SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's 74-year-old governor, Jerry Brown, engineered a surprise victory for his tax-hike ballot proposition by tapping support at the other end of the age spectrum.
Proposition 30, a temporary $6 billion tax hike, passed with a solid 54 percent approval on Tuesday, driven largely by a higher-than-expected turnout of young voters, pollsters and analysts say.
The measure, a rare attempt by a state to raise taxes at a time of small-government fervor, was the cornerstone of Brown's plan to balance the state's $91 billion budget. Without it, the state would have to cut spending on schools and universities.
But in recent days, the proposition had seemed destined for failure, according to several polls. Brown, who began campaigning heavily for it in the last weeks of the election, held rallies at colleges, and many younger voters responded.
'It's the reversal of a historic trend,' said Dan Schnur, director of the University of Southern California/Los Angeles Times poll, speaking about the normal difficulty of winning support for a tax measure in the waning days of a campaign. At the end of October, his poll showed only 46 percent of voters for the measure.
Young people made up about 28 percent of those who voted on Proposition 30, according to an exit poll from CNN, and 65 percent of them voted yes.
'We saw this amazing engagement that was fed by social media, on Facebook, on Twitter,' said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League of California, an advocacy group.
The ability for the first time to complete the entire voter-registration process online contributed to the passage of the measure, he believes, because 'young voters who registered online were more engaged.'
As election day neared, polls from the Public Policy Institute of California, the California Business Roundtable with Pepperdine University, and the respected Field Poll, all showed less-than-majority support for Prop 30, and at best they labeled its chances a toss-up.
But Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, saw signs Brown could persuade undecided voters and told several reporters ahead of the election that Proposition 30 had a shot.
He cited data in his poll showing that undecided voters shared many characteristics with voters who favored Proposition 30, including a favorable view of Brown, a sense that they were paying about the right amount in taxes, and concern over budget cuts that could kick in if the measure failed.
'If you looked at the 14 percent that were undecided, they held views that were more in line with 'Yes' voters,' said DiCamillo. 'All it needed was about three points from the undecided.'
Brown's push in recent days for the initiative undoubtedly helped, including his visits to colleges and his attendance at a group of last-minute events, the pollsters said. On Monday, for example, Brown touted the measure at gatherings in San Diego, Burbank, Fresno, Sacramento and San Francisco.
(Editing by Peter Henderson and Philip Barbara)
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Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Election night TV audience down from 2008: Nielsen data
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tuesday's presidential election may have been too close to call for weeks, but it didn't pull in as many TV viewers as four years ago.
More than 66.8 million Americans watched coverage of the 2012 elections during prime time on Tuesday, according to final Nielsen data on Wednesday. That's down from the 71.5 million who tuned in to see the United States elect Barack Obama as its first African-American president in November 2008.
Nielsen said 13 cable and broadcast television networks aired live coverage of the election results, which saw Obama defeat Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Americans aged 55 and older made up the biggest audience, according to the ratings data.
The viewers for election night were also slightly down on the 67.2 million people who watched October's first presidential debate between Romney and Obama.
But activity on social media soared to a record level. More than 31 million, election-related tweets were sent on Tuesday night - including a couple from Obama proclaiming his victory - making the night 'the most Tweeted about event in U.S. political history,' according to Twitter.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Paul Simao)
This article is brought to you by BUY A USED COMPUTER.
More than 66.8 million Americans watched coverage of the 2012 elections during prime time on Tuesday, according to final Nielsen data on Wednesday. That's down from the 71.5 million who tuned in to see the United States elect Barack Obama as its first African-American president in November 2008.
Nielsen said 13 cable and broadcast television networks aired live coverage of the election results, which saw Obama defeat Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Americans aged 55 and older made up the biggest audience, according to the ratings data.
The viewers for election night were also slightly down on the 67.2 million people who watched October's first presidential debate between Romney and Obama.
But activity on social media soared to a record level. More than 31 million, election-related tweets were sent on Tuesday night - including a couple from Obama proclaiming his victory - making the night 'the most Tweeted about event in U.S. political history,' according to Twitter.
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Paul Simao)
This article is brought to you by BUY A USED COMPUTER.
China's leadership challenge in new era: douse "inequality volcano"
YANGCHANG, China (Reuters) - In the mountain village of Yangchang in the backwater province of Guizhou in southwestern China, the roof of the Yang family home is cracked and about to cave in, held upright only by a few rickety tree trunks.
Nearly penniless after quitting their jobs in a coastal city, Yang Hechun and her husband recently returned to the village to care for a sickly 71-year-old grandmother and two young children.
'We can hardly afford to eat, never mind mend our house,' said Yang, over a meal of rice, chilli bean sprouts, peanuts and tofu. 'We earn one yuan, then we spend one yuan.'
As China prepares for its once in a decade leadership transition at the 18th Communist Party Congress, which begins on Thursday in Beijing, the outside world sees an inexorably rising economic power: Beijing is now the world's largest exporter, the second-biggest economy overall, and it controls over $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
Yet the disconnect between those numbers and the lives of families like the Yangs lies at the core of the most vexing issues the country's incoming leadership will confront: sustaining economic growth, rooting out corruption, narrowing the wealth gap, and preserving the party's legitimacy in the face of mounting public grievances over decades of iron-fisted rule.
President Hu Jintao, in a speech at the opening of the party congress on Thursday, is expected to tout the country's economic advances over the past decade, while acknowledging that China still faces many difficulties.
Reforms, most economists agree, will be vital to avoid stagnation and bigger socio-economic disruptions. What's unclear is just how aggressively the incoming leadership will push new policies.
Though Yang Hechun acknowledges her family's life has improved over the past decade, their continuing daily struggles resonate in villages, cities, campuses and factory floors throughout China.
$1.25 A DAY
At a roundabout in Bijie, the region of Guizhou where the Yangs live, a towering billboard bedecked with flowers and adorned with an image of Hu Jintao proclaims: 'Explore, develop and pioneer ... work hard to lift, reform and construct Bijie to a higher level.'
The Yangs' village was designated an experimental zone for poverty alleviation policies and economic development in 1988, during president Hu Jintao's stint as party chief of Guizhou.
Development over the past few years has brought a two-lane highway and bridges to the once remote region, along with electricity.
But the Yangs still have no running water, and food, education and medical expenses swiftly erode their meager earnings from harvesting chilli peppers and corn on a tiny farm.
Thirteen percent of China's 1.3 billion people still live on less than $1.25 per day according to the United Nations Development Program and Guizhou has the poorest per capita income of any of the country's provinces.
Beijing set aside 415 billion yuan ($66.5 billion) over the past five years to fund minimum livelihood allowances for China's most needy, while welfare coverage -- including basic health insurance -- has broadened to include almost 95 percent of households, as have primary school fee waivers in more areas.
Yet, goodwill earned from those measures has been corroded by deeply held suspicions of corruption. Nationwide, over half a million grassroots officials were punished for graft and other so called 'discipline violations' over the last five years.
The Yangs believe the failure to pave broken roads and build water pipes in their village is because of local corruption. Public works projects have been talked about for years but never built, even with state funding and contributions from residents.
WOLF FANGS
Across China, the perception of widespread corruption is intensifying grassroots demands for official accountability -demands that the party all too often ignores.
Shen Zhiyun is a crippled former farmer who lives in the nearby village of Guole. He and other villagers were told by village officials recently that hundreds of hectares of farmland would be flooded to form a reservoir serving a new industrial estate in a nearby town.
Despite the threat to local livelihoods, district cadres never consulted the villagers, and will soon build a dam.
'We oppose it, but we also can't oppose it. That's how things are in China,' said Shen. 'They eat the people and don't even spit out the bones ... those officials with wolf's fangs.'
The sense of powerlessness Shen expresses is widespread, and poses, in the minds of some analysts, a broad threat to the party's cherished stability.
As vast as the income disparity is between the rich and poor -- Beijing hasn't published official inequality statistics for over a decade, but the United Nations estimates the gap has grown steadily wider over the last decade -- the maltreatment of ordinary Chinese citizens by officials may be the more dangerous flashpoint.
'The main challenge is not income inequality, it's power inequality, and it's much less easy to deal with,' said Martin Whyte, a Harvard University sociologist and author of a book on China and its disparities.
'Keeping this power inequality volcano dormant may be much more difficult than keeping the income inequality volcano under control, since to do so would require not simply new programs and financial resources, but fundamental political reforms.'
RISING EXPECTATIONS
Even in the more prosperous parts of China, the pressures on the government from the bottom up are no less relentless. Two years ago, in the factory town of Xiaolan in the Pearl River Delta -- China's factory for the world -- workers at a Honda Lock auto parts manufacturer went on strike, weary of their low-paid, grinding work.
Word of their action -- a rare, early instance of a strike that crippled production at a multinational corporation in China -- spread rapidly on social media. It inspired other factory workers across the country and forced many firms and local authorities to respond by raising minimum wages and benefits.
At Honda Lock, pay has increased 30 per cent since 2010, including increases in housing and transport subsidies.
Lin Wenwu is one of the workers who benefited from the strike. He makes about $560 a month now. A new desktop computer sits in the small one-room flat he and his wife rent, and he zips around Xiaolan on a newly purchased black motorcycle.
Still, Lin's not satisfied. He is one of China's army of migrant workers -- 150 million strong -- who largely remain second class citizens, denied welfare benefits that accrue to local city dwellers through a household registration (or 'hukou') system, an outdated policy from the Mao era originally intended to control rural-urban drift.
The system means Lin's two children can't get free schooling in Xiaolan, so he leaves them behind in his home province of Guangxi, where they're cared for by relatives. He sees them roughly three times a year for several weeks.
'I miss them,' he said. 'We hope that after the (party congress) the leaders will do more to improve the livelihoods of people like us.'
LOSING FAITH
Back in Guizhou, huddled around a stove, the Yangs have little faith in their political leaders. The family is wondering how to raise the 40,000 yuan needed to rebuild the roof, now propped up by bricks and sawed-off tree-trunks.
So far, local village officials have rebuffed requests for a construction subsidy of 5,000 yuan normally eligible to most villagers, unless the family first coughs up 1,000 yuan to facilitate the application.
'Several neighbors paid up last year, but they've haven't gotten any money back at all,' said Yang.
'Sometimes I feel the poorest people get nothing, and the richest get everything. We can only rely on ourselves.'
(Additional reporting by David Stanway in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
This news article is brought to you by GOING GREEN NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Nearly penniless after quitting their jobs in a coastal city, Yang Hechun and her husband recently returned to the village to care for a sickly 71-year-old grandmother and two young children.
'We can hardly afford to eat, never mind mend our house,' said Yang, over a meal of rice, chilli bean sprouts, peanuts and tofu. 'We earn one yuan, then we spend one yuan.'
As China prepares for its once in a decade leadership transition at the 18th Communist Party Congress, which begins on Thursday in Beijing, the outside world sees an inexorably rising economic power: Beijing is now the world's largest exporter, the second-biggest economy overall, and it controls over $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.
Yet the disconnect between those numbers and the lives of families like the Yangs lies at the core of the most vexing issues the country's incoming leadership will confront: sustaining economic growth, rooting out corruption, narrowing the wealth gap, and preserving the party's legitimacy in the face of mounting public grievances over decades of iron-fisted rule.
President Hu Jintao, in a speech at the opening of the party congress on Thursday, is expected to tout the country's economic advances over the past decade, while acknowledging that China still faces many difficulties.
Reforms, most economists agree, will be vital to avoid stagnation and bigger socio-economic disruptions. What's unclear is just how aggressively the incoming leadership will push new policies.
Though Yang Hechun acknowledges her family's life has improved over the past decade, their continuing daily struggles resonate in villages, cities, campuses and factory floors throughout China.
$1.25 A DAY
At a roundabout in Bijie, the region of Guizhou where the Yangs live, a towering billboard bedecked with flowers and adorned with an image of Hu Jintao proclaims: 'Explore, develop and pioneer ... work hard to lift, reform and construct Bijie to a higher level.'
The Yangs' village was designated an experimental zone for poverty alleviation policies and economic development in 1988, during president Hu Jintao's stint as party chief of Guizhou.
Development over the past few years has brought a two-lane highway and bridges to the once remote region, along with electricity.
But the Yangs still have no running water, and food, education and medical expenses swiftly erode their meager earnings from harvesting chilli peppers and corn on a tiny farm.
Thirteen percent of China's 1.3 billion people still live on less than $1.25 per day according to the United Nations Development Program and Guizhou has the poorest per capita income of any of the country's provinces.
Beijing set aside 415 billion yuan ($66.5 billion) over the past five years to fund minimum livelihood allowances for China's most needy, while welfare coverage -- including basic health insurance -- has broadened to include almost 95 percent of households, as have primary school fee waivers in more areas.
Yet, goodwill earned from those measures has been corroded by deeply held suspicions of corruption. Nationwide, over half a million grassroots officials were punished for graft and other so called 'discipline violations' over the last five years.
The Yangs believe the failure to pave broken roads and build water pipes in their village is because of local corruption. Public works projects have been talked about for years but never built, even with state funding and contributions from residents.
WOLF FANGS
Across China, the perception of widespread corruption is intensifying grassroots demands for official accountability -demands that the party all too often ignores.
Shen Zhiyun is a crippled former farmer who lives in the nearby village of Guole. He and other villagers were told by village officials recently that hundreds of hectares of farmland would be flooded to form a reservoir serving a new industrial estate in a nearby town.
Despite the threat to local livelihoods, district cadres never consulted the villagers, and will soon build a dam.
'We oppose it, but we also can't oppose it. That's how things are in China,' said Shen. 'They eat the people and don't even spit out the bones ... those officials with wolf's fangs.'
The sense of powerlessness Shen expresses is widespread, and poses, in the minds of some analysts, a broad threat to the party's cherished stability.
As vast as the income disparity is between the rich and poor -- Beijing hasn't published official inequality statistics for over a decade, but the United Nations estimates the gap has grown steadily wider over the last decade -- the maltreatment of ordinary Chinese citizens by officials may be the more dangerous flashpoint.
'The main challenge is not income inequality, it's power inequality, and it's much less easy to deal with,' said Martin Whyte, a Harvard University sociologist and author of a book on China and its disparities.
'Keeping this power inequality volcano dormant may be much more difficult than keeping the income inequality volcano under control, since to do so would require not simply new programs and financial resources, but fundamental political reforms.'
RISING EXPECTATIONS
Even in the more prosperous parts of China, the pressures on the government from the bottom up are no less relentless. Two years ago, in the factory town of Xiaolan in the Pearl River Delta -- China's factory for the world -- workers at a Honda Lock auto parts manufacturer went on strike, weary of their low-paid, grinding work.
Word of their action -- a rare, early instance of a strike that crippled production at a multinational corporation in China -- spread rapidly on social media. It inspired other factory workers across the country and forced many firms and local authorities to respond by raising minimum wages and benefits.
At Honda Lock, pay has increased 30 per cent since 2010, including increases in housing and transport subsidies.
Lin Wenwu is one of the workers who benefited from the strike. He makes about $560 a month now. A new desktop computer sits in the small one-room flat he and his wife rent, and he zips around Xiaolan on a newly purchased black motorcycle.
Still, Lin's not satisfied. He is one of China's army of migrant workers -- 150 million strong -- who largely remain second class citizens, denied welfare benefits that accrue to local city dwellers through a household registration (or 'hukou') system, an outdated policy from the Mao era originally intended to control rural-urban drift.
The system means Lin's two children can't get free schooling in Xiaolan, so he leaves them behind in his home province of Guangxi, where they're cared for by relatives. He sees them roughly three times a year for several weeks.
'I miss them,' he said. 'We hope that after the (party congress) the leaders will do more to improve the livelihoods of people like us.'
LOSING FAITH
Back in Guizhou, huddled around a stove, the Yangs have little faith in their political leaders. The family is wondering how to raise the 40,000 yuan needed to rebuild the roof, now propped up by bricks and sawed-off tree-trunks.
So far, local village officials have rebuffed requests for a construction subsidy of 5,000 yuan normally eligible to most villagers, unless the family first coughs up 1,000 yuan to facilitate the application.
'Several neighbors paid up last year, but they've haven't gotten any money back at all,' said Yang.
'Sometimes I feel the poorest people get nothing, and the richest get everything. We can only rely on ourselves.'
(Additional reporting by David Stanway in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
This news article is brought to you by GOING GREEN NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Move over, Obama; Twitter had a big night too
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama called it - in less than 140 characters.
Around 11:15 pm EST, just as the networks were beginning to call the race in his favor, Obama took to Twitter to proclaim himself the winner over Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
'This happened because of you. Thank you,' Obama tweeted.
That the president would take his message to Twitter before taking the stage in Chicago underscored the tremendous role social media platforms like Twitter played in the 2012 election.
Minutes later, with the race called in his favor, Obama tweeted again.
'We're all in this together. That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. Thank you. -bo.'
Through the course of a long and bitter presidential campaign, Twitter often served as the new first rough draft of history.
Top campaign aides used the Internet tool to snipe at each other, the candidates used it to get out their messages and political reporters used it to inform and entertain.
On Election Night, the tweets were flowing.
By 10 p.m. EST, with the race still up for grabs, Twitter announced it had broken records.
There were more than 31 million election-related tweets on Tuesday night, making Election Night 'the most tweeted about event in U.S. political history,' said Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz. Between 6 p.m. and midnight EST, there were more than 23 million tweets.
Horwitz noted the previous record was 10 million, during the first presidential debate on October 3.
'Twitter brought people closer to almost every aspect of the election this year,' Horwitz said. 'From breaking news, to sharing the experience of watching the debates, to interacting directly with the candidates, Twitter became a kind of nationwide caucus.'
In the moments following Obama's win, Twitter was in a frenzy, with a peak of 327,000 tweets a minute.
Another tweet from Obama, one that read: 'Four more years' and showed a picture of him hugging his wife, became the most retweeted tweet in the history of the site.
'FIRST TWITTER ELECTION'
Love it or hate it, Twitter and its role in politics appears to be here to stay.
For Rob Johnson, campaign manager for Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry's failed presidential run, Twitter 'changed the dynamic this cycle and will continue to play a bigger role in years to come.'
'We no longer click refresh on websites or wait for the paper boy to throw the news on our porch,' Johnson said. 'We go to Twitter and learn the facts before others read it.'
The 2012 race was the first where Twitter played such an important role. Top campaign advisers like Romney's Eric Fehrnstrom and Obama's David Axelrod engaged in Twitter battles through the year.
With many political reporters and campaign staff on Twitter and Facebook, social media websites were often the first place news broke. Some top news stories were kept alive or thrust into the headlines after becoming hot topics on Twitter.
'It was one heckuva echo chamber,' Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, said in an email.
Johnson said Twitter was the driving force behind some of the year's biggest political news stories.
'The twitterverse shapes the news and public opinion,' Johnson said. 'The Internet is truly a real and powerful tool in politics.'
In future elections, candidates and their campaign staffs will have to include social media as another battleground, Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said.
'This was the first Twitter election and social media is now fully a part of our election mechanics,' Simmons said. 'Going forward candidates must have an aggressive social media strategy if they want to win.'
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Around 11:15 pm EST, just as the networks were beginning to call the race in his favor, Obama took to Twitter to proclaim himself the winner over Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
'This happened because of you. Thank you,' Obama tweeted.
That the president would take his message to Twitter before taking the stage in Chicago underscored the tremendous role social media platforms like Twitter played in the 2012 election.
Minutes later, with the race called in his favor, Obama tweeted again.
'We're all in this together. That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. Thank you. -bo.'
Through the course of a long and bitter presidential campaign, Twitter often served as the new first rough draft of history.
Top campaign aides used the Internet tool to snipe at each other, the candidates used it to get out their messages and political reporters used it to inform and entertain.
On Election Night, the tweets were flowing.
By 10 p.m. EST, with the race still up for grabs, Twitter announced it had broken records.
There were more than 31 million election-related tweets on Tuesday night, making Election Night 'the most tweeted about event in U.S. political history,' said Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz. Between 6 p.m. and midnight EST, there were more than 23 million tweets.
Horwitz noted the previous record was 10 million, during the first presidential debate on October 3.
'Twitter brought people closer to almost every aspect of the election this year,' Horwitz said. 'From breaking news, to sharing the experience of watching the debates, to interacting directly with the candidates, Twitter became a kind of nationwide caucus.'
In the moments following Obama's win, Twitter was in a frenzy, with a peak of 327,000 tweets a minute.
Another tweet from Obama, one that read: 'Four more years' and showed a picture of him hugging his wife, became the most retweeted tweet in the history of the site.
'FIRST TWITTER ELECTION'
Love it or hate it, Twitter and its role in politics appears to be here to stay.
For Rob Johnson, campaign manager for Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry's failed presidential run, Twitter 'changed the dynamic this cycle and will continue to play a bigger role in years to come.'
'We no longer click refresh on websites or wait for the paper boy to throw the news on our porch,' Johnson said. 'We go to Twitter and learn the facts before others read it.'
The 2012 race was the first where Twitter played such an important role. Top campaign advisers like Romney's Eric Fehrnstrom and Obama's David Axelrod engaged in Twitter battles through the year.
With many political reporters and campaign staff on Twitter and Facebook, social media websites were often the first place news broke. Some top news stories were kept alive or thrust into the headlines after becoming hot topics on Twitter.
'It was one heckuva echo chamber,' Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, said in an email.
Johnson said Twitter was the driving force behind some of the year's biggest political news stories.
'The twitterverse shapes the news and public opinion,' Johnson said. 'The Internet is truly a real and powerful tool in politics.'
In future elections, candidates and their campaign staffs will have to include social media as another battleground, Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said.
'This was the first Twitter election and social media is now fully a part of our election mechanics,' Simmons said. 'Going forward candidates must have an aggressive social media strategy if they want to win.'
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Amid catcalls, Silicon Valley gets its reality TV treatment
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - They have been panned by television critics and disavowed by their own industry. Even for the entrepreneurs-cum-co-stars of Bravo TV's 'Start-ups: Silicon Valley,' it is getting hard to put on a brave face.
'It's been a nightmare,' confessed Sarah Austin, one of the series' six pretty twentysomethings who code, party and hustle their way to fame and riches - or at least try to - in San Francisco's bubbly tech fishbowl.
'I've had a lot of figures in Silicon Valley tell me that it was a mistake,' Austin said. 'I think sometimes that it wasn't worth it.'
That is a little surprising, coming from an Internet personality (and self-described angel investor) whose first burst of notoriety came from uploading videos of herself crashing tech parties in 2006.
But her apprehension speaks to the scorn that has piled up like rush-hour traffic on Highway 101 for the eight-episode series.
Since Bravo announced the show in April, it has been greeted with horrified tweets and Facebook updates by geeks who feared the show would portray the Valley about as faithfully as 'Jersey Shore' rendered the people of New Jersey. Tech blogger Sarah Lacy seemed to sum up the Valley's reaction with a plaintive post titled, 'Randi Zuckerberg: How Could You Do This to Real Entrepreneurs?'
But with California's youth-obsessed startup economy booming - and seeping into popular culture (think 'The Social Network') - a Valley reality show seemed like a no-brainer for Bravo. Once dedicated to arts programming, the NBCUniversal-owned cable channel is now known for series such as 'Real Houswives of New Jersey' and 'Top Chef' - and the 'Bravo-lebrities' its shows have spawned.
Produced by Randi Zuckerberg, sister of the Facebook Inc founder, the show purports to follow six young entrepreneurs in their habitat as they write code, party and try to get venture capital funding.
'BROGRAMMERS' AND BLONDES
The plotline revolves around Ben and Hermione Way, a brother-and-sister duo from London who are short on original startup ideas but long on cheerfulness and good looks.
There's also Dwight Crow, a bundle of testosterone and the quintessential 'brogrammer'; Austin, who is slotted halfheartedly into the blond vixen role; and David Murray, who ostensibly has coding chops and once worked at Google but just plays the typecasted gay guy trying to peddle a weight-loss app.
In the first episode, it is clear that what little hammed-up tension there is turns on the Hermione Way-Sarah Austin axis. Austin once had a fling with Ben Way, an incident his sister describes several times as 'unprofessional.'
The show's producers tap liberally into the overgrown-child-as-entrepreneur motif that might ring a bit too familiar to Valley denizens.
Crow is seen coding for long hours in his disheveled man-cave and downing liquor shots when he is let loose at night. The cast is seen heading to a crowded toga party, a familiar sight for, say, Facebook employees, who celebrated with a similar event in 2008.
Then there is the pitch meeting with angel investor Dave McClure, who met Hermione Way when he found her hungover and asleep under his conference table.
McClure gamely listens to a pitch from the Ways and promptly rejects them - but not before dispensing a pearl of startup-pitching wisdom that he likely conceived long before the cameras arrived: 'You don't need to sweep me off my feet. You just need to be a good kisser.'
Critics say they fear the show will makes startup life seem easy and glamorous while overlooking the endless grind and frequent failures that come before the success.
'The media wants to sell this story that you can come here, spend three days coding in your basement and then succeed overnight, but we learned the hard way it's not like that at all,' said Jonathan Chin, the founder of Gothamlist, an e-commerce site in San Francisco that has yet to take off.
Still, he acknowledged, the Bravo program is the talk of the town. 'Everybody's been talking about it, tweeting, sending Facebook messages.'
Zuckerberg, who is launching her own media company, Zuckerberg Media, this week, said the show accurately captures the experiences of her cast. She said she would continue to roll out 'nonfiction' TV productions in the Bay Area.
Zuckerberg sidestepped a question about what her friends and family thought of the show, saying only that no one close to her, including her husband or her brother Mark, have seen it yet.
'It's like doing a startup,' she said. 'At some point you just have to open up the alpha and let people see it.'
'IT'S TV'
At the show's premiere party on Sunday night in San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood, there were few Valley luminaries to be seen but plenty of young men in slim-cut suits and designer stubble and women in gauzy gowns and stilettos. They noshed on pizzas served on vinyl records and crispy cones of kampachi tartare that came perched in the holes of DVD discs - along with slabs of sushi served on iPads, an idea conceived by Zuckerberg's production team, said caterer Joshua Charles.
'The party seemed reminiscent of 1999,' said Brooke Hammerling, a veteran tech industry public-relations executive who is based in New York. 'None of those on the program, including Randi, were in the tech world in the first generation of the dot-com world, when we saw the lack of awareness of what was going on around us.'
Hammerling feared the women in the show would be portrayed as stereotypes, more concerned about fashion and socializing than the business of technology.
But Hermione Way made no apologies on Sunday night as she swept into the party clad in a glittery gold dress.
'It's TV. People want to look at glamorous people, so it was a balance of finding the tech and being entertaining enough to look at,' Way told Reuters.
'I'm a 27-year-old single girl,' she added. 'Do I like to party? Yeah. Do I like to look really f-ing hot? Yeah.'
Way said she was focused on bringing her fitness app and the hardware accessory to market.
And after that?
'World domination,' she replied without skipping a beat.
That, or 15 minutes of 'Bravo-lebrity,' at least.
(Reporting By Gerry Shih. Editing by Jonathan Weber and Douglas Royalty)
This article is brought to you by BUY A NEW COMPUTER.
'It's been a nightmare,' confessed Sarah Austin, one of the series' six pretty twentysomethings who code, party and hustle their way to fame and riches - or at least try to - in San Francisco's bubbly tech fishbowl.
'I've had a lot of figures in Silicon Valley tell me that it was a mistake,' Austin said. 'I think sometimes that it wasn't worth it.'
That is a little surprising, coming from an Internet personality (and self-described angel investor) whose first burst of notoriety came from uploading videos of herself crashing tech parties in 2006.
But her apprehension speaks to the scorn that has piled up like rush-hour traffic on Highway 101 for the eight-episode series.
Since Bravo announced the show in April, it has been greeted with horrified tweets and Facebook updates by geeks who feared the show would portray the Valley about as faithfully as 'Jersey Shore' rendered the people of New Jersey. Tech blogger Sarah Lacy seemed to sum up the Valley's reaction with a plaintive post titled, 'Randi Zuckerberg: How Could You Do This to Real Entrepreneurs?'
But with California's youth-obsessed startup economy booming - and seeping into popular culture (think 'The Social Network') - a Valley reality show seemed like a no-brainer for Bravo. Once dedicated to arts programming, the NBCUniversal-owned cable channel is now known for series such as 'Real Houswives of New Jersey' and 'Top Chef' - and the 'Bravo-lebrities' its shows have spawned.
Produced by Randi Zuckerberg, sister of the Facebook Inc founder, the show purports to follow six young entrepreneurs in their habitat as they write code, party and try to get venture capital funding.
'BROGRAMMERS' AND BLONDES
The plotline revolves around Ben and Hermione Way, a brother-and-sister duo from London who are short on original startup ideas but long on cheerfulness and good looks.
There's also Dwight Crow, a bundle of testosterone and the quintessential 'brogrammer'; Austin, who is slotted halfheartedly into the blond vixen role; and David Murray, who ostensibly has coding chops and once worked at Google but just plays the typecasted gay guy trying to peddle a weight-loss app.
In the first episode, it is clear that what little hammed-up tension there is turns on the Hermione Way-Sarah Austin axis. Austin once had a fling with Ben Way, an incident his sister describes several times as 'unprofessional.'
The show's producers tap liberally into the overgrown-child-as-entrepreneur motif that might ring a bit too familiar to Valley denizens.
Crow is seen coding for long hours in his disheveled man-cave and downing liquor shots when he is let loose at night. The cast is seen heading to a crowded toga party, a familiar sight for, say, Facebook employees, who celebrated with a similar event in 2008.
Then there is the pitch meeting with angel investor Dave McClure, who met Hermione Way when he found her hungover and asleep under his conference table.
McClure gamely listens to a pitch from the Ways and promptly rejects them - but not before dispensing a pearl of startup-pitching wisdom that he likely conceived long before the cameras arrived: 'You don't need to sweep me off my feet. You just need to be a good kisser.'
Critics say they fear the show will makes startup life seem easy and glamorous while overlooking the endless grind and frequent failures that come before the success.
'The media wants to sell this story that you can come here, spend three days coding in your basement and then succeed overnight, but we learned the hard way it's not like that at all,' said Jonathan Chin, the founder of Gothamlist, an e-commerce site in San Francisco that has yet to take off.
Still, he acknowledged, the Bravo program is the talk of the town. 'Everybody's been talking about it, tweeting, sending Facebook messages.'
Zuckerberg, who is launching her own media company, Zuckerberg Media, this week, said the show accurately captures the experiences of her cast. She said she would continue to roll out 'nonfiction' TV productions in the Bay Area.
Zuckerberg sidestepped a question about what her friends and family thought of the show, saying only that no one close to her, including her husband or her brother Mark, have seen it yet.
'It's like doing a startup,' she said. 'At some point you just have to open up the alpha and let people see it.'
'IT'S TV'
At the show's premiere party on Sunday night in San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood, there were few Valley luminaries to be seen but plenty of young men in slim-cut suits and designer stubble and women in gauzy gowns and stilettos. They noshed on pizzas served on vinyl records and crispy cones of kampachi tartare that came perched in the holes of DVD discs - along with slabs of sushi served on iPads, an idea conceived by Zuckerberg's production team, said caterer Joshua Charles.
'The party seemed reminiscent of 1999,' said Brooke Hammerling, a veteran tech industry public-relations executive who is based in New York. 'None of those on the program, including Randi, were in the tech world in the first generation of the dot-com world, when we saw the lack of awareness of what was going on around us.'
Hammerling feared the women in the show would be portrayed as stereotypes, more concerned about fashion and socializing than the business of technology.
But Hermione Way made no apologies on Sunday night as she swept into the party clad in a glittery gold dress.
'It's TV. People want to look at glamorous people, so it was a balance of finding the tech and being entertaining enough to look at,' Way told Reuters.
'I'm a 27-year-old single girl,' she added. 'Do I like to party? Yeah. Do I like to look really f-ing hot? Yeah.'
Way said she was focused on bringing her fitness app and the hardware accessory to market.
And after that?
'World domination,' she replied without skipping a beat.
That, or 15 minutes of 'Bravo-lebrity,' at least.
(Reporting By Gerry Shih. Editing by Jonathan Weber and Douglas Royalty)
This article is brought to you by BUY A NEW COMPUTER.
Exclusive - Amazon to win EU e-book pricing tussle with Apple
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union regulators are to end an antitrust probe into e-book prices by accepting an offer by Apple and four publishers to ease price restrictions on Amazon, two sources said on Tuesday.
That decision would hand online retailer Amazon a victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than rivals in the fast-growing market publishers hope will boost revenue and increase customer numbers.
'Faced with years of court battles and uncertainty I can understand why some of these guys decided to fold their cards and take the whipping,' said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, an ebook publisher and distributor that works with Apple.
'It's certainly another win for Amazon,' he added. 'I have not seen the terms of the final settlement, but my initial reaction is that it places restrictions on what publishers can do, slowing them down just when they need to be more nimble.'
A spokesman at the EU Commission said its investigation was not yet finished. Amazon and Apple declined to comment.
In September, Apple and the publishers offered to let retailers set prices or discounts for a period of two years, and also to suspend 'most-favored nation' contracts for five years.
Such clauses bar Simon & Schuster, News Corp. unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, from making deals with rival retailers to sell e-books more cheaply than Apple.
The agreements, which critics say prevent Amazon and other retailers from undercutting Apple's charges, sparked an investigation by the European Commission in December last year.
Pearson Plc's Penguin group, which is also under investigation, did not take part in the offer.
The EU antitrust authority, which in September asked for feedback from rivals and consumers about the proposal, has not asked for more concessions, said one of sources.
'The Commission is likely to accept the offer and announce its decision next month,' the source said on Tuesday.
Antoine Colombani, spokesman for competition policy at the European Commission, said: 'We have launched a market test in September and our investigation is still ongoing.'
Amazon declined to comment, while Apple did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Companies found guilty of breaching EU rules could be fined up to 10 percent of their global sales, which in Apple's case could reach $15.6 billion, based on its 2012 fiscal year.
AGGREGATE PRICING
UBS analysts estimate that e-books account for about 30 percent of the U.S. book market and 20 percent of sales in Britain but are minuscule elsewhere. When Amazon launched its Kindle e-reader, it charged $9.99 per book.
Apple's agency model let publishers set prices in return for a 30 percent cut to the maker of iPhone and iPad.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating e-book prices. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette have settled, but Apple, Pengin Group and Macmillan have not.
The DOJ settlement required that retailers must at least break even selling all ebooks from a publisher's available list, according to Coker and Joe Wikert, general manager and publisher at O'Reilly Media Inc.
It was not clear if EU regulators will include a similar requirement, which would prohibit Amazon from pricing all ebooks at a loss, said Wikert, a former publishing executive.
In the United States, Amazon will likely price popular titles at a loss and try to make up the difference on a publisher's other ebooks, he said.
Coker said any such rule could be dangerous in Europe, which still has distinct markets.
'It could allow a single retailer to charge full price in a large market like the U.K., and then sell below cost or for free in multiple smaller markets as a strategy to kill regional ebook retailing upstarts before they take root,' Coker said.
FROWNING ON ONLINE TRADE CURBS
Antitrust regulators tend to frown on restrictions on online trade and the case is a good example, said Mark Tricker, a partner at Brussels-based law firm Norton Rose.
'This case shows the online world continues to be a major focus for the Commission,' he said.
'These markets change very quickly and if you don't stamp down on potential infringements of competition rules, you can have significant consequences.'
(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Rex Merrifield, David Goodman and David Gregorio)
This news article is brought to you by ECONOMY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
That decision would hand online retailer Amazon a victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than rivals in the fast-growing market publishers hope will boost revenue and increase customer numbers.
'Faced with years of court battles and uncertainty I can understand why some of these guys decided to fold their cards and take the whipping,' said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, an ebook publisher and distributor that works with Apple.
'It's certainly another win for Amazon,' he added. 'I have not seen the terms of the final settlement, but my initial reaction is that it places restrictions on what publishers can do, slowing them down just when they need to be more nimble.'
A spokesman at the EU Commission said its investigation was not yet finished. Amazon and Apple declined to comment.
In September, Apple and the publishers offered to let retailers set prices or discounts for a period of two years, and also to suspend 'most-favored nation' contracts for five years.
Such clauses bar Simon & Schuster, News Corp. unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, from making deals with rival retailers to sell e-books more cheaply than Apple.
The agreements, which critics say prevent Amazon and other retailers from undercutting Apple's charges, sparked an investigation by the European Commission in December last year.
Pearson Plc's Penguin group, which is also under investigation, did not take part in the offer.
The EU antitrust authority, which in September asked for feedback from rivals and consumers about the proposal, has not asked for more concessions, said one of sources.
'The Commission is likely to accept the offer and announce its decision next month,' the source said on Tuesday.
Antoine Colombani, spokesman for competition policy at the European Commission, said: 'We have launched a market test in September and our investigation is still ongoing.'
Amazon declined to comment, while Apple did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Companies found guilty of breaching EU rules could be fined up to 10 percent of their global sales, which in Apple's case could reach $15.6 billion, based on its 2012 fiscal year.
AGGREGATE PRICING
UBS analysts estimate that e-books account for about 30 percent of the U.S. book market and 20 percent of sales in Britain but are minuscule elsewhere. When Amazon launched its Kindle e-reader, it charged $9.99 per book.
Apple's agency model let publishers set prices in return for a 30 percent cut to the maker of iPhone and iPad.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating e-book prices. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette have settled, but Apple, Pengin Group and Macmillan have not.
The DOJ settlement required that retailers must at least break even selling all ebooks from a publisher's available list, according to Coker and Joe Wikert, general manager and publisher at O'Reilly Media Inc.
It was not clear if EU regulators will include a similar requirement, which would prohibit Amazon from pricing all ebooks at a loss, said Wikert, a former publishing executive.
In the United States, Amazon will likely price popular titles at a loss and try to make up the difference on a publisher's other ebooks, he said.
Coker said any such rule could be dangerous in Europe, which still has distinct markets.
'It could allow a single retailer to charge full price in a large market like the U.K., and then sell below cost or for free in multiple smaller markets as a strategy to kill regional ebook retailing upstarts before they take root,' Coker said.
FROWNING ON ONLINE TRADE CURBS
Antitrust regulators tend to frown on restrictions on online trade and the case is a good example, said Mark Tricker, a partner at Brussels-based law firm Norton Rose.
'This case shows the online world continues to be a major focus for the Commission,' he said.
'These markets change very quickly and if you don't stamp down on potential infringements of competition rules, you can have significant consequences.'
(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Rex Merrifield, David Goodman and David Gregorio)
This news article is brought to you by ECONOMY BLOG - where latest news are our top priority.
Exclusive - Amazon to win e-book tussle with Apple
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union regulators are to end an antitrust probe into e-book prices by accepting an offer by Apple and four publishers to ease price restrictions on Amazon, two sources said on Tuesday.
The decision hands online retailer Amazon victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than its rivals in the fast-growing market that publishers hope will boost revenue and increase customer numbers.
Apple and the publishers offered in September to let retailers set their own prices or discounts for a period of two years, and also to suspend 'most-favored nation' contracts for five years.
Such clauses bar Simon & Schuster, News Corp. unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, from making deals with rival retailers to sell e-books more cheaply than Apple.
The agreements, which critics say prevent Amazon and other retailers from undercutting Apple's charges, sparked an investigation by the European Commission in December last year.
Pearson Plc's Penguin group, which is also under investigation, did not take part in the offer.
The EU antitrust authority, which in September asked for feedback from rivals and consumers about the proposal, has not asked for more concessions, said one of sources.
'The Commission is likely to accept the offer and announce its decision next month,' the source said on Tuesday.
Antoine Colombani, spokesman for competition policy at the European Commission, said: 'We have launched a market test in September and our investigation is still ongoing.'
Amazon declined to comment, while Apple did not respond to an email for comments.
Companies found guilty of breaching EU rules could be fined up to 10 percent of their global sales, which in Apple's case could reach $15.6 billion, based on its 2012 fiscal year.
FROWNING ON ONLINE TRADE CURBS
Antitrust regulators tend to frown on restrictions on online trade and the case is a good example of this policy, said Mark Tricker, a partner at Brussels-based law firm Norton Rose.
'This case shows the online world continues to be a major focus for the Commission. They are looking at lots of different aspects of e-commerce, as this can have such a significant impact on consumers, development and innovation,' he said.
'These markets change very quickly and if you don't stamp down on potential infringements of competition rules, you can have significant consequences.'
UBS analysts estimate that e-books account for about 30 percent of the U.S. book market and 20 percent of sales in Britain but are minuscule elsewhere. Amazon created demand for e-books when it launched its e-Kindle reader, charging $9.99 for each book.
Apple's agency model let publishers set prices in return for a 30 percent cut to the maker of iPhone and iPad.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating e-book prices. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette recently settled, but Apple, Penguin Group and Macmillan continue to fight the allegations.
(Editing by Rex Merrifield and David Goodman)
This news article is brought to you by PARENTING KIDS - where latest news are our top priority.
The decision hands online retailer Amazon victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than its rivals in the fast-growing market that publishers hope will boost revenue and increase customer numbers.
Apple and the publishers offered in September to let retailers set their own prices or discounts for a period of two years, and also to suspend 'most-favored nation' contracts for five years.
Such clauses bar Simon & Schuster, News Corp. unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, from making deals with rival retailers to sell e-books more cheaply than Apple.
The agreements, which critics say prevent Amazon and other retailers from undercutting Apple's charges, sparked an investigation by the European Commission in December last year.
Pearson Plc's Penguin group, which is also under investigation, did not take part in the offer.
The EU antitrust authority, which in September asked for feedback from rivals and consumers about the proposal, has not asked for more concessions, said one of sources.
'The Commission is likely to accept the offer and announce its decision next month,' the source said on Tuesday.
Antoine Colombani, spokesman for competition policy at the European Commission, said: 'We have launched a market test in September and our investigation is still ongoing.'
Amazon declined to comment, while Apple did not respond to an email for comments.
Companies found guilty of breaching EU rules could be fined up to 10 percent of their global sales, which in Apple's case could reach $15.6 billion, based on its 2012 fiscal year.
FROWNING ON ONLINE TRADE CURBS
Antitrust regulators tend to frown on restrictions on online trade and the case is a good example of this policy, said Mark Tricker, a partner at Brussels-based law firm Norton Rose.
'This case shows the online world continues to be a major focus for the Commission. They are looking at lots of different aspects of e-commerce, as this can have such a significant impact on consumers, development and innovation,' he said.
'These markets change very quickly and if you don't stamp down on potential infringements of competition rules, you can have significant consequences.'
UBS analysts estimate that e-books account for about 30 percent of the U.S. book market and 20 percent of sales in Britain but are minuscule elsewhere. Amazon created demand for e-books when it launched its e-Kindle reader, charging $9.99 for each book.
Apple's agency model let publishers set prices in return for a 30 percent cut to the maker of iPhone and iPad.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating e-book prices. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette recently settled, but Apple, Penguin Group and Macmillan continue to fight the allegations.
(Editing by Rex Merrifield and David Goodman)
This news article is brought to you by PARENTING KIDS - where latest news are our top priority.
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