GoDaddy Buys Media Temple To Build Up Its Business With Web ...

Domain registration and hosting company GoDaddy is continuing on its acquisitions roll, with the announcement today that it acquired Media Temple, a premium domain hosting and website services company based out of Los Angeles that targets website development professionals. Financial terms are not being disclosed. [Update: But website builder Virb that Media Temple bought in 2011 is spinning out.]

This is GoDaddy’s sixth acquisition in 15 months, but MT (as it is known) will stand apart from the rest in two ways. The first is that it’s taking GoDaddy deeper into premium services, catering to those who publish content specifically to be consumed on the web; and the second is that it will be the first acquisition that GoDaddy intends to operate as a separate business, staffed by MT’s 225 existing employees, rather than integrating into GoDaddy’s existing operations, which currently serve 12 million customers with over 4,000 employees.

Part of the reason for this, GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving says, is because of Media Temple’s existing size and position in the market. It has 125,000 customers for its premium website management services, and it hosts over 1.5 million websites, with some 88 percent classified as being for “advanced web and IT services”.

“Media Temple is absolutely killing and a standalone brand, and it has an incredible technology,” Irving said in an interview. “We can learn a lot from them, whether it’s in infrastructure or customer acquisition. There is a ton of things that we can learn on the developer and marketing sides. We can continue and invest in and accelerate its growth without integrating. We think it’s a much smarter move for Media Temple to let them remain as their own business.”

Media Temple is a startup that is a little long in the tooth: it’s been around since 1998, growing up in tandem with the wider web. In that time, its founders have raised money ($16.1 million, almost modest by today’s standards), started their own venture fund (now wound down) and built out an impressive list of customers from a mostly bootstrapped enterprise. (Customers include companies like Fifty Three, Drop Stop and LRG to projects for brands like Sony, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, Starbucks, Vogue and Volkswagen.)

As for why MT decided to finally exit after all this time, co-founder Demian Sellfors said that this was always the plan.

“We’ve had our eye on an exit since we started 15 years ago,” he told me. “We regard ourselves as entrepreneurs first and we designed it for exit from the start, even if on the way we accidentally built a phenomenal culture and a business that resounded with the marketplace.” He says that the idea of selling to a much larger company like GoDaddy is to make Media Temple “bigger and better. We are growing nicely but it’s still very humble growth.”

About a year and a half ago, Sellfors helped hire Russ Reeder to run MT, and he will remain in place as its president under GoDaddy, and he echoes the sentiment that this was the best way for MT to continue to grow. “We are excited about this; we’re excited to learn from their scale,” he told me.

For its part, GoDaddy — specifically under Irving (who comes from very senior roles at giants like Microsoft and Yahoo) — has been trying to build out and evolve its business beyond that of a basic web domain registry.

That has included acquisitions and its own product launches to build out different web services for the small businesses that register domains on GoDaddy — these include accounting and payment services, as well as those geared to help them create mobile sites.

Media Temple will help GoDaddy build out more expertise in providing more sophisticated offerings to web-based operations, and will help raise the company’s profile among that class of users for future business. That business, as well, is likely to have higher margins than some of GoDaddy’s existing basic products. MT’s portfolio includes three different classes of web hosting services (priced between $20 and $50 per month), API management, SSL services and CDN (content delivery) services.

Prior to today, GoDaddy’s other recent acquisitions included Ronin for bookkeeping services; Afternic for aftermarket domain registry services (basically a domain resellers’ marketplace); M.dot to help website owners create mobile Internet sites; Locu to help them organize and distribute their business data to other sites/services; and Outright for bookkeeping.

Irving tells me, by the way, that another important area for GoDaddy going forward will be how it expands internationally. Its main site is already available in 30 different languages, but the aim is that by the end of 2015 it will be in some 60 markets with much more localized focus. “Today it’s really about two markets, English and Spanish,” he admitted. “We want to roll out to both Europe and Asia.”

Go Daddy is the Web’s top platform for small businesses and offers everything needed to to grow and manage an online presence, from domain names and website builders to complete eCommerce solutions. The company has earned a place as the world’s #1 ICANN-accredited domain registrar by delivering world-class products at competitive prices and supporting them with industry-best service, delivered 24/7/365.

Go Daddy is the world’s largest domain name registrar and Web hosting provider *

More than 55 million domain...

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(mt) Media Temple, Inc. is a web hosting and virtualization service provider headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Since 1998, the company has provided businesses around the world with reliable, professional-class services to host websites, email, business applications, and other rich Internet content.

The team is comprised of 180+ incredibly smart and friendly employees who help create an award-winning culture. (mt) is an always-on company (24/7/365) with a U.S. based support department serving customers in over 60+ countries. The company offers...

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/15/godaddy-buys-media-temple-to-build-up-its-business-with-web-professionals/
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Random Bedtimes Breed Bad Behavior In Kids

Play now, pay later: consistency matters when it comes to kids and sleep.

iStockphoto.com

Parents learn the hard way that late bedtimes make for cranky kids the next day. But inconsistent bedtimes may have a greater effect on children's behavior, a study says.

Kids who didn't go to bed on a regular schedule had more behavior problems at home and at school. When those children were put to bed at the same time each night, their behavior improved.

That data came from an ongoing study of 10,230 British schoolchildren. Mothers were asked if their child had a regular bedtime during the school week. That information was collected when the children were ages 3, 5 and 7.

The mothers were also asked to complete a standardized test that measures behavior, including conduct problems, hyperactivity, emotional symptoms, problems with peers and positive behavior.

Children who went to bed after 9 p.m. were rated as having more behavior problems than children who went to bed earlier. That's no surprise; there's abundant evidence on the effects of lack of sleep on children's school performance and behavior.

But irregular bedtimes actually caused worse behavior than short sleep.

Teachers were asked to rate some of the children's behavior at age 7. They too reported more behavior problems in children with irregular bedtimes.

The good news is that the behavior problems improved when children were shifted to a more regular schedule. The scientists call that a "clear dose-response pattern." And behavior deteriorated in children who had regular bedtimes at age 5 and were on a more random plan by age 7, the parents said.

The sleep issues could affect behavior in two ways, according to the researchers at University College London. It could mess up children's circadian rhythms, which are slow to change. And it could affect maturing brain regions involved in regulation of behavior.

Pediatricians should ask about irregular bedtimes, the researchers say, not just how many hours a kid is logging.

This study has shortcomings. It doesn't report how much the children actually slept, but rather how much their mothers said they slept. And it could be that the families with random bedtimes had other problems that affected the child's behavior.

Lack of sleep causes health problems in children and adults, including weight gain and insulin resistance.

And regular bedtimes are recommended for adults too, because maintaining a regular circadian rhythm makes it easier to fall asleep and wake up on time. No word if it makes grownups less cranky. But it probably couldn't hurt.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/15/234683175/random-bedtimes-breed-bad-behavior-in-kids?ft=1&f=1001
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Philip Kaplan Officially Launches DistroKid, A Cheap, Efficient Way To Distribute Lots Of Music

Philip Kaplan, AKA "Pud", AKA The Guy Who Made Being Online In The Late 1990s Bearable has just announced the official launch of DistroKid, a service for musicians to release unlimited tracks to various online music stores for a flat yearly fee. Folks wanting to try it out can upload any song for free without submitting a credit card.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Puu7kBJ-iX0/
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Manzo leaving 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey'

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the original members of "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" has announced she's leaving the show after five seasons.

Caroline Manzo made the announcement Sunday on Twitter and on her blog on Bravo's website after "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" aired the final part of the show's reunion.

She says the reality show — known for its brawls, screaming and family fights — has become something she hopes her future grandchildren will never see.

Manzo wrote that she's filming a pilot spinoff called "Manzo'd With Children" that would give "a very different look" at her family.

An email to Bravo seeking comment wasn't immediately returned Monday.

___

Online:

http://www.bravotv.com/the-real-housewives-of-new-jersey

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/manzo-leaving-real-housewives-jersey-171518005.html
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Piracy Among Hot Topics Addressed at Australian International Movie Convention

Columbia Pictures

The local premiere of "Captain Phillips" opened the Australian International Movie Convention on Sunday

SYDNEY -- Australia’s major film exhibition and distribution confab, the Australian International Movie Convention opened Monday with a keynote speech from returning federal arts minister, Senator George Brandis, underlining the issues of copyright reform, piracy and ongoing support for both local and runway production as key to the continued growth of the film sector here.

In his first major address to the industry since his party’s win in the Sept. 7 election, Brandis said that he would “reaffirm the government’s commitment to content industries, keep the thresholds of the offset under review and readdress policy covering copyright and piracy in light of technological advancements”.

Brandis is also the nations Attorney General, who last held the post of arts minister in 2007 and was one of the architects of the package of screen production incentives which include the producer, location and post digital and visual effects offsets.  

He said that five years after introducing production incentives, they have “proved to be a highly successful stimulant for investment in Australian screen production. It has also served to attract a number of high budget films to be made in Australia. The producer offset, for films with significant Australian content, has helped raise the finance for 115 Australian feature films since I introduced it in 2007. This equates to over AUS$452 million ($429 million) in support, which has over time increased the viability of screen businesses”.

However, recent times have not been without challenges, he said “given the high value of the Australian dollar and an expanding number of tax breaks being offered in other countries and in many states in the United States.”

“During the election campaign I undertook to keep the thresholds of the offset under review and I reaffirm that commitment today,” he said.

And answering the content industry’s call for a new set of copyright laws “that work in the digital age,” he said that industry, as well as government, had to act effectively on the issue of piracy.

“In times of turbulent change, industry cannot rely solely on government to fix all the problems that arise,” he said. “Protection of copyright materials isn’t simply a matter of law or government intervention, it is importantly a matter of practice. You know better than I of the agility that modern successful businesses need, and I am pleased to say that you have been able to demonstrate.

“Australia already has a robust legal framework for the protection of copyright, but despite an extensive menu of criminal offenses applicable under copyright law, still the problems of piracy and unauthorized use remain,” Brandis said.  

 “I understand that content industries are facing challenges at the business level. And that means we are all facing challenges at a policy level. The Internet has led to and continues to drive structural adjustments to content industries. New technologies are changing how governments should respond. Australia is not the only country facing these changes.

 “We are all awaiting the Australian Law Commission’s final report on copyright which is to be provided to the government at the end of next month. The government will consider the commission’s findings and any recommendations carefully. But in considering those recommendations, I will bring to that consideration the views that I have expressed in this speech,” Brandis finished.

The 625 delegates at the Convention, on Queensland's Gold Coast, will also see a session on making Tracks, the upcoming adventure travel film starring Mia Wasikowska, based on the story of Robyn Davidson’s camel trek across Australia, with producer Emile Sherman and Davidson. Tracks had its Australian premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival on the weekend.

Distributors are also previewing their 2014 films for exhibitors, and delegates were treated to an advance screening of Tom Hanks-starrer Captain Phillips on Sunday. The annual box office achievement awards will be announced Tuesday.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/international/~3/Ga7R2eYsCmA/story01.htm
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Global finance chiefs ready defenses ahead of Fed exit

By Anna Yukhananov and Alonso Soto

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global finance chiefs on Saturday told the IMF to stand ready to aid emerging market economies that could be destabilized by a sudden flight of capital when the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks back away from ultra-loose monetary policies.

The International Monetary Fund's governing panel, after a semi-annual meeting, acknowledged the risks posed by a transition toward more normal policies in advanced economies, and it urged nations not to delay preparations.

"The key task is to focus on the transition, prepare ourselves well for this eventual normalization," the committee's chairman, Singaporean Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, told reporters. "It's not imminent, but it will happen."

A wave of selling spread quickly through world financial markets this year after the Fed, responding to signs of stronger U.S. growth, said it could start winding down its economic stimulus program by year end.

The pain was felt most severely in developing countries as a gusher of cheap dollars that had poured into their economies dried up, sparking a sharp slide in stock prices and currencies and pushing up local interest rates.

Low interest rates in developed economies, engineered by their central banks in recent years, had spurred investors to hunt for higher-yielding assets, many of which were found in emerging markets.

When the U.S. central bank does move to reduce stimulus, the repercussions "may be even more significant," said Zeti Akhtar Aziz, chief of Malaysia's central bank. Aziz said the IMF's "policy toolkit" needed to expand to help cope with the fallout.

The U.S. central bank has held interest rates near zero since 2008 and has tripled its balance sheet to roughly $3.7 trillion. Over the last year, it has been pumping $85 billion into the U.S. financial system each month through bond purchases.

The IMF panel, which represents the Fund's 188 member nations, said these ultra-accommodative policies have supported world growth and remained appropriate for now.

Worries about the strength of the U.S. economy prompted the Fed to refrain from winding down its stimulus last month. But few doubt it will wait very long.

The panel urged developed market central banks to try to limit the damage to emerging markets when the time comes to move toward tighter policy, saying the shift should be "well-timed, carefully calibrated and clearly communicated."

The Fed faced criticism from officials in developing nations and from market participants for abruptly suggesting in June that it could soon move to scale back its stimulus. It surprised onlookers again last month when it opted to hold fire.

"Global financial stability is a shared responsibility," said Ewald Nowotny, a member of the European Central Bank's Governing Council. "The Fed should therefore clearly communicate the path of its intended policy actions to minimize negative spillovers" on developing economies.

'CONSIDERABLE TURBULENCE'

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said policymakers should prepare for another round of "considerable turbulence in financial markets" once a move toward tighter policy begins.

"The assumption that the asset price correction that began this summer has already been largely completed does not seem to be plausible to us," he said, referring to the sell off in emerging markets.

To protect themselves, finance leaders urged developing nations to act now to reform their economies and reduce vulnerability to unpredictable capital flows.

That's especially critical for countries where budget deficits make them dependent on unstable foreign capital flows.

"Fiscal consolidation remains a high priority in countries with large fiscal imbalances, while others should rebuild buffers, unless growth deteriorates significantly," the panel said in a closing statement.

While emerging markets' pace of growth has slowed of late, the IMF governing committee said it still expects expansion in these countries to account for "the bulk of global growth."

Advanced economies, including the United States and Japan, need to commit to medium-term deficit reduction plans while supporting near-term growth and job creation, it said.

The finance chiefs also called for completing IMF reforms to give emerging markets a greater say at the global lender.

Three years ago, the IMF's board agreed on changes that would cut Europe's representation, but they have been held up because the U.S. Congress has yet to sign off on them, and prospects for action before year-end are slim. Without ratification by the United States, the fund's biggest and most powerful member, the reforms cannot move forward.

"The governance reforms have entered a stage of complete paralysis and this has further eroded the fund's legitimacy and credibility," said Brazil's central bank chief, Alexandre Tombini.

"Emerging market countries have honored their part of this political agreement," he added. "It is time for the United States and Europe to deliver theirs."

(Reporting by Reuters' IMF reporting team; Writing by Steven C. Johnson; editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/imf-central-banks-must-careful-tightening-policy-174024905--business.html
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European origins laid bare by DNA

10 October 2013
Last updated at 18:23 ET

DNA from ancient skeletons has revealed how a complex patchwork of prehistoric migrations fashioned the modern European gene pool.

The study appears to refute the picture of Europeans as a simple mixture of indigenous hunters and Near Eastern farmers who arrived 7,000 years ago.

The findings by an international team have been published in Science journal.

DNA was analysed from 364 skeletons unearthed in Germany - an important crossroads for prehistoric cultures.

"This is the largest and most detailed genetic time series of Europe yet created, allowing us to establish a complete genetic chronology," said co-author Dr Wolfgang Haak of the Australian Centre for DNA (ACAD) in Adelaide.

"Focusing on this small but highly important geographic region meant we could generate a gapless record, and directly observe genetic changes in 'real-time' from 7,500 to 3,500 years ago, from the earliest farmers to the early Bronze Age."

Dr Haak and his colleagues analysed DNA extracted from the teeth and bones of well-preserved remains from the Mittelelbe-Saale region of Germany. They focused on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) - the genetic information in the cell's "batteries".

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

When you look at today's populations, what you are seeing is a hazy palimpsest of what actually went on to create present-day patterns”

End Quote
Dr Spencer Wells
Director, Genographic Project

MtDNA is passed down from a mother to her children, allowing geneticists to probe the maternal histories of populations. Geneticists recognise a variety of mitochondrial DNA "clans", or lineages, in human populations. And each of these lineages has its own distinct history.

The team's results show that indigenous hunter-gatherers in Central Europe were edged out by incomers from Anatolia (modern Turkey) some 7,500 years ago. A majority of the hunters belonged to the maternal clan known as haplogroup U, whilst the farmers carried a selection of genetic lineages characteristic of the Near East.

Around 6,100 years ago, farming was introduced to Scandinavia, which coincided with the appearance of Neolithic mtDNA lineages in that region too.

"In some ways agriculture was an obvious and easy way to go in the Fertile Crescent. But once you take it out of there, it involves an abrupt shift in lifestyle," said Dr Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project and an Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, adding that early agricultural groups were living "on the edge".

"They were basically taking crops that had evolved over millions of years in the Middle East and were adapted to that dry-wet pattern of seasonality and moving them into an area that was recently de-glaciated.

"It was no trivial thing to transfer crops such as barley and rye to the northern fringes of Europe."

Dr Wells thinks this precarious existence may be reflected in the spread of the lactase persistence gene, which enables people to digest milk into adulthood. Scandinavian populations have some of the highest frequencies of this gene variant in Europe, and it appears to have undergone strong natural selection in the last few thousand years - suggesting milk had a key nutritional role and the ability to drink it conferred an enormous advantage.

"What it implies is that the underlying farming culture is not stable. They are literally teetering on the brink of dying out," said Dr Wells.

Indeed, something does seem to have happened to the descendents of the first farmers in Central Europe. The DNA evidence shows that about a millennium later, genetic lineages associated with these Near Eastern pioneers decline, and those of the hunter-gatherers bounce back. Climate change and disease are both possibilities, but the causes are a matter for further investigation.

A second study, also published in Science by Ruth Bollongino at the University of Mainz, Germany and colleagues, implies that hunter-gatherer cultures persisted alongside farming cultures for 2,000 years after the introduction of agriculture to the region - with very little interbreeding between the two.

From 4,800 years ago, novel maternal lineages spread into the region, associated with the emergence of the Corded Ware people - who take their name from the inscribed patterns on their pottery.

The study suggests this culture was brought by groups moving in from the East. Scientists compared the mtDNA types found in Corded Ware people with modern populations and found distinct affinities with present-day groups in Eastern Europe, the Baltic region and the Caucasus.

A few hundred years later, a counterpart of this society swept in from the West. This ancient group, known as the Bell Beaker Culture, was in part responsible for the spread of a mtDNA lineage called Haplogroup H.

Largely absent from Central European hunters and scarce in early Neolithic farmers, H remains the dominant maternal lineage in Europe today and comparisons between the Bell Beaker people and modern populations suggest they came from Iberia - modern Spain and Portugal.

"Our study shows that a simple mix of indigenous hunter-gatherers and the incoming Near Eastern farmers cannot explain the modern-day diversity alone," said co-author Guido Brandt, from the University of Mainz.

"The genetic results are much more complex than that. Instead, we found that two particular cultures at the brink of the Bronze Age 4,200 years ago had a marked role in the formation of Central Europe's genetic makeup."

Spencer Wells explained: "When you look at today's populations, what you are seeing is a hazy palimpsest of what actually went on to create present-day patterns."

Dr Haak concurs: "None of the dynamic changes we observed could have been inferred from modern-day genetic data alone, highlighting the potential power of combining ancient DNA studies with archaeology to reconstruct human evolutionary history."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24475342#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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