February 15th, 2010
“A clerical or coding error is fairly straightforward, but just to be sure, enlist the help of your doctor’s or hospital’s billing specialist to back you up with a letter explaining how the mistake was made.”
It would be nice if that was always the case, but it may be more complicated. A patient may be in a HMO or a PPO and go to a in-network hospital for an admission that was pre-approved under the care of a physician who is also in the plan’s network. Or the patient may go to the emergency room at an in-network hospital. They may find six weeks later that during their inpatient stay that a physician who was the radiologist, pathologist or intensivist was not on their health plan’s list of contracted providers. The claim for that physician’s inpatient services are denied as being out-of-network. The patient had no choice as to who read their x-ray or visited them in the ICU – the patient went to a in-network hospital. (These problems often happen because hospitals and insurers are slow to communicate additions to their medical staff.)
While appealing the claim denial, the physician’s billing office will send repeated bills to the patient. Even though the patient may explain to the physician’s billing office that the claim denial is being appealed, some billing offices will send the claim to a collection agency.
The patient then has to cope with collection agency letters and phone calls while the appeal is being processed. Once the appeal is finally resolved, the plan will pay the provider their discounted rate. However, because the bill has been sen to collections, it can be difficult to get the collections agency to stop demanding payment for the full charges on the original claim. The patient’s insurance plan may send an “Explanation of Benefits” that says that the patient does not owe the difference between the insurer’s payment and the full claim, but as the physician’s office sent the full claim to the collection agency, the agency contends it has a right to collect the full amount.
Often the insurer, the physician’s billing office and the collection agency are unwilling to communicate with each other in resolving these disputes – and are all located outside of the state of the patient. Many hours are spent in unraveling these problems – and administrative costs have to increase. Better information technology could reduce these problems – but I have been hearing that 20 years.
— Brad
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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 10th, 2010
Business owners experience much stress when starting a brand new business. There are multiple things to worry about when running daily operations. Some business tasks consist of satisfying current customers and catering to their needs, finding new customers to increase business profits, and how to balance business funds the right way. Becoming a business owner is not an easy task, but it has major benefits if you succeed. One of your main goals as a business owner is to manage your business credit wisely. There are a few simple steps that will make this entire process easy to accomplish.
Monitor your business credit regularly. Regular consumers are not the only ones that must perform this task frequently, business owners must do the same. Businesses can become victims of fraud and identity theft, just like non business owners. Identity thieves are constantly monitoring the internet for their latest victim. Owning a business and accessing the internet could place your customer's information at risk. You must make the effort to safeguard their information from unwanted visitors. Request a business credit report every few months and subscribe to an up to date alert system. By doing this, you will be able to quickly identify any unfamiliar charges. Not monitoring your business credit report can cause you unnecessary stress and a loss of customers.
Obtain a business credit card for business purposes only. One of the biggest mistakes a business owner can make is to spend business credit on personal items. It can easily become out of control and cause your business to suffer in a major way. A business credit card should only be used for the necessities of your business. There will be many occasions when an unexpected business expense will pop up. In order to keep your business running smoothly, you will need to have access to a business charge account. Business owners should not max out their credit card accounts for personal pleasure. Mismanaging your business funds can cause current and potential customers to look at you in an unprofessional way.
Keep your personal finances intact at all times. Although you are not mixing your business finances with your personal finances, everything should still be in great working order. Business owners that cannot manage their personal finances, may also have issues with organizing business finances as well. Before taking the final leap into owning your very own business, get your personal finances in order first. It will be less stressful for you as a new owner. You will also be able to focus your attention on your business instead of how you are going to pay your electric bill.
Manage your business credit wisely and you will soon discover how profitable your new business has become. Although making endless amounts of cash is not your primary goal for starting your own business, you still need profits to survive. Organization will be a key tool in getting your personal and business finances in order. Take the time to plan everything out and always have a back up plan.
Daily <b>News</b>, Sports, Business, Entertainment and more from Guyana.
Energy and Global Warming <b>News</b> for February 9: Ford to unveil electric Transit Connect van today. February 9, 2010. The Transit Connect Taxi is designed for extreme wear and tear and allows rear-seat …
This one counts as <b>news</b> in a technical sense, only: The people who own the world's biggest music company have finally announced plans to bring in new management. Vivendi says it will install Lucian Grainge as head of its Universal Music …
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Daily <b>News</b>, Sports, Business, Entertainment and more from Guyana.
Energy and Global Warming <b>News</b> for February 9: Ford to unveil electric Transit Connect van today. February 9, 2010. The Transit Connect Taxi is designed for extreme wear and tear and allows rear-seat …
This one counts as <b>news</b> in a technical sense, only: The people who own the world's biggest music company have finally announced plans to bring in new management. Vivendi says it will install Lucian Grainge as head of its Universal Music …
Daily <b>News</b>, Sports, Business, Entertainment and more from Guyana.
Energy and Global Warming <b>News</b> for February 9: Ford to unveil electric Transit Connect van today. February 9, 2010. The Transit Connect Taxi is designed for extreme wear and tear and allows rear-seat …
This one counts as <b>news</b> in a technical sense, only: The people who own the world's biggest music company have finally announced plans to bring in new management. Vivendi says it will install Lucian Grainge as head of its Universal Music …
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 8th, 2010
Comments
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@rww there's a new UK personal finance site in beta called @MoneyDashboard http://www.moneydashboard.com/
Posted by: Steven Renwick |
January 7, 2010 12:22 PM
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Also don't forget freeagent http://www.freeagentcentral.com/ - it's great for the self employed in the UK, with built in invoice tracking and self-assessment.
Posted by: Andy B |
January 7, 2010 2:21 PM
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I have used mint off and on. I love how the design and user interface, but I wish it would work with the bank that holds my checking account. Perhaps i'll try out some of your other suggestions. Thanks for the info!
JG
loanpointusa
Posted by: Joe |
January 7, 2010 2:35 PM
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I've been very happy with Xpenser. I can setup a budget and record expenses with email and sms (it also does twitter and im and a few other things). The main thing for me is ease of use so I stick with it, and this is the only one simple enough to stay with.
Posted by: Paula |
January 7, 2010 3:33 PM
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For those looking for a more proactive approach to managing finances and budgeting (versus the reactive reporting approach supported by most tools), check out the Easy Envelope Budget Aid, built natively for Android and the mobile Web. It's based on the envelope budgeting approach of setting aside cash for particular expenses–in advance–and then spending out of those categories on a declining balance basis. Stop before you run out of your balance as opposed to find out after-thefact that you overspent.
EEBA lets you check your envelope balances and record transactions at point of sale allowing you to carry your virtual “envelopes” with you.
We're in open Beta right now, website at www.eebacanhelp.com
Posted by: Chi-Ming @ EEBA |
January 7, 2010 5:27 PM
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Where is Mint's mobile site? I've never seen it.
Posted by: Sivan |
January 7, 2010 6:08 PM
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There is also Serbian money management web application Slamarica . It's oriented not just for Serbia, but for all Adriatic region. There's more info on Digg http://digg.com/business_finance/Serbian_No_1_money_management_home_finance_web_application
Posted by: Nemanja Djordjevic |
January 9, 2010 1:04 AM
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Thanks for this article. I'm looking forward to the rest. I find it interesting that http://moneycenter.yodlee.com doesn't show up more often in personal finance software reviews. It's free as well, and is quite feature rich. Part of the problem is Yodlee doesn't do that much to market the consumer side. (For good reason, they give it away. 
Posted by: Philip Eoute |
January 9, 2010 9:54 PM
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@Chi-Ming thanks for telling us about EEBA. I'm definitely trying that out!
Posted by: Philip Eoute |
January 9, 2010 9:55 PM
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@Philip, you're welcome. We're iterating quickly, so let us know what you think!
Posted by: Chi-Ming @ EEBA |
January 9, 2010 11:01 PM
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I just love Mint… simple and easy to use… user friendly.. what can I say! Thumb up!
Posted by: RichDadWisdom |
January 10, 2010 6:46 AM
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But with any of the above: (1) can you manually add accounts not on their automated list; (2) multiple currency feature; (3) mobile/iPhone app?
I've tried Mint and Wesabe. Mint is US-only. Wesabe has dreadful import (all tags/categories are lost) and doesn't believe in account reconciliation (”Why would want that feature?” was their reply; perhaps b/c it's the oldest accounting feature in the book and I don't trust a bank's statement.)
I'm with MoneyWell (which uses envelope accounting), and is serving me well enough. But everyone's been waiting well over a year for a promised iPhone app.
I would pay handsomely for any online financial programme that satisfied all 3 feature requests above.
Posted by: Mr Ulster |
January 11, 2010 6:22 AM
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In the uk theres http://www.inniaccounts.co.uk, but it's more for contractors
Posted by: Toby |
January 11, 2010 11:47 PM
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I started using Mint but quickly realized that its sponsors and partners, the big banks, don't want you to use cash. Most of these “free” sites to manage your money encourage one thing - card use. Whether it's credit cards or debit cards, they make using and tracking them easy, and using and tracking cash difficult. This is because the banks all make money on card transactions, whether they are debit or credit based. They make no money on cash transactions. One of the best ways to save money and control spending is by using cash, and none of these services encourage that, by their design.
Posted by: B |
January 13, 2010 11:54 AM
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Interesting article - what is the revenue model for sites like Mint, Kublax, MoneyStrands if the resource is free?
Posted by: Ciaran O'Reilly |
January 14, 2010 7:05 AM
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Mvelopes also offers online personal finance management. It isn't free but I like the envelope based budgeting which forces you to cut down on spending. It also offers mobile access so you can track your spending while you're out shopping.
Posted by: Valerie @ Finance Software Store |
January 14, 2010 5:28 PM
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I wonder how Cloud computing will influence online financial transactions. I am waiting to see what security issues evolve first.
Posted by: Stop Home Foreclosure |
January 18, 2010 5:53 PM
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Does anyone have any recommendations for Australia?
Posted by: Marksin |
January 21, 2010 2:07 PM
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How do users of these web-based financial programs feel about having their financial data available to these companies and the problematic privacy issues?
Posted by: Jeff |
January 23, 2010 3:38 PM
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Yes, but does Mint allow you to export all your data (including tags/categories) so that you could port it into another program? As far as I can tell, it doesn't. I have several years of data built up using Quicken for Mac. This represents not only a lot of work on my part, but an important resource for understanding my spending patterns (not to mention for calculating capital gains/losses on stock transactions come tax time). I've gotten sick of Quicken's sucky user interface (and the fact that it doesn't run natively on an Intel/Leopard mac) and I'm going to switch either to iBank or Moneywell (haven't decided yet). These are both desktop programs. iBank already has an iPhone app that synchronizes with the desktop version, and Moneywell is building one. Importing all of my old data from Quicken into either of these programs will be a piece of cake, as will exporting from these programs should I change my mind later. They also talk with my bank, just as Mint does. With my data synchronized to my iPod touch, I'll have continuous access to it, all without losing control over it. The problem with Mint is that once you start spending time customizing your data, adding tags, etc, you can't leave the Mint interface without losing your work. I'm not going to use any platform that attempts to hold me hostage like that.
Posted by: Sarah |
January 24, 2010 11:33 AM
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In the UK we've been developing the new one on lovemoney.com - be good to know what you think of that too. https://www.lovemoney.com/onlinebanking/
Posted by: emma davies |
January 29, 2010 3:31 AM
Are You Tracking Your Budget, Cash Flow, and Net Worth? [Dumb Little Man] “Tracking your net worth on some sort of regular schedule is a must for anyone serious about decreasing debt and increasing wealth.”
11 moves to supercharge your finances [Smart Spending] “11 steps you can take to easily improve your finances in the coming year.”
The Damage of Card Rewards [NY Times] “It’s possible that the poor pay subsidies to finance the rewards of the affluent.”
How Poker Can Make You a Better Investor “Learn to avoid emotional traps by playing a little Texas hold ’em.”
The Future of Plastic: 5 Credit Trends for 2010 [Smart Money] “If 2009 was the year of hammering out credit-card reform, 2010 will be the year consumers feel the effects of those changes.”
— FREE MONEY FINANCE
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NBC Nightly <b>News</b> anchor Brian Williams appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Friday for an interview segment as well as a cameo with The Roots and Fallon during their regular Slow Jam The <b>News</b> sketch. Brilliams talked budget in song, …
Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have filed suit against a British tabloid that published a report claiming the pair recently called it.
I am so pleased this is finally happening. Haiti has been burdened by its national debt for a long time and this will help speed their recovery from the massive earthquake: The world's leading industrialised nations have pledged to …
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 5th, 2010
In yet another layer to the Super Bowl ad story, Dana Goldstein notes today in her Daily Beast column, "The Making of CBS' Pro-Life Ad", that CBS has been "working closely" with Focus on the Family on the $2.5 million, :30 spot's script.
Goldstein spoke with Gary Schneeberger, spokesperson for Focus on the Family, who told her:
"There were discussions about the specific wording of the spot," said
Gary Schneeberger, spokesperson for Focus on the Family. "And we came
to a compromise. To an agreement." Schneeberger declined to comment on
exactly how CBS changed the ad's message.
The ad, after having been reworked by CBS in conjunction with an intermediary who happens to be the former Senior VP for Focus on the Family, Steve Maegdlin who now runs his own consulting firm, will reflect the influence of television executives, clearly concerned with creating a palatable message for Super Bowl viewers. The tag line now, will be "Celebrate family, celebrate life."
And while Maegdlin told Goldstein that CBS did not offer "special treatment" to Focus on the Family, Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization of Women, called the partnership "appalling." CBS has repeatedly stated that it has changed its policy to allow
advocacy advertising, but many women's health and rights advocates aren't
buying it. Considering CBS has turned down a host of progressive
advertising spots over the last couple of years, this extremely cooperative relationship with Focus on the Family seems questionable.
There is another interesting spark here. As I wrote yesterday, Focus on the Family is a multi-million dollar media empire. This is their raison d'etre - they exist to spread an extremist, conservative, anti-woman, anti-gay message. No more. No less. They do not provide direct care or services. However, Goldstein writes in her article that Super Bowl ads are sometimes purchased a year prior and that CBS executives had been working closely with Focus on the Family on this ad for months.
Does this mean, as Jessica Arons pointed out in a comment on yesterday's post, that while Focus on the Family was busy laying off 75 of their workers last year and eliminating 200 positions, they were funneling their money into a :30 second Super Bowl ad? Their layoffs and cuts happened in September of 2009 - it seems likely that they paid CBS with one hand to persuade American women that they know what's best for us while laying off a chunk of their workforce with the other. According to MSNBC last year, Focus on the Family's trusty spokesperson said (the same one who talked about how hunky dory the CBS partnership has been - the one where they paid almost $3 million for a :30 sec spot?):
"The cutbacks are necessary because projections show the group will fall
5 percent short of a $138 million budget for the fiscal year ending
this month, Schneeberger said."
UPDATE: ING Got Noah a new debit card.
Noah says he yanked his money out of his compromised ING Direct account after an unauthorized charge from the Middle East popped up. He reported the problem, found the CSRs unhelpful in freezing the charge to get the money back, then told them he needed his card to remain valid until he could pull out some money he needed. But when Noah tried to use an ATM, he discovered his card had been canceled.
He writes:
Although I am an avid reader of your site and know anything can happen to anyone, I fell into the “it'll never happen to me” mind set. Well, after being with ING Direct for years, liking their quick customer service response time and actually liking the no paper check thing, I found out when it comes to real problems and issues, everyone touts the new company line, “there's nothing we can do.”
It started with a $300+ charge showing up on my ING account from Reliance Mobile, some company based in the Middle East I believe. I have never done business with that company, have no idea how they got my bank info and charged me, and the only number I can find to ask them what's going on is an international number. I live in the US and don't really want to incur the high charges that would come with making such a call. (The whole Reliance Mobile thing is probably a separate issue for Consumerist!)
So, as I sat there wondering who this company was, I was comforted in the fact that I banked with ING. All other issues I have had with them were easily resolved, and I thought this encounter would be no different. Jokes on me I guess.
I first dealt with a CSR who said, “sorry, there's nothing we can do,” until the money had actually been debited from my account. Due to the fact that it was pending and had not actually posted, which is ridiculous, they said, “there's nothing we can do.” I then spoke with a supervisor that told me the same thing, and I soon came to realize that ING's new company motto must be, “there's nothing we can do.”
The only option was to cancel my debit card or my account. I told them that I didn't want to do either because got paid the next day, and I needed access to my money. They assured me nothing would be canceled, and that as soon as the pending charge from Reliance Mobile posted, I could dispute it and they would handle the problem.
Ok ING, it was time to work and I didn't have time for your shenanigans anymore. I planned on just withdrawing the money I needed the following day, and transferring the rest of my money into a savings account. Then about an hour later I get a call from 800-830-1925, which was a company who handled risk/fraud issues for MasterCard and ING. I call back, they ask about the charge from Reliance Mobile, and I ask if they will resolve the issue. They say no, that they just verify the charge and cancel cards if the customer wants. I told him I didn't want my card canceled, and the issue is being handled directly with ING. They didn't say the card was being canceled or anything like that. I ended the call and I thought that was the end of it.
Well fast forward to this afternoon. I make a transfer from my checking account with ING to my savings account, and leave just enough cash in my checking so I can stop at the ATM after work and go pay what needed to be paid. So, there I am, standing at an ATM and I get the dreaded message….”transaction not authorized.” I try again, and I get the same message. That's where my hour and a half conversations took place with ING.
I was told my card was canceled because of the fraudulent activity I reported. I told the CSR that I had specifically told everyone under the sun that I spoke with to NOT cancel my card. Well I got the new company motto…..”there's nothing we can do.” He didn't know why they didn't tell me my card was being canceled, so I asked for a supervisor. I was not surprised when I got the standard line of “there's nothing we can do,” and they could send me a new card if I want. SO, not only did they cancel my card when I was assured it would not be, but they didn't send me a new one right away? I mean REALLY?
After not being helped out by John the supervisor, I got transferred to Bonnie Florex, the “St. Cloud call center manager.” Same story from her about “there's nothing we can do”, and she eventually just hung up on me. I wasn't being nasty on the phone to anyone, I was simply just trying to figure out a way to get me the money I really needed.
I called back and spoke with a CSR who said…well you can guess…and got transferred to another supervisor. She just said the same old thing….I asked them to overnight a card to me, and they acted like I was crazy. It simply ended with her telling me the card would be sent tomorrow, regular mail, not expedited, just plain old regular mail. Gee, thanks a lot, I will just search the couch for some spare change I guess!
I was really surprised that ING, the company that is so highly regarded for their customer service, wouldn't do anything to help me out, and canceled my card without telling me. If they would have simply told me on the very first call that my card was going to be canceled, I would have had time to figure something out regarding my important thing that needed taken care of today. Now I am suffering because of their mistakes, and here I sit, no way to access any money for several days. I don't have any other options to get cash. HELP!
So Consumerist:
1. What the heck should I do about the Reliance Mobile issue, and has anyone else dealt with this issue?
2. Any ideas, solutions, comments about the ING issue?
If you have any answers for Noah, please leave them in the comments.
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In yet another layer to the Super Bowl ad story, Dana Goldstein notes today in her Daily Beast column, "The Making of CBS' Pro-Life Ad", that CBS has been "working closely" with Focus on the Family on the $2.5 million, :30 spot's script.
Goldstein spoke with Gary Schneeberger, spokesperson for Focus on the Family, who told her:
"There were discussions about the specific wording of the spot," said
Gary Schneeberger, spokesperson for Focus on the Family. "And we came
to a compromise. To an agreement." Schneeberger declined to comment on
exactly how CBS changed the ad's message.
The ad, after having been reworked by CBS in conjunction with an intermediary who happens to be the former Senior VP for Focus on the Family, Steve Maegdlin who now runs his own consulting firm, will reflect the influence of television executives, clearly concerned with creating a palatable message for Super Bowl viewers. The tag line now, will be "Celebrate family, celebrate life."
And while Maegdlin told Goldstein that CBS did not offer "special treatment" to Focus on the Family, Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization of Women, called the partnership "appalling." CBS has repeatedly stated that it has changed its policy to allow
advocacy advertising, but many women's health and rights advocates aren't
buying it. Considering CBS has turned down a host of progressive
advertising spots over the last couple of years, this extremely cooperative relationship with Focus on the Family seems questionable.
There is another interesting spark here. As I wrote yesterday, Focus on the Family is a multi-million dollar media empire. This is their raison d'etre - they exist to spread an extremist, conservative, anti-woman, anti-gay message. No more. No less. They do not provide direct care or services. However, Goldstein writes in her article that Super Bowl ads are sometimes purchased a year prior and that CBS executives had been working closely with Focus on the Family on this ad for months.
Does this mean, as Jessica Arons pointed out in a comment on yesterday's post, that while Focus on the Family was busy laying off 75 of their workers last year and eliminating 200 positions, they were funneling their money into a :30 second Super Bowl ad? Their layoffs and cuts happened in September of 2009 - it seems likely that they paid CBS with one hand to persuade American women that they know what's best for us while laying off a chunk of their workforce with the other. According to MSNBC last year, Focus on the Family's trusty spokesperson said (the same one who talked about how hunky dory the CBS partnership has been - the one where they paid almost $3 million for a :30 sec spot?):
"The cutbacks are necessary because projections show the group will fall
5 percent short of a $138 million budget for the fiscal year ending
this month, Schneeberger said."
UPDATE: ING Got Noah a new debit card.
Noah says he yanked his money out of his compromised ING Direct account after an unauthorized charge from the Middle East popped up. He reported the problem, found the CSRs unhelpful in freezing the charge to get the money back, then told them he needed his card to remain valid until he could pull out some money he needed. But when Noah tried to use an ATM, he discovered his card had been canceled.
He writes:
Although I am an avid reader of your site and know anything can happen to anyone, I fell into the “it'll never happen to me” mind set. Well, after being with ING Direct for years, liking their quick customer service response time and actually liking the no paper check thing, I found out when it comes to real problems and issues, everyone touts the new company line, “there's nothing we can do.”
It started with a $300+ charge showing up on my ING account from Reliance Mobile, some company based in the Middle East I believe. I have never done business with that company, have no idea how they got my bank info and charged me, and the only number I can find to ask them what's going on is an international number. I live in the US and don't really want to incur the high charges that would come with making such a call. (The whole Reliance Mobile thing is probably a separate issue for Consumerist!)
So, as I sat there wondering who this company was, I was comforted in the fact that I banked with ING. All other issues I have had with them were easily resolved, and I thought this encounter would be no different. Jokes on me I guess.
I first dealt with a CSR who said, “sorry, there's nothing we can do,” until the money had actually been debited from my account. Due to the fact that it was pending and had not actually posted, which is ridiculous, they said, “there's nothing we can do.” I then spoke with a supervisor that told me the same thing, and I soon came to realize that ING's new company motto must be, “there's nothing we can do.”
The only option was to cancel my debit card or my account. I told them that I didn't want to do either because got paid the next day, and I needed access to my money. They assured me nothing would be canceled, and that as soon as the pending charge from Reliance Mobile posted, I could dispute it and they would handle the problem.
Ok ING, it was time to work and I didn't have time for your shenanigans anymore. I planned on just withdrawing the money I needed the following day, and transferring the rest of my money into a savings account. Then about an hour later I get a call from 800-830-1925, which was a company who handled risk/fraud issues for MasterCard and ING. I call back, they ask about the charge from Reliance Mobile, and I ask if they will resolve the issue. They say no, that they just verify the charge and cancel cards if the customer wants. I told him I didn't want my card canceled, and the issue is being handled directly with ING. They didn't say the card was being canceled or anything like that. I ended the call and I thought that was the end of it.
Well fast forward to this afternoon. I make a transfer from my checking account with ING to my savings account, and leave just enough cash in my checking so I can stop at the ATM after work and go pay what needed to be paid. So, there I am, standing at an ATM and I get the dreaded message….”transaction not authorized.” I try again, and I get the same message. That's where my hour and a half conversations took place with ING.
I was told my card was canceled because of the fraudulent activity I reported. I told the CSR that I had specifically told everyone under the sun that I spoke with to NOT cancel my card. Well I got the new company motto…..”there's nothing we can do.” He didn't know why they didn't tell me my card was being canceled, so I asked for a supervisor. I was not surprised when I got the standard line of “there's nothing we can do,” and they could send me a new card if I want. SO, not only did they cancel my card when I was assured it would not be, but they didn't send me a new one right away? I mean REALLY?
After not being helped out by John the supervisor, I got transferred to Bonnie Florex, the “St. Cloud call center manager.” Same story from her about “there's nothing we can do”, and she eventually just hung up on me. I wasn't being nasty on the phone to anyone, I was simply just trying to figure out a way to get me the money I really needed.
I called back and spoke with a CSR who said…well you can guess…and got transferred to another supervisor. She just said the same old thing….I asked them to overnight a card to me, and they acted like I was crazy. It simply ended with her telling me the card would be sent tomorrow, regular mail, not expedited, just plain old regular mail. Gee, thanks a lot, I will just search the couch for some spare change I guess!
I was really surprised that ING, the company that is so highly regarded for their customer service, wouldn't do anything to help me out, and canceled my card without telling me. If they would have simply told me on the very first call that my card was going to be canceled, I would have had time to figure something out regarding my important thing that needed taken care of today. Now I am suffering because of their mistakes, and here I sit, no way to access any money for several days. I don't have any other options to get cash. HELP!
So Consumerist:
1. What the heck should I do about the Reliance Mobile issue, and has anyone else dealt with this issue?
2. Any ideas, solutions, comments about the ING issue?
If you have any answers for Noah, please leave them in the comments.
Last night we saw one of the best debates about media and politics in general, and Fox <b>News</b> in particular, that I've seen on TV in a while. That it was conducted by a professional talk-TV bloviator (Bill O'Reilly) and a late-night …
The official Canadian broadcasters for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have released a <b>news</b> and information application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Developed by Indusblue, the CTVOlympics.ca app provides …
The following is a round-up of <b>news</b> likely to affect stock prices today: Aetna (AET) said Friday its fourth-quarter profit fell 15% to $165.9 million, or 38 cents per share, as it continued to struggle with pricing problems and rising …
http://www.shumakerelays.com/
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 4th, 2010
“We can't walk away from this and lead our daily lives as if nothing had happened,” Donna Karan immediately thought when she heard about the tragic earthquake in Haiti. “This is a wake-up call, a call to community, to caring, to something greater than ourselves.”
Andre Harrell, an entertainment industry executive and founder of Uptown Records, heard the same call. “From the first moment I heard about the crisis in Haiti, I felt a sense of responsibility — and the question: 'What can I do to help?' It sounds a little mystical but I felt like the universe was speaking to me,” he said.
Harrell went through a typical day for him–high level meetings uptown, midtown and downtown in Manhattan. Later at the Boom Boom room, he connected with his friend, Andre Balazs at Balazs' elegant Standard Hotel. “We're great friends and I felt the urgency of finding a way to support him in supporting Haiti,” Balazs explained. “This is an opportunity to take advantage of a tragedy to focus the world's attention on an ongoing crisis, and create a sustainable solution.”
Before long, the two Andres reached out to Donna Karan, whose Urban Zen Center is just a few blocks away from the Standard.
“We have the passion to support Haiti, we have the dream of making a difference, but the question is how do we make it happen?” Karan asked when the powerhouse creative trio met to discuss partnering to bring together the New York art, music, fashion and entertainment worlds to kick off a benefit called Hope, Help, and Relief Haiti, slated for next Monday, February 8th.
The funds raised from that evening will provide immediate support for a country in crisis. Following the event, the initiative will explore ways to meet long term needs for housing, health care, and sound economic infrastructures.
In seeking the star performer for the event, Harrell, “knew it had to be an entertainer with the purity of heart and the hard-won experience that could speak for those going through the worst crisis.”
A phone call later and Mary J. Blige was on board.
Urban Zen, the non-profit foundation which Karan founded is hosting the benefit at the Urban Zen Center next Monday night. Blige will headline with an exclusive performance at a sold-out fundraiser dinner (hosted by CNN's Soledad O'Brien) which also features an auction (lead by Whoopi Goldberg). In typical New York style, the evening will continue as the crowd moves from the Urban Zen Center to a late night after-party at the Standard Hotel, featuring a performance by Wyclef Jean.
Three organizations will receive the monies raised: Habitats for Humanity, Partners in Health, and Yele Haiti. In keeping with the trio's slogan, “Tents today, homes tomorrow,” the monies raised will be used immediately to send tents to Haiti. The tents are actually “shelter survival kits” and each kit includes a tent that can house 10 people, along with water purification and storage, stove for heating and cooking, utensils, tools and other items.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to purchase “homes tomorrow,” to be distributed by Habitats for Humanity.
Following the event, the Initiative will focus on a strategy of support for a long-term rebuilding effort.
“This is a call to action,” Harrell points out. “Here's a whole new generation of performers who can wake up to the power of using their talent and their fame as a different kind of currency. They can meet the immediate needs of people in a hopeless situation. Long term they can help empower Haitians to rebuild their community themselves.”
“If this current tragedy could be parlayed into something positive, that would be a great outcome,” says Balazs.
“Whether it's donating money, or shoes — whether it's purchasing a tent today, or helping Haitians rebuild their homes tomorrow, there's something we each can do,” says Karan.
Those interested in donating can contact Karan's foundation at www.urbanzenfoundation.org
I'll blog on the benefit next week. For insight on health, lifestyle, and sustainability, get the free Health Outlook at www.healthjournalist.com
“I've seen physicians buy EHRs where they've spent less time buying them than their house and car,” said Margret Amatayakul, a prominent health care information technology consultant, who has studied the market for more than 10 years.
In a marketplace full of eager sellers of technology–and some with limited track records–”there's a lot of risk,” she said.
Hundreds of companies–big and small, new and old–sell health information technology but industry analysts expect a wave of consolidation in the market, creating uncertainty that certain products will stay in the marketplace or even if some vendors will survive. Amatayakul said she found that up to 70 percent of vendors moved in and out of the market in some years, through mergers, acquisitions or on occasion, bankruptcy.
Congress did not address the possibility that federal incentives could be spent on products from companies with shaky finances when it wrote the stimulus law setting aside billions of dollars for electronic health records.
But as government officials write the rules for distributing the stimulus money, there have been renewed calls for oversight. During testimony before a congressionally mandated advisory committee last summer, Sheldon Razin, chairman of Quality Systems, a large electronic medical record vendor, urged officials to “consider a review of company financials to include long-term viability,” according to his presentation document.
“We just think it's an important issue that the government needs to consider,” said Steven Plochocki, who works with Razin as chief executive of Quality Systems. “Government can't guarantee people will stay in business, but we think it's an important element.”
The federal committee did not suggest any consideration of financial viability in their recommendations to David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology. Paul Egerman, who chaired the group that heard Razin's comments, acknowledged that financial viability was a concern, but said that the group was swayed by the recent experience of the financial industry.
“We had a fear that there's a greater risk to hospitals and doctors from organizations that are too big than ones that are too small,” Egerman said. “We wanted to make it possible for innovation.” He said the committee believed that the centers the government plans to set up around the country to aid doctors in their purchases would include help on how to better evaluate companies' financials.
Officials from another advisory group, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, disagreed in a May report to Blumenthal.
“We're starting a very exciting process that could change the landscape of health care, but the thing that will stop it quickly is if the doctors feel that they don't have some good direction,” said Harry Reynolds, chair of the committee and a vice president with Blue Shield Blue Cross of North Carolina. “You've got to make sure that there's a clear definition of viability.”
Although Blumenthal's unit has no plans to review company financials at this time, it “will continue to examine the issue”, said Nicholas Papas, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. “This is a complex matter,” he said.
Bankrupt Vendors
The Bush administration first set the goal of putting most Americans' medical records online by 2015. By 2006, the industry had begun to receive some oversight through the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT), a nonprofit organization contracted by the government to certify electronic health records.
The commission reviews whether companies' products meet the operating standards they promise. It does not evaluate the firms' financial viability, although since 2008 it has asked companies to voluntarily disclose their number of customers and how long they have been in business.
Mark Leavitt, chair of the certification commission, said evaluating the financial stability of a company poses many challenges. For example, he noted, even a big, financially successful company could decide to discontinue a software system that didn't pan out. And merely certifying the firm's financial strength could give doctors “a very misleading sense of security” about the future of the product they bought, he said.
Still, some doctors have complained that their practices have been hurt after purchasing certified software from a vendor that later went bankrupt.
Canada-based MedcomSoft, which received certification in 2006, declared bankruptcy two and a half years later. The year before, MedcomSoft began installing its software for some members of the 1,200-doctor Independent Physicians Network in Wisconsin. The company also agreed to build a database of the network's patients and provide maintenance, but failed to do so, according to a 2008 lawsuit filed by the physicians' group. That forced the doctors to pay outsiders to keep their system going, they alleged in court documents.
Four months after the doctors filed suit in November 2008, MedcomSoft's attorney filed a motion to withdraw representation, stating that it appeared “neither Medcomsoft nor its parent corporation has any employees, officers, or directors.”
Not every client fared as the Wisconsin group did. Megan Peterson, a manager with medical billing company PBF Online, the Johnstown, Pa., company that bought Medcomsoft out of bankruptcy, said the successor firm had retained 85 percent of the original customers. “We're a strong stable company and will continue to be that for our clients,” she said.
Nevertheless, the executive director of the Wisconsin physician network, Michael Repka, said: “It's going to be considerable time and labor for practices that are going to switch to a new system.”
In another case, a Florida-based company, Dr. Notes, went bankrupt in 2007 after 57 liens were filed against the company, according to a tally by the South Florida Business Journal. Some doctors alleged they were locked out of their medical records or left saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in loan payments on hardware despite being promised by the company they would recoup the costs.
South Carolina-based First Choice Healthcare was one such company, which in 2005, won a $1.5-million judgment against Dr. Notes in state court. Since then, the health care provider has only collected $100,000, the company's lawyer Andrew Schwartz.
“The doctors are left holding the bag,” Schwartz said.
A Fight Over Source Code
Cameron's Florida doctors group, Gulf Coast Orthopaedic Specialists, looked at half a dozen companies before signing with Acermed in April 2005. After installing the first part of the system, they alleged in their lawsuit, the scheduling software “malfunctioned causing patient appointment to disappear.” Also, the billing system was not feeding claims back to insurers, which over the next six months nearly ran the practice into bankruptcy itself, the complaint alleged.
Gulf Coast doctors continued to alert Acermed to the problems, but the company was unable to fix them, the lawsuit stated. They weren't the only ones having trouble. Two other doctor groups–one in Florida, another in Tennessee–had also filed suit against Acermed, alleging similar problems. Gulf Coast filed its suit in October 2006. Acermed stated in court documents that the doctors had no basis for their claim.
As it turned out, Acermed had been dealing with problems of its own. In July 2006, a federal judge ordered Acermed to pay more than $750,000 for using some of the source code from another vendor it had once worked with to develop its own electronic medical record software in 2004.
Gulf Coast's lawsuit was still pending when, in September 2007, Acermed filed for bankruptcy. Company officials at the time said that the reason for their bankruptcy was the financial impact of legal bills, not problems with their software.
In January 2008, Ophthalmic Imaging Systems of Sacramento, Calif., bought Acermed and renamed it Abraxas Medical Solutions with Acermed's former chief executive Michael Bina as president.
In an email, Bina said he does not “represent AcerMed any more and would not like to comment on its behalf.” He said that one of his conditions for joining Abraxas had been that it continued to service Acermed customers, and that “many clients” of AcerMed have stayed with the new company. One of those clients, Tony Cattone, general manager of a 70-doctor medical practice in New Jersey, said in an interview, “they have lived up to their commitments and it's working fine.”
Several other doctors said they were left with loan payments for a system they never received.
And today, the Gulf Coast group still hasn't entirely gotten rid of paper. In December 2008, the doctors settled their lawsuit with Acermed for an undisclosed amount. They invested in a different electronic system, but the doctors aren't entirely happy with the new one either, said Alan Trest, the group's technology manager. With the current system, doctors have to type rather than dictate notes. Some aren't willing to make that transition because they say it takes them more time. So the group still pays for transcriptions.
“They haven't really completely bought into the idea,” Trest said.
http://www.webjam.com/gabrielle71 http://www.prlog.org/10248797-reitbuyercom-offers-opportunity-to-onlinereal-estate-stock-traders-in-albuquerque-new-mexico.html http://www.prlog.org/tag/online-stock-trading/ http://www.prlog.org/10219817-online-traders-discover-reits-and-real-estate-mutual-funds-to-be-good-investment.html http://www.prlog.org/10248797-reitbuyercom-offers-opportunity-to-onlinereal-estate-stock-traders-in-albuquerque-new-mexico.html http://www.webjam.com/gabrielle71
“We can't walk away from this and lead our daily lives as if nothing had happened,” Donna Karan immediately thought when she heard about the tragic earthquake in Haiti. “This is a wake-up call, a call to community, to caring, to something greater than ourselves.”
Andre Harrell, an entertainment industry executive and founder of Uptown Records, heard the same call. “From the first moment I heard about the crisis in Haiti, I felt a sense of responsibility — and the question: 'What can I do to help?' It sounds a little mystical but I felt like the universe was speaking to me,” he said.
Harrell went through a typical day for him–high level meetings uptown, midtown and downtown in Manhattan. Later at the Boom Boom room, he connected with his friend, Andre Balazs at Balazs' elegant Standard Hotel. “We're great friends and I felt the urgency of finding a way to support him in supporting Haiti,” Balazs explained. “This is an opportunity to take advantage of a tragedy to focus the world's attention on an ongoing crisis, and create a sustainable solution.”
Before long, the two Andres reached out to Donna Karan, whose Urban Zen Center is just a few blocks away from the Standard.
“We have the passion to support Haiti, we have the dream of making a difference, but the question is how do we make it happen?” Karan asked when the powerhouse creative trio met to discuss partnering to bring together the New York art, music, fashion and entertainment worlds to kick off a benefit called Hope, Help, and Relief Haiti, slated for next Monday, February 8th.
The funds raised from that evening will provide immediate support for a country in crisis. Following the event, the initiative will explore ways to meet long term needs for housing, health care, and sound economic infrastructures.
In seeking the star performer for the event, Harrell, “knew it had to be an entertainer with the purity of heart and the hard-won experience that could speak for those going through the worst crisis.”
A phone call later and Mary J. Blige was on board.
Urban Zen, the non-profit foundation which Karan founded is hosting the benefit at the Urban Zen Center next Monday night. Blige will headline with an exclusive performance at a sold-out fundraiser dinner (hosted by CNN's Soledad O'Brien) which also features an auction (lead by Whoopi Goldberg). In typical New York style, the evening will continue as the crowd moves from the Urban Zen Center to a late night after-party at the Standard Hotel, featuring a performance by Wyclef Jean.
Three organizations will receive the monies raised: Habitats for Humanity, Partners in Health, and Yele Haiti. In keeping with the trio's slogan, “Tents today, homes tomorrow,” the monies raised will be used immediately to send tents to Haiti. The tents are actually “shelter survival kits” and each kit includes a tent that can house 10 people, along with water purification and storage, stove for heating and cooking, utensils, tools and other items.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to purchase “homes tomorrow,” to be distributed by Habitats for Humanity.
Following the event, the Initiative will focus on a strategy of support for a long-term rebuilding effort.
“This is a call to action,” Harrell points out. “Here's a whole new generation of performers who can wake up to the power of using their talent and their fame as a different kind of currency. They can meet the immediate needs of people in a hopeless situation. Long term they can help empower Haitians to rebuild their community themselves.”
“If this current tragedy could be parlayed into something positive, that would be a great outcome,” says Balazs.
“Whether it's donating money, or shoes — whether it's purchasing a tent today, or helping Haitians rebuild their homes tomorrow, there's something we each can do,” says Karan.
Those interested in donating can contact Karan's foundation at www.urbanzenfoundation.org
I'll blog on the benefit next week. For insight on health, lifestyle, and sustainability, get the free Health Outlook at www.healthjournalist.com
“I've seen physicians buy EHRs where they've spent less time buying them than their house and car,” said Margret Amatayakul, a prominent health care information technology consultant, who has studied the market for more than 10 years.
In a marketplace full of eager sellers of technology–and some with limited track records–”there's a lot of risk,” she said.
Hundreds of companies–big and small, new and old–sell health information technology but industry analysts expect a wave of consolidation in the market, creating uncertainty that certain products will stay in the marketplace or even if some vendors will survive. Amatayakul said she found that up to 70 percent of vendors moved in and out of the market in some years, through mergers, acquisitions or on occasion, bankruptcy.
Congress did not address the possibility that federal incentives could be spent on products from companies with shaky finances when it wrote the stimulus law setting aside billions of dollars for electronic health records.
But as government officials write the rules for distributing the stimulus money, there have been renewed calls for oversight. During testimony before a congressionally mandated advisory committee last summer, Sheldon Razin, chairman of Quality Systems, a large electronic medical record vendor, urged officials to “consider a review of company financials to include long-term viability,” according to his presentation document.
“We just think it's an important issue that the government needs to consider,” said Steven Plochocki, who works with Razin as chief executive of Quality Systems. “Government can't guarantee people will stay in business, but we think it's an important element.”
The federal committee did not suggest any consideration of financial viability in their recommendations to David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology. Paul Egerman, who chaired the group that heard Razin's comments, acknowledged that financial viability was a concern, but said that the group was swayed by the recent experience of the financial industry.
“We had a fear that there's a greater risk to hospitals and doctors from organizations that are too big than ones that are too small,” Egerman said. “We wanted to make it possible for innovation.” He said the committee believed that the centers the government plans to set up around the country to aid doctors in their purchases would include help on how to better evaluate companies' financials.
Officials from another advisory group, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, disagreed in a May report to Blumenthal.
“We're starting a very exciting process that could change the landscape of health care, but the thing that will stop it quickly is if the doctors feel that they don't have some good direction,” said Harry Reynolds, chair of the committee and a vice president with Blue Shield Blue Cross of North Carolina. “You've got to make sure that there's a clear definition of viability.”
Although Blumenthal's unit has no plans to review company financials at this time, it “will continue to examine the issue”, said Nicholas Papas, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. “This is a complex matter,” he said.
Bankrupt Vendors
The Bush administration first set the goal of putting most Americans' medical records online by 2015. By 2006, the industry had begun to receive some oversight through the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT), a nonprofit organization contracted by the government to certify electronic health records.
The commission reviews whether companies' products meet the operating standards they promise. It does not evaluate the firms' financial viability, although since 2008 it has asked companies to voluntarily disclose their number of customers and how long they have been in business.
Mark Leavitt, chair of the certification commission, said evaluating the financial stability of a company poses many challenges. For example, he noted, even a big, financially successful company could decide to discontinue a software system that didn't pan out. And merely certifying the firm's financial strength could give doctors “a very misleading sense of security” about the future of the product they bought, he said.
Still, some doctors have complained that their practices have been hurt after purchasing certified software from a vendor that later went bankrupt.
Canada-based MedcomSoft, which received certification in 2006, declared bankruptcy two and a half years later. The year before, MedcomSoft began installing its software for some members of the 1,200-doctor Independent Physicians Network in Wisconsin. The company also agreed to build a database of the network's patients and provide maintenance, but failed to do so, according to a 2008 lawsuit filed by the physicians' group. That forced the doctors to pay outsiders to keep their system going, they alleged in court documents.
Four months after the doctors filed suit in November 2008, MedcomSoft's attorney filed a motion to withdraw representation, stating that it appeared “neither Medcomsoft nor its parent corporation has any employees, officers, or directors.”
Not every client fared as the Wisconsin group did. Megan Peterson, a manager with medical billing company PBF Online, the Johnstown, Pa., company that bought Medcomsoft out of bankruptcy, said the successor firm had retained 85 percent of the original customers. “We're a strong stable company and will continue to be that for our clients,” she said.
Nevertheless, the executive director of the Wisconsin physician network, Michael Repka, said: “It's going to be considerable time and labor for practices that are going to switch to a new system.”
In another case, a Florida-based company, Dr. Notes, went bankrupt in 2007 after 57 liens were filed against the company, according to a tally by the South Florida Business Journal. Some doctors alleged they were locked out of their medical records or left saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in loan payments on hardware despite being promised by the company they would recoup the costs.
South Carolina-based First Choice Healthcare was one such company, which in 2005, won a $1.5-million judgment against Dr. Notes in state court. Since then, the health care provider has only collected $100,000, the company's lawyer Andrew Schwartz.
“The doctors are left holding the bag,” Schwartz said.
A Fight Over Source Code
Cameron's Florida doctors group, Gulf Coast Orthopaedic Specialists, looked at half a dozen companies before signing with Acermed in April 2005. After installing the first part of the system, they alleged in their lawsuit, the scheduling software “malfunctioned causing patient appointment to disappear.” Also, the billing system was not feeding claims back to insurers, which over the next six months nearly ran the practice into bankruptcy itself, the complaint alleged.
Gulf Coast doctors continued to alert Acermed to the problems, but the company was unable to fix them, the lawsuit stated. They weren't the only ones having trouble. Two other doctor groups–one in Florida, another in Tennessee–had also filed suit against Acermed, alleging similar problems. Gulf Coast filed its suit in October 2006. Acermed stated in court documents that the doctors had no basis for their claim.
As it turned out, Acermed had been dealing with problems of its own. In July 2006, a federal judge ordered Acermed to pay more than $750,000 for using some of the source code from another vendor it had once worked with to develop its own electronic medical record software in 2004.
Gulf Coast's lawsuit was still pending when, in September 2007, Acermed filed for bankruptcy. Company officials at the time said that the reason for their bankruptcy was the financial impact of legal bills, not problems with their software.
In January 2008, Ophthalmic Imaging Systems of Sacramento, Calif., bought Acermed and renamed it Abraxas Medical Solutions with Acermed's former chief executive Michael Bina as president.
In an email, Bina said he does not “represent AcerMed any more and would not like to comment on its behalf.” He said that one of his conditions for joining Abraxas had been that it continued to service Acermed customers, and that “many clients” of AcerMed have stayed with the new company. One of those clients, Tony Cattone, general manager of a 70-doctor medical practice in New Jersey, said in an interview, “they have lived up to their commitments and it's working fine.”
Several other doctors said they were left with loan payments for a system they never received.
And today, the Gulf Coast group still hasn't entirely gotten rid of paper. In December 2008, the doctors settled their lawsuit with Acermed for an undisclosed amount. They invested in a different electronic system, but the doctors aren't entirely happy with the new one either, said Alan Trest, the group's technology manager. With the current system, doctors have to type rather than dictate notes. Some aren't willing to make that transition because they say it takes them more time. So the group still pays for transcriptions.
“They haven't really completely bought into the idea,” Trest said.
Steam <b>News</b>. Official Steam time: Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 3:22 pm. Team Fortress 2 Update Released. February 3, 2010, 2:28 pm - Valve - Product Update <b>…..</b> <b>News</b> Archive (2010). Feb Jan. Archives By Year. 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 …
Last night we saw one of the best debates about media and politics in general, and Fox <b>News</b> in particular, that I've seen on TV in a while. That it was conducted by a professional talk-TV bloviator (Bill O'Reilly) and a late-night …
1 cable <b>news</b> show ever — Bill O'Reilly — had Jon Stewart on last night and will air the rest of the interview tonight. The Daily Show host — a liberal who is actually funny — used the spot to rip the network. …
http://www.shumakerelays.com/
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 3rd, 2010
Intelius, a site that helps users find information about others, continues to have more bad news around its senior execs. John Arnold, a cofounder and EVP, has been indicted on a charge of lying to a grand jury about having sex with a dancer.
The company has been trying to go public despite hundreds of scam complaints, and the atrocious legal record of CEO Naveen Jain. We covered many of the issues back in 2008. Last year the U.S. Senate began an investigation into the post transaction marketing offers that drive much of Intelius’ revenue.
The new charges are somewhat ironic, since Intelius recently launched an iPhone dating application called datecheck.
Arnold, now charged with lying to a grand jury about his sexual exploits, said of datecheck:
Date Check is like having a private investigator in your purse..Letting a stranger into your life is a huge risk, and in the age of Internet anonymity, a simple online search isn’t enough to tell you everything you need to know.
Indeed. Except, datecheck isn’t so useful if you want to date an Intelius cofounder. The company has removed the legal records of its own founders from the application.
Business and political leaders just gathered on the Magic Mountain hoping to beam up depressed financial markets. But the velocity of information is moving faster than the velocity of money and the fault may lie not in their stars, but in themselves.
Class warfare between capitalism and communism played out for 150 years and with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the U.S. crisis globalism is the eye in the triangle atop the financial ecosystem.
Without a rival economic system to challenge it, globalism now competes with itself. And, in the process of doing so, may be incubating its own enemy within.
Emerging from its cocoon with some help from the venture capitalists on Silicon Valley's Sand Hill Road, the brave new world known as social media seeks to the flatten the entrepreneurial focus of the emerging digital economy into a playground of blogs, tribes and conversations that reduce business from being the driver of market and oligopoly capitalism into an experience of stories, feelings and the wisdom of online crowds.
In the United States, social media tools like blogs, Twitter and fundraising websites helped Team Obama carry the banner of “Change You Can Believe In” to victory in 2008. Now, however, the White House is using social media to avoid a failed presidency and manage expectations downward as the US attempts to rebound from the economic crisis in the midst of a global credit crunch.
Social media is too new for slow moving government bureaucrats to regulate it, so its deceptive practices and bad actors get off easy with “guideline” status. Ethics and anti-corruption gurus like Lawrence Lessig don't go near that part of it . And since its all about advertising and marketing conducted in the form of conversations designed to shape consumer and business opinion about products and services there is no return on investment (ROI). Nothing is sold directly, therefore there's nothing to tax … a big reason globalism likes it.
If you want to mobilize millions for earthquake relief in Haiti social media is a great tool. But the short attention span of social media Tweeple don't remember Bangladesh, a disaster ten times worse than Haiti that just had its 40th anniversary and hasn't recovered yet.
In the serial world of social media the next event will push Haiti off of the top slot on the Tweet Deck and social media users will be jonzein' for something new. One more reason why the American Psychiatric Association has classified a key group of online behaviors- like the games people play on Facebook- as addictions in the forthcoming DMS-V, just like heroin, crack, gambling and alcoholism.
The risk factor of assimilating the same globalist and American values that precipitated the current economic malaise is why nations like Brazil, China and France, with strong national infrastructures, have tough laws governing the internet. And its why social media advocates like US secretary of state Hilary Clinton interfere in the domestic affairs of China, accusing Beijing of not being open to Washington's concept of internet democracy. That's how the Opium Wars got started…
Major global companies like Pepsi and Ford are nurturing small budget experimental social media programs designed to promote causes and understand the consumer habits of younger generations. Social media's upside offers cheap, online advertising platforms at a time when companies and ad agencies are seeking to do more with less money.
Social media blogs and websites are also designed to capture data developed through online, debates, webinars and conversations. Bill Gates says the world should put less emphasis on developing cars that offer fuel economy and focus on low polluting vehicles that do less damage to the environment and cost $35,000. Broadening that discussion, Carlos Ghosn at Renault-Nissan and Ratan Tata of Tata Motors are talking about fuel efficient cars available now that help roll back the pathology of underdevelopment and cost just $4,000 in India, and elsewhere in Southern Asia. It remains to be seen if social media can earn its keep by promoting and managing a key sustainabilty conversation like this one.
Its a tough call because social media is having a problem exhibiting adult behaviors associated with mainstream business values. Social media is virtual and detached. From the viewpoint of behavioral psychology it behaves as an adaptive angry child, rather than as a stable, nurtured child because it is virtual and nobody nurtured it. Few social media companies have produced a steady, profitable bottom line or are reluctant to show it fearing regulation and higher taxes from the Obama administration. Those who provide the human capital that helps power social media blogs and websites sometimes work for free as interns, or for wages substantially lower than what basic jobs in mainstream advertising, public relations, and journalism pay.
What makes social media a radical subculture is that in the name of digital democracy, it assigns a higher importance to the feel good concepts of “social capital” and popularity than the monetary rewards that can help grow economies and build nations. Most social media blogs, websites and conversations are designed to be captured and read by machines, not humans, with the purpose of monetizing data provided freely when you click yes in a user agreement box. That data is mined by monitoring services who store it in a computer “cloud” and sell or trade it to other companies who use it in an attempt to add value to products and services that they market via other channels.
Social media is not the huge e-commerce websites operated by Amazon, Wal-Mart, and others. Nor is it a part of the software industry that powers PCs, business, government and mobile devices. It is a social, not a business movement. It is dominated by Caucasians with the cultures of the Indian subcontinent well represented. African-Americans and Hispanics are at the bottom of the social media food chain. Social media is an elite trying to get over on the mass market. And right now, mainstream business is doing more to reach out and help guide social media than social media is doing to reach out and listen to business.
In contrast to the three martini, gray flannel suit world of Mad Men, the high noise to volume ratio of social media bears a striking resemblance to the unfinished cultural revolution that grew out of the 1960s.
The Mad Men of the 60's didn't get it so an underground press developed to service the big market gap. In San Francisco Rolling Stone emerged from the underground under founder Jann S. Wenner and developed a business model, reached across the Atlantic and put a global focus on cultural freedom and the notion that “the music will set you free.”
Wenner became the Henry Luce of his generation by taking the road rage out of alternative media because he matured, listened and learned from the likes of Max Palevsky of Xerox and William Coblentz, who sat on the board of regents of the University of California. He patronized rads like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin while moving his enterprise to the center, creating a huge fan base without the aid of Twitter or Facebook that helped open the market space for MTV and later, digital music and movies. And with the Cold War still going full tilt, every kid with a sense of self in Pinsk, Plauen and Plovdiv hungered to listen to rock music and wanted a copy of Rolling Stone.
Social media has yet to find a visionary leader like Wenner. Proponents of social media say its all about listening and dialogue. But they tend to evangelize rather than educate. The same crowd wisdom that advocates flat corporate culture, win-win outcomes and kinder gentler conversations defaults to rockstar idolatry among its own politically correct leaders. Seth Godin, author of the popular book Lynchpin and other tomes, does not even bother to offer his flock of social media followers a place to comment or interact with him at his own website.
Where Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and Linux software applications help people do business smarter, social media is time and labor intensive. Dell Computers, with a reputation as an aggressive, bottom line company, generated a paltry $6.5 million in gross sales through a social media program involving Twitter. The human capital required to grab that revenue, however, was 100 employees working over a two year period, each generating just $32,500 in business per year. Consistent with the hype surrounding social media, a Dell spokesperson characterized the program as “vibrant.”
In their Davos video broadcast Edelman ranked the influence and credibility of social media below TV, industry analysts, and newspapers. Yet social media thought leaders and influencers behave as if their message is the key message. And as for the power and influence of Twitter, a recent study indicates that while Twitter has 75 million user accounts, a large percent of those are inactive, with about 25% of the accounts having no followers and 40% of the accounts having never sent a single tweet. Moreover, around 80% of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than ten times.
If globalism wants to paint a positive image of itself, social media can be one of the colors on the palette, but not a primary color. Social media needs to grow up before living out its half-life like most other social experiments do or it will get co-opted by the globalist whale. Now, the self image of social media seems akin to a dog or cat looking into a mirror, touching and retouching the mirror with her paw because she has no sense of self.
In the dialectic between communism and capitalism, Lenin is said to have called creatures who exhibit this sort of anomie “useful idiots”. Globalism hungers for malleable human capital and is flattening the personalities of people, national cultures and governments… who are globalism's “useful idiots?”
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I bring this story to your attention because of the questions it raises. First the story by Steve Krakauer - then the questions: Fox <b>News</b> had its best.
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January 27th, 2010
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Article marketing is definitely the best way for any business to get massive amounts of exposure in the internet. By doing so you will start to understand why article marketing is the sure fire method of building a profitable business online. Article marketing is one of the most powerful and targeted internet marketing strategies for driving traffic and gaining sales in your online home based business. Article marketing is a very effective tool in internet marketing. Article marketing is your best method to get known as a specialist in your field. The great thing about article marketing is that it will continue to bring traffic weather you continue to write articles or not. Article marketing is a fantastic way to build an internet business and satisfy customers at the same time. Article marketing is a great and easy way to break into internet marketing and to get you some very cheap exposure. Article marketing is a long term approach to getting traffic and making money on the internet. Article marketing is a website promotion and online marketing bargain! Conversion to sales is through article marketing is still does this more effectively than other marketing methods. Article marketing is much more suited to building that medium sized but loyal audience of repeat visitors and customers because of the ability to make a positive impression before readers visit your blog. Article marketing is certainly the best ways to build back links and increase your site traffic, but if on one hand you can increase drastically your site traffic, on the other hand, submitting the same article to hundreds of directories you come across google as duplicate content.Article marketing is making the right use of the keywords in your content so that when one uses those keywords, he or she lands up directly at your article in the article directory. Article submitter – top article marketing software for automated submission by k singharticle marketing is a proven method to drive massive traffic to your website and make money online. Article marketing is a method of advertising which a lot of companies are writing short articles related to a specific niche. Compared to ppc or pay per click advertising which can burn a hole in the pocket, article marketing is an equally effective means of advertising and a free one at that too. In conclusion, you really can not do any better for promoting your business or website than you can by writing tantalizing article.
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Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-marketing-articles/article-marketing-is-still-the-best-road-to-success-1758412.html
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January 6th, 2010
One of the more precarious arenas of investments is the field of penny stock investing. Penny stocks, additionally known as nano cap stocks, micro cap stocks, or small cap stocks, are stocks with low market capitalisation and a small price per share.
Many delineate penny stocks as plainly just micro caps. Micro cap stocks actually have a more specific definition. If a corporate entity’s market capitalization is below 250 million dollars, then its stock will be considered a micro cap stock.
Yet penny stocks specifically are more ordinarily associated with 1 of 2 definitions. One is that the stock is dealt for five dollars or less per share. The 2nd definition is plainly that the share is traded via OTC (Over-the-Counter) quotation services, such as the OTCBB or Pink Sheets.
Note that all these variables produce a stock more unstable. The Internet is stuffed with hokey ballyhoo regarding penny stocks, but the truth is that it’s a highly volatile and hazardous market in which to invest. Just as stocks may increment in price rapidly, they may drop into obliviousness just as quickly.
An essential attribute of a winning penny stock investor will be that she or he will begin buying penny stocks through the help of a quality online penny stock broker. He or she will avoid penny stock message boards and learn where to buy penny stocks with patience and cautiousness.
And to make things all the more problematic, it may often be very difficult to explore and substantiate real information on corporations listed on the OTC quotation services. Frequently, when you do brief searches on the Internet, you will find contrived data distributed to artificially plug the share and exploit beginner investors.
Hence if you decide to invest in penny stocks, be ready to be really distrustful and cautious about your data sources. And deal carefully, really carefully.
Our take
Matt: Let’s not forget the Harmony Remote either. Before these Internet-connected remotes came along, you would have to spend hours programming a universal remote with codes printed in size 4 font. The innovative little company was eventually bought out by Logitech, but thankfully not much as changed.
Doug: I have to agree with the T-Mobile Sidekick here. I can’t remember the last time I had a bigger tech boner about a particular product. The thing that made it so unbelievable was that it wasn’t priced outrageously at the time. If memory serves, the hardware was $250 and my monthly service was $30 for voice and $20 for unlimited data. I did a lot of web development back then and I still remember the first time I used my Sidekick to add a new user to one of my client’s e-mail systems while waiting for my luggage halfway across the country. Unreal. And never, ever, ever have regular people ogled a phone as much as they did the first Sidekick. There was nothing like it — that swiveling screen, especially.
Devin: I just want to throw my weight behind Gmail and cloud apps here. I may not even use them, but I see them as being fuel for the next generation of computing. Flash memory has for sure enabled a huge amount of devices in the last decade, but cloud apps will power the next decade.
Greg: As the resident mobile nut, it’s only appropriate for me to consider something from the mobile space to be the most innovative. I could cheat and default to the iPhone purely for the sake of stoking a flamewar in the comments below, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll go with SMS – otherwise known as text messaging; while technically a product of the 80s, SMS truly came to fruition in the naughts. In the past 9 years, we’ve gone from sending less than half a billion texts a year to over 80 billion – and that’s in the US alone. It paved the way for Facebook updates, tweets, and microblogs, killed the long form letter, and has completely overhauled how we, as a populace, communicate.
Nicholas: I sincerely believe the word “innovative” has lost all meaning and should be eliminated from the English language. I have no time for it, and it seeing it instantly causes my renal glands to secrete exotic poisons. Call me when someone invents a simple water purifier that can treat water on the spot. That’d be helpful. Oh, and innovative.
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January 4th, 2010
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Internet marketing is one of the cardinal kinds of the business in the internet. You can be in your retiring years but at the same time you are able to deal with your own online business. You are able to deal with online marketing even if you are a teen! But it would be enough hard to learn out about all the items and aspects online business and internet marketing have got. Of course these two things are connected tight. You may be know online business has got a kind – and this is internet marketing. If you want to deal with internet marketing you do not have to be a professor and you do not have to read all the books there are. You have to deal with your internet marketing on the level you want. If you want to be a millionaire, if you are craving to be well-off – you have to deal with your job day to day, collecting new skills and offers. If you are not ready to be a professional of your own business, but you are ready to deal with your business floating – it is ok too. You do not have to be a professional of your own business to gather a hay per a month. But in the second case you will be in a team-business. Want to get self-one? Want to deal with your own internet marketing? Are you sure and you consider it is your way for the business? You are welcome to deal with internet marketing, you are wanted if you are skilled and well-educated. Internet marketing is quite rampant technology and system –so you will not have got any problems with tips and advice about. Do not you believe in advice which are in the world wide web? You have to know there are many internet groups and communities which are able to help you. You just have to use your brains – it is not so hard, honestly! You are able to deal with tips from your friends but please be careful – you are able to get ill-tips and they will not do you a lot of good. Really, there are no major aspects you have to know if you are with internet marketing. Every item as an every aspect is very important for you and for internet marketing. It is very major tips if you are going to deal not with the team-business but you are going to be a boss of your own internet marketing. You have to deal with your internet marketing if you consider you have got will power and strong mind with aim. Good luck! Happy way with internet marketing business! Deal with it firmly!
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December 28th, 2009
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News The Morning News: Marijuana, Seahawks, Iran, Stimulus Money, and Bush. Posted by Unpaid Intern on Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 7:08 AM. Posted by News Intern Jon Brock. Marijuana: Washington state lawmakers are looking to at least discuss …
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