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About a year ago Code Climate announced its Velocity offering which provides engineering insights. Today they are taking the wraps off Version 2.0 for everyone. Existing customers have already had access to many of the new features. I am writing about this today because the whole history of the Velocity offering is illustrative of the right way to launch a new product even when you are a company that already has a mature offering (Code Climate Quality).
Many organizations once they have a mature product fall into a trap. They can’t release something new because they can’t reset the dial to behaving like a startup. Instead of going out with an MVP and learning from customers they want to release something that matches the maturity of their other offerings. They often wind up not shipping at all or after a new startup has already come in and taken the field.
Code Climate did a terrific job avoiding this trap. Their initial release of Velocity was intentionally minimal in the best sense of the word (think first iPhone). It was no frills but provided meaningful value and many customers adopted it. The subsequent feature development has been guided by the needs of these customers culminating in today's release.
If you are looking to enable your engineering team and processes with better insights and analytics, go and check out all the goodness that is now part of Code Climate Velocity 2.0.
Ten-thousand better decisions: Building a network around "network effects"
There are a million decisions that go into the process of building a company. By surfacing perspectives from 75 companies in our portfolio network, we hope to create tools that help people within each company answer even a fraction of these. Added up across this 10,000-person community, if everyone is enabled to make one better call, then this might lead to 10,000 better decisions than before.
When starting a business, the founding team must decide early on what to create, who it's for, and how to build it. Following that, a new set of decisions emerges, including choices like how to launch, who to hire, and how much money to raise. And so, the process repeats itself.
Albert Wenger, one of our partners at USV, likes to refer to this "leveling up" process like beating a new level in a video game. With each new level or phase of growth in a startup, you'll need to use the skills you've already mastered plus an added new challenge. By the time you're a 100-person, Series C company, the number of questions asked (and the sheer number of people deciding things) may have increased by a factor of 10.
Admittedly, the role of an executive team also becomes infinitely more complex along the way.
It's likely that there are people on the executive team who are going through the process of company-building for the first time, and making decisions might seem scary. Part of why it can be helpful to have a board of entrepreneurs, VCs, and advisors is because these people can offer insights, observations, and pattern recognition that you may never be able to see from your vantage point. And certainly, by taking board seats on many of the deals we see at USV, we strive to stick close to our entrepreneurs throughout each step of this process to do just that.
How should we design behavioral interview questions for our candidate process?
Should we migrate our system architecture to microservices?
What PR firm should we work with to announce our Series C?
Should the engineers sit next to the sales team, or on a different floor?
Would a rebrand make it easier for us to launch internationally?
Would this strategic partnership help us meet our OKRs this quarter?
No matter where you sit inside of an organization, you likely have some decision-making power.
Maybe you manage the office pantry and decide what type of food and snacks will give your colleagues the most energy to go about their days. Maybe you run IT and help prevent cyber-attacks or data breaches by educating your colleagues about safety best practices. Maybe you run your events marketing strategy and research the best conferences where you might set up a booth on the trade show floor to generate the highest quality leads for the sales team.
The single weight of any one decision may be quite small, (See: "Should we have both breakfast and lunch snacks in our fridge?") but the outcome of each choice matters. Over time, each "good call" contributes to an additive effect of a stronger, better company. And this is how we've designed the peer-to-peer effects of learning across the USV portfolio network. We want to empower everyone to make the best decisions possible by surfacing as many different perspectives as we can.
Rather than expect 1 person at the top to make the “right” call 100 times in a row, we've designed the USV Network around a second possibility: Can we help 100 people each make one slightly better decision than before?
In aggregate, by encouraging cross-pollination of ideas and experiences through all of the talented people across our portfolio, we believe we can leverage our network to serve as a resource to help all employees learn and grow.
In other words, when looking across our entire startup portfolio, we might ask: Can we help 10,000 people across 75 different companies to each make one better decision?
Each year, there are more than 150 touchpoints for people across this network to come together and share "lessons learned" at various in-person and remote events. Outside experts join us from time to time to time, bringing outside perspectives about management, leadership, or other common questions that arise. And dozens of people have stepped up to lead their own programming or even share back advice in one-on-one interactions with peers. In the end, we hope that by regularly convening people with similar functional roles across different companies, we might introduce new possibilities, solutions, and ideas -- one person at a time.
So, can the USV Network help make 10,000 better decisions? It'll be impossible to know for sure. But we're certainly going to try.
If the last decade has been a time of digital abundance--more followers, more “friends,” more apps--2019 looks to be the year of paring down. 2018 saw the first significant decline in time spent on site for Facebook. Users are deleting the app and replacing it with tools to track screen time. But our desire to find community and connection, and to leverage technology to do so in more effective and efficient ways, hasn’t changed. As a result, the coming years will likely be a time of renewed opportunity in new forms of social systems, the kind that has been difficult to come by during the major platforms’ ascension and dominance.
This is not to say the incumbent platforms are going anywhere anytime soon. But there is likely to be a splintering significant enough to create new startup entrants with the chance to own consumer needs.
Privacy and security. While events like Cambridge Analytica have drawn increased awareness to both the massive sets of data platforms like Facebook hold and the relative ease with which they can land in the wrong hands (let alone what the platforms can and likely will do with it themselves), privacy is still probably the lesser of the two core reasons for the degrading engagement. Increased privacy breaches that hit close to home for users will likely further point out that these platforms have created scale but not deep user trust--and emphasize the need to builded trusted brands to create true longevity. But, for now, its impact is probably lesser than that of reason #2.
Users are no longer getting what they want (or as much of it.) The dominant platforms began with promises of curated communities, but have left us with crafted personas of what we want the entire world to see and a loose web of paper-thin connections. In the case of Facebook, this meant starting first with schools, then geographies, with real identities, initially verified with university addresses. But with an advertising-based model predicated on scale, success meant breadth so their purpose evolved to connecting everyone on the planet. They’ve accomplished this mission with billions of active users. However, the mandate of scale has made that initial premise of community on platforms harder to achieve. A decade plus in, this kind of broad connectivity is starting to seem more addictive but less fulfilling than many originally thought. Users are uber-in the know but feel emotionally disconnected. Lasting consumer businesses have to fulfill some set of human drivers and desires that, despite rapid innovation & technological change, basically remain the same--belonging, connection, curiosity. When they aren't being fulfilled, the products we use change, not the desires.
The next wave of social systems will likely emphasize breadth and depth differently than the last--and may not look much like social networks at all. With the current networks, the horizontal nature of the platform is the product. Users come for the community. But it may be that with the next, the community is what keeps users long term engaged but is formed around another intent. Come for an action, stay for the community.
Users share a common interest or objective (beyond connectivity.) Gaming is the vertical furthest ahead on these kind of new social systems and platforms like Twitch and Discord, in addition to certain games themselves like Fortnite, serve as great examples. Users come to watch a game, but stay to keep debating and discussing with a community of other gamers. Other verticals are earlier but show the same behavior. ShopShops* users sign on to watch livestreams of hosts shopping in retail stores and markets around the world, and to buy in real time. But, while they do, they wind up messaging with each other--responding to questions, sharing thoughts on the items, even splitting purchases (once a shopper only wanted one earring in a pair and another on the livestream happily took the other.) They come back as much to re-engage with the community as they do to find what they want to buy next.
Users have skin in the game--they’ve in some way transacted or are on path to transact. This definition of transaction is broad--they purchase something, subscribe to something, or actionably engage with the brand before entering this group. This creates a deeper level of buy-in and, in effect, creates a “closed” community. There’s a lot of this behavior currently going on across platforms with the community building on Facebook and the transacting happening elsewhere. Duolingo’s* users connect in Facebook groups organized by the specific language they are learning to get extra practice, ask for help around tricky language rules, and share jokes. Embark, which sells an at home DNA test for dogs, has thousands of customers aggregating on Facebook to post photos and guess the outcomes of pending results. Owners with similar breeds connect with excitement, sharing tips. Increasingly, this community piece will be built into the platforms themselves rather than existing externally.
Users in the best communities go through a transition from the specific to the broad. While users may join the network with a particular question or straight from a purchase, the best ones will expand the scope of the applicable quickly once the common ground has been developed. Dia & Co’s* most passionate customers, for example, aggregate in a group where they share best finds from their wardrobes but also ask for career advice and even plan vacations with women they only know through a mutual love of Dia. Glossier has the Into the Gloss community where passionate beauty enthusiasts come--first to talk about their favorite products (Glossier and otherwise), but then to go back and forth on travel tips and best self care post pregnancy.
Multimodal business models--the best of these new networks will, over time, develop multimodal models that both take into account aggregated audiences as well as the services and products uniting them. Connie Chan at a16z wrote a great post on what we can learn from China about what some of these might look like. For the best ones, a multifaceted model that aligns business and customer combined with a platform that promotes transparency and depth of interaction will create a new level of defensiblity and stickiness.
If you are working on a business involving this new evolution of community, I’d love to learn more.
Differentiated user experiences are a cornerstone of the defensible businesses that USV has invested in for over 10 years. In the most recent articulation of our thesis - 3.0 - we also stressed experiences and trusted brands that expand access to, for example, knowledge. Trusted services are those that have business models that better align the interests of businesses and their customers.
What would such an experience and aligned business model look like in the world of online publishing, that to date feels like it has replicated the offline model in a way that is cumbersome and decreases consumer value through clunky and increasingly invasive experiences? One that was resolutely consumer first by being clean, fast, and safe. One that wouldn't require users to change how they access content in order to benefit from the experience. And one that did not use a paywall.
Scroll is a consumer and publisher service that satisfies these criteria by providing frictionless access to content by removing all ads and ancillary content, making pages clean and fast. It is no surprise that a specific user experience was the focal entry point for this company - the founding team’s background includes Chartbeat, Foursquare, Spotify and Google (some of those companies we have previously founded and backed). USV is excited to be leading Scroll’s Series A financing, announced today, and joined by Samsung Next, Bertelsmann, Gannett, Axel Springer, The New York Times and Uncork Capital.
Scroll is a vastly better way to read or watch, across multiple channels - an open platform that puts consumers in control by offering bundled access (for $4.99 a month) to ad-free and mobile-friendly experiences on content sites around the world. When you visit a Scroll partner, that site automatically delivers an experience with no interruptive ads, pre-rolls, or links to baldness cures at the bottom of articles. Users control their own data through an API, and they can decide what they want to do with it - from requesting their data be anonymized to sharing their history with other services. Using mobile apps like Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn or Facebook or just reading in Chrome, Scroll seamlessly syncs content across devices and is format-agnostic. One can start reading an article on a laptop, continue on a phone on the subway, and then finish as an audio story in a car.
Dozens of publishers are currently part of the network, including Buzzfeed, Vox Media, MSNBC, Business Insider, The Atlantic, Slate, Fusion Media Group, The Daily Beast and more. We believe this model empowers, not disintermediates, publishers by giving them an important choice in addition to their ad-supported business. As important, publishers using Scroll will make more money than using an ad-only model.
Now, more than ever, we need an Internet that feels built for us and a free press able to thrive. Scroll firmly believes in this vision, and USV does too.
Today we’re excited to announce the launch of our new USV Talent Network.
Our USV Network is a startup community of more than 9,000 employees across 75 companies all over the world. Each company leverages network effects to build stronger businesses and broaden access in differentiated ways.
We operate our portfolio network in a similar way and support every employee in finding access to the people, information, and resources they need to do their jobs better. Because this collective knowledge base increases as our portfolio grows in size, working for a USV company broadens your network each time we make a new investment.
This initiative is the first time we are deliberately seeking to expand the reach of our USV community beyond our current portfolio. We hope to extend our collective footprint even further -- to seek out candidates our companies may want to hire, to identify best-in-class leaders who would like to be a part of our community, and to invite alumni (people who used to work at USV network companies) back into the fold.
Built in partnership with Monday.vc, once you’re accepted to this network, you can request introductions to companies across the USV Network when you see jobs that interest you. Even if there aren’t any current job openings that fit your criteria, you’ll be able to signal your preferences and receive notifications when new roles open up in the future.
If you are interested in working for one of our portfolio companies (either now or sometime in the future), we invite you to apply to join our extended talent community. Over time, we’ll surface interesting jobs to you and invite you to engage with our current portfolio by sharing your expertise or joining us at events. Part of the benefit of being in the USV Talent Network is the ability to connect with the companies directly instead of having to compete with every other person applying to a job.
Throughout the year, the USV Network facilitates more than 150 events (both in-person and digital) to bring together peers in similar domains at different companies and encourage cross-company learning opportunities.
It can be scary to join an early-stage startup. There’s a lot of inherent risk through the discovery process of identifying product-market fit and dozens of complications along the road to scaling a business. If you’re the joining a company sub-50 employees, it’s likely that you’re the only one at that organization in your functional domain area. That feeling can be pretty lonely.
When you get a job in the USV Network, you’re not just joining a company; you’re joining a community. If you’d like to be a part of this community now or sometime in the future, we invite you to join us today and apply here.
Recent conversations around healthcare have surfaced words like “crisis” and “collapse”. Besides being confused by the existing system, 20% of Americans can no longer afford basic healthcare (including their insurance premiums), leading to a higher number of people who are uninsured or underinsured. Now, unbundling is enabling a wave of new business models as the healthcare system shifts towards more virtual, independent, local points of care (an idea introduced to us by Dave Chase in his book, “The Opioid Crisis Wakeup Call”).
These new approaches generally fall into one of two buckets: change of infrastructure (who pays, when they pay, how they pay) and change of venue (from in person to online). The emerging business models tend to be much simpler and instead of operating in bundled networks, there is an increase in independent clinics and care delivered through mobile phones.
Four novel models of care are emerging: direct to consumer, direct to employer, value-based, and group cost-sharing for catastrophic events. Recently, we’ve been looking at this first category, however, they could all broaden access with the advent of unbundled health services.
Direct primary care practices are opening up independently of a hospital network or insurance company. In this model, each physician operates as a separate entity and can decide how to charge their patients. Many, such as Unorthodoc and Gold Direct Care, seem to be using a subscription model and some practices use different tiers of pricing depending on the level of care that a person needs (usually around $30 to $120 per month). Another example, SparkMD, offers custom packages including family rates, house visits, and telemedicine.
While well-loved concierge practice One Medical prices their membership package at a premium (~$150 per year on top of the cost of care), DPC clinics generally hustle, trying to provide affordable options wherever possible. They broaden access. The subscription model for primary care (Healthcare as a Service, or HaaS), whether in person or virtually, aligns incentives more naturally between the patient and provider.
If each primary care physician - which many view as the center of healthcare - operates an independent practice and is able to communicate with local specialists to find the best price for their patients, then smaller microeconomics could start to form in each city or town that allows patients to make decisions with full price transparency. In today's more centralized model, physicians that are part of larger network tend to refer patients to facilities in-house even if they are more expensive.
Instead of decentralizing healthcare to local neighborhoods, the system can be broken down to a different unit: employers. Today, employer-based healthcare tends to prioritize convenience over affordability. However, with more unbundled services and specialists, what if every employer had its own system for patient care and external referrals? Euphora, Paladina, and Apostrophe are examples of companies enabling this model. In the case of the latter, in particular, by replacing third party administrators for self-insured employers and saving employers money in the process. Elation proposes that employees are more likely to seek out preventative healthcare - and thereby lower downstream costs - through an on-site clinic.
Employers are one of the most incentivized players to keep healthcare costs low and employees healthy. If primary care operated in-house, employers would manage the workflow and payments through a platform like Eden, for example. More interestingly, this can be extended beyond unbundled primary care. Sano Surgery offers self-insured employers access to medical professionals in 13 specialty verticals and even allows them to pre-purchase medical services, which fundamentally changes payment dynamics.
Employer-based healthcare doesn’t necessarily solve the ‘access to healthcare’ problem because employer-based insurance covers only 56% of the US population today. This begs the question, should companies (or even, can companies), in addition to their mission, be focused on healthcare as well?
In value-based care, payment is based on health outcomes for entire episodes of care rather than solely on initial treatment plans. This is straightforward for commoditized parts of healthcare, such as a routine surgery, where a la carte pricing works. A great example of a simple business model is the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, where patients know prices and pay up front for each “episode”. The SCO website lists medical surgeries as food would be listed on a menu. As patients continue to visit from in and out of state, their goal is that more centers and practices will adopt this practice, making the back-and-forth with insurance companies obsolete.
Thinking about long-term illnesses - for example, diabetes management, cancer, or asthma - becomes more complicated. For an independent specialty clinic like Pure Cardiology, value-based care might require making a plan and having the patient pay when specific milestones are reached. While this solution could result in delayed payments for doctors, they can ensure that incentives are aligned for both short-term and long-term episodes of care.
Medical cost-sharing groups, where people pay to support others in their community, are appearing more often. Medishare, Sedera and Liberty HealthShare are examples of cost-sharing within local communities, neighbors if you will, that combine a non-medical community - either geographic or religious - with their medical insurance for both routine health issues and catastrophic events. In some instances, these groups may appear closer to non-profits than large insurance companies: Liberty HealthShare’s decision guide emphasizes that they are not “insurance”, and are incentivized to work towards decreasing the healthcare burden on the whole group. Still, for-profit innovation is occurring on the insurance side.
Many companies are working towards a future with at-home testing, processing prescriptions with one tap on your phone, and virtual appointments (including USV portfolio companies Modern Fertility and Nurx). More fundamentally, there could be a subscription option for primary care for those that only interact with their doctors by mobile phone unless otherwise necessary. Companies like Sherpaa and Nurx are changing the venues of care to text-based conversations, at-home testing, and remote monitoring. Asynchronous, structured data collection thrives in a decentralized model of healthcare because it is cheaper and time efficient, allowing each doctor to help more patients and decrease the points of friction in getting care.
A pure VPC model eliminates fixed costs associated with brick and mortar expansion and is able to focus resources on reaching more patients, recruiting more doctors to their platform, and improving the experience for current patients. Payments on a subscription basis allow doctors to get paid more consistently rather than waiting for insurance companies to process claims and paying overhead costs to negotiate reimbursements with their billing offices.
Mobile, pop-up clinics in different healthcare verticals (from urgent care to specialized medicine) are also growing. An open question regarding broadening access is whether this model is scalable to all parts of the country, or whether it perhaps favors population dense cities. Two examples in women’s health are Kind Body and AskTia. Women can go for a regular checkup or with specific questions related to fertility, IUDs, etc, and receive a highly specialized experience. This can feel much simpler from the patient perspective, as these models often rely on subscription payments or disclosed, fixed pricing for each service. Another example, specific to cardiology, is Heartbeat, where people get direct access to a fully-digitized boutique cardiology clinic. Here, the venue of care is shifted here from hospitals to pop-up clinics, that are smaller and easier to scale.
Health-related issues are confusing as is, so the system around it should be as simple as possible. New business models are lowering the barriers to entry for users to get access to high-quality care. Cost is driven down through technology and healthcare is made simpler through new unbundled business models, streamlined payments, and better user experiences. As companies continue innovating in this space, both in terms of business model and venue, the future of healthcare is starting to become clearer. We’re excited for that future.
USV has been investing in health-related technologies for about five years. Our approach can be characterized by the notion that digital processes, made more accessible by the internet and mobile access, could over time transform the cost and delivery of medical care. In the last couple of months, our conversations around healthcare have surfaced some new investable themes, which I’ll discuss in a few posts over the next month. The first such theme is the idea that healthcare can be “unbundled” into distinct services, a pattern we have seen in other markets (where niche sub-markets develop for specific services). So, in the case of healthcare, what is there to unbundle from? For one, large hospital networks and insurance companies, where most of the control and pricing power currently reside.
The last decade has seen unbundling in the financial services industry that serves as a relevant analogy. Financial supermarkets became popular in the 80s when large banks started offering one-stop shopping for a complete package of financial services, anything from mortgages to credit cards. In this model, the sale becomes around convenience rather than value as customers buy a complete package, even though each service may not be the best in breed or meet the specific needs of an individual consumer. With this, came a lack of price transparency as each service’s individual price is obscured by the combined package. The connected Internet and later mobile services, have made it easier to manage an unbundled package as well as increase the quality and personalization of each service on its own. In finance, we’ve observed that in the broader market, as well as within our own portfolio of fintech investments, with Funding Circle (peer-to-peer lending platform for small business), Stash (personal investing), CircleUp (equity financing for consumer products), Stripe (payments), and KickStarter (crowd-funding). Technology made processes simpler so that individuals could find specific things they need easily and affordably from market-specific providers.
Perhaps healthcare is now seeing the beginning of unbundling, catalyzed by the same use of technology which allows companies to focus solely on user experience in specific verticals. Some of the first pieces of unbundled healthcare to get venture momentum were direct-to-consumer brands such as Hims, Roman, Keeps, and Nurx. These are examples of companies using technology - such as telemedicine, asynchronous chats, and structured data - to lower costs and reduce friction in various niches of healthcare via a simple subscription business model. For example, Nurx gives users control of their health at every step of the process and delivers birth control and Truvada for PrEP in a timely, cost-efficient manner. Along a similar vein, at-home testing companies such as 23andMe, Modern Fertility, and Scanwell are bringing lab-grade testing services to people’s homes at a lower price point by leveraging technology. For primary care, companies like Sherpaa are using virtual primary care, while Doctor on Demand and Teladoc started by unbundling to serve individuals through telemedicine. Now other companies such as Vera Whole Health, CareMore, and PeakMD are coming up to serve employers with their primary care needs through local care centers.
Then there are examples of unbundling in parts of primary and specialized medicine that have not received as much attention yet, perhaps because their interactions are primarily conducted offline. However, these companies are still a part of the trend towards unbundling from large hospital networks and functioning as individual nodes in the broad healthcare market. For example, Pure Cardiology is a user-centric membership plan for all cardiology-related services, the Surgery Center of Oklahoma offers a menu-style list of surgeries they perform with up-front pricing, and the East River Medical Imaging Center in New York is an independently owned and operated center for scans including MRI, CT, PET, and X-rays.
In primary care, there has been a recent increase in the number of direct care clinics around the US, or doctors that are offering traditional primary care through an independent clinic without ties to large hospital networks and insurance companies. To support these practices, companies like Hint Health (onboarding and billing platform), Spruce (patient communication), and Elation (clinical electronic health records) are building the infrastructure to power a direct-care driven healthcare system. Technology enables new user experiences for quick onboarding and communication, but other offline examples of lowering friction are walk-in urgent care centers, such as CityMD and GoHealth. These clinics provide immediate medical care for a range of acute conditions that provide underserved patients with faster response times. Walk-in urgent care clinics started popping up in the 70s but gained more traction in the 90s and now service over 160 million visits annually.
These examples suggest that healthcare is in some respects being unbundled.
Why does this matter? One lever to getting momentum in an unbundled world is that a lower price point - a common denominator across many of these companies - compared to traditional bundled options, will allow more people to access healthcare. Besides just lowering costs, unbundling can open access in other ways, including minimizing the enormous friction that exists in legacy healthcare systems. If healthcare services continue the trend of “unbundling” in some of these ways, cost-efficiency will become much more of a priority where the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable services should win. More fundamentally, unbundling could create the opportunity for each of these distinct services to become independent nodes in a larger network in a bottoms up manner (which would make room for business model innovation - the subject of my next blog post).
For now, these observations seem to indicate some unbundling of the existing large, monolithic systems in healthcare towards a more open, local, independent and transparent model, with control residing with individual users. And ultimately, this could change the way healthcare is delivered to consumers.
It's been a busy summer of reading for us here at USV. Since we often receive requests about what books people are reading, we polled the USV team internally to find out what picks and recommendations they each wanted to share with all of you.
"Still reading it, but enjoying it so far"
This summer at Union Square Ventures, Jennifer Greenberg joined us as our summer intern. During her time at USV, she worked on many projects, and one of them was analyzing tools from across our portfolio companies. As part of this process involved grouping and sorting tools, she came away with a few observations from her project. Read her post below.
Hi, I’m Jennifer Greenberg, a current computer science student who had the pleasure of interning at USV this summer to support the Network Team.
Through my community management work in Slack as well as in attending USV network events, I noticed that one of the most common questions that comes up in the network is what tools are used by other companies.
To embark on this research project, we gathered over 450 software tools used across 64 companies, representing approximately 86% of our active portfolio. We began by tagging each tool based on department, the type of tool, and then explored how company size impacted usage.
Below are some observations and trends that we discovered.
The top reported tools were G Suite, Slack, GitHub, Jira, Sketch, Salesforce, DropBox, AWS, Excel, and InVision. These top tools (in particular G Suite, Slack, and GitHub) were used across multiple departments or tended to skew toward developer tools.
The chart below show the most popular developer tools overall in the network. After Github and Jira, there was a drop off which may be because there are many free/open source options, causing individuals and companies to explore and favor different ones.
Company size creates a stratification among developer, hiring, and communication tools. As an example of how this plays out in engineering, you can see that all of the size brackets use either Github or Jira, but after that, the differentiation develops. For example, smaller companies are less likely to use security software. On the communication side, smaller companies are more likely to use internal tools like Calendly, GoToMeeting, and Rocketchat, whereas external tools including Docusign, Facebook, Medium, Sendgrid, and Twitter persisted across all size brackets.
As for hiring tools, LinkedIn, Lever, and Greenhouse are the most popular in the network, but these are primarily only used by companies with more than 30 employees. Tools like Guru, Textio, DiscoverOrg, and Checkr were used with companies larger than 50 employees, while Jobbatical, Entelo, Jazz, and AngelList were used by our smaller companies.
While AWS still appears to be the favored cloud platform used among our portfolio, Google Cloud in particular appears to be gaining more traction. As you can see below, ¼ of companies are using either Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure.
Other tools with dominant market share include Slack and Salesforce. While 92% of our companies report using Slack, some companies opted to use Hipchat (recently acquired by Slack), Beekeeper, and Rocket Chat.
For sales management CRMs, 42% of our companies use Salesforce, however, some used alternatives like Google Streak, Insightly, or Close.io. It does not seem as though size played a role in a company's choice in any of these circumstances.
While the average company in our portfolio is using 7 tools, one of our larger companies reported using 77 different tools, which made me realize that transitioning between tools may be a source of growing pains for startups. As our portfolio continues to expand, we hope that by aggregating and sharing this list internally (we’re even building a Slack Bot for our network to search these tools), we can make it easier to choose the best tool for each use case.
Hey all, I've recently joined USV as the firm's very first Developer in Residence. Over the next year I'll be porting USV's thinking around networks into code, and writing the APIs, apps, and bots that will help folks at our 70+ portfolio companies communicate and collaborate with each other.
Having an in-house developer is still a bit rare in venture capital, but it feels like a natural fit for USV. Building on its early success investing in businesses that leverage network effects, USV brought this approach to its own network in 2010, launching an effort to facilitate interaction among network members through events and introductions. And now my job is to grow this platform online, to help reach and connect a greater share of folks in our increasingly diverse portfolio.
Helping like-minded folks discover and learn from each other was one of my favorite things in building BrooklynJS, my favorite community here in the city. To be able to do the same for USV is a great gig, and really, second only to my other gig, moonlighting as a bass for Brooklyn's favorite-slash-only barbershop quartet.
If you’re building a similar platform and/or have ideas about what kinds of interaction mechanics work well for community building, please drop me a line!
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the idea that citizens receive a regular, unconditional stipend that helps them cover their cost of living. Previous UBI experiments have shown to reduce hospitalization, crime and poverty rates. Richard Nixon, Thomas Paine, Martin Luther King Jr. and Milton Friedman were all vocal proponents of UBI.
UBI has traditionally been imagined as a government subsidy that would put money back into the economy by giving it directly to people (as opposed to quantitative easing where the Federal Reserve puts money back into the economy through banks).
The development of cryptocurrency, however, now gives us a way to implement UBI in a global, trustless and democratic way without the need for a government to implement it.
and Solidar (implemented as a chatbot on FB messenger).
We are intrigued by this possibility and are wondering about some key issues, such as the complexities around issuing new currencies and preventing fraudulent accounts.
When blockchain projects implement UBI, where does the initial money come from?
The majority of the UBI blockchain projects issue their own currency in the form of tokens. That is, instead of recirculating existing money in the economy, they generate new value by minting a new currency. The challenge is that while the idea behind UBI is to provide real income that can be used for paying for things like rent, tuition and groceries, newly invented currencies are initially worthless until someone accepts them. It is up to each UBI project to make their currency worth something.
Projects do this by building an economy around the currency where people can exchange and use their tokens to buy goods and services. Nick calls this building a ‘Minimum Viable Economy’.
The idea behind a Minimum Viable Economy is to build enough of an ecosystem around a token so that its holders can use it to buy goods and services or exchange it to other currencies.
For this to happen, the project needs to incentivize merchants and vendors to accept the token as a form of payment.
projectUBU (beta) is building tools for vendors to be able to easily add support for their UBU token. Enumivo (pre-beta) is building their own blockchain (a fork of EOS) with the goal of developers building dapps that accept their token, $UBI.
It is easier to convince vendors to accept a token if there are a lot of people that hold the token. A good analogy for this is the credit card: even though vendors dislike credit cards because they are expensive and require extra in-store hardware, they are incentivized to accept them because so many people have them.
To seed this network effect, many UBI projects have referral programs to reward people who bring in new users. projectUBU, for example, rewards 1,000 UBUs to the referrer and 500 UBUs to the referee per referral.
Some projects, instead of doing a one-time bonus, continue to award the referral bonus as long as the referred person stays in the network. Frink (beta), for example, plans to indefinitely payout an additional 10% to referrers, and Mannabase plans to payout an additional 100% to referrers for one year. The idea is to incentivize people to refer “high quality users” that will stay in the network for a long time. An interesting question is whether a high referral bonus will increase the incentive and potential for referral fraud.
These referral programs are often set to expire when the network grows to a desired size. Solidar’s program, for example, is scheduled to reduce the bonus by 50% when the network reaches 15,000 users and then again every time the network size doubles.
Projects also need to incentivize people to spend their tokens. UBI projects can build in monetary policy that makes it more attractive for token holders to spend the tokens than to hold them.
There are two ways to do this: demurrage (some amount of held currency automatically dissipates) and by growing the money supply (so that each held token is now worth less). Both accomplish the same goal of incentivizing token holders to spend their currency, otherwise their held currency will lose some of its value.
projectUBU is one of the projects utilizing demurrage: 1% of all UBU wallet balances dissipate every year. Circles is one of the projects planning to mint more currency: they plan to grow their money supply at a 5% annual rate. The most dramatic of these programs is Solidar, which has an annual 20% demurrage rate.
Another way projects incentivize people to spend their tokens is by capping the amount of tokens any account can hold at one time. In order to receive more tokens, participants need to withdraw or spend the tokens they’ve already received. SwiftDemand, for example, only allows accounts to hold 7 days of unclaimed income at a time.
Another way to create value in tokens is to provide liquidity - aka the ability for a token holder to exchange the token for another currency, usually fiat, like USD.
For there to be liquidity, there needs to be someone who wants to buy tokens from those that hold it.
One project called Big Foundation (beta) is seeding liquidity by paying people a bonus for buying the token.
Another interesting approach here is Democracy Earth’s distribution program. Because their currency has immediate utility as a vote, there are more likely to be buyers of it. Democracy Earth (beta) is a governance platform, and buying currency can mean buying power. The caveat is that organizations built on Democracy Earth can set their constitutional smart contracts to limit only one vote per person per issue, which inhibits the ability for participants to effectively buy votes.
Before a UBI project can hand out tokens, they first need to verify that each participant is a real person, and that each person is limited to a single account. This prevents cheating via ‘Sybil attack’ where a user creates multiple identities that all trust and validate each other in a closed system. If every user could create multiple accounts to increase the amount of income they received, it would dissolve the public trust in the value of the currency, and depreciate its worth. It would also undermine the spirit of the project where in everyone gets the same amount.
There are two main ways that UBI projects are solving this: voting and social trust.
The first way is allowing members of the community to vote to verify a new participant. On Democracy Earth, for example, new participants have to go through a validation process with other previously validated community members in order to be able to join the network. (They actually plan to have every participant repeat this process periodically in order to prevent abandoned accounts).
The second way is by relying on trust relationships from the real world. Circles (pre-beta) does this in an interesting way: On Circles, each new participant is issued UBI payouts in their own personal currency. That currency is not worth anything because no one agrees to exchange it yet. To make their account balance worth something, Circles participants need to trust each others currencies by being willing to exchange them. From the Circles documentation: "The value of a specific personal currency is a measure of how many other accounts trust it. This means that users who are new to the system and don’t have many trusted relationships have a less valuable currency than someone who is well-established in the network. It also means that the currency of new users gets more valuable over time as they create more trust relationships."
Enumivo plans to do a combination of the social graph and voting solutions. People who want to join Enumivo will have to find someone already in the community to sponsor them. To sponsor someone, a community member stakes 200 tokens (10 weeks worth) and then other community members have 30 days to vote on them.
There are also standalone identity projects like uPort and Civic that future UBI projects could potentially leverage. Generally we are very interested in learning more about self-sovereign identity projects that could enable decentralized programs like UBI.
There are two ways most UBI projects fund their development: by holding a percentage of their tokens (most UBI projects do this), and by collecting transaction fees (some UBI projects do this).
What I like about these revenue sources is that they align the core team’s interest with their users’ interests. The better the core team grows the network and token economy, the more their tokens are worth, and the more transactions there will be to collect fees on.
One of the applications of blockchain that we are very excited about is UBI, and we hope to keep learning about how different projects are implementing it. If you’re working on something in this space, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out, I’m [email protected].
I know my favorite day of the year should be our USV CEO Summit. But it’s not. It’s actually USV Intern Day.
On this day, which we now host once a year in both NYC and SF, we bring together interns from dozens of portfolio companies and invite them to learn about all of the companies in our portfolio. For me and Lauren, this day feels a little bit like summer camp -- we sport swag from our portfolio companies and shuttle interns around the city all day.
We jumped on it immediately and rallied participation from more than a dozen NYC companies. For participating interns, we organized a multi-stop event with two tracks (technical and business) featuring short talks, office tours, and job advice from the incredible leaders in the network. Some companies handed out free swag to all attendees. Meetup concluded the day with a pizza party on their incredible roof deck.
But I don’t like Intern Day because of the pizza and the swag. I like it because of the deep collaboration and sense of community that it represents among our portfolio.
This year, we had about 75 interns between our San Francisco Bay Area companies and our NYC companies. Product and operations leaders from Skillshare and Code Climate each took an hour to introduce these students to the complexities of their business models and careers in tech. Shippo in San Francisco facilitated an entire panel discussion with robust Q&A. Clarifai taught a group of 40 students how they think about AI and machine learning. Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path, spent the last hour of his busy workday sharing candid advice he wished someone had taught him before entering the workforce.
When kicking off the day, we shared two stories with the intern class this year. The first was the story of how Andrew Sutherland, at age 15, started a flashcard app for himself while studying for a high school French test that eventually became the company and brand we all know today at Quizlet. The second is how, in their first first job after school, Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman met his now-co-founder Brendan McGovern when they sat next to each other on the very first orientation day at Sony.
One of the things we are so privileged to see at USV are the origin stories of entrepreneurs all over the world. We hope that, even by bringing together interns for one day out of the year during their summer, we’ll spark some inspiration or ideas that will come back our way several years down the road.
At USV, we have been active in the blockchain/crypto sector since 2011. At this time, we have direct investments in nine companies/projects in the crypto space and one exited investment. Companies in the blockchain/crypto sector make up about 15% of our active portfolio and closer to 25% of our recent investments.
But the venture capital fund model is not optimized for investing in the blockchain/crypto sector. Blockchain/crypto companies/projects often finance and monetize via tokens which can become liquid quickly and thus we can end up holding highly liquid and volatile positions which is not something we have traditionally done. And because USV operates under the venture capital exemption to Dodd-Frank, we are limited to 20% of our holdings at cost in “non-qualifying” investments, which include tokens.
So we have sought out other relationships in the sector that can allow us to get broad exposure to the most interesting companies and projects. Our most recent investment, which closed last week, is just that. USV became investors in Multicoin Capital, a fund that is focused exclusively on the blockchain/crypto/token sector. There are a lot of smart people thinking about and analyzing this emerging sector, but there aren’t many who are doing it so publicly and conversationally as the Multicoin team. Their blog posts are here and their tweets are here: (Kyle, Tushar) . Their opinions are often controversial and contrarian. You can make a lot of money by being right about something most people think is incorrect. So at USV, we appreciate and value original thinking.
Multicoin often talks about “venture capital economics with public market liquidity.” The token sector offers both, and that is partially what has caused USV some challenges making this sector work in our current fund structure. Multicoin is structured in a way that gives them and their investors the benefit of both. We are excited to be investors in Multicoin.
Multicoin joins a roster of other blockchain/crypto/token funds that USV has invested in over the last 18 months. That list includes Polychain Capital, Metastable Capital, Blocktower Capital, Arianna Simpson’s new fund Autonomous Partners, and Placeholder. Placeholder, like USV, uses a venture capital fund model for its investing. All of the other funds use more of a hedge fund model.
This portfolio of token funds gives USV a much broader reach across the blockchain/crypto/token sector than we would be able to get directly on our own and we also benefit enormously from the dialog and information sharing that exists across this network of investors.
USV has not become, and has no plans to become, a fund of funds. But the blockchain/crypto/token sector has some unique challenges for us and others in the venture capital business and we have taken a network approach to solving them, at least for now.
We have and will continue to invest directly in both companies and projects and both equity and tokens in this space, often in a syndicate that includes one or more of these token funds. It is an exciting time to be investing in blockchain/crypto/tokens and we are fortunate to be able to do it along with some of the best investors in the sector.

industry_corpus2: Technology & Research


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Last weekend I had amazing gluten free pizza in San Francisco and it was completely by chance. This doesn’t happen often so I was pretty excited. John and I were exploring the area around Lake Merced and on heading back towards town we came across Eagle Pizzeria on Taraval Street (between 27th & 28th Ave). Pizza places, Â more often than not, are the enemy but I spotted a sign in their window saying ‘We are proud to offer gluten free pizza.’ Yay! I thought and went in to inquire further.
Eagle Pizzeria are in partnership with Still Riding Pizza, a company which provides gluten free pizza to partner restaurants which is safe for celiacs. Their pizza is made in a dedicated gluten free facility and what’s even better is that Still Riding provide restaurants who carry their pizza bases with training on how to prepare the pizza and ensure they keep it safe for celiacs.
I spoke with the restaurant’s owners who are a lovely and very helpful couple. Ken was out in the front whilst Amy was in the kitchen making pizzas. KenÂ explained the process of how they prepare and cook gluten free pizza and I felt happy and safe hearing how careful they are. Almost all of their toppings are gluten free so celiacs have a good variety to choose from. They have a separate preparation area for gluten free pizza, they use separate utensils/ladles for the toppings and they use a special tray for cooking gluten free pizzas. They appear to understand how serious the threat of cross contamination is and do all they can to prevent it.
We went for the simple Margarita and it was amazing. The base was thin and crispy and the tomato sauce was delicious! Lots of basil and garlic..yummy! As we weren’t too hungry when found the place the plan was to eat a couple of hot slices before taking the remainder home to finish. This did not happen, it was far too tasty that John and I polished the whole thing off in 20 minutes.
As the pizza base comes pre-packed it only comes in the one size, somewhere between small and medium. Gluten free pizza is charged at the price of a small pizza plus $5 (as this is what Still Riding charge for the base). Prices range from $20-23 depending on which pizza you choose. This is a little more than I would like to pay for a smallish pizza but as all gluten free pizzas tend to cost more it was worth the price to get a safe and amazingly delicious pizza. Yay for another place serving safe and delicious gluten free pizza in San Francisco!

industry_corpus2: Hospitality & Catering


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Dislocation is what happens when joints (where bones meet) shift from their normal position usually as a result of a fall or forceful impact. When we fall, we naturally reach with a hand, elbow or arm to cushion our fall. When playing contact or high-impact sports, the shoulders, fingers, knees and hips are all vulnerable to dislocation. The impact of a car accident can also cause our joints to dislocate.
Unless you are a medical professional, it may be difficult to tell the difference between a dislocation and a break. Both situations require emergency care.
Joint dislocation may affect surrounding nerves and tissues, and you may have broken bones as well. Your doctor can determine the extent of your injury from an X-ray or MRI. Treatment may include gentle manipulation to get your bones back in place, and immobilization, such as with a splint, to make sure the bones stay put. Some dislocations also require surgery. Such treatments are often followed by rehabilitation therapy to help you to heal more quickly and ease your body back into moving comfortably and naturally.

industry_corpus2: Health & Medicine


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Holidays always give me that challenge I need- take vegetables that I usually eat, usually steamed, boring and bland, and turn them on their heads. For all the creative food I make, our dinner’s are, well, let’s just call them, regular. Always on the plate is a side of steamed veggies, which goes through a rotation of broccoli, spinach or green beans.
Adding these few extra ingredients, walnuts, bacon, parmesan and a maple syrup mustard dressing, gives green beans the meatiness it needs along with some zip and zest.
Wash and steam green beans. You can cook them until soft, or while cooked but still slightly crunchy.
For the dressing, mix together the maple syrup with the vinegar, before adding the dijon mustard (not American).
Pour the dressing over the green beans, then sprinkle with walnuts, bacon, grated carrots and parmesan.

industry_corpus2: Agriculture & Fisheries


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Running NT4 (SP6) on IBM A30/31p. Blue screen occurs occasionally during operation of RecordNow. Debug points to PXHELPER.SYS issue.
Anyone come across this? This is NOT a bad memory or hardware issue! THANKS in advance.
One question: Do you have Nero Burning Rom installed?
This was a problem for a friend of mine, and after he uninstalled it and used another Burning Application, it worked fine.
Nero hasn't been installed, nor have any other similar programs. WnDbg points to a specific issue with the PXHELPER driver which results in NTOSKRNL being asked to read a protected memory location (01e BSOD stop code). Thanks for the suggestion though!

industry_corpus2: Computing & Telecommunications


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Instead of having a scheduled county-wide Clean Sweep Event, hazardous waste collection now takes place at VEOLIA ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, W124N9451 Boundary Rd, Menomonee Falls, WI. Veolia Environmental will take hazardous waste Mondays and Wednesdays from 11am to 6pm throughout the rest of the year. Please see this link for more information regarding the 2019 Clean Sweep Program including what IS and what is NOT accepted or call 262-335-4800 for more information.
Please note: There will NOT be a county collection for TVs, electronics, tires, or appliances in 2019. Please see the County’s website for alternative disposal facilities.

industry_corpus2: Others


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Branding expert Ian Dunstall will explore the core characteristics for a successful food to go concept and give his view on the strongest propositions in the market, as well as charting how some have lost their way.
Ian Dunstall is a consultant in Brand Strategy, Insight & Development. In his career he has supported over 40 brands in all hospitality segments with their positioning and development, both in the UK and internationally.
Before becoming a consultant, Ian spent 15 years in leadership roles with Mitchells & Butler, included Director of Marketing and Director of Concept Development. He also has worked as Chief Marketing Officer for Rosinter Restaurants in Moscow.
Current consultancy clients include TGI Fridays, Pizza Hut Restaurants, Which Wich, Harrison Design, Vapiano and Hans n Glueck in Germany.


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The food safety team led by Commissioner Food and Drug Administration K S Pannu has seized spurious milk products including Paneer,ghee (butter oil) besides other items in various towns of Punjab, official sources told North India Times.
A joint raid by food safety and dairy development officers has arrested a person red handed selling spurious cottage cheese (paneer) for Rs. 160 per kilogram and milk at Rs. 30 per litre. “The samples have been taken action would be taken as per law,” said Pannu.
In SBS Nagar, the food safety teams seized the stock of expired spices and condiments at Shri Durga Karyana Store on Balachaur Pojewal Road. Samples were taken and the entire stock of expired carom seeds (ajwain) was destroyed. The team also inspected sweet shops and destroyed about 10kg of spoiled sweets and directed the sellers to use good quality of MMP and maintain good hygienic conditions.
Similarly, a food safety team seized 120 kg of spurious paneer from Phagwara.
At Faridkot, sampling was done in Bishnandi Bazar and Himmatpura Basti, Jaito along with Dairy Development Department and at Purana Shalla and Bhani Mian Khan in Gurdaspur wherein Samples of milk, paneer and loose ghee were taken.
Milk carrying vehicles were intercepted early in the morning at about 6:00 am by setting up naka in Block Balachaur of District SBS Nagar to trap spurious MMP. One vehicle of Joshi Dairy Farm, Banga chowk, Garhshankar carrying about 2 quintals of milk and other vehicle of Choudhary Dairy Birowal was intercepted carrying about one quintal of mixed milk. Samples have been taken and sent for analysis.
“All adulterators will later or sooner be caught. No one can evade law for long,” said KS Pannu, Commissioner Food and Drug Administration (CDFA)Punjab while informing that a Milk and Milk Product Seller had been duping the Food Safety Teams for past ten days and was carrying on the sale of adulterated products, unabated.


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Honeymoon is a magical word to newlyweds. Lovebirds know no limits but they are choosy. If you are planning to spend some time somewhere immediately after you get married, do adequate due diligence, so you get the value for your money. Moreover, you want to stay happy throughout the time you will be out there. This article will inform you why honeymooning at Bali Island is the best idea.
Are you an outdoor person? You can expect nothing less than a panoramic view from the high areas. The island features rugged volcanic terrain that will allow people in need of hiking and camping adventures in the region an unforgettable vacation. The attractions earned Bali Island the Trip Advisor Travellers’ Choice Award 2017 award as the best destination to travel. They are the best in the world, and you can safely explore them with the guidance of a professional tour guide.
In some cases, you are worried that you are going to a place where you might experience a language barrier. Luckily, Bali Island is a diverse community featuring people from different backgrounds. You will find people from across the globe. Besides, the locals are versed in various International languages such as English.
Food is a big attraction for any couple looking to have some good time. Bali Island is a hub of cuisines from across the globe. When booking your trip, you can request your agent to select for you hotels that prepare the diets you prefer. You can be assured to find a place with your favorite cuisine irrespective of where you come from.
A good destination must throw in excellent nightlife to attract the newlyweds. After all, these are not people who want to spend time indoors. Bali Island features several lively clubs that promote a vibrant nightlife. It is worth highlighting that police patrol the beaches and streets to ensure a high-security level, which helps ensure you can get to your destination hassle free.
Organizing your wedding or honeymoon can be tedious, especially if you are a foreigner with no knowledge of the local entertainment spots. Fortunately, you can find the assistance of many travel companies like the Seven Agency that will make sure that your transport around the island is arranged. The trip organizers also make a full-time schedule for the clients, including shopping, visiting historical sites, camping, and hiking among other activities. They help plan for your honeymoon and every day will give you new experiences that can only be found in Bali.
Bali Island Offers: Unveiling your All time Honeymoon Destination 0 out of 5 based on 0 ratings. 0 user reviews.

industry_corpus2: Travel & Geography


text: saratogagiantpumpkinfest.com -Motorcycle Shows 2018 ... Enter your email address, zip code and country to receive news from across the powersports industry, show promotions, discount ticket offers and more from IMS.Best bikes at 2018 ny motorcycle show. The 2018 New York motorcycle show pulled into the Big Apple this past weekend. I dropped by and took in the sights.Osaka motorcycle show 2018. Play next; Play now 【4K】Osaka Motorcycle Show 2018 大阪モータサイクルショー【4K】Osaka Motorcycle Show 2018 大阪モータサイクルショー☆葉川凛★GooBikeStafford classic bike shows. As the UK’s largest specialist motorcycle insurance provider, Carole Nash is proud to be involved with Mortons Media Group and its awesome bike shows.

industry_corpus2: Automobiles


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Using methods that protect and sustain marine ecology, our community of fishermen use traditional lines, not nets, to minimize bycatch.
Fresh fish can degrade quickly. Within one hour of catch, our cod are flash-frozen while our boats are still in the water, then cold-pressed to lock-in freshness and naturally occurring levels of nutrients.
Marine Stewardship Council – Twinlab is proud to partner with American fishermen from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, who has been bestowed the MSC certification for sustainable fishing. Marine Stewardship Council protects the natural resources of our planet’s oceans.
Friend of the Sea – Friend of the Sea is a non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), whose mission is the conservation of the marine habitat.


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Today, Fortress Technologies, part of General Dynamics C4 Systems, announced the release of its DS310 commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Suite B encryptor for secret communication between wired or wireless devices and networks. Suite B enables a simpler process for connecting to classified networks while maintaining security. Delivered in a driverless PC card and supporting multiple layers of encryption, the DS310 meets stringent security guidelines, including those of the National Security Agency (NSA).
"The DS310 Suite B encryptor enables levels of classified communications to users previously achieved only at high cost and with specialized products," said Janet Kumpu, director of General Dynamics C4 Systems Fortress Technologies. "It uses a standard PC card, with built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet communications along with high throughput hardware encryption capabilities that can be easily adapted to a miniature size for integration into other client devices."
The DS310 is part of a prototypical implementation of the NSA Suite B initiative awarded to Fortress Technologies in 2009 to develop a short-range wireless sensor network for protecting secret wireless communications within Department of Energy Nuclear facilities. With estimated savings in the millions of dollars per plant, this project highlights the cost savings of using COTS products for secret communication through secure wireless access vs. traditional wired solutions.
The DS310 is a hardware device that uses well-established, public domain cryptographic Suite B algorithms specified by the NSA, providing sufficient encryption for U.S. agencies and its allies to connect to classified networks. This commercial off-the-shelf, competitively priced product expands General Dynamics initiative to deliver secure communications from the core to the very edge of the network.
At LandWarNet 2011, General Dynamics will showcase the DS310 operating with a General Dynamics Itronix rugged computer platform at the Fortress Technologies booth (#202) and the General Dynamics booth (#901).
General Dynamics C4 Systems Fortress Technologies delivers a broad portfolio of COTS products based on industry-proven technology with added security features to support tactical wireless communications for global defense and civilian users. Its deployable, secure, wireless mesh network solutions are designed specifically for highly mobile, rugged-outdoor, tactical military and secure government environments. Leveraging the FastPath Mesh self-forming, self-healing, path-optimizing meshing protocol, Fortress products incorporate the highest level of security algorithms and meet stringent environmental standards for use in austere environments.
Information about General Dynamics is available at www.generaldynamics.com.


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To bring peace of mind to holidaying and busy pet owners by offering a convenient and reliable pet care service, provided by genuine animal lovers. Through our high level of commitment and care, our aim is to be the first choice of all pet owners within our community.
All of our staff and franchisees are dedicated animal lovers, who are capable and responsible people. At Lonely Pets Club we pride ourselves in employing only quality individuals who will conduct themselves with integrity at all times.
Our carefully screened staff all have a background of caring for animals, for example many of them have done voluntary work at organisations such as the RSPCA. We are fortunate to have many people apply to work for us, so can afford to be very selective. Each prospective staff member is interviewed several times, a Police check is made and references carefully followed up.
Each staff member must agree to adhere to the Lonely Pets Club Code of Conduct to maintain a consistent, high standard of service. We are constantly in contact with our clients to ensure they are happy with the service we are providing.
We love what we do; we work outside with the animals we love and we get to talk to lots of different pet owners. As a result, you'll find us happy, approachable and decent people.
Lonely Pets Club was formed in Brunswick, Melbourne, during the early months of 2003.
Jo and Justin shared both their love of pets and the vision of one day working for themselves.
With the "corporate life" not being as appealing as it once was, they were awaiting inspiration with what to do with the rest of their lives. Then it happened. They were due to go interstate and had difficulty finding either friends or family to pet sit whilst they were away. It was then that they discovered there was a need for an alternative form of pet care, besides using kennels.
Rusty (German Shepherd Cross) first met Jo at the RSPCA in Burwood on a cold Melbourne morning back in 1999. Soon after winning Jo over (easily), he was comfortably inside Jo's 1993 Ford Laser, en route to a new home, new life and new adventures. Within a few weeks the back lawn was a mud pit and most of her pot plants smashed. Assuming Rusty was lonely for canine companionship, Jo went back to the RSPCA to find a companion for him in a sweet, beautiful 'quiet looking' white Border Collie, Tessa.
Tessa settled in quickly and soon taught Rusty a few new tricks, such as how to rip out a sprinkler system!
Justin had his hands full keeping his dogs Leroy (Beagle) and Charlie (Cockerspaniel) under control. His efforts in buying Charlie to tame the rogue Leroy backfired, when Charlie thought she would take on the qualities of Leroy.
They were two over active, but totally lovable, scent craved dogs.
New friends soon joined the household. Hens, goldfish and a beautiful grey tabby cat called Murphy.
He arrived as a scared scattery 4 month old homeless kitten, but Murphy (right) soon underwent a remarkable transformation into a friendly, confident family member loved by all.
These beautiful characters have long since left us for the rainbow bridge but they left a legacy for Australian pets in the form of Lonely Pets Club.
From our humble beginnings in Brunswick, Melbourne, in 2003 we quickly understood there was a need for a quality, caring pet feeding and dog walking service everywhere that pets are found. By 2005 we had developed a network of like-minded animal loving carers and were able to offer our service over most parts of Melbourne. We soon realised that a franchise model would enable us to continue to provide a high quality, reliable service to so many pet owners - whilst allowing us to occasionally take a holiday ourselves!
We knew that franchising would only work if the applicants selected to become franchisees shared our passion for animals and commitment to providing the best possible service. In March 2008 we commenced franchising and now have franchisees in most Australian cities. It is great to be able to share our vision and philosophy with these like-minded, dedicated franchise owners and the carers they have selected to help them look after members' pets.
Find out more about your local carer here.


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The links below take you to dynamically generated lists of Luca Baradel's peakbagging activity.
Ascent List: List of Luca Baradel's hikes, climbs, summits, and attempts.
List of Lists: Peakbagging Lists that Luca Baradel is pursuing, showing progress for each list by number and percent of peaks climbed.
Lists personally created by Luca Baradel. (Search for Lists from other climbers).
Personal Lists: Shows all lists created by Luca Baradel. Includes Query Lists created using the Query Tool, and "Pick-and-Choose" Lists created by selecting individual peaks.

industry_corpus2: Sports


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HottieAniie EdgarMoss jasmin. JessGreen. OliviaJung. ShockoLady.
MyaBBWvysotskayaXiomycaliNikiAsian .LasyLoveLolaLitiousHotVickie94MuscleDeluxe .DonHottie5ShockoLadyNikiAsianCharlieLady .JakkenMyaBBWvysotskayaEugenuOlga .Marianno4kagiullyannaTifannyBlondJakken .Marianno4kaBlueXManddyDivineAshantiCharlieLady .mitssiMyaBBWEugenuOlgaNativeKinkyAsian .XiomycalizoeLoveAngelaRougeLUSCIOUSKATIE24 .EllyJChocolateEliseBATHROOMQUEEN5Xiomycali .HILLARYMAJORSHugecocksofiaCharlieLadyFunnonstopxxx .DivineAshantiSophieLukevysotskayaJessGreen .
BrownSugarineOliviaJungNestorAndLizaDreamGirl87 .SexyBabyX2SophieLukexkittysweetHILLARYMAJORS .BellaMayerSEXYh0tSARAHHotPOVcoupleChocDisire4u .hotmastersexxzoeLoveJulsCarolineOliviaJung .NikkySquirter1SweetBaby18OddkonradMiaFisher .SexyBabyX2anndrtyb1tch69MuscleDeluxeMyklxDaryna .hotmastersexxDonHottie5zoeLoveNestorAndLiza .HotPOVcoupleBATHROOMQUEEN5JessGreenLustMiguel .uplehotEugenuOlgaAdorableCiciOddkonrad .VictoriaLucasxXHarleyXxEllyJSexylilianX .ShockoLadyStellaHowkinsDannyCojonesCharlieLady .


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Recently I buyed a PhaseOne 645AF (body + some lens) without any back.
Waiting for new money in my pockets for buying a serious digital back, which film back (120) can I put on now? Any of Mamiya AF or AFD or...?
The HM402 was designed for the PhaseOne 645AF (and Mamiya 645 AFDIII). It can also use the HM401.
They can take both 120 and 220 film.


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The Master’s degree studies in the Software Engineering integrate the aspects of computer programme systems and engineering as it is recommended by the global computer education and research association ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). The graduates from this Master’s degree study programme have overall fundamental knowledge of software engineering, are able of systematic analysis and evaluation of computerised environment, creation and installation of software, independent performance of applied research in the field of computers, assimilate modern automated software design and management tools, have the skills of practical design and are ready for the professional activity of software engineering.
The Master’s degree study programme in Software Engineering meets the modern IEEE recommendations “GSwE2009: Curriculum Guidelines for Graduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering”.
The basis and strength of studies is the method of studying of software systems design. The design helps the students a) to collect the content and skills of various disciplinary knowledge; b) to educate the skills of the solution of problems; c) to acquire the skills of cooperation; d) to improve the skills of communication; e) to gain the experience of professional design for the actual customer (company or institution) in a large project. The representatives of companies organise thematic teaching seminars, and lectures. All possibilities to start own business are provided.
There is a possibility to gather your own team and receive cost-free premises, hardware and support for the creation of own business.
There is also a possibility to join the research groups and implement interesting projects by using the newest hardware of the faculty.
From the expert of software, software systems architect, management of the team of development of software, senior systems engineer to the company’s technical director. The graduates work in all Lithuanian and foreign economic sectors. The wages of the specialists of this field are one of the highest among the professionals on the market.
The studies in the Department of Software Engineering of the KTU Faculty of Informatics attract the best informatics specialists from entire Lithuania; therefore, even during the first-year studies it is possible to find many like-minded colleagues and contribute to various projects organised in the faculty with them or participate in the international competitions. Namely these contacts, acquired knowledge, collected practical experience, and support of the faculty encouraged me and my colleagues to start the game creation company already during the years of my studies.
90% of our employees are the KTU graduates (the remaining ones are those who completed the studies abroad); therefore, we are highly motivated to cooperate with the university. When choosing a future employee we evaluate not only his practical skills but also the potential. We have the true success stories – we have supplemented our team with young students who had then just started their first year studies and who are now – the fourth-year student – successful employees working with large international projects by proposing innovative solutions for the solution of the problems of clients.
– Design of systems, quality assurance. Ability to apply suitable modern automation measures for organisation of design process, design, testing, quality assessment and maintenance of a system. Practical skills of designing.
– Realisation, programming of systems. Expert knowledge and skills at least in one of the application areas of software systems, professional ethics.
– Planning, project management. Systematic thinking including the entire lifecycle of the software system. Specific technical knowledge of software engineering and management knowledge in project management.
– Able to analyse scientific and design problems.
– Insurance of the organisation’s compliance with respective legislations and regulating documents.
– Company’s or organisation’s representation at the events, seminars and conferences.
– Company’s or organisation’s representation at the events, seminars and conferences related to ITC.
– Consulting with customers regarding maintenance of software system.
– Coordination and linking of computer systems for compatibility in the organisation.
– Performance of scientific research and consulting on selection, application and use of database management measures.
– Identification of hardware and software problems.
– Assessment of network performance and integrated hardware, software, communications and operational systems, and proposals for its improvement.


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it appears to be a few superstars may simply be over Davido’s persistent requirement for flaunting and praising things which may pretty much have been delighted in/effective when stayed silent.
A couple of days back, the FALL crooner, had taken to snapchat to observe Madrid star, Cristiano Ronaldo tailing him on IG, a response which many would state is reasonable because of his need to demonstrate he isn’t as neighborhood as Wikzid, made him appear.
Lil Kesh, may have recently brought sides with Wizkid, as he made his emotions about Davido’s response known through snapchat, taunting and crap crapping the DMW manager’s decision of praising the new accomplishment.

industry_corpus2: Film & Entertainment


text: Maria did her B.Sc. at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore (her native city) and then earned an M.A. in political science from National University of Singapore. Most of her work experience has been in journalism. She has edited, researched and written for several sections of a newspaper. She also has taught undergraduate students, in journalism in Karachi and political science in Singapore. Her research interests focus on the politics of authoritarian and democratizing regimes. She is specifically interested in research puzzles relating to the durability of authoritarian regimes, endurance of mass protests and politics of development spending in nascent democracies.

industry_corpus2: Subject Education


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My regular rate is $120 for an individual, 45-minute session. Couple/family sessions often require more time and are priced accordingly. Evening hours are available on a limited basis and also incur a higher fee. I will slide my scale in order to accommodate those who could not otherwise afford therapy. This decision is made on a case by case basis.
I have chosen not to work with insurance companies. However, it is possible that your insurer would cover my services as an out-of-network provider. To determine whether my services are covered, please contact your insurer. I am happy to provide invoices which you may submit to them for this purpose. By not participating in traditional insurance or preferred plans, I am able to invest the time and effort normally spent on paperwork in offering affordable services for those who could not otherwise have them.
You may use health savings account/flex spending account cards to cover payment.
Cash, checks, debit cards, and credit cards (including health savings account cards) are accepted. Payment is made at the time of the appointment.
When we make an appointment to meet, I will reserve that time especially for you. If you find you are unable to make the appointment, please cancel at your earliest convenience so that someone else may have the opportunity to use that time. There is a fee for late cancellations ($40 fee for less than 48 hours notice, full fee for less than 24 hours notice). I do not charge for emergency cancellations.


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Data Center Life Cycle Services Market has been segmented on the basis of component, deployment, data center type, service and vertical. The component segment comprises of hardware and software components. Out of which the software segment is expected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period owing to more and more professionals gaining control of their data centers.
The global data center life cycle services market is expected to grow at approx. USD 7 Billion by 2023, at 15% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.
•	To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the data center life cycle services market.
•	To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future perspective.
•	To provide country level analysis of the market for segmentation on the basis of component, deployment, data center type, service and vertical.
•	To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for data center life cycle services market.
•	To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the data center life cycle services market.
The regional analysis of data center life cycle services market is being studied for regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. It has been observed that North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the market followed by Europe, whereas Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period.
The major growth in data center life cycle services market in North America is attributed to the technical advancements and well established infrastructure in that region.


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K/T boundary event - a compromise?
BBC News August 30th ... the K/T boundary event, it seems, involved more than one meteorite, or asteroid strike, according to a new study in the journal Geology by Professor David Jolley at Aberdeen University. The Boltysh Crater in the Ukraine was first reported (in the west) in 2002 and scientists have now examined pollen and spores of fossil plants in the layers of mud that have infilled the crater. They found that immediately after the impact ferns quickly colonised the davastated landscape.
See www.culture24.org/ August 30th ... (subsection, history and heritage - some pictures of the dig). The bank surrounding the ploughed out henge has managed to preserve some deposits in the ditch, by infill, and in the bank itself. These display evidence of burning before deposition suggesting a burnt offering, an apparently universal activity, or a cremation (another phenomenon not unrelated). The henge lies at the head of a shallow valley facing NE.
New Scientist August 27th ... sun spots may play a role in small fluctuations in the time it takes the earth to rotate on it's axis. The exact length of the day varies - tides and winds also affect the rotation but now it seems so do sun spots. It is suitably dressed up in uniformitarian glamour wear as they are talking about fractions of a second, supposedly as a result of an abundance of sun spots - or the lack thereof. The question thus might be asked - what hails in the result of a very large solar flare?
At www.thunderbolts.info there is a forum posting, Links to Related Alternative Science Web Pages. It is very useful as it provides some different takes on a number of issues such as gravitation, aether, aetherneutrinos, glowing magnetism, wave particles, electric stars, the fractal Sun theory, electrogravity, electrodynamics, and red shift etc.
New Scientist August 27th ... acoustic experiments were made at Stonehenge in an attempt to determine how it may have sounded during prehistoric gatherings. Once the acoustic fingerprint was discovered it could then be analysed - or modelled, using an anechoic chamber (at the University of Salford), and afterwards, convoluted. Due to reflection of sound from the stones, reverberating sounds such as drumming become deeper - as if the bass had been turned up and the tenor turned down.
At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/27/tornado-of-fire-in-brazil/ you will find some short video clips of a tornado of fire created during wild fires - transient phenomena captured by the abundance of mobile phones with cameras. Are these combustible tornados?
The video clips are available on a variety of blogs.
If this is cake it ain't got a lot of fruit. At www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100825185121.htm ... research has found the North American continent is a layer cake (see Nature August 26th). Exploration of seismic factors at the interior of the earth illuminate how the continents formed. The continental land masses have been broken into pieces, joined back together, and then broken up again - but some old pieces of the lithosphere have existed over very long periods of time.
Go to http://geology.com/articles/coal-through-a-microscope.shtml where it says microscopes reveal the hidden nature of coal - made from thick accumulations of plant debris, mixed with swamp sediments. Also, coal contains a lot of charcoal - as a result of fires raging through the landscape as the coal was being formed. Now, that is catastrophic.
At www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1306555/Our-terrifyingly-crowded-solar-system/ is a short post with a video clip of the asteroids that fly close to the earth - and only those discovered by telescope. It excludes the additional near earth objects found by the WISE mission. It was compiled by astronomer Scott Manley over the last 30 years. He is a former research student at Armagh Observatory.


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For our final project in Public Relations Writing (PRCA 3330) we were asked to write a detailed blog post explaining what a social media news release (SMNR) is.
Hopefully below I have thoroughly defined the SMNR, given some examples of how to format one, and given tips on how to write one.
What is a Social Media News Release (SMNR)?
What are the advantages & disadvantages of a SMNR?
Some of the advantages include gaining access to visibility across the social web. If you include video links and links to del.icio.us you are putting the news across many different forums. You are increasing the changes and likelihood that your news will be seen and talked about. Videos on YouTube are viewed and downloaded constantly during the day and many people may view something on a social bookmarking site that they would not have seen otherwise. You are increasing the odds of getting your news and information heard and talked about (source).
When should a PR practitioner consider using a SMNR?
Include a link to images, and the best way to do so is to use a social media photo sharing services such as flickr or zooomr. The best part about social media is the ability to not only share your photos with bloggers and reporters, but with the right tags, the pictures can make their way onto the desktops of anyone searching for similar products/services for consumption and sharing. For example, if you go the link below, you will see a set of images that I created for the purpose of sharing artwork with PR/marketing writers interested in the launch of the Social Media Club. I’ve also tagged each photo with several different tags, including “socialmediaclub” and “social media” so that others can find these images when they’re searching for photos related to the subjects.
Example: IX. Technorati Tags: Technorati tracks the number of links and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging. What’s important for you to know about Technorati allows users to search by “tags” or keywords to help you identify who’s talking about your areas of interest. With Social Media Press Releases, readers will now also have access to your news – if tagged and published correctly. For example, this “how to” will carry many keywords, tags, and links, with “PR” and “SMPR” among them. Behind the words, the following tag will be hyperlinked, http://technorati.com/tag/PR and http://technorati.com/tag/smpr and updated at Technorati. So for example, if someone searches “PR” as a tag or as a keyword, this article will hopefully appear in the list. Remember to use best practices and publish only relevant and necessary tags – do not promote tag spam.
Technorati tracks the number of links and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging. What’s important for you to know about Technorati allows users to search by “tags” or keywords to help you identify who’s talking about your areas of interest. With Social Media Press Releases, readers will now also have access to your news – if tagged and published correctly. For example, this “how to” will carry many keywords, tags, and links, with “PR” and “SMPR” among them. Behind the words, the following tag will be hyperlinked, http://technorati.com/tag/PR and http://technorati.com/tag/smpr and updated at Technorati. So for example, if someone searches “PR” as a tag or as a keyword, this article will hopefully appear in the list.
I was surfing the Web today and checking out some of my favorite blogs. I happened upon Deirdre Breakenridge’s blog and saw that she had started reading Groundswell. I couldn’t believe it! All throughout this course (Public Relations and Social Media) we have been reading that book, and I have used it in a number of papers and blog posts.
Anyways I saw that Breakenridge was also writing a book review of Groundswell and thought that many of you (my readers) would find it very interesting since Breakenridge is the author of PR 2.0 New Media, New Tools, New Audiences, which I did my Trade Book Review on.
Breakenridge is an accomplished, inventive and smart woman and you should be sure to check out her other books listed here on her site.
Be sure to read Breakenridge’s review of Groundswell Book Review: Part I.
For the second week in a row my topic of the week will be posted by a guest blogger of my choosing. This week I chose to post something from fellow class member, Ashley London’s blog. Ashley is also a student in Barbara Nixon’s Social Media for PR class, and she has done a series of posts filed under the category of “PR Connections” about “The Big Shockers in Advertising”. I found each of these posts interesting and sometimes hard to swallow.
The following post is directly from Ashley’s blog. After reading this one, I suggest you go to Ashley’s blog and read the other posts in the series. Enjoy!
PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) is a company that stands for the “rights” of animals around the world. Their main focuses include animals in factory farms, laboratories, in the clothing trade and also in the entertainment industry. Recently the have started a new campaign to push people to become vegetarians.
The name of the campaign is the “Save the Whales” campaign. This campaign has nothing to do with actually saving a whale. The whale in this case is referring to people, more specifically overweight people. Their underlying slogan to the campaign is “Lose the Blubber. Go vegetarian.” There has been a big stir in the media about this campaign, numerous amounts of people are taking this ad to be offensive.
I think that there is a reason for people to cause an uproar about the campaign because it is really a very unethical campaign. The funny thing is the PETA’s name states that they stand for ethics and even though it is for animals, I feel it should be respected for everyone. But aren’t humans animals too in a sense?
When asked about the new campaign and its controversy a spokesperson from the campaign states that they feel that animals don’t understand what is being done to them and they need someone to speak for them while on the other hand humans are able to defend themselves and can understand. They feel that this ad is not to be taking offensively but if it is then people can do something about it. My question for PETA is if you are going to offend humans on earth and then you upset them….who will be with you to save the animals?
You can contact Ashley London at her blog or on Twitter.
One of our last “TOWS” (topics of the week), will be posted by a guest blogger of my choosing. This assignment was handed down to our Public Relations and Social Media class by our professor, Barbara Nixon, and was inspired by Adam Vincenzini’s Be My Guest month.
I have chosen my good friend and fellow public relations student, Marilyn Lintel, to be a guest blogger. The following post is directly from her blog.
Personally, I think that social media has done a world of wonders; not only for those involved in public relations, but also anyone in the work force. Social media involves Twitter, Facebook, blogging, Linkedin, MySpace, etc. I know I’m forgetting some but you get the idea. At my age and in college almost everyone I know is involved in some sort of social media, mainly Facebook. Nowadays parents and some grandparents are even getting hooked on Facebook, which is pretty neat. My mom uses Facebook to try and get back in touch with her high school and college friends. Social Media has basically become a revolution and its going to keep getting bigger! It’s scary to think that one day my generation will be the people asking all the questions about new technology and not having a clue what it all means.
Benefits: If social media is used properly, the benefits can be amazing and really helpful.
Employers can see how involved you are with social media- and today for many jobs that is a must!!!
Knowing how to use Twitter, Facebook, and blogs are important to many companies because they count on the young people to keep up with the trends and be able to help the company and keep them updated in that respect.
Google your own name and see what comes up. If there is only a little bit that’s totally okay, there is always room for improvement. The more involved you are the more you will have to show for it (literally).
Don’t post inappropriate pictures on Facebook- this seems like common sense but employers look at Facebook to see a variety of things and if you don’t look professional then why even bother? They are not going to be impressed with the giant beer in your hand.
Employers will also see your “status” on Facebook so try and keep it PG so they don’t think you are a party animal or totally irresponsible.
Unlike certain networks, Twitter is a site that employers can pretty much see everything you write. Some people do protect their profile, but personally it seems like a small number, so make sure those comments are web appropriate.
For the most part, employers have access to anything they want to know about you so to put it simply: IF YOU WOULDN’T WANT YOUR PARENTS TO SEE IT- DON’T PUT IT ONLINE.
A new thing is going to start popping into your Twitter stream whether you’re ready for it or not! The “new thing” is Twitter’s new ad campaign called “Promoted Tweets”. These are really just advertisements disguised as “promoted tweets”. According to AdAge and The New York Times, the campaign will allow businesses to “insert themselves into the Twitter stream and rise above the noise” (Mashable).
The Promoted Tweets will just start out in searches, but will soon be seen in Twitter.com streams as well as in “third party apps” like Tweet Deck and Tweetie (Mashable).
Companies who are going to start using the Promoted Tweet are Starbucks, Bravo, and Virgin America (Mashable).
A viral video is defined as a video that has become popular through internet sharing. Usually they are funny or silly. I think that part of the reason that small budget, homemade videos become viral is through word of mouth. The majority of the videos that I have been shown on YouTube were by friends or family or that I heard about “through the grapevine”.
The reason that these videos become so popular is that once one person sees it and finds it funny or entertaining he or she will tell a few people and they will tell someone else and the word spreads like wildfire.
Also, video cameras these days are relatively inexpensive. If you combine that with people who have a lot of free time on their hands you are likely to end up with some pretty funny material.
YouTube was founded in February 2005 and was officially launched in November, 2005. In July, 2006 the company said that there were an estimated 65,000 new videos being uploaded daily. It’s also estimated that in 2007, YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000 (source)!
Google acquired YouTube on November 13, 2006 and on the third year anniversary of their acquisition, Chad Hurley of Google announced that YouTube was serving “well over a billion views a day” worldwide (source).
This actually makes me a little sad. It is so cringe-worthy (that’s not even a word but it should be)! It is so painful watching this girl answer the question. The question is about education in foreign countries and it should be asking about education in the state of South Carolina! What is going on in her county? Why can’t she answer a simple question? It is just awful which I think is part of the attraction. It is almost like watching a car accident; you don’t want to look but you just can’t look away.
I love these dancing inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center. They have done more than a few performances and this one is fantastic. This video has gotten 40.6 million views on YouTube and I think that they are fantastic; at dancing that is.

industry_corpus2: Media & Journalism