- The more people become glued to their smartphones, the
more companies and entrepreneurs there will be looking to create content for
those devices. So where is the focus now for those seeking to cash in on the
content crusade for Droids, iPhones and the like? Social networking apps, of
course. No one wants to be without the Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for any
length of time and the average amount of time that a smartphone owner spends on social
networking apps is up to 24 minutes a day, which equals the average amount of
time spent on games. Previously, games have been the primary focus, whether
it’s Angry Birds, Draw Something or any of the thousands of other available
game options for smartphones. All together, smartphone owners use apps for an
average of 77 minutes each day. With 24 minutes each, on average, spent on
games and social networking apps, that means 31 percent of that app time is
devoted to games and 31 percent is devoted to social networking. Maybe that
means the more social smartphone user is looking to connect via social media
and the loner is hammering away as their screen to play games, but the pendulum
is clearly swinging in the direction of social networking. The numbers are
staggering. The social networking category recently ended a 40-month streak by
the gaming category as the top app activity and just one year ago, smartphone
owners played games for an average of 25 out of 68 minutes of total app
activity each day — or 37 percent. Also last year, social networking apps took
up only 15 minutes of a user's daily app allowance, or approximately 22
percent. Put it all together and social networking app activity has risen nine
percent between the first quarters of 2011 and 2012, while gaming has declined
by 3 percent. Experts believe gaming may have reached its saturation point,
while social networking apps are a few steps behind in the evolutionary process
and still reaching their apex. Ultimately, however, it’s all about what will
make developers the most money and right now, that seems to be social
networking apps………..
- Dammit, America. Did we or did we not have this discussion
just one week ago? Having “Think Like a Man” as the top film at the box office in the
United States is a terrible look for us. It damages our cinematic credibility.
And yet, here we are with this comedic crap at the top of the earnings list for
a second time in as many weeks. Yes, “Think” made just $18 million, but that
was still enough to score first place. Clearly, the message did not reach
enough people to see anything – ANYTHING – other than “Think,” even if anything
includes a claymation children’s film like “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.” By
comparison, “Pirates” might as well be “Citizen Kane,” “The Usual Suspects” and
“The Shawshank Redemption” rolled into one. However, it landed in second place
with $11.4 million in its debut. That narrowly bested what has rightly been
called the single-worst movie ever adapted from a Nicholas Sparks book, the Zac
Effron-led “The Lucky One.” In its second week of release, “Lucky One” brought
in $11.3 million and has a two-week domestic total of $39.9 million. Fourth
place went to “The Hunger Games,” which made another $11.2 million in its sixth
week to elevate its cumulative domestic total to $372.5 million and counting.
Newcomer “The Five-Year Engagement” continued to odd trend of razor-thin
margins within the top five by scoring $11.1 million in its debut. “Safe” was
so-so in its own debut with $7.7 million, good for sixth place. Yet another new
film, the John Cusack-fronted “The Raven” could scare up just $7.2 million in
fairly wide release, finishing seventh. “Chimpanzee” was eighth on the list
with $5.5 million and through two weeks it has made $19.2 million. The
underwhelming run continued for “The Three Stooges” as the film dropped to
ninth place with $5.4 million and has managed just $37.1 million in three weeks
of release. “The Cabin in the Woods” completed the top 10 with a $4.5 million
effort in its third weekend in theaters. “21 Jump Street” (No. 11), “American
Reunion” (No. 12), “Mirror Mirror” (No. 13) and “Titanic 3D” (No. 15,
mercifully) all dropped out from last weekend’s top 10………….
- Masters
champion Bubba Watson garnered credibility, respect and recognition by winning
his first major earlier this month at Augusta National. He might need some of
that goodwill after beaning a fan in the head with a hooked drive during
Friday's second round of the Zurich Classic. Watson’s errant drive on the
second hole at the TPC Louisiana struck the back of Radd Leonard's head,
drawing blood. Ironically, the wayward shot came from the head by the very
player he came to see. Leonard, a 52-year-old motorcycle shop owner from Baton
Rouge, was quickly tended to by medics and insisted he was fine in spite of the
minor blood loss. He was also able to assist Watson by bouncing the ball back
into the fairway by using his noggin to do so. "I saw it coming and it
looked like it was hooking right at me. I wanted to see that big hook, you know,
and I got to see it. I turned and ducked and it still hit me," Leonard
said. "It gave him a good bounce, anyway." Watson, a fan favorite on
the tour, walked over to Leonard, put on a new golf glove, signed it, then took
it off and gave it to Leonard and shook his hand. His caddie, Ted Scott,
cracked a joke by pointing down the fairway toward the hole and deadpanning,
"We're glad you're all right, but if you could just angle your head a
little differently." Even Leonard laughed as he held a towel with ice to
his head and remained kneeling on the edge of the fairway with spots of blood
on his gray shirt. In truly manly fashion, he refused to go to First Aid and
remained on the course after medics wrapped a bandage around his head. In
addition to his signed glove from Watson, tournament officials gave him a new
red Zurich Classic golf shirt as he continued to follow Watson on the front
nine. The lesson, as always: Life’s rough, wear a helmet……….
- Arrrrrggggghhhh! Shiver me timbers, matey. Pirates are
lookin’ to plunder Germany’s political system and pilfer a few wenches, if
possible. A group that began as a fringe club of computer nerds and hackers demanding online freedom has risen in
popularity as an antiestablishment movement has lured many young voters to the
polls. The resulting wave of support has propelled the party into two state
parliaments in less than a year. The all-volunteer group doesn’t really have a
unified platform or list of core values, instead focusing on their foundational
policies of near-total transparency and an unrestricted Internet. Apparently
that’s enough substance for Germans to make them the country’s third-strongest
political force, vaulting the Pirates past more established parties. Their
membership now stands at 25,000 and with their convention this weekend, the
party now must deal with the fact that it has some clout and is no longer a
loose collection of misanthropes behind a computer screen. The convention
brought together 1,500 members in the northern Germany city of Neumuenster to
discuss the group’s growth and decide where it should go next. Polls have
indicated that the Pirates would win seats in two more state legislatures in
May and earn about 9 percent of the vote in both states. Political pundits have
suggested that support for the Pirates is a form of protest for many, a sort of
sign of unhappiness with the functioning of the established parties. While some
might find a country with a growing economy and low unemployment a reason to
celebrate, many Germans are still unhappy with the established parties because
of bailouts for banks and businesses to save the economy from collapsing in the
wake of the financial crisis across Europe. Last year, thousands of Germans
caught Occupy fever and took to the streets to protest. What remains of their
outrage seems to have transferred to the Pirates, who readily admit that they
have no answers for the continent’s debt crisis. In that sense, they are much
like those already in power, except that the Pirates are willing to admit they
don’t have a solution instead of pretending they do…………
- No longer are the biggest health and environmental hazards
at amusement parks the exorbitantly overpriced gruel being presented as food at
concession stands. At Six Flags Magic Mountain in California, the real hazard just might be
the waste produced by the park itself. Local environmental groups have targeted
the park for allegedly polluting the Santa Clara River. Worse still, these tree
huggers claim that the park has tried to keep its polluting ways secret. “We
were surprised to see, to hear actually, from an employee at the park and
several community members, that they thought that there was some pretty serious
pollution coming off Magic Mountain,” said Liz Crosson, the Executive Director
of Santa Monica Bay Keepers. “We found really high levels of things like toxic
metals. We found a lot of trash, unfortunately, it’s really pretty gross down
by the river right next to the facility.” Did everyone read that? It’s “pretty
gross,” and that’s about as strongly worded a condemnation as anyone can offer.
Fellow enviro-kooks at the California Coast Keeper Alliance and Wishtoyo
Foundation started investigating the theme park last year and say they have
found some revolting revelations. “We had a whistle-blower come to us, who was
concerned about the park’s practices, wash-down practices, after operating
hours. And we went out to investigate. And we found from Magic Mountain’s own
water quality monitoring reports during storm events and our own monitoring events,
that the quality of the water being discharged into the river was much worse
than we could have imagined,” said Jason Weiner of the Wishtoyo Foundation. His
group took pictures of trash with Magic Mountain’s logo on it floating in the
river, headed out to the Pacific Ocean. Weiner promised legal action against
the park if it does not clean up its act. “We’ve issued Magic Mountain a 60-day
notice of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act,” Weiner said. The
enviro-alliance sent a letter last Friday with 20 pages of violations and
concerns to the park last Friday, but representatives said they have not
received a response. The park did issue a written statement to local media,
saying that it was “concerned about the environment and feels a responsibility
to improve the storm water process.” Glad to know everything has been resolved ……….
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