Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/girls-gone-wild-bankrupt/
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Sunday, March 3, 2013
Punchdrunk Panda: practical and purely Pinoy products | Vera Files
March 1, 2013
?By ERIN EMOCLING
Photos from PUNCHDRUNK PANDA
NOWADAYS, a wide range of products are readily available to consumers through the Internet. The real challenge in having an online business is how to make one?s products stand out from the competition.
Punchdrunk Panda (PdP), a company engaged in online selling, offers unique and functional ?world-class? Pinoy goods that showcase the talent of local graphic designers.
Founded by Gail Go and Jen Horn in mid-2007,? PdP has an exclusive product line that includes casual shoes, laptop sleeves, camera straps, and smartphone cases, among others. Some of their best-selling products are those designed by artists Manix Abrera, Rob Cham, and JP Cuison.
?Our missions are to give Filipino designers and illustrators an unconventional canvas on which to showcase their work and create conversation starters, to create proudly Pinoy-made products that show off Filipino creativity and capability, and to give you unique, functional, and awesome-looking products to express your personality and support for Pinoy products and designers,? Go explained.
The company has an awesome roster of contributing artists with distinctive styles, such as Alessa Lanot, Diego and Ge Mapa, Saab Magalona, Selena Salang, and Tof Zapanta, among others.
?They (artists) are very passionate about their work, (which is) like an extension of their personality. Consumers dig that,? Go shared. ?We do not limit ourselves to a certain style but we?d like it to be familiar and distinctive: familiar to the consumers but distinctive in a way that when you see an artwork, you?d go ?Hey, that?s (an artist name) art?.?
What makes their products truly Pinoy aside from being designed by local artists is the fact that PdP tries to manufacture them in the country. ?As long as we can find a manufacturer in the Philippines, it?s still cost efficient,? Go said.
PdP started because of Go and Horn?s shared frustration with the lack of affordable and functional laptop sleeves. ?Jen and I combined our powers to design the funkiest, yet most practical laptop sleeves. This idea eventually trickled down to other products on which graphic designs aren?t conventionally applied,? Go shared.
She went on: ?Jen and I started PdP because of our passion for creativity, essentially. As PdP grew, we needed an equally passionate member and we were lucky to have found Nica Kim (their honorary partner and operations manager).?
In 2008, PdP got their first retail partner, LapDance Bags. They created a new direction for their products and incorporated graphic design, as well. Go and Horn quit their jobs the following year so they could focus on their business.
Not long after their successful graphic-designed laptop sleeves, they thought of designing ladies? casual footwear. They also collaborated with local artists in launching ?cool things,? like artist webisodes, blogger hangouts, and Community Creativity Camp.
PdP is also known for the Anteroom Sessions event, which it started in 2011.? The marketing event featured local artists, bands, and entrepreneurs.
?Anteroom Sessions is something that we are so proud to have initiated,? Go said. ?It?s been a huge success to date and it?s unfortunate that I physically cannot repeat this for this year. It?s hard when I?m half way across the globe. My staff is not ready to run it by themselves.?
Go moved to Canada a couple of years ago where she has since been remotely managing PdP. ?I have a staff and they help me with the day-to-day operations. Thank God for the Internet,? said Go, who does fulltime brand marketing for ConAgra Foods Canada.
Meanwhile, Horn and Kim no longer take an active part in PdP.
In February, PdP started an initiative to enable Filipino consumers to give back to the community by donating 10 % of its sales to local and sustainable organizations, such as Save the Philippine Seas, Got Heart Foundation, and Muni PH.
?Upon check out, consumers are asked to select one of the three organizations and we?ll donate 10% of the total invoice to the selected organization,? Go explained.? ?(We at) PdP personally know these organizations and we believe in their initiatives.?
Punchdrunk Panda has gone through big leaps already. It has redirected its products? designs to make sure they convey a meaningful message.
PdP will release a brand new product in May which, Go said, is ?going to be school-related, so stay tuned.?
?For our coming May product launches, our designs? themes will be on personal growth and development, local culture and travel, and energy conservation,? she said. ?It?s an exciting challenge for PdP and the artists that we work with. But we really want to inspire Filipinos through our designs.?
Tagged Punchdrunk Panda
Source: http://verafiles.org/punchdrunk-panda-practical-and-purely-pinoy-products/
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Saturday, March 2, 2013
McDonald's getting rid of items from menu
NEW YORK (AP) ? McDonald's is getting rid of its Chicken Selects and Fruit & Walnut Salad and is considering the removal of Angus burgers.
The changeup comes as the world's biggest hamburger chain plans to step up the number of limited-time menu items in the year ahead.
Most recently, the chain introduced its Fish McBites. It plans to introduce McWrap chicken sandwiches with lettuce, tomato and cucumber and a choice of three sauces later this year. The McWrap sandwiches will be larger than the chain's Snack Wraps.
The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company said in an emailed statement that it is "evaluating options as it relates to the Angus Third Pounders," which were introduced in 2009. The Selects chicken fingers were introduced in 2004 and the Fruit & Walnut Salad was introduced in 2005.
Earlier this week, the Kentucky New Era quoted a McDonald's franchisee's Facebook post noting the discontinuation of the three items.
"Sorry if one of these were your favorite, they just did not sell well enough nationally," the site quoted McEnaney Enterprises as saying. That post has since been removed.
After years of outperforming rivals, McDonald's has been struggling as competitors including Burger King and Wendy's step up their marketing and menu offerings. Fast-food chains are also fighting to attract customers at a time when people are being more careful about where they spend their money.
In a shakeup late last year, McDonald's ousted the head of its U.S. business. The move came after a key sales figure dropped for the first time in nearly a decade. CEO Don Thompson, who took the top spot this summer, has said the company has a strong pipeline of new items for 2013.
In the meantime, some McDonald's operators may welcome the company's plans to stop serving some items.
"The menu at McDonald's has gotten so broad and so jumbled that nothing sells in large numbers," said Richard Adams, a former McDonald's franchisee who now consults for franchisees. "This business was built on simplicity, and that's kind of gone out of the window in the last decade."
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Friday, March 1, 2013
Poker loses its cool in Vegas
LAS VEGAS (AP) ? The Tropicana hoped to step back into the big leagues when it opened its poker room in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, touting it as the coolest in town.
But that same morning, federal agents shut down the three biggest online poker sites on the Internet. Last September, less than a year and a half later, the iconic casino quietly swapped out its green felt tables for slot machines.
It's a story that's become increasingly common as the crackdown on Internet gambling weakens poker's appeal, and the casinos that once competed to lure fans of Texas Hold 'Em abandon the waning game in favor of more lucrative alternatives.
Poker has never been a big moneymaker like slot machines or roulette. But when the game's popularity soared during the 2000s, casinos were willing to forgo the extra dollars to get players inside their buildings.
Now the calculus is shifting. In Sin City, epicenter of the poker craze, at least eight rooms have folded in the past two years. The trend is also playing out in Mississippi riverboats, Indian casinos and gambling halls near big cities from California to Florida.
Poker's proponents insist the game remains as popular as ever, and some larger casinos say their rooms are bustling.
In a statement this month announcing the World Series of Poker lineup, executive director Ty Stewart said the summer bonanza in Las Vegas would be an "affirmation about the strength and global appeal of the game."
But the spate of poker room closures on the Strip has some wondering whether the largest gambling trend to sweep the country in 25 years may be losing momentum.
"I just think the allure of poker is lessening," said William Thompson, author of the encyclopedia "Gambling in America" and professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "That's one reason the smaller casinos would just say, 'Hey it's not worth all the time to set everything up. A slot machine would do a lot better.'"
Poker revenue has been falling in Nevada since 2007, the year after the federal government first cracked down on virtual gambling and forced online companies to close or relocate offshore.
The recession hobbled casinos across the board, but while winnings from other games began to pick back up in 2010, poker revenue continues to slump by an average of 6 percent a year, according to annual reports from the state Gaming Control Board.
Poker revenues stacked up to $123 million last year, down from a high of $168 million in 2007.
Entries in the World Series of Poker's main event also took tumble in 2007, falling by 28 percent from a high of 8,773. Entries have only topped 7,000 once in the years since.
On April 15, 2011, the federal government took its strongest stand yet against the semi-legal world of internet poker, blacking out three major sites on a date later dubbed "Black Friday."
No longer could fresh crops of poker players develop their games online.
The Tropicana hotel-resort, which was remaking itself with several major renovations at the time, opened its new poker room the same spring day.
"Poker had gone through a dramatic popularity phase. It grew really quickly. And we jumped on board," said Fred Harmon, chief marketing officer for the casino that sits on a busy Strip intersection opposite the MGM Grand and New York New York.
The decision to replace the room with slot machines last fall was pure economics, Harmon said.
"I think every company over the last several years have had to look at what they do and what makes money," he said.
Casinos across the country are making the same calculation.
Sam's Town in Tunica, Mississippi, closed its poker room in January, citing the economy. The Seminole Casino Hollywood near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., replaced its room with slots in September.
Indian casinos in states like Minnesota and the Dakotas are also pulling their rooms, according to marketing consultant Theron "Scarlet Raven" Thompson.
"What you're seeing is the mom and pop-sized poker rooms are closing. The larger properties are monopolizing the poker crowd," he said.
Several smaller Las Vegas casinos decided they no longer wanted to bet on the game in 2012, including Ellis Island, which closed its room just two months after opening it. Casino bosses also removed rooms from the Silverton south of the Strip, Aliante to the north, and Fitzgerald's, which eliminated its room when it rebranded as the D.
The Gold Coast, the Plaza and Tuscany casinos closed their rooms in 2011.
Poker has never been a high-profit game for casinos is because players exchange money with each other, not the house. Rooms must employ a dealer for every table and can only collect portion of what players put down, usually about 5 percent.
Yet at the height of the craze, casinos scrambled to install rooms for a new generation of fans.
The game's meteoric run is generally attributed to the rise of Internet gambling, new technology that let viewers see players' hidden cards in televised tournaments and a watershed moment during the 2003 World Series of Poker when an amateur with the unlikely name Chris Moneymaker claimed the $2.5 million first prize in front of a million television viewers.
After Moneymaker's win, the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas Strip reopened its poker room, which had been closed for years, and Caesars Palace announced plans to open its first room in more than a decade. The Venetian followed suit in 2006.
Mega-casinos continue to invest in the game. The Venetian added 17 tables to its room in September, making it the biggest game in town, Caesars Entertainment added a slot-style progressive jackpot element to its games earlier this year, and the expansive room at the Bellagio is still packed most nights.
Venetian poker director Kathy Raymond said the expansion, which was part of a larger casino floor renovation, has drawn more players to the already popular room.
"I think that the love people have for poker hasn't subsided," she said. "It may be part of the economic environment, but I don't think the interest has subsided at all."
She acknowledged that smaller casinos are struggling to claim their piece of the market.
"You really need volume to operate a successful poker room," she said. "The overhead can't be absorbed by just a few tables."
In the end, the very thing that made poker so appealing ? its air of tradition and class ? may be its undoing, at least on the gambling floor, William Thompson said. After all, casinos make their billions by giving people new and stimulating ways to lose money.
While slot machine developers can roll out a new "Family Guy" or "oodles of poodles" game ever few months, poker remains unchanged.
"With slot machines, you can keep reinventing them, so it's going to last longer. They're throwing new wrinkles in all the time," he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/trend-wanes-vegas-casinos-fold-poker-rooms-090518379--finance.html
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Alibaba to roll out credit payment service for e-commerce platforms: report
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Alifinance, a unit of Alibaba Group, will soon roll out a credit-line service for businesses and consumers on its e-commerce platforms, the Sina Technology news website said on Friday.
The credit will be provided via Alipay, the affiliated e-commerce payment unit of Alibaba Group.
A pilot version of the program, which will be first available for users of Taobao Marketplace and Taobao Mall on mobile devices, will be rolled out in certain parts of China.
An Alipay spokeswoman declined to comment.
The report said that Taobao Marketplace and Taobao Mall businesses that use the service will be charged an initial discounted fee of one percent.
According to technology research firm Analysys, Taobao Marketplace and Taobao Mall had a majority of market share in China's consumer-to-consumer market and business-to-consumer platform.
(This story was corrected to fix the headline and lead, and to adds the second paragraph to make it clear that the credit will be provided by Alifinance, via Alipay)
(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Matt Driskill)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/alipay-roll-credit-payment-e-commerce-platforms-report-095305181--sector.html
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Family Fun Events in LA for March 1-3, 2013 | Moms LA
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Friday, March 1 through Sunday, March 3 ? Happy Birthday Aquarium
A three-day birthday celebration, beginning with a cake and ice cream party during public hours on Friday, March 1, at 3:00 p.m. Friday afternoon is feeding time for the more than 100 species of Santa Monica Bay creatures at the Aquarium and visitors are invited to help staff feed the sea stars. The celebration will continue throughout the weekend, with special presentations, face painting, exhibits and craft activities with a birthday theme
Where: Santa Monica Pier Aquarium ,1600 Ocean Front Walk,SM
When: 2:00 PM ? 5:00 PM
Who: All ages
How: Just show up
Cost of event: Free for kids $5 donation is suggested per adult
For more info: Event Website
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Saturday, March 2 ? Be The Worlds Best Driver ? Hot Wheels Road Show
The ?Be The World?s Best Driver? ? Road Show is coming to LA!
Check in and get a free ?Pit Pass? Souvenir limited Edition Lanyard ?See the life size 2013 Hot Wheels Camaro ?Race your favorite How Wheels Car on the 20 foot long Downhill 5 Lane Track ?Show off your Precision Skills by shooting the latest Innovation in Hot Wheels, ?Spinshotz?, along Tracks and Targets ?Compete to beat the Hot Wheels Long Jump World Record! ?Enter the ?Be The Worlds Best Driver? Sweepstakes for a Chance to win a Trip to Indianapolis 500
Where: The Grove,189 The Grove Dr, LA
When: 10:00 AM ? 5:00 PM
Who: All ages
How: Just show up
Cost of event: Free
For more info: Event Website
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photo by Peter Day
Saturday, March 2 through Sunday, March 3 ? The Amazing Bubble Man
Louis Pearl is The Amazing Bubble Man and has been thrilling audiences around the world for over 30 years with the art, magic, science and fun of bubbles. As well as exploring the breathtaking dynamics of bubbles, the show combines comedy and artistry with plenty of audience participation and enough spellbinding bubble tricks to keep every child and adult mesmerized. From square bubbles, bubbles inside bubbles, fog-filled bubbles, giant bubbles, bubble volcanoes, tornadoes and trampolines to people inside bubbles, The Amazing Bubble man conjures shrieks of laughter and gasps of amazement from all ages.
Where: Edgemar Center for the Arts, 2437 Main St., Santa Monica,
When: 11:00 AM 2nd show at 1 pm
Who: All ages
How: Buy tickets here
Cost of event: Adults $15. Children 12 and under, $10
For more info: Event Website
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Saturday, March 2 ? Grand Park Downtown Bookfest
READ YOUR HEART OUT in Downtown LA! Grand Park?s literary nooks and crannies come alive in a day for book lovers both big and small Join award-winning author, Tracy Trivas, for a reading from her book The Wish Stealers. Tracy will also lead the children in a ?wish circle? where they will make wishes for themselves, others, and the world. Then each child will make a traveling ?wish bag? to take home or to make a wish in the nearest fountain.
Where: 200 N. Grand Ave, LA
When: 11:00 AM ? 6:00 PM
Who: All ages
How: Just show up
Cost of event: Free
For more info: Event Website
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Saturday, March 2 ? Whale of a Day
?Whale of a Day? is a festival celebrating the migration of the Pacific Gray Whale from its summer feeding grounds in the Bering and Chuchki Seas in Alaska to the winter breeding and calving grounds in Baja California. Migration viewing takes place December through April along the California South Bay coastline.There are activities for children ~ face painting, children?s crafts, chalk drawing, story telling, small children?s games ~ all at no charge. There are also exhibits, craft and food vendors and a raffle drawing.
Where: Point Vicente Interpretive Center- 31501 Palos Verdes Dr W, Rancho Palos Verdes
When: 10:00 AM ? 4:00 PM
Who: All ages
How: Just show up
Cost of event: Free
For more info: Event Website
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Courtney Lewis and her family can usually be found on the kids party circuit. She?s the one chasing the kids dressed up as super heroes, pirates, star wars characters. Thanks to coffee she also publishes?Santa Monica Macaroni Kid?- a free weekly email & website highlighting all the events happening on the westside?- See more at: http://momsla.com/2013/02/family-fun-events-in-los-angeles-february-23-24-2012/#sthash.nCgKdOgc.dpuf
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