Blahous & Capretta, Wall St. Journal
One of the enduring mysteries of President Obama's health law is how its spending constraints and payroll tax hikes on high earners can be used to shore up Medicare finances and at the same time pay for a massive new entitlement program. Isn't this double counting?The short answer is: Yes, it is. You can't spend the same money twice. And so, thanks to the new health law, federal deficits and debt will be hundreds of billions of dollars higher in the next decade alone.Â
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Maria Menounos' Ice Cream Diet
Don?t hate her because she?s beautiful or because she has a slamming body. Hate her because she can eat ice cream every day and still look that way!
Maria Menounos tells In Touch that every night when she finishes up at Dancing With the Stars, she goes home, takes a bath and chows down on a Snickers dessert bar. ?I?m always eating and drinking juices and stuff because I want to stay healthy and keep my weight at the same place,? the 33-year-old says.
She has noticed more definition in her legs since working on the show with partner Derek Hough, and even though she looks amazing, she says she?d never diet like crazy to achieve perfection. ?I?ve always had a really good relationship with my body. Even when I was heavier, I was like, ?Whatever!? There are boys that appreciate a big ass.?
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Intuit Grabs for Bigger Chunk Of Small-Business SaaS Market With Demandforce Buy
With its market-leading Quickbooks product, Intuit is already the dominant force in sales of accounting and payroll software for small businesses. In an attempt to expand its portfolio - especially in the fast-growing SaaS segment, the company said Friday it would acquire Demandforce in May for $423.5 million in cash, making it the company?s most expensive purchase under chief executive Brad Smith.
From the Yellow Pages to the Web
Demandforce would bring Intuit customers SaaS tools for leveraging Twitter, Facebook and email for scheduling and marketing. The vendor?s service is meant as an alternative to newspapers and the Yellow pages. Demandforce?s target markets include dentists, automotive shops, spas and salons, optometry and chiropractors.
Intuit has not said whether it will fold Demandforce into existing products or let it continue as a separate operation and cross-sell to Demandforce?s 35,000 customers. Founded in 2003, Demandforce had $37.5 million in sales last year, Patrick Barry, the company?s chief marketing officer, told financial news agency Bloomberg.
Whichever path Intuit chooses, the company is looking to take advantage of what analysts see as a trend toward selling small businesses online services with software capabilities once available only to enterprises. ?Our view is that the next decade of growth in software will come from small businesses who can now buy enterprise class software at very compelling prices,? Peter Goldmacher, analysts for Cowen & Co., said in a research note. ?This market remains wide open and very competitive.?
Raising Revenue per Customer
In addition to Demandforce?s own business, the acquisition will also help Intuit target online customers used to paying $200 to $300 a month for a subscription service, versus the $13 to $100 a month Intuit charges for the online versions of QuickBooks. As a result, analysts expect Demandforce to raise Intuit?s revenue per customer. Intuit already offers a marketing management product called QuickBase.
Demandforce could also complement Intuit?s QuickBooks Enterprise, which is available through a software license or online subscription. Revenue from QuickBooks Enterprise and the rest of Intuit?s Quickbooks online services rose 31% in the quarter ended Jan. 31, according to the company.
Benchmark Capital was among the largest investors in Demandforce. Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark, said the Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital firm saw Demandforce as part of a trend in which small businesses are turning to the Web as a marketing tool over traditional media. Small businesses spend more than $125 billion a year on non-digital media, according to Gurley.
?These business owners know they need new solutions, and these dollars will be reallocated to these exciting new platforms,? he said in his blog.
It appears Intuit thinks he?s right.
Competition in Tax-Prep Software
The company could use the growth, because competition is getting tougher in the tax preparation business, Intuit?s largest revenue generator. Last week, Intuit warned that revenue in the current quarter would be ?at or slightly below the low end? of its previous projections. The drop is due to disappointing sales of its online tax prep software. Analysts have said they expect the setback to be temporary.
The Rise of Beautiful Apps
One beautiful site I came across today is Art.sy, an art social network currently in private beta. The colorful art works are visually stunning. The images contrast nicely with the white background and black navigation fonts of the site. The art works are displayed as high resolution images, which allows you to zoom in for a much closer look. Here are some screenshots showing how I was able to get an up-close-and-personal view of an art piece called 'Kaleidoscope' by Marcelo Silveira.
The photo sharing app is one of the most common types of apps on the Web. Flickr was the darling of the Web 2.0 era, Instagram became the mobile web photo tool of choice. Could 500px become the photo sharing app for the Visual Web?
Our own Jon Mitchell nailed it, when he compared 500px to Flickr: "...500px has a stylish interface and more attractive photo presentation, arguably the most important feature for a photo site. It has a great new uploader app for the Mac and a gorgeous new viewer on the iPad. Flickr's growth has slowed under Yahoo, and 500px is shipping worthy features for the 2012 Web at a prodigious rate."
Being beautiful is just part of the equation, of course. Johnny Depp may be an incredibly handsome man, but it was his intelligence, quirkiness and charm that made him a superstar. So the likes of Art.sy and 500px will need to do a lot more than just look pretty. They need network effects, which means there must be a compelling reason for people to come back and use these services every day.
Being beautiful isn't that reason, although it doesn't harm their prospects for success.
Let us know your favorite beautiful app or website, in the comments - or via Twitter, Facebook or Google+. We'll follow-up with another post after we compile your picks.
'Suburgatory' Boss Calls Alicia Silverstone's Storyline 'Fun,' Yet 'Heartbreaking' (Exclusive Video)
Jethro Nededog The "Clueless" reunion continues on the ABC comedy, but series creator Emily Kapanek says Eden's arrival does become complicated for several of the characters.
The Man Who Started the Hacker Wars
David Kushner, The New Yorker
In the summer of 2007, Apple released the iPhone, in an exclusive partnership with A.T. & T. George Hotz, a seventeen-year-old from Glen Rock, New Jersey, was a T-Mobile subscriber. He wanted an iPhone, but he also wanted to make calls using his existing network, so he decided to hack the phone.Every hack poses the same basic challenge: how to make something function in a way for which it wasn’t designed. In one respect, hacking is an act of hypnosis. As Hotz describes it, the secret is to figure out how to speak to the device, then persuade it to obey your wishes.
In the summer of 2007, Apple released the iPhone, in an exclusive partnership with A.T. & T. George Hotz, a seventeen-year-old from Glen Rock, New Jersey, was a T-Mobile subscriber. He wanted an iPhone, but he also wanted to make calls using his existing network, so he decided to hack the phone.Every hack poses the same basic challenge: how to make something function in a way for which it wasn’t designed. In one respect, hacking is an act of hypnosis. As Hotz describes it, the secret is to figure out how to speak to the device, then persuade it to obey your wishes.
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