Egypt's president to visit US next month

CAIRO ? ?Egypt's Islamist president will visit the United States next month, an aide said Wednesday. The visit could serve as a step toward cementing Egypt's longtime alliance with the U.S.

It will be Mohammed Morsi's first trip to the U.S. since taking office June 30 but not his first American experience. He received a doctorate in engineering from the University of Southern California in 1982.

Moving to reshape the former regime's foreign policy, which many Egyptians see as too pro-Western, Morsi chose to visit Saudi Arabia as his first trip outside the country as president, followed by a visit to Ethiopia. He is also planning a trip to China and Iran.

Presidential spokesman Yasser Ali told reporters that Morsi's three-day visit to the U.S. will begin Sept. 23. It will include stops in Washington and New York, where he will attend the U.N. General Assembly session.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest would not say Wednesday whether President Barack Obama will meet Morsi.

The Brotherhood has been trying to counter concerns in Washington, sending delegations to the U.S. to argue that it is a moderate Islamist group with no anti-American agenda.

U.S. officials recently pledged additional foreign aid to Egypt, a gesture toward maintaining close ties.

The U.S. has been giving Egypt about $1 billion a year in military aid for more than three decades.

China's Foreign Ministry said Morsi would make a state visit there Aug. 28-30. China is a key potential partner for trade and aid. From there Morsi travels to Iran.

Morsi's trip to Iran, where he will attend the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, will be the first by an Egyptian president in decades. After Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, Tehran distanced itself from Egypt over its close ties with the U.S. and its peace treaty with Israel.

For years, Iran and Egypt have had low-level diplomatic representations, handling contacts through interest sections.

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/565lPSwAyUU/

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Video: Cholera epidemic sweeping through West Africa

Last week Sierra Leone declared a national emergency following a cholera epidemic that has killed at least 176 people since January. The water-borne disease is also sweeping through neighbouring Guinea and has been recorded in other countries in West Africa. Duration: 01:22 ???Less

Source: http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/playlist/8178/3717222?cpt=8&wpid=208

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Marketing Is DEAD! - Especially In Real Estate

Rest In Peace

I was reading an article the other day, titled ?Marketing Is Dead?. It wasn?t emailed to me, it wasn?t in a newsletter, door hanger, postcard or flyer in fact ? it wasn?t even in print. I found it ? on Twitter. At first when I saw the title I chuckled to myself and thought ?OK, what idiot said that!? Of COURSE marketing is not dead!? . After all, I am in marketing ? and if you are in real estate sales ? you are as well.

I started reading the article just waiting to poke holes in what the author ? Bill Lee ? said.

1st paragraph:

?Traditional marketing ? including advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications ? is dead. Many people in traditional marketing roles and organizations may not realize they?re operating within a dead paradigm?

I thought ?ha ha, this dude is smoking something! What an IDIOT!?

2nd paragraph:

First, buyers are no longer paying much attention. Several studies have confirmed that in the ?buyer?s decision journey,? traditional marketing communications just aren?t relevant. Buyers are checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, and often from sources outside the firm such as word-of-mouth or customer reviews.

Oh crap. This guy might be on to something. I had just bought something on Amazon ? after reading the consumer reviews OF COURSE! I kept reading.

4th paragraph

Third, in today?s increasingly social media-infused environment, traditional marketing and sales not only doesn?t work so well, it doesn?t make sense. Think about it: an organization hires people ? employees, agencies, consultants, partners ? who don?t come from the buyer?s world and whose interests aren?t necessarily aligned with his, and expects them to persuade the buyer to spend his hard-earned money on something. Huh? When you try to extend traditional marketing logic into the world of social media, it simply doesn?t work. Just ask Facebook, which finds itself mired in an ongoing debate about whether marketing on Facebook is effective.

The kicker:

?traditional marketing isn?t really working anywhere?

Consumer Behavior

I saw this in my own behavior. I knew it was certainly true in the world of real estate sales. Consumers don?t want to be SOLD to anymore. Sold ? on TV, Radio, Postcards, Flyers, Billboards, Bus Stop Ads, Yellow Pages, Print real estate books, Cold Calls, Banner Ads, Branded Coffee Mugs, Pens, Pads, sports schedules, magnetized calendars, wrapped Hummers and on and on and on. I had LONG ago tuned that ?stuff? out. I knew from my own experience that I was not looking in my mailbox, TV, Radio when I had a need. I was, as Bill Lee pointed out ? turning to the Internet. So is your ideal client .

Bill?s assertion ?Marketing Is Dead?, may not apply to all industries but I believe it certainly does to real estate. One of the reasons: The product. One of the 4 p?s in the marketing bible. PRODUCT, PLACE, PRICE, PROMOTION. The product, regardless of what anyone has told you ? is not you {at least not initially}, it?s the home. It?s the knowledge you possess. This is what consumers are looking for when they, like 98% of consumers, ?turn to the Internet. Yet most real estate agents marketing, really ADVERTISING,?IS ALL ABOUT THEM. ?Top Producer, Presidents Circle, Top 10% REALTORS etc?. Think about it as if you were buying a car. Are you looking for the car or the salesperson to sell it to you? I bet you are researching the car: colors, MPG, style, trim, models, interior, # of airbags, towing capacity, safety features, price, dealer incentives ?etc. Even IF you stumbled upon a sales person while researching the car, you would likely be turned off by the salesperson talking about how AWESOME he THINKS he/she is.

A problem

Many real estate agents are not marketing on the internet, not effectively anyway ? most have template, flash based real estate websites with the same canned content as 100?s or even 1000?s of other real estate agents {in their area} and ?a glamour shot {arms crossed, leaning on a SOLD sign} that was never meant to be found online. Most real estate agents are still marketing to consumers in ways they clearly do not respond well to. Add to that the demographic of age: the average homebuyer is 26, average REALTOR? ? FIFTY SEVEN. HOUSTON: We Have A Problem.

Traditional Real Estate Marketing

Before the Internet was mainstream in the real estate space, all a real estate agent needed to be an effective marketer was money. Money to create postcards, flyers, yellow page ads, sports schedules, sponsored grocery carts etc. The numbers were there. I knew REALTORS? that could tell me: ?If I send a 5,000 piece mailer, it will result in 10 listings?. That was before. Now direct mail campaigns are often cost prohibitive and offer little return for most agents that don?t understand WHO their ideal client is and what problems they face. One reason: Consumer behavior has shifted to the Internet.

To make matters worse, consumers often can not tell where one real estate agent or brokerage ends and another begins. Many of them all said they were the BEST. Many of them said they sold more homes that their competition, many of them offered a FREE CMA, many of them allowed consumers to ?search the MLS like a REALTOR?!?. These ?vanilla? or canned messages lent themselves to the commoditization of the REALTOR?. ?If they are all the same, if they can all allow me to search the MLS, why not choose the first one I find??

New Marketing

New marketing in the real estate space relies on real estate agents providing value. Not necessarily??Why you should choose me? {that?s selling} but, creating content a consumer would look for when they have a need. Content is: blog posts, videos, charts, graphs, screencasts, downloadable PDF?s, Market charts, Pod Casts, IDX and more. Not: best agent in Phoenix, #1 team in Maricopa County, Best real estate brokerage ? consumers could care less about that. No, I?m talking about value: How to avoid foreclosure, buying a home at trustee sale, how to sell your home, neighborhood profiles, 5 things NOT to do when buying a short sale, Foreclosure timeline in Arizona, Homes For Sale and so on. Content that is geared towards making a consumer SMARTER or making their lives ? EASIER. Content that offers HELP. Homes for sale. Content they are looking for ? right now.

Takeaway

Your real estate marketing needs to change in response to a shift in consumer behavior. Your ideal client is looking on the Internet for you even though ? they don?t know you exist. Many don?t even care WHO they work with. You can grow your real estate business by helping them find yon online, by creating the content they are looking for. If you are a real estate agent in Phoenix, Grand Canyon Title can help. We will teach you HOW to get found online. Our series of real estate marketing classes focus on the HOW TO. Because we do it as well. WordPress, Content Creation, Video, Basics Of SEO, PPC, Screencast, Indexable IDX, Twitter, facebook, Pinterest and how to tie them all together to drive traffic {consumers} to your website.

So, I AM RELIEVED. If marketing is dead, I don?t have to worry about it. Whew! But ? what about you???

Stephen

Hi I'm Stephen Garner, I'm just a guy in the title industry {in Phoenix} trying to change how real estate agents market themselves and their services. To that end, I teach my clients HOW TO leverage sales technologies like WordPress, Content, Video, Camtasia, Final Cut X, iMovie and indexable IDX solutions to convey value and help your ideal client find you online when they are most interested in learning about you and your services. I work for escrows. Hire me!

More Posts

Source: http://mytitleguy.com/2012/08/marketing-is-dead-especially-in-real-estate/

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The iEconomy: New Wave of Deft Robots Is Changing Global Industry

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A new wave of robots is replacing workers in both manufacturing and distribution.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=5861b5e3f6b66da6ca12beab1e5d8729

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KickStart Fitness and Nutrition: Appetite vs. Taste Preference

We all have big appetites. This is why most diets don't work for most people - either in the short term or long term.

Many of Americans are raised in a culture that is designed around processed, high sugary and salty foods. The human body was not designed to eat this kind of food. Our culture in the last 60 years or so has completely changed the way human beings get their nutrition.

Remember: our species, homo sapiens, has been in existence for almost 200,000 years. For all this time, we have been eating food that comes from either plants or animals. Very little processing. It was not? until the last half century that processed foods and baked goods loaded with preservatives, additives and pesticides/herbicides has come into our diets. The last couple of generations in the American culture have been accustomed to consuming foods high in saturated fats, added sugars and high sodium content.

I know I probably sound like I'm in favor of some fad diet, but the fact is I'm not into ANY diets. I'm interested in eating what my body was designed to digest. And while the occasional cookie or fast food burger comes my way, I am a strong believer in eating clean, whole foods 99% of the time.

I found that eating this way - the way we were designed to eat before processed food - allows for optimal health, less illness during the year (I'm a schoolteacher- and I haven't had a cold in over 3 years), better skin and hair strength, fat loss and muscle growth.

This is not an easy change for our culture, and I understand that. The idea is to focus on changing not your Appetite, but your Taste Preferences. You can eat up - especially with lots of veggies- and still lose fat. Believe it or not, you can lose weight by never going hungry. It's all a matter of changing your taste preferences.

Some tips to eating a lot, but still lose fat mass and gain muscle:

?- drink water all day long - keep a water bottle full and in hand

- eat every 2-4 hours

- eat a lean protein with veggies and a complex carb :

- Some quick ideas for stubborn appetites that won't make you gain weight:

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > Try raw veggie sticks (carrots, celery) with 0% fat free plain Greek Yogurt
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > Mixed fruit with 0% fat free plain Greek Yogurt
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > Cottage cheese with fruit, sprinkled with cinnamon
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > Air popped popcorn and seltzer water
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > Shirataki Zero Calorie noodles with steamed mixed veggies
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > Raw, unsalted mixed nuts (almonds, pistachio, walnuts) with veggies

- ...still hungry? Try another servings of veggies - raw or steamed. Vegetables are a "freeby" food when it comes to eating, so no matter how hungry you are - Eat Up! Vegetables are fibrous, and therefore will fill you up longer.

As I said before, fat loss is not a matter of suppressing your appetite. It's a matter of suppressing and controlling your taste preferences - overcome that, and you overcome your weight and health problems.

Source: http://www.kickstartfitnessnutrition.com/2012/08/appetite-vs-taste-preference.html

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Spacewalker tosses out real-life 'Spaceball'

Two Russian cosmonauts merged orbital construction with zero-gravity sports in a spacewalk on Monday when they moved a space station crane and ? with a mighty throw ? tossed a big steel ball into orbit.

Veteran spacewalkers Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko spent nearly six hours working outside the International Space Station to upgrade the orbiting lab during Monday's spacewalk, which began at 11:37 a.m. ET.

The spacewalk's main goal was to move the space station's Strela 2 crane from the Russian-built Pirs docking module to the station's Zarya control module. To move the Strela 2, Padalka rode at the end of different crane, and took time to enjoy a fabulous view of the Earth far below.

"It's light now ? beautiful," Padalka, the station commander, said in Russian, which was translated in a NASA broadcast. "Wow, what a beautiful view." Video from Padalka's helmet camera showed a bright blue Earth lined with white clouds below the space station. [More photos from the spacewalk]

The Strela 2 crane is an oversized, hand-operated telescoping pole that is used to move cargo outside the station. The crane needed to be moved because the Pirs module will be jettisoned next year to make way for a new Russian space laboratory module, NASA officials said.

Padalka and Malenchenko got off to a late start on the job due to a leaky valve on the space station's Russian side, but swiftly made up for lost time by skipping rest breaks. By the end, the veteran spacewalkers were more than an hour ahead of schedule.

After moving the Strela-2 crane, Padalka tossed the 20-pound (9-kilogram) Spherical Satellite into orbit as part of a Russian space tracking experiment.

The 21-inch-wide (53-centimeter) ball is essentially a target in space that Russian scientists will use to test techniques for monitoring space junk and following its atmospheric re-entry. The ball is expected to stay in orbit for about three months before falling back to Earth, NASA officials said.

Cameras mounted to the hull of the station beamed back amazing views of Padalka's throw, which was aimed to send the satellite below and behind the station so it won't threaten to hit the orbiting lab in the future.

"Beautiful! Do you see it?" Padalka exclaimed as the shiny satellite floated away. "And you can see the sun as it reflected ? it is absolutely gorgeous."

1. Space news from NBCNews.com

   1. Mars rover sets its sights on a summit

      Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: NASA's Curiosity rover has sent back its sharpest image of the 3-mile-high mountain it will climb on Mars.

   2. Curiosity shoots Martian rock with laser
   3. Like NASA rover, family switches over to Mars time
   4. Russian PM: Space agency overhaul by September

Padalka and Malenchenko also completed a long list of other tasks outside the station. They attached new debris shields to the hull of the station's Russian segment, added support struts to an airlock ladder and retrieved a biological sample canister. The cosmonauts were unable to collect a material exposure experiment from the station exterior due to a stuck hinge that prevented it from folding closed, NASA officials said.

While Padalka and Malenchenko worked outside, 5h3 four other members of the space station's Expedition 32 crew remained inside the orbiting lab. The station's current crew is made up of three Russians (Padalka, Malenchenko and Sergei Revin), American astronauts Joe Acaba and Sunita Williams, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

Monday's spacewalk was the first of two excursions by the station's crew this month. William and Hoshide will venture outside the station on Aug. 30 to perform the second spacewalk.

The spacewalk was the 163rd spacewalk dedicated to space station construction or maintenance since construction of the outpost began in 1998. It marked the ninth spacewalk for Padalka and the fifth for Malenchenko. The cosmonauts made sure to take time to snap extra photos of each other before wrapping up their work in space.

You can follow Space.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik and Space.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

? 2012 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48725577/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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IAC?s CityGrid Media Buys Yext?s Pay-Per-Call Ad Business Felix For Around $30M

IAC's Citygrid Media has bought Felix, a pay-per-call ad business from Yext, a service that helps businesses synchronize their listings across the Web. We hear the acquisition price was around $30 million. Yext originally launched at the TechCrunch50 conference in 2009 as a pay-per-call advertising service. Earlier this year, Yext shifted its focus from this service to a new product called PowerListings. The company then spun off the pay-per-call part of the company into a wholly-owned subsidiary called Felix.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QyeKh4hfhzs/

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