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29 Dec 2011 12:57

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World: Wildlife group: Despite worldwide ban, ivory seizures hit record levels in 2011

  • 23 tons amount of ivory acquired from 13 major seizures in 2011
  • 2,500+ number of elephants that died to produce that much ivory source
  • » This despite a global ban on ivory trade: What’s causing the black-market trade of ivory? According to Traffic, a group that monitors wildlife trading, much of this is as a result of larger Asian influence on the continent. “We’ve reached a point in Africa’s history where there are more Asian nationals on the continent than ever before,” said Traffic official Tom Milliken, based in Zimbabwe. “They have contacts with the end-use market and now they are at the source in Africa. This is all adding up to an unprecedented assault on elephants and other wildlife.”
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Dec 2011 19:00

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U.S.: Video montage: What happens when you run a red light

  • Think twice before you pass that red light: American Traffic Solutions, a company that makes red-light traffic cameras, just threw up this video of car crashes and near-misses its traffic cameras caught in the past year — in New Jersey alone. Some of the crashes are quite troublesome; others are harrowing near-misses. Someone will likely give this clip Benny Hill theme music at some point. Really, honestly, it’s begging for one. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 May 2011 16:18

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Tech: Washington Post disputes Pew’s findings on Drudge influence

  • Washington Post cries foul on pew study: You may recall this research report by Pew, which claimed that Drudge Report (which, content aside, looks a lot like a Geocities page we made for a middle school project in the mid-90s) drove 15% of the Washington Post’s online traffic. David Carr even wrote a piece on the thing which feted Drudge. The folks at WaPo have responded, calling the report inaccurate and citing their own numbers, which credit 2.5% of their total traffic to Drudge. Pew used Nielsen data from three months in 2010, but three different companies working for WaPo failed to measure a percentage that cracked double digits over the same three months. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Aug 2010 23:09

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Offbeat: Breakdown: Yesterday’s ultra-viral hoax featuring Jenny, a.k.a. Elyse

  • anyone fooled by this needs to try harder. Jenny, the employee who quit her job via dry-erase board, was proven to be a hoax today. But then again, it did fool some people. We’re actually not disappointed. Anyone who looked at those photos would wonder why the quality of them was basically perfect, like they had been shot in a studio. Because they had been. This hoax flew through the Internet in a matter of hours, which leaves a lot of questions about both the girl (real name: Elyse “I’m freaking famous now” Porterfield) and the traffic she drew. So, let’s throw out some numbers.
  • 20 girls applied to an ad looking for an actress for the role; Elyse was the obvious choice
  • two the number of hours the photo shoot took – half of which was spent on waiting for a battery to charge
  • 421,000 total Facebook shares (whoa)
  • 2.5Mthe amount of traffic TheChive.com usually gets each month
  • 2.5M the amount of traffic TheChive.com got yesterday alone
  • 2.5M the amount of traffic TheChive.com got today (at last count)
  • » How has it worked out for Elyse? Well … her Facebook fan page is brimming with new fans. Like, 4,100 or so. While she claims to have gotten more marriage proposals than job offers, she did get a few of those, too. She should do a commercial with the Old Spice Guy. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

25 Feb 2010 09:24

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Music: Music video site Vevo can’t see your, can’t see it, your poker face

  • 25% of Vevo’s traffic is due to Lady Gaga alone source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Feb 2010 23:18

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Tech: SeededBuzz: A blog marketing site in need of more blogs

  • Is this innovation, or is it overly complicated? SeededBuzz, which is in super-early beta, promises bloggers an opportunity to do mutual promotion of blog articles with other sites, all in the hopes of stirring up some viral traffic for your site. Oh, and it costs money outside of beta, but if it works, it should give your revenue model a shot in the arm. We smell something cooking here, but none of the articles we saw on the site looked like they were really worth blogging about. In this case, the early adopters have nothing to grab onto. If we were them, we’d cut some deals with notable bloggers (blogs-about-blogging CopyBlogger and ProBlogger come to mind) and get them to use the service. Then it might be worthwhile. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Nov 2009 10:05

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Biz: Will News Corp. really bite the Google hand that feeds it traffic?

  • 17% of News Corp.’s visitors came from Google last month source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

20 Oct 2009 22:22

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Tech: With net neutrality, could tiered internet make a comeback?

  • ISPs who can’t cap bandwidth may charge for traffic. With net neutrality looking more and more likely by the day, we may find ourselves returning to the days of paying for traffic based on usage. Consumers don’t want it, but companies like Time Warner and Comcast say that the cost of bandwidth, mixed with heavy usage of BitTorrent or popular video sites, may force it. We think that it’s probably going to happen, simply because they can’t fight the tide of Hulu forever. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

20 Oct 2009 10:01

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Offbeat: It sucks being a pedestrian when someone’s reliving “Speed”

  • “THIS BUS CAN’T GO SLOWER THAN 50 MILES AN HOUR! There’s a bomb on the bus that will go off if we go slower than that. This guy crossing the street, we may hit him, but we can’t stop!”
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 10:58

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Tech: Google is a massive freaking chunk of the Internet

  • 6% of the Internet’s traffic goes through Google source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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