Tag: news

  • How Reggie Fils-Aimé got 'Wii Sports' included with the Wii – The Washington Post

    How Reggie Fils-Aimé got 'Wii Sports' included with the Wii – The Washington Post

    The following comes from the book “Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo.” In this excerpt, former Nintendo of American President Reggie Fils-Aimé looks back on the launch of the Nintendo Wii.
    One of the first key decisions in my new role as president of Nintendo of America (NOA) would be launch planning for Wii. Despite a successful Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Nintendo had not revealed all the launch details for the product. Launch date, price, games available on day one — all of these needed to be decided. We set the middle of September 2006 for our reveal, and I began negotiating the specifics with Nintendo Company Ltd. (NCL) executives.
    Nintendo’s global president Satoru Iwata and I quickly aligned on launching Wii in the Americas first. This strategy had worked well for Nintendo DS, and the Black Friday shopping occasion was a significant business driver in the Americas that did not exist in Japan or Europe. We also agreed that NOA would receive the largest initial allocation of the hardware.
    But just as with the E3 presentation, we had a difficult conversation about how to best use the game “Wii Sports.” We knew we had something magical in “Wii Sports.” It perfectly highlighted how the Wii Remote controller could change game play and expand our customer base. The development team at NCL was adding elements that would give the game enough depth to satisfy the most passionate player. They also included different competitive elements that would encourage groups of people to play together.
    Reggie Fils-Aimé on contractor woes: ‘This isn’t the Nintendo I left’
    I advocated packing “Wii Sports” with Wii so that every consumer would get access to this great content. After I made this suggestion, Mr. Iwata paused long enough for me to notice the faint buzz of the incandescent lighting in his office and get uncomfortable. “Reggie,” Mr. Iwata said, “Nintendo does not give away precious content for free. We work hard to create special experiences. It is unique software that motivates consumers to buy our hardware. And we expect to sell these games over extended periods of time. No, we should not pack in ‘Wii Sports.’ ”
    “Mr. Iwata, I understand the value of our software. I know unique software has always differentiated Nintendo. But we know that Wii is a very different concept in the history of video games. Wii focuses on unique game play. The goal of Wii is to expand gaming from its current niche to a mass-market medium. ‘Wii Sports’ has the power to do this. ‘Wii Sports’ can be a unifying element for all players of the system and be a key motivation for people to buy the system and have fun immediately.
    “Plus, Mr. Iwata, I know Nintendo has history using packed-in software to drive a system.”
    I knew this from personal experience as I had bought my Super Nintendo Entertainment System in a bundle that included “Super Mario World.”
    This was just the opening discussion on a topic that would last months. Even after convincing Mr. Iwata that this was the right approach, I would also need to get Shigeru Miyamoto, as the head of all game development ​and the renowned creator of Mario, Donkey Kong and so many other Nintendo franchises, to agree. I knew I was making progress when I was shown a new game on a trip to Kyoto in July 2006.
    “Reggie, we understand your point about having a strong software title included with Wii during its launch,” Mr. Miyamoto stated via a translator during a meeting with Mr. Iwata and Mike Fukuda, NOA’s head of product development and licensing. “Please take a look at this game that we are proposing to use for your idea instead of ‘Wii Sports.’ ”
    Review: ‘Nintendo Switch Sports’ is a grab bag of great games and duds
    The development team proceeded to show me an early version of “Wii Play.” This was a collection of different mini games that also showed off the capabilities of the Wii Remote. A number of the games had been shown earlier at E3 and had received further development.
    The games were fun. One was a shooting experience; another was table tennis; and there was a neat game of billiards. But they lacked the thematic cohesiveness of “Wii Sports.” And the collection did not have a depth of experience that could lead to hours of play. They were the equivalent of cotton candy — fun for a moment, but not very filling.
    “Mr. Miyamoto, these individual mini games are fun. I can see how the development teams have added more polish to the experiences we had earlier at E3. And they make excellent use of the Wii Remote,” I said. “However, this doesn’t feel to be the same complete experience that ‘Wii Sports’ is. I don’t feel including this would have the same impact as including ‘Wii Sports.’ ”
    “In fact, I have a different idea. Maybe instead of including this with Wii hardware, we should take this minigame collection and include it with a Wii Remote to encourage additional sales of this accessory.”
    The room was quiet for at least fifteen seconds.
    Every Mario game, ranked
    Mike Fukuda jumped in, speaking in Japanese. I watched Mr. Iwata’s and Mr. Miyamoto’s faces and then heard the translation into English. “Reggie is right. ‘Wii Sports’ does a much better job to achieve our objective of getting consumers to understand Wii immediately. And this minigame collection is not a fully formed game that will command full price in our market. We should think about how to best use this software to achieve our objectives. Including this with the Wii Remote accessory is unconventional, but it would get more Wii Remotes in the hands of our consumers.”
    So now Mike and I were trying to get agreement to two different bundles, and the world’s best game designer was not happy. The ever-present smile and impish squint of Mr. Miyamoto’s eyes were gone. “Neither of you understands the challenges of creating software that people love to play. This is something we constantly push ourselves to do. We do not give away our software,” Mr. Miyamoto stated.
    Mr. Iwata, however, was already sparking to our ideas. “Miyamoto-san, I am sure that Fukuda-san and Reggie-san appreciate the effort of the developers. They are trying to solve for a different situation than ours in Japan.” He went on to explain the market conditions we faced in the context of different game genres that performed well in the West versus Japan. He also explained how Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had just launched in 2005 and was doing well in Western markets. Clearly, our push to educate executives at NCL on our business needs was taking root.
    We did not gain agreement during this meeting. Or the many others that followed. But we did eventually get Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Iwata to agree to have “Wii Sports” packed in for all the Western markets. They decided to sell “Wii Sports” as stand-alone software in Japan.
    This ended up being a perfect test of the different approaches. Wii broke records globally, but it performed the best in the Americas and Europe. It was in these markets that we had the phenomenon of “Wii Sports” competitions in bars, nursing homes and on cruise ships. Including the software in the overall Wii proposition had been a courageous decision, and the right one.
    Creating a bundle with “Wii Play” and a remote also was the right decision. This was sold globally — yes, even in Japan — and went on to be the fifth best-selling game in the history of Wii.
    From the book “Disrupting The Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo” by Reggie Fils-Aimé. Copyright © 2022 by Reggie Fils-Aimé. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Leadership.
    Reggie Fils-Aimé is the former president and COO of Nintendo of the America Inc. who has helped bring the Nintendo DS, the Wii, the Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and the Nintendo Switch to the global marketplace.
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  • 10 Free Personal Development Ebooks Worth Downloading – MUO – MakeUseOf

    10 Free Personal Development Ebooks Worth Downloading – MUO – MakeUseOf

    With these free ebooks on personal development, your journey to personal growth will take on a whole new meaning.
    As you probably know, there’s always room for improvement. No matter how good you are at something, you can still learn and develop your skills. We’re not saying that you should strive for perfection, but rather be your personal best.
    Likewise, it’s important to acknowledge your weaknesses and turn them into strengths. Think of yourself as a work in progress.
    For starters, check out these self-development books in PDF format. Read them thoroughly, and then take the steps needed to reach your full potential.
    In the realms of marketing and entrepreneurship, few names are as highly or widely regarded as Seth Godin. He can write a blog post under 100 words long and make it go viral within hours. When he speaks, people listen.
    What Matters Now is a compiled-by-Godin collection of thoughts from influential thinkers, divided into dozens of one-page sections that each deal with specific areas in life.
    Generosity, vision, excellence, momentum, compassion—these are just some of the topics you’ll find in this 82-page booklet.
    Scott H. Young maintains a blog that explores all kinds of topics that stem from this question: what’s the best way to learn? But his blog is a bit tough to wade through, given that it has hundreds of articles in its archives.
    How to Get More From Life, a free personal development book in PDF format, is a compilation of his best posts. In his words, getting more from life means “a philosophy that is always geared towards improvement,”—and this ebook aims to get you thinking in that way.
    If you know what you want to do with your life, then consider yourself lucky!
    Some people don’t figure that out until well into their 40s, 50s, or even 60s. And while it’s never too late to find your passion, it’s definitely better to find it now rather than later.
    7 Keys to Discovering Your Passion won’t tell you what your passions are, but it will give you the mindset that you need to go out and find it. Your passion might be some kind of creative hobby or something else. You won’t know until you start looking.
    Are you unhappy with your job or career? Have you lost your motivation?
    The job itself could very well be the problem, but it’s also possible that the problem stems from an issue deeper within. What if you could learn to be satisfied with any job or career?
    You definitely can. But it won’t be easy.
    Career Satisfaction From Within is a quick but insightful look at some of the main reasons why we find ourselves dissatisfied with our positions in life, and what we can do to move beyond that.
    After reading it, you’ll know how to let go of your fears and give yourself permission to enjoy what you do. Like other self-development eBooks in PDF format, this guide also includes a series of exercises designed to help you overcome challenges and better yourself.
    If you want to start a blog, you should. From career and everyday life to health and fitness, there are endless topics you can address. This could be a fantastic opportunity to share your knowledge and become a better writer.
    But it’s one thing to write for passion, and another thing to make a living from writing. If you’re ready to take your blog to the next level, make sure you first read 279 Days to Overnight Success.
    This guide starts from the premise that there are no shortcuts in life. It also emphasizes that “overnight success” actually requires a lot of time, effort, and grit.
    These are the same kinds of lessons that successful entrepreneurs share. Growing is not easy, but it’s certainly worth the effort.
    Related: 8 Tips to Become a Successful Content Writer
    In this highly competitive era, many of us have lost sight of work-life balance. We pour everything into our professional endeavors at the expense of our personal lives, which can lead to anxiety, poor health, stress, burnout, and unhappiness.
    How to Practice the Art of Life Balance is a 107-page collection of stories and resources that will show you that you aren’t alone in this struggle. It’s one of the most insightful self-help books in PDF format out there, as it offers actionable tips on how to get your groove back, limit stress, and squeeze more “me” time into your schedule.
    Even if your balance is on point, this eBook is a good refresher on how to maintain that balance.
    If you knew you were leaving this world tomorrow, what would you do today?
    It’s a tough question, one that we don’t really like to think about. But it’s important to accept that tomorrow is never promised, and that we ought to make the best of our time.
    101 Things to Do Before You Die is nothing more than a starting point—a generic but thought-provoking bucket list that may help you kick your life back into gear. Instead of wasting time on Netflix, maybe you’ll plant a tree, bake a cake, or travel the world.
    What would you regret if you passed away right now? Go and do those things while you still can.
    Meditation is surprisingly helpful—and it doesn’t have to be spiritual or religious, though it certainly can be that, too. Some are calling it “mindfulness” these days, but whatever its name, the concept is the same: quiet self-reflection.
    Beautiful Calm is a quick read (only 26 pages) but can help you take back control of your life. With meditation, you may finally be able to say goodbye to anxiety, insecurity, and stress.
    Getting started is often the hardest part. Use these calming mobile apps to help you settle into that sought-after meditative state.
    Related: 5 Meditation and Relaxation Apps to Beat Stress and Anxiety
    Are you bogged down by demons like stress, procrastination, fear, anger, or insecurity?
    Deep inside, you probably know that you’d be happier if you could just let those things go, but that’s much easier said than done.
    The One Skill is an ebook about letting go of feelings such as fear, hindrances, reluctance, and even pain. If there’s one mental skill that everyone in the world can benefit from, this is it. Being able to let go will unlock a whole new level of peace in your life.
    This quick read is only 11 pages long, but it will leave you with a lot to think about.
    Inside, you’ll find a collection of 92 quotes from the Tiny Buddha community. Even though you won’t benefit from every single piece of advice, at least one will resonate with you.
    Topics covered include Love, Meaning, Happiness, Possibilities, Peace, Mindfulness, Struggle/Growth, and Personal Power. Enter with an open mind, and you may be surprised by how much growth you find therein.
    Related: 5 Inspiring Android Apps for Creating Motivational Quotes
    Any of these self-development books in PDF format is a good starting point for those looking to better themselves. Some will show you how to achieve a healthy work-life balance, while others can help you learn more about yourself and discover your true passion.
    Remember that you don’t have to change everything at once. Take one step at a time and progress at your own pace.
    For example, you can start out by pursuing a hobby or learning a new language. Later, you could turn your hobby into a business and escape the nine-to-five grind.
    Joel Lee was formerly the Editor in Chief of MakeUseOf from 2018 to 2021. He has a B.S. in Computer Science and over nine years of professional writing and editing experience.
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  • Our Move Next: An e-anthology created during the pandemic – Gadget

    Our Move Next: An e-anthology created during the pandemic – Gadget

    The free ebook lifts the cultural (and personal) fears and desires that are held in our collective imaginations.

    Our Move Next, holds the stories of 19 writers, and 8 visual artists in an open-source e-anthology created during the pandemic. By using speculation as a broad narrative device, Our Move Next lifts the cultural (and personal) fears and desires that are held in our collective imaginations. The ebook is available for free download and compatible with laptops, kindles and cellphones. It is an easy and accessible storybook to carry around on your phone and read when you have time on your hands.
    Curated by the team at Backyard Pitch Production, led by Sarah Summers and Kelly Eve Koopman, with the support of Vasti Hannie who is also a featured writer in Our Move Next. Kelly Eve and Sarah have worked together on a range of cultural art and activism, most popularly Coloured Mentality, the New Normal Game and were instigators and collaborators among the queer team behind the #weseeyou occupation of the Camps Bay Mansion. Kelly Eve is also well known for her previous literacy works, Because I couldn’t Kill you and co-curator of They Called Me Queer. The pair felt that this kind of imaginative work was an important project that focused on ideation, holding space for like minded writers, artists and readers to remember our gifts to see beyond the current despair.
    Speculative Fiction as a genre and as a potentially transformative practice, allows us infinite options in re-imagining the consensual realities that frame our worlds and then respond to and act on these imaginings.. To echo maverick environmental justice warrior Wangari Maathai, one of our continent’s most powerful and celebrated activists;
    “There comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness , that time is now.”
    The intent behind this collection, and the work reflected within it does not seek to pursue false positives, or encourage overt optimism at the prospect of building out of the systemic ruins we find ourselves living within. We come into the work of imagining anew, coming with all we have been and everything we carry, and collectively, courageously visioning with and through it. In the words of the late bell hooks;
    To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.
    The contributions offered in this book reflect a remarkable propensity and pervasiveness of speculative genre interpretations that explore visceral ancestral connections, spiritual alternative realities; , between progeny and ancestry through varied African perspectives. We have come to understand the work as a possible digital folklore. A range of tales and imagery that is grounded and speculated. Across the submissions, the presence of the spiritual realm, the ancestral plane and new mythologies with touches of science fiction has emerged as paramount; revealing the defining power of our cosmologies on our lived experience. The painful and occasionally healing excavation of intergenerational legacies may hopefully imbue the current moment with presence, compassion and momentum towards futures of our own imaginings.
    In this anthology, we collectively offer catharsis, cautionary tales, hidden hopes, spiritual beliefs or dreams of the future, past or parallel present. We hope this offering finds a home in the hearts, harddrives and ethereal playgrounds of those who have been building the world, fighting injustice and soothing historic hurts.
    For more information, visit http://backyardpitch.co.za/OUR-MOVE-NEXT/ http://backyardpitch.co.za/OUR-MOVE-NEXT/
    Copyright © 2022 World Wide Worx

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  • Elsevier's PatientPass® Named "Best Patient Education Solution" in 2022 MedTech Breakthrough Aw – Benzinga

    Elsevier's PatientPass® Named "Best Patient Education Solution" in 2022 MedTech Breakthrough Aw – Benzinga

    Annual Awards Program Recognizes Outstanding Health & Medical Technology Products and Companies
    LOS ANGELES (PRWEB) May 05, 2022
    MedTech Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global health and medical technology market, today announced that Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, has been selected as winner of the “Best Patient Education Solution” award in the sixth annual MedTech Breakthrough Awards program, recognizing the breakthrough innovation of their PatientPass solution.
    PatientPass is an Electronic Health Record (EHR)-integrated application that uses the power of the patient’s health record, Elsevier's evidence-based content, and an analytics engine to intelligently automate and assist to improve each step of the patient education process.
    PatientPass uses data from a patient's record to suggest the right education for each stage of their healthcare journey, helping to enhance their understanding, engagement and self-care. Education is tailored based on patient preferences and delivered via real-time notifications to their devices. It meets the patient where they are by personalizing the reading level, font size, language, medium, and modality for sharing.
    “We’re thrilled to receive this award from MedTech Breakthrough. We developed PatientPass to empower patients; by doing so, we believe that we're improving tomorrow’s healthcare. We are proud to provide tools to clinicians and patients to help them achieve successful outcomes,” said Josh Schoeller, President, Elsevier Clinical Solutions. “The more a patient understands, the more likely they are to adhere to their individualized treatment plans. Patients educated throughout their healthcare journey, with personalized content, delivered in a way that meets them where they are — that's the power of PatientPass.”
    The mission of the MedTech Breakthrough Awards is to honor excellence and recognize the innovation, hard work and success in a range of health and medical technology categories, including Telehealth, Clinical Administration, Patient Engagement, Electronic Health Records (EHR), Virtual Care, Medical Devices, Medical Data and many more. This year’s program attracted more than 3,900 nominations from over 15 countries throughout the world.
    “A well-informed, confident patient makes better choices and has better health outcomes. However, healthcare organizations still struggle to educate patients to the point where they can take charge of their condition management. Clinicians lack time to focus on education, which is usually offered infrequently. Health literacy levels are low overall and health systems lack the technology to understand how well investments in patient education are working,” said James Johnson, managing director, MedTech Breakthrough. “PatientPass from Elsevier is taking on all these challenges and more. PatientPass allows clinicians to understand where the patient is in the education journey. By viewing the history of patient education, clinicians can find new strategies to help patients improve their health. Congratulations to the PatientPass team on being our choice for ‘Best Patient Education Solution.’”
    PatientPass enables healthcare organizations to optimize their patient education programs. Clinicians get easier access to patient education in their workflow, while healthcare leaders receive powerful analytics on patient education assignment and usage. This data can deliver insights to support healthcare organizations’ efforts to drive clinical programs.
    ####
    About MedTech Breakthrough
    Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the MedTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in medical and health related technology companies, products, services and people. The MedTech Breakthrough Awards provide a platform for public recognition around the achievements of breakthrough health and medical companies and products in categories that include Patient Engagement, mHealth, Health & Fitness, Clinical Administration, Healthcare IoT, Medical Data, Healthcare Cybersecurity and more. For more information visit MedTechBreakthrough.com.
    About Elsevier
    As a global leader in information and analytics, Elsevier helps researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. We do this by facilitating insights and critical decision-making for customers across the global research and health ecosystems.
    In everything we publish, we uphold the highest standards of quality and integrity. We bring that same rigor to our information analytics solutions for researchers, health professionals, institutions and funders.
    Elsevier employs 8,700 people worldwide. We have supported the work of our research and health partners for more than 140 years. Growing from our roots in publishing, we offer knowledge and valuable analytics that help our users make breakthroughs and drive societal progress. Digital solutions such as ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath support strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and health education. Researchers and healthcare professionals rely on our over 2,700 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell; our over 43,000 eBook titles; and our iconic reference works, such as Gray's Anatomy. With the Elsevier Foundation and our external Inclusion & Diversity Advisory Board, we work in partnership with diverse stakeholders to advance inclusion and diversity in science, research and healthcare in developing countries and around the world.
    Elsevier is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. elsevier.com.
    For the original version on PRWeb visit: https://www.prweb.com/releases/elseviers_patientpass_named_best_patient_education_solution_in_2022_medtech_breakthrough_awards_program/prweb18657104.htm
    © 2022 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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  • A free eBook sharing the secrets of profiting from cryptocurrency with "The Plan" by Dan Hollin – Benzinga

    A free eBook sharing the secrets of profiting from cryptocurrency with "The Plan" by Dan Hollin – Benzinga

    A free eBook sharing the secrets of profiting from cryptocurrency with "The Plan" by Dan Hollin - Benzinga 1
    Available in over 100 countries, The Plan By Dan Hollings has been assisting people in making the right crypto investment decisions 65 percent of the time. One of the fastest-growing parts of the bitcoin market is automated Bot trading, transforming how people trade and invest. And this technique, with its special rule-based strategy, is one of the most proven ways to benefit from crypto trading and opens the door to a passive income for everyone, including people who are technologically challenged or have no knowledge of the crypto world.
    Anish, from The CryptoPlanWorks, is now sharing a free eBook called “The Wiggle Factor” that presents a revolutionary new way to become involved in (and profit from) cryptocurrencies. Even if you’re tech-challenged and naive about crypto, it’s a terrific read that dissects a totally new way to look at crypto in 2022.
    It explains Dan’s methods, ideas, and explicit regulations for earning over $1 million with cryptocurrencies over the course of three years. The method makes use of the volatility of cryptocurrency to generate passive income. This tried-and-true crypto trading online course gives crypto lovers all over the world a fantastic opportunity to get involved in the ever-profitable field of crypto trading and discover the finest crypto investment strategy.
    Dan Hollings’ “The Plan” outcomes are fairly reliable on a daily basis, and users are paid out by the minute. This is a valid source of income, whether for business or personal gain. SaazLife applied and exploited the principles offered in “The Plan” to invest in a business endeavor. The company’s profitability grew by about 39.65 percent after three months of using rule-based strategies.
    Minute by minute, this eBook will answer the issue of How to “Wiggle” Your Way to Passive Profit with Crypto.
    Speaking to the media, Anish, the owner of CryptoPlanWorks, said, “I’ve seen people talking about cryptocurrencies and how much they’ve grown in recent years. However, most people are wary about cryptocurrency trading because they lack the requisite knowledge. With this eBook, I hope to make it easier for regular people to comprehend the most effective path to success, as described in Dan Hollings’ critically acclaimed course “The Plan.”
    This free eBook which is a course in itself will reveal how to tap into the crypto market in a way you’ve never seen before. 
    The readers will learn how to employ a specific type of automation to generate passive money in minutes, regardless of whether the market is crushing or crashing.
    To download The Wiggle Factory for free, visit http://cryptoplanworks.com
    Media Contact
    Company Name: Saazlife LLC DBA Saazpro
    Contact Person: Anish Chatterjea
    Email: Send Email
    City: Vancouver
    State: British Columbia
    Country: Canada
    Website: cryptoplanworks.com
     
    Press Release Distributed by ABNewswire.com

    To view the original version on ABNewswire visit: A free eBook sharing the secrets of profiting from cryptocurrency with ”The Plan” by Dan Hollings Is Launched
    A free eBook sharing the secrets of profiting from cryptocurrency with "The Plan" by Dan Hollin - Benzinga 2
    © 2022 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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  • Marketplacer Collaborates with Adobe and Web Force 5 on Best Practices eBook for Retailers and Enterprise Marketplace – – Portada-online.com

    Marketplacer Collaborates with Adobe and Web Force 5 on Best Practices eBook for Retailers and Enterprise Marketplace – – Portada-online.com

    Companies collaborate on best practices eBook: “Setting Yourself Up For Success When Building a Marketplace”, available now as a free download
    DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#commerce–Web Force 5, Adobe and Marketplacer, three leading companies with enterprise-grade expertise and proven success working together to help build digital commerce sites and marketplaces, have collaborated on an eBook featuring best practices and commonly asked questions as a guide for retailers and companies looking to launch and run their own marketplace.
    Marketplacer Collaborates with Adobe and Web Force 5 on Best Practices eBook for Retailers and Enterprise Marketplace - - Portada-online.com 3
    It’s reported that $3.23 trillion is spent globally on the top 100 marketplaces with the top 49 U.S marketplaces reporting $919 billion in sales (Digital Commerce 360). Interest in operating a self-owned marketplace is on the rise from established retailers looking to drive revenue and create sustaining commerce strategies.
    Retailers are actively looking for ways to drive revenue and are facing decisions about how best to build and optimize their tech stack. We’ve had so many conversations with merchants who’ve wanted to develop a marketplace in-house, but custom building always comes at a much higher cost to build and maintain over time, and in hiring and training staff,” says Lou Fabian of Web Force 5. “This is one reason we collaborated on this informative guide for retailers evaluating a marketplace strategy and what to look for in a partner. We know how to help them answer the questions they have.”
    Creating a marketplace strategy enables retailers to expand catalog offers and branch out to new brands and markets with less investment risk, while mitigating supply-chain concerns. Scale becomes easier to achieve when evolving past a drop-ship-based business and building a seller-driven strategy. Marketplaces also increase customer engagement and grow customer lifetime value and loyalty by connecting like-minded buyers and sellers in your community.
    “With a good marketplace platform, you’ll get a host of features that help you easily add and manage sellers and transactions from end to end,” says Jim Stirewalt, President, Marketplacer US. “On a marketplace, sellers will manage their own inventory, shipping, and returns behind the scenes, creating a much more seamless shopping experience.”
    The eBook, available as a free download, features:
    “Online marketplaces account for a significant share of the world’s overall ecommerce market. Since they can be a great asset for an ecommerce business and retailers, brand manufacturers and distributors need to decide whether they will sell on someone else’s marketplace or if they will operate their own,” says Ed Kennedy, Product Marketing Manager at Adobe. “In this eBook, we share insights from working with thousands of brands’ on their digital marketplace strategies, including listing their products on 3rd party marketplaces from within Adobe Commerce, powered by Magento, or launching their own marketplace storefront.”
    The Setting Yourself Up For Success When Building a Marketplace” eBook is available as a free download at: https://marketplacer.com/resources/setting-yourself-up-for-success-when-launching-a-marketplace/
    About Marketplacer
    Marketplacer is a global technology Software as a Service (SaaS) platform equipped with all the tools and functionality needed to build a successful and scalable online marketplace at speed. To date, Marketplacer has helped over 95 businesses build and deploy their very own successful marketplace strategies and connected over 25,000 businesses worldwide. The Marketplacer platform exists to make growth simple, from implementing marketplace strategies such as shipment from drop-ship sellers, adding new categories or third-party range extension, through to consolidating markets and rolling out modern revenue models such as recurring memberships that allow businesses to grow faster and beyond the constraints of capital inventory.
    Born and bred from the award-winning BikeExchange, the biggest online marketplace for anything and everything bike, founders Jason Wyatt and Sam Salter saw the opportunity to license the online software platform and apply it to new marketplaces. Marketplacer is responsible for powering business transformations of companies around the world. Visit www.marketplacer.com for more information.
    About Web Force 5
    The combined force of digital experts from 5 continents. That’s Web Force 5. It means our teams across the globe can be working for you while you sleep. Your website doesn’t rest, neither do we. Our industry revels in ambiguity, enabling bad tech, poor service, and price gouging. We know. We’ve done a lot of relationship rescues. And when someone’s been badly burnt, you have to be twice as good to win their trust. We had enough of being in bad relationships ourselves. It’s why we left our companies to start Web Force 5. We deserved better, and so did clients. Life’s too short. We treat our staff, our suppliers, and our clients all with the same respect. Right from the start, we took ambiguity out of the equation. We spend time doing crazy detail up-front. It can be painful, but it pays off. It gets our clients online, on time, on budget, and still on speaking terms. Now that’s something to revel in. Reach out to Lou and Web Force 5 for a complimentary consultative session at Webforce5.com.
    Contacts
    Radix Collective for Marketplacer

    Nicole Jordan

    nicole@radixcollective.com
    310-988-1957

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    Founded in 2003, Portada is the leading networking solutions platform for dynamic tech, marketing and media companies targeting consumers through cultural insights and passion points in the Americas.
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  • 10 Free eBooks For Your Small-Business Success – Entrepreneur

    10 Free eBooks For Your Small-Business Success – Entrepreneur

    Signing out of account, Standby…
    If you’re serious about business then you’ll want to pick up these inspirational and informative books right away.
    Entrepreneur has an affiliate partnership with TradePub so we may get a share of the revenue from your purchase.
    If you build it, they will come.
    If you’re an entrepreneur who knows anything about business, then you know that this motto is worthless. There are many skills, factors, and resources that are necessary to getting a company off the ground and growing it into a success.
    Smart entrepreneurs also know they don’t know everything. But they can always learn. Here, our friends at TradePub have rounded up 10 great eBooks to help entrepreneurs gain the skills they need to take their companies to the next level.
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    With this interview between the nation’s business and personal peak performance expert Tony Robbins and the leading business growth advisor Jay Abraham, you’ll get all the fundamental tools you need. Learn how you can market yourself and your business more effectively. 
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    We’re all guilty of procrastination, so this practical guide helps get rid of your own tendency to procrastinate, in turn helping your team members to overcome theirs.  Learn not only the symptoms of procrastination, but quick-fix solutions, different triggers, and case-by-case situations.
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    MarketBeat Staff
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    Entrepreneur en Español
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  • How to download free ebooks and digital audiobooks from public libraries – Mashable

    How to download free ebooks and digital audiobooks from public libraries – Mashable

    On a typical day, public libraries would encourage you to stop by and browse its aisles, peruse its books, and maybe even borrow a few favorites from the circulation desk. But these are not typical times.
    Nowadays with coronavirus, public libraries look more like meal distributors, emergency childcare centers, makeshift homeless shelters, and suppliers of 3D-printed personal protection equipment (PPE). But while 98 percent of library systems have closed their doors to the public outside of these essential services, many continue to offer — and even expand — ebook and digital audiobook selections for remote access.
    Among the 2,500 library systems the Public Library Association surveyed over the last week of March, 74 percent have expanded their online ebook and audio streaming services. Part of that, some libraries told Mashable, is due to the increase in demand since states issued shelter-in-place orders in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
    Still, the number and diversity of digital offerings vary from metropolitan to rural libraries and remain limited relative to physical materials — but more on that later. The best thing you can do now is put your name on the waiting list (I know, I know) for all the free ebooks and digital audiobooks you want.
    Good news: We’re here to tell you everything you need to know about digital lending so you can get the darn thing done already.
    Different libraries offer different digital selections, but most deliver them through the same method: cross-device apps.
    The first thing you should do is browse your library’s ebook catalog on its website — or, if you live in a more rural, resource-strapped area, your regional public ebook consortium. Search for the ebook you want, and you’ll see what apps they use to deliver the material on its description page. Some libraries will offer materials via multiple apps — compare your options.
    Most apps are compatible with mobile systems like iOS and Android, but some others work also on Kindles and with operating systems like MacOS and Windows. App features will depend from one operating platform to another, so consider your needs: Do you need to download materials for offline reading? Content restriction for your little one? Research the different apps your library partners with to optimize your user experience.
    Most of the time, you’ll have the option to borrow or reserve digital materials from either the library’s website or the app they use to distribute things. If all that sounds too complicated, try downloading OverDrive or its mobile-focused sister app, Libby, to start. OverDrive is a popular digital reading platform with over 45,000 partners, so there’s a good chance you’ll find selections from your local library there.
    You can sign up for an OverDrive or Libby account by connecting your library card to the app. Then, select your local library manually or let the app do it for you via location sharing. From there on, it’s a one-stop service for browsing and borrowing digital materials. Sift through your local selection of ebooks and digital audiobooks however you’d like: by genre, popularity, new releases, collections and searches. Axis360, an app by the old-timey book distributor Baker & Taylor, is also a popular choice.
    If you’re looking for a platform built by libraries for libraries, then look no further than SimplyE, an app developed by the New York Public Library. It functions pretty much just like OverDrive and Libby, except you’re free to browse selections from any of its approximately 1000 partner libraries before entering your library card information. But the fact that it’s a public, library-developed app comes with some relative advantages, too.
    “It still gets you access to the OverDrive books, the Baker & Taylor books, or any other of the books [by other distributors], but it’s just a single app. One, it means you don’t have to toggle between different platforms to find the book,” NYPL president Tony Marx told Mashable. “Second is, having a library app means that the library has a direct relationship with its patrons, that it can ensure the privacy of its patrons, that it can make sure that we are spending resources to maximize learning rather than to maximize profit.”
    Unfortunately, you’ll need internet access to browse ebooks and digital audiobooks. But once you download the material to your app, you’ll be able to read or listen to them offline until it’s due.
    But that only makes access a little less restraining. Even in New York City, more than 1.5 million people don’t have internet connectivity at home or on a mobile device, Marx said.
    “That is shocking,” he added. “Which is why we got into the business of lending wifi hotspots … in the hopes that we would not only serve those families but also encourage some serious policy moves to solve the digital divide problem.”
    And that’s the silver-lining: Eighty percent of libraries continue to provide wireless broadband access even with their doors closed, and 12 percent of them have either added or expanded this service since the pandemic began. A smaller percentage of them have also been expanding the range of their public wifi, lending out portable wifi, or using their bookmobiles as internet access points.
    With the digital divide in mind, some libraries are also able to offer curbside service for physical books at this time.
    “We serve about 34,000 people … [and] we’re fairly rural and blue-collar — lots of car industry here because we’re close to the GM plant, the Nissan plant, and they’re building a new Toyota monster plant,” Jennifer Pearson, president of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries and director of the Marshall County Memorial Library in Tennessee, told Mashable. “I would say in smaller and rural areas, our population in general aren’t going to be quite as tech savvy and an alpha adopter of things.”
    If you have limited internet access or find digital books difficult to use, give your library a call to see whether they offer any of these services. Librarians are dedicated to public service; so chances are, they’ll help you come up with a solution. Maybe that means downloading the materials using public wifi from right outside your library — by the door, or in the parking lot — or making special arrangements to check out a physical book.
    You can get a digital card online, if your library offers it. For the New York Public Library, sign-ups for library cards on SimplyE has increased more than 860 percent since the beginning of the pandemic, Marx said.
    OverDrive also offers Instant Digital Cards (IDC) for library partners who enable that option for their patrons, director of marketing David Burleigh told Mashable. If your library’s on the list, you can sign up for it with the OverDrive or Libby app.
    When you use Libby for the first time, the app will offer you the option to sign up for an IDC if your library offers it. OverDrive users will also get a pop-up invitation to sign up for an IDC when they’re browsing the digital collection of a participating library without a login.
    To sign up for an IDC, you’ll have to provide your name and phone number to OverDrive or Libby. OverDrive then uses a third-party service called Cognito to look up your recent address and to match your zip code with a library in your service area. Participating libraries will in turn use your number, name and address to verify your eligibility.
    But IDCs — along with most digital library cards offered by the libraries themselves — usually limit users to digital collections. You’ll be able to access digital materials until your IDC expires, but you’ll need to sign up for a full-access physical library card in person if you want to lend out physical materials when libraries re-open.
    If those aren’t options for you, give your library a call and see what they can do. For example, Marshall County Memorial Library will allow patrons to call ahead of time to register for a library card and complete the process via a quick curbside service, Pearson said.
    You got your library card, your eReader, so all you have to do is find the ebook or digital audiobook you want, right? That would be ideal; but unfortunately, most libraries have lower inventory and longer wait times for digital material compared to physical materials because they’re costly. This is especially true for smaller and rural libraries, and it’s especially true right now as the pandemic causes a surge in demand.
    The cost for ebooks and digital audiobooks vary from publisher to publisher and from title to title, of course. But overall, they are much more expensive for libraries than for everyday consumers. For a library, a New York Times bestseller costs around $50 to $60 on average, compared to the $14-or-so for which it’s retailed to consumers, according to Alan Inouye, senior director of public policy and government relations at the American Library Association.
    But that’s not it: Libraries don’t get these digital materials in perpetuity. The majority of time, those $50 or $60 go toward licensing deals that require renewals on a biennial or per-number-of-borrow basis.
    It’s a challenge unique to digital materials, Inouye said, because publishers are able to monopolize how those materials are distributed to library patrons through digital media distributors like OverDrive. (For comparison, if a publisher gouges physical book prices for libraries, Inouye said libraries can simply send their clerks to a commercial bookstore and get them at retail price.)
    While major libraries like NYPL are able to offer more than 300,000 ebooks, digital audiobooks and movies (though, it still shies in comparison to the 7.5 million-plus physical offerings they have), expanding digital collections can often be challenging for small and rural libraries, Pearson said.
    “They’re prohibitively expensive for small libraries, in a lot of cases” Pearson said. “So small libraries like mine rely on a consortium … [that] buy ebooks on behalf of the Public Library.”
    But these regional consortiums, like large library systems, often share inventory and operate within the same licensing deals. And that sometimes leads to longer wait times, too.
    “If you’re looking for a specific book to read, and it’s a new book and you want the ebook, you’re likely to be on hold for several months because we can’t afford to buy as many copies,” Pearson said. “So that’s an issue across the board for libraries and library patrons.”
    Inouye told Mashable some publishers are halving the cost of digital materials for a shorter licensing period in response to the pandemic. But the increase in digital material demand since the beginning of the crisis have also added to the challenge.
    At Overdrive, circulation in April has increased by 45 percent compared to the same time last year, according to Burleigh. For NYPL, not only has the number of new eBooks users doubled, the use of digital research books have also increased for more than 550 percent, Marx said.
    Still, Pearson said you’ll do “alright” if you’re not particular about what you might want to read next. That is, if you just want to browse and keep an open mind.
    Libraries are working hard to expand their e-collections as well as access to them. But Marx said one of the biggest challenges remains how and whether libraries will be able to digitize books that are in copyright, but no longer in print or in sales.
    “If you’re lucky enough to live by one of the half dozen great libraries in the world, you can get it. But otherwise, those books are basically dead to the world, and that may even be the majority of books — so much of the 20th century,” Marx said. “We have to find a way to bring those books back to life, to both benefit the public and to benefit the authors who are also not happy that their books have died.”
    Practically, it can be. But there’s a good reason to borrow from libraries instead.
    A major reason digital materials are so expensive to libraries — and it’s why they’re struggling to expand free e-collections for the public — has to do with copyright challenges unique to digital intellectual property, Burleigh said.
    “Publishers certainly want to protect their investments and the intellectual property of their copyrighted material for their authors and agents,” he said. That’s true with physical books, too; but advancements in media technology have made copyright infringement all the more prevalent.
    WATCH: Public libraries found to be more important than ever in current internet era
    For example, Marx pointed to the 2005 class action lawsuit, Authors Guild et al. v. Google, in which publishers and authors alike accused Google of a “massive copyright infringement” as it created digital copies of copyrighted books in an attempt to create a database for books and to digitize library books. (The Supreme Court ultimately declined to review the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who said Google’s practice for profit-making was fair use.)
    Resources like the National Emergency Library — a temporary collection which the Internet Archive launched in support of emergency remote teaching and research during the pandemic — while convenient and well-intended, raises the same concern for right holders.
    Authors and publishers have both come out to accuse the library of piracy. And in June, a group of publishers — Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House — officially filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive, accusing it of “willful mass copyright infringement.”
    Accessing copyrighted materials illegally will help publishers to continue justifying high costs for libraries, which in turn raises the barrier for public access. And it’s a tension with a long history that traces back to online academic databases in the 80s, Inouye said.
    But copyright laws have yet to adapt to the needs of the digital age. (The last two major ones were legislated in 1976 and 1909.) Whereas the “right of first sale” affords libraries the right to lend and share copies of physical books they purchase without restrictions from publishers, no such doctrine exists for their electronic counterparts.
    But policy advocates are trying to bring light to the issue as ebooks and audiobooks continue to gain traction and popularity from the public. The ALA, for one, has submitted formal comments to the House Judiciary Committee as they continue to investigate antitrust behaviors and competition in the digital market. Library advocates, too, have been lobbying for state legislations that “would require publishers who offer ebooks to the consumer market to extend licenses to libraries within the state without discrimination.”
    “Libraries have been buying print books for centuries, so there aren’t so many policy controversies there,” Inouye said. “It’s just that with the new thing, like ebooks, the rules are evolving, and the legal framework is still immature. So there are a lot more questions and problems that require attention.”
    UPDATE: June 2, 2020, 2:30 p.m. EST Updated to include a lawsuit filed on the same day, in which a group of publishers accuses Internet Archive of intellectual property infringement.
    More in Books, Social Good

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  • No Brainers and Low-Hanging Fruit in National Climate Policy | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal – voxeu.org

    No Brainers and Low-Hanging Fruit in National Climate Policy | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal – voxeu.org

    Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
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    Francesco Caselli, Alexander Ludwig, Rick van der Ploeg 08 October 2021
    No Brainers and Low-Hanging Fruit in National Climate Policy | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal - voxeu.org 4
    The target for global warming agreed on in the 2015 Paris Agreement implies that effective policies must be implemented to reduce emissions for the whole planet as soon as possible and reach net zero in the second half of the 21st century. This eBook, with contributions from economists working in more than 18 countries, provides timely and concise recommendations on achievable and efficient climate change policies that can be fast-tracked into implementation.
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    Introduction
    Francesco Caselli, Alexander Ludwig, and Rick van der Ploeg
    No brainers in Argentina’s climate policy
    Elisa Belfiori
    Low-hanging fruit in the Amazon: Feasible and cost-effective paths for Brazilian climate policy
    Clarissa Gandour and Juliano Assunção
    Reforming energy subsidies in the Middle East and North Africa: Easy pickings for climate policy or a political bombshell?
    Rabah Arezki, Rachel Yuting Fan and Ha Nguyen
    No brainers in India
    Shoibal Chakravarty and E. Somanathan
    Climate policy towards carbon neutrality in China
    ZhongXiang Zhang
    From quick wins to big wins: Policies for structural transformation and low‑carbon growth in China
    Martin Raiser and Sebastian Eckardt
    Opportunities for fast and cost-effective decarbonisation in Russia
    George Safonov, Alexandra Dorina, Julia Safonova, Anastasia Semakina and Anton Sizonov
    Low-hanging fruit in Australia’s climate policy
    Frank Jotzo and Warwick J. McKibbin
    Climate policy opportunities for the United States
    Lint Barrage
    Improving Canada’s approach to mitigating carbon emissions
    Carolyn Fischer and Dave Sawyer
    Strategic decarbonisation options for the UK
    Sam Fankhauser and Simon Dietz
    The French case
    Christian Gollier
    Enhancing climate mitigation policy in Germany
    Simon Black, Ruo Chen, Aiko Mineshima, and Ian Parry
    Climate protection in Germany: Good, but not yet good enough
    Claudia Kemfert
    Danish climate policy: Past achievements and future challenges
    Peter Birch Sørensen
    Norway: A large importer of electric cars and a large exporter of oil
    Michael Hoel
    Sweden: Finance negative emissions and remove the transport sector target
    John Hassler
    Low-hanging fruit in climate policy: The case of Poland
    Karolina Safarzynska
    Climate policy in the broader sustainability context: Joint implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the European Green Deal
    Phoebe Koundouri, Jeffrey Sachs, Theodoros Zachariadis, Stathis Devves, Angelos Plataniotis, Carlo Papa, Mirko Armiento, Gianluca Crisci, Filippo Tessari, Laura Cozzi, Daniel Wetzel, Mariana Mazzucato and Martha McPherson
    The critical role of feebates in climate mitigation strategies
    Ian Parry
    Making carbon taxation a global win-win
    Laurence Kotlikoff, Felix Kubler, Andrey Polbin and Simon Scheidegger
    Why do we need a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism? Towards the development of a Climate Club
    Luis Garicano and María Fayos
    Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics
    Professor of Economics and Chair of Public Finance and Macroeconomic Dynamics, Goethe University Frankfurt and Research Fellow, CEPR
    Professor of Economics and Research Director of OxCarre, University of Oxford

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