The actress is expecting her first child! Plus, see more pregnant stars.
Source: http://www.ivillage.com/pregnant-celebrity-photos-look-whos-popping/1-b-18178?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Apregnant-celebrity-photos-look-whos-popping-18178During the public debate over health care in 2009 and 2010, no matter how tightly you may have shut your door, there was one piece of information it was impossible to avoid: the president's promise that if you liked your doctor and your health care plan you would be able to keep it. So it was a surprise to many people to get a letter like the one Independence Blue Cross sent its customers weeks ago. It said that as a result of the Affordable Care Act, "your current plan will be discontinued effective January 1, 2014, and you will need to select a new plan by the end of December to avoid any interruption in coverage."
As part of its third quarter financial performance, Facebook today reported that 49 percent of its advertising revenue in the period came from mobile usage. That figure is up 8 percent from the second quarter, in which Facebook reported 41 percent of its advertising revenue came from mobile usage.
Facebook had third quarter advertising revenue of $1.8 billion. Forty-nine percent of that tally is $882 million, implying that Facebook’s desktop advertising revenue for the quarter totaled $918 million.
In the second quarter, Facebook had advertising revenue of $1.6 billion, of which 41 percent was mobile-sourced, or $656 million. That implied that Facebook had desktop-sourced ad revenue of $944 million in the second quarter.
Thus, Facebook’s desktop advertising revenue fell $26 million from the second to third quarter. Facebook’s first quarter desktop ad revenue (calculated in the same way) totaled $875 million. Therefore, for now, Facebook’s desktop ad revenue peaked in 2013 in the second quarter.
However, a strong holiday quarter could see Facebook’s desktop ad revenue grow again. For the most recent quarter, its growth rate was negative.
The company’s user base continues to grow, which could easily afford the company more advertising dollars overall. Even if mobile continues to surge for Facebook, desktop advertising revenues could still expand, even as their percentage of the company’s total advertising top line falls. Essentially, assuming that Facebook has upside on its desktop advertising ARPU, it could grow desktop ad revenues in coming quarters due to its expanding userbase, and improving monetization of overseas audiences.
Facebook’s largest revenue category will be mobile-majority in the fourth quarter unless something dramatic changes. It’s no small feat that Facebook grew its mobile advertising revenue $226 million in a single sequential quarter, though in the second quarter that figure was $282 million.
Facebook has all but made the transition to being a mobile-first company. Perhaps Yahoo can take a page from its script.
Top Image Credit: Flickr
The Google mystery barges docked near San Francisco and Portland, Maine are getting even more mysterious. We've seen the barge and heard the arguments about what's inside
     |
Facebook’s popularity might be on the decline among some teenagers, the company signaled Wednesday.
For younger teenagers, Facebook has seen a decline in the number of daily users, the company reported during its third-quarter earnings call. Overall, usage among U.S. teens was stable between the second and third quarters, but the decrease in daily usage for some was noted early in the prepared remarks of Facebook’s chief financial officer, David Ebersman.
It was one of the first times that the social network has identified a decrease in its teenage users. Youth engagement on Facebook is hard to measure because self-reported age data is usually unreliable for younger users, the company said. But, “we wanted to share [the figure] because we get a lot of questions about teens,” Ebersman said.
Facebook didn’t disclose the size of the decline or comment on it further.
With many rival services vying for younger users’ attention, Facebook’s ability to keep them on its site is an issue. One area of intense competition is messaging. Facebook operates its own standalone app just for messages, called Messenger, but services such as Snapchat, WhatsApp and Skype are also popular.
Part of the issue might be that everyone seems to be on Facebook now, and teens want their own place to digitally mingle. “Teens don’t want to be on the same site as their parents,” said Brian Blau, who’s an industry analyst with Gartner and a parent of a teenager himself.
Also, a study released by Pew Research Center earlier this year found that the “drama” on Facebook might be driving more teens to one of Facebook’s biggest rivals: Twitter.
Overall, on a monthly basis, Facebook grew its number of users to 1.19 billion during the quarter, an increase of 18 percent from last year. Total sales for the company, aided by mobile, were up 60 percent, to US$2.02 billion.
During the call, Facebook said it would continue to build products for people of all ages.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service
More by Zach Miners, IDG News Service
You may have seen the UFC's slick new commercial for next month's UFC 167 event (if not, view it below), headlined by welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre defending his belt against top contender Johny Hendricks. There's a cool soundtrack, slow motion punches and flashy lights that were apparently placed too close to Hendricks and which gave the challenger second-degree burns.
Hendricks' manager Ted Ehrhardt told MMA Fighting that the lights used to film the commercial were placed too close to the fighter and they burned through his skin. As a result, Hendricks missed days of training while his skin healed.
"Ehrhardt said Hendricks tried to resume his training two days later, however, the burn was bothering him too much so he went to a doctor who prescribed an ointment to help heal it. Ehrhardt said Hendricks, who wasn't available to speak about the incident, missed one-to-two days of training, and the injury healed in a week.
'Johny never gets pissed off about anything,' Ehrhardt said. 'He was just mad that it was messing up his training, that's all.'"
Ehrhardt also said that the UFC apologized to Hendricks for the incident and the former national champion wrestler did not ask the promotion to pay for any of his medical expenses related to the burns. By the way, Ehrhardt says that Hendricks never gets sun burns in the summer time so, you know, those lights were pretty bright.
Fighters often talk about how promotional duties to hype fights can get in the way of the training they need to do in order to be ready to fight on game night. Hendricks may have just beaten all other fighters for promotional-related nuisances.
Remember, Hendricks won't be simply boxing at UFC 167 - he'll be fighting mixed martial arts against a man who is primarily known for his grappling and wrestling. Chances are, a big part of St. Pierre's strategy will be to put Hendricks on his recently burned back.
That's not really fair, but who should be blamed at this point and is there anything that could be done, short of postponing the match up and effectively ruining the UFC's 20th anniversary show. Hendricks himself has not yet commented on the situation and it isn't known if he ever considered pulling out of or postponing the fight because of his burns.
Hopefully Hendricks' bosses over at the UFC will throw some extra discretionary cash his way to begin to make up for his medical costs and, perhaps most importantly, his lost time training for the biggest fight of his career.
Check out the UFC 167 commercial below to see for yourself how Hendricks got burned:
Follow Elias on Twitter at @EliasCepeda
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ufc-welterweight-contender-johny-hendricks-suffered-second-degree-194033969--mma.htmlBarnes & Noble is one of several stores that have refused to carry Amazon Publishing's books.
Barnes & Noble is one of several stores that have refused to carry Amazon Publishing's books.
When it comes to book publishing, all we ever seem to hear about is online sales, the growth of e-books and the latest version of a digital book reader. But the fact is, only 20 percent of the book market is e-books; it's still dominated by print. And a recent standoff in the book business shows how good old-fashioned, brick-and-mortar bookstores are still trying to wield their influence in the industry. You might even call it brick-and-mortar booksellers' revenge.
At the center of this story is Amazon, and it's no secret that there's little love lost between the traditional book world and the giant online retailer: Publishers and booksellers think Amazon wants to put them out of business. When the Justice Department brought suit against Apple and five major publishing companies for price fixing, a lot of people in the book business were apoplectic: They firmly believe that if an antitrust lawsuit should be brought against anyone, it's Amazon.
So many within the industry are happy to look for any weakness they can find when it comes to Amazon. Recently, they found it in Amazon's decision to not just sell books, but also publish them.
About two years ago, Amazon hired a well-known literary agent, Larry Kirshbaum, to launch the New York branch of their fledgling publishing business, which until then had been based in Seattle. This was seen as a big move because New York is the capital of the publishing business, and Kirshbaum was a major player there. Everyone figured he could use his clout to attract big-time authors to Amazon's trade publishing brand, and everyone was watching very closely to see what happened.
And that's where the revenge part of this story comes in. A lot of booksellers said enough is enough: Not only is Amazon trying to take over the retail side of the book business, it's also going to take over publishing? Some independent bookstores decided they wouldn't carry Amazon Publishing's books and, even more importantly, Barnes & Noble — the country's biggest bookstore chain — and some big-box stores followed suit. Neither Amazon nor its authors expected that kind of backlash, and a couple of pretty big Amazon releases never really took off.
That's where things stood last week when the news broke that Kirshbaum was leaving Amazon to become a literary agent again. His departure was widely viewed as a sign that Amazon Publishing could be in trouble, done in by the likes of Barnes & Noble. Amazon quickly stepped in to say that reports of the demise — or near demise — of its publishing business were greatly exaggerated. In fact, Amazon says it plans to expand its New York business.
Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, says the publishing house's business model isn't dependent on big-box stores like Costco and Target, or on selling books outside its own platform. (It's certainly true that Amazon has cornered the online bookselling business and dominates the e-book market.)
But powerful as it may be, some writers really do want to see their books on the shelves of certain stores. And those authors might be inclined to stick with traditional publishers. So, even in this digital day and age, the bookstore still has some clout.
