Category Archives: News

Gambling Going Online in New Jersey

No longer necessary to visit Atlantic City. Just turn on your computer and gamble!
No longer necessary to visit Atlantic City. Just turn on your computer and gamble!

As of midnight on November 26 New Jersey gamblers will be able to bet the farm by logging onto their choice of 13 internet gaming websites run by six of Atlantic City’s casinos.

Gamblers can thank state regulators who gave the go ahead on the websites in the wake of a 5-day testing period in which they found “no significant, widespread regulatory problems or technical barriers for going live.” That assessment was according to David Rebuck, director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.

New Jersey will become the country’s third state to make online gambling legal, but it is by far the most populated with 9 million residents. During the 5-day test phase the total number of players entering the websites reached 10,000 during the initial three days of 24-hour testing.

Casinos had to limit the number of players to only 500 at any one time on each website during the testing time, and they were also limited in how much they could advertise the sites. Tonight, when the sites go live, these restrictions will be lifted for the sites that have been approved. Officials are optimistic that the new online gambling venue will help give the state’s casinos an economic boost that they sorely need.

“You have to be gradual. You have to be cautious. You have to be measured,” Rebuck said.

He added that casinos wanted to be sure the sites were capable of handling the traffic before they invited large numbers of players.

“You’re going to see accelerating efforts by them to be much more aggressive” about marketing, he said.

Online Marketing Trends You Cannot Miss

online marketingAs the influence of the internet on business increases, the importance of following the trends becomes a significant part of business planning and strategy. Any business which wants to stay competitive must constantly watch consumers and what they are doing and what they are attracted to. Not following closely can lead to a dangerous drop in rankings on the most popular search engines, no doubt bad for business.

Here are some of the most up-to-the-minute trends in web marketing:

1.    Content Marketing is still the crucial component of marketing practices. There is no getting around it: high quality content is the fuel the keeps Google steaming ahead, and your website afloat.

2.    Social Media Marketing is growing and will continue to grow. Let’s face it: Facebook and Twitter are the darlings of the consumer culture-get there or be square!

3.    Mobility is the key to keeping up. More and more customers are checking you out on their cell phones, or are they??

4.    Images- as we all know a picture is worth a thousand words. Some might say that in this fast-paced mobile culture the ratio is more like 1 million to one. Make those graphics work for you.

In Cairo Frozen Yogurt Dream Melts in Wake of Violence and Upheaval

Frozen Yogurt in Cairo Could Not Withstand the Heat of Conflict
Frozen Yogurt in Cairo Could Not Withstand the Heat of Conflict

In early 2011 four young partners opened Egypt’s first frozen yogurt store. Prospects then were good, as long as the country could maintain some level of stability.

Unfortunately, two weeks after opening in the swank Cairo neighborhood of Zamalek, the mass demonstrations against Hosni Mubarak broke out, hitting the economy, including the new yogurt shop, hard. But things calmed down a bit, and by the fall of 2011 Bloomberg Business Week featured a story about “MaybeTwo,” the yogurt store that seemed to bounce back from the turmoil of the beginning of the year.

Not only did they survive, but they were thriving. In the fall of 2011 the partners were ready to open two more branches of their shop in Cairo.

“In five years’ time we want to be an international franchise,” one of the four partners, Mohamed Ashour, then 28, said at the time. “A lot of young people want to start businesses, especially after the revolution.”

Their dream, however, was not to be. After resisting corruption to such an extent that the chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo, Hisham Fahmy, described the foursome as “heroes,” and the drying up of credit because of the instability, the friends could not withstand the pressure.

“The guy who used to come to take $5 from me before was now coming to get $500,” one partner explained. “Corruption was skyrocketing.”

“We were undergoing terrible pressure,” a second partner, el-Sherif said. “Suppliers who used to give us 90 days’ grace period wanted payment after two days.”

In April the distraught investors closed one store, but tried to find financing for the other two, hoping that the political and economic scene in Egypt were get under control.

On June 1st they had no choice but to close down their other two yogurt shops. Now Cairo’s once flourishing Maybe Two stores are just a memory. Three of the four friends and partners have left the country. The partner still in Egypt heads a real estate operation. Another went to Kuwait and opened a fast-food outlet. The last two, a married couple, took their three year-old son to London. They are looking for regular jobs while they decide what their next investment should be.

“Egypt is not in a shape for us to raise a child there,” the partner in London explained on Sept 5, the day assailants bombed the motorcade of the Egyptian Interior Minister in downtown Cairo, nearly killing him. “We need somewhere where our child can play and not to be in this aggressive atmosphere,” el-Sherif said.

Chrysler Introducing All-New Midsize Car

New Car Coming to Take Avenger's Place in the Midsize Auto Market
New Car Coming to Take Avenger’s Place in the Midsize Auto Market

Come early next year Chrysler plans on unveiling a completely redesigned midsize car to replace its present cars in that niche, the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Avenger. The new model is sorely needed if Chrysler wishes to be competitive in the most popular part of the US car market.

Company executives announced on Tuesday that the cars will be built in the same factory where the Avenger and 200 are built now, in Sterling Heights, Michigan, just north of Detroit.

The two models were first launched in 2006, with one update three years ago. Today they have the distinction of being the oldest cars in the midsize market. They are priced far below just about all their competitors, but they are also noisier, have less pleasant rides and worst of all, have poorer gas mileage than the more recently released competition, such as the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.

The midsize auto market is a fiercely competitive niche, responsible for the largest percentage of car sales in the country and Chrysler’s choices are not doing well.

Sales for the Avenger and the 200 reached 136,000 as of June, which is higher than last year’s sales, but still not enough to make the cut. Compare that figure to Toyota’s sale of close to 208,000 Camry’s, and Honda’s sale of 187,000 Accords, and you can see why Chrysler feels a need to change.

The new model will most certainly be built utilizing component parts designed together with the Italian car maker Fiat SpA, the majority owner of Chrysler.

Judge to Decide If Airlines Can be Sued for Negligence in WTC Attack

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein

US District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, the same judge who has presided over much of the litigation stemming from the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, said he will decide after hearing witnesses whether owners of the World Trade Center will have the right to try and recover damages from airline companies to the tune of billions of dollars.

The hearing does not involve a jury and is most likely going to last three days. The judge will listen to arguments from World Trade Center Properties and its affiliates, the owners of the WTC, saying that airlines acted negligently, allowing terrorists to enter airplanes and overcome crew which resulted in billions of dollars in damage to their property.
However, Hellerstein has already stated that the most the owners of the WTC could recover from aviation defendants was $3.5 billion. The owners already received $4.9 billion in insurance payments for their loss. The owners maintain that they have already spent $7 billion to replace the twin towers, and another $1 billion to rebuild one other building that collapsed.

The airline defendants counter that not only have the owners been paid for their loss already by insurance companies, but  that the new buildings which are replacing the old ones are much more costly due to being more modern and fancy than the old buildings.

The lawyers stated that the WTC owners “built a new, state-of-the-art ‘green’ building that bears little resemblance to the office building that collapsed as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks”.

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