power and creativity of user-generated content across wide-ranging sporting categories, enabling users to connect with a vast new audience in an entirely new way.
rss.com Domain Name set for 750,000 USD Sale
Torex Appoints Sedo to Oversee Web Address Sale
Sedo, the leading marketplace for buying and selling Internet domain names and websites, has been appointed by Torex Retail Holdings (Torex(TM)) to oversee the sale of rss.com.
With the development of the Internet, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has emerged as the industry standard term which describes the delivery of automated news feeds over the web.
Jason Richards, global vice president, information services, Torex, commented: “Following our review of our digital assets, we’ve concluded that the domain name RSS, while having significant value in the marketplace, is not totally indicative of the Torex product, support and service offerings on a go-forward basis. Rather than maintaining this asset, we feel that it is better suited for a company in the media, publishing or entertainment sector where it should have stronger market appeal. Sedo is the ideal partner for us to announce its availability and oversee its sale.”
Nora Nanayakkara, director of business development at Sedo, commented: “It’s not often a name with such pertinence comes onto the market. As well as being short and memorable, the name has a widespread meaning. It’s a fantastic opportunity for an online media company to acquire it and grow its readership.”
With over 3,810,000,000 page results for “rss” in Google, businesses can use the name as a powerful asset to attract new customers, boost search engine rankings and grow online advertising revenues. Since being parked and monetised through Sedo, the name averages 20,000 unique views a month.
Rss.com is planned to go up for auction on www.greatdomains.com in October with a $750,000 USD reserve. Buyers can submit their interest either by contacting Sedo directly or by visiting www.sedo.co.uk and searching for the Internet domain name.
Top 10 domain names sold by Sedo:
1. Vodka.com (USD$3m)
2. Chinese.com (USD$1.1m)
3. Invest.com (USD$1.015m)
4. Website.com (USD$750,000)
5. Telecom.com (USD$700,000)
6. Annuity.com (USD$600,000)
7. Blue.com (USD$500,000)
8. Villas.com (USD$478,000)
9. Gibraltar.com (USD$ 360,000)
10. Sport.co.uk (USD$265,000)
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Sedo
Sedo, an acronym for “Search Engine for Domain Offers,” is the leading online marketplace for buying and selling Internet domain names and websites. With offices in America, Germany and the UK, Sedo has assembled the world’s largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 14 million listings. The success of Sedo’s model has attracted a global membership base of more than 790,000 domain professionals. Sedo is majority-owned by AdLINK Group (ISIN DE0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), which is part of the German United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031/ WKN 508903). Sedo offers regional versions of its site for the UK (Sedo.co.uk), France (Sedo.fr), Germany (Sedo.de), and Spain (Sedo.com).
For additional information, please visit http://www.sedo.co.uk.
About Torex - http://www.torex.com
Torex is the leading global provider of innovative, integrated technology solutions to the extended retail marketplace.
Torex has 20 years’ experience of working in partnership with the world’s most forward-thinking retail, petroleum and convenience and hospitality brands to entice, engage and retain their customers.
Over 7,000 customers worldwide depend on our proven, best-in-class solutions and knowledgeable industry experts to help them identify, define and deliver a more personal and qualitative experience for each customer, and to maximise profitability, increase ROI and achieve competitive advantage. Torex customers include McDonald’s, Tesco and Selfridges.