Alabama communities to receive long-term tornado disaster relief

HACKLEBURG, AL (WAFF)- Governor Robert Bentley will be in Hackleburg Wednesday morning to announce millions of dollars in disaster relief funding.

The funding will be awarded to several communities in both northern and western Alabama as they continue their long-term recovery from the April 27, 2011 tornadoes.

Bentley is expected to make the announcement at 10:30 a.m. at the Hackleburg Fire Department.

The spring tornado outbreak killed more than 250 people statewide on April 27.

Copyright 2012 WAFF. All rights reserved.

Source: http://russellville.waff.com/news/news/87774-alabama-communities-receive-long-term-tornado-disaster-relief

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Should You Buy Book Review Today?

A book review is just like any review in general that can help you sell. If you have positive reviews, they will help you convince consumers that what you are trying to sell is good. A book that received positive reviews will most likely be a hit. However, there are some exceptions when reviews are not 100 percent positive but somewhat controversial and people are inclined to know the truth. Speaking of the truth, some experts say that reviews in general are much more effective than the traditional marketing and advertising tactics because they have the element of the ?truth? because they don?t come directly from the seller.

What Should Be in a Review?

Traditionally, a book review must state both the positive and negative aspects. What makes the book worth the time or money? What could make people think that they are just wasting time or money in the book?

Book Reviews Today

Because of the open buying of reviews, many think that the functions of reviews were already lost. Years ago, the reviews are written to describe and evaluate the product. They are written by consumers to share what they think about the product. They are there to help other consumers, who are thinking about buying a product, know if the product is worthy of money and time. Those were the days when writing or publishing reviews does not involve money.

Today, the reviews can be bought. However, they are still informative. The reviews even the ones paid for still describe or give information about the product. However, today?s reviews have a new purpose. They are also used to support the seller and help them build their reputation. They still play a role in promoting or marketing a product. They still, somehow, have an effect on the consumers? decisions. Someone who sees a positive review about a book may be inclined to buy it. To put it simply, most of the reviews today are usually written for the marketing side more than for editorial purposes.

Should You Buy a Review?

Most people or companies selling something can buy a review. Should you buy a book review? It depends. Buying a book review may make you feel guilty. You may think that you are fooling the consumers. However, those who do it rationalize by saying that they do not buy the reviews but simply pay people to spend some time reviewing the book. It is a good point. Who would take time to review a book after reading it? It is probably only those who don?t have anything to do with their life. Even some book enthusiasts do not take the time to write a review all the time.

So, should you buy a review? You should if you are desperate to get more sales or to promote your book. If it will be of any help, it is estimated that about 33 percent of reviews on the Web are ?fake? and by that we refer to the money involved for writing the review.

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Source: http://www.apluswritings.com/should-you-buy-book-review-today.html

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Sold.sg seizes opportunities in e-commerce by moving beyond ...

Cofounder of Sold.sg, Qiuyan, shares about the e-commerce space in Southeast Asia and the company?s expansion plans.

Sold.sg did a relaunch of their site in September this year, adding in an e-commerce store and a members sales section to the original auctions site. The service, founded by Chiou Hau, Qiuyan and Angeline, started off as a pay-to-bid auctions site. Having raised about S$1 million a year ago, the team is now looking for their Series A funding after the new launch.

Speaking to Qiuyan, e27 finds out more about the expansion strategy of Sold and also what the team has learnt so far about the e-commerce space in Southeast Asia.

Do share more about Sold.sg?s strategy to expand out of the pay-to-bid auction space into a full e-commerce site.

We started out as a pay-to-bid auction site and that gave us significant traffic and user base. However, we noted that pay-to-bid auctions is not for everyone and the natural progression for us is to open up an e-commerce site where we can reach out to a wider base. We will continue to operate our auction model as we have a large group of loyal users that enjoy the thrill and strategy of bidding.

How is Sold.sg?s e-commerce traction versus the auctions?

Most of our revenue still comes from the auction business.?With the e-commerce site, we have significantly expanded our product offerings and this has opened new channels for customer acquisition,?bringing down the overall acquisition costs.?In terms of visits, our most frequented site is still the auction site. Traffic has gone up since we re-launched.

Sold.sg?s e-commerce store puts it in a space with competitors ranging from ?chains stores (Challenger, Courts) to other e-commerce sites (Zalora, Qisahn). How does Sold.sg differentiates itself?

Our product offerings are different. In?Sold.sg, we curate the products we put up ? we only put up products we think are interesting. The e-commerce competitors mentioned?do?not limit their product range if it falls in their verticals.

Are most customers to the e-commerce store converted users of the auction services or are they new customers drawn in by the differentiated offering??

I would say about 60-70% of our shop site?customers?are?not existing auction?users.?This is in line with our?objectives for opening the e-commerce store???to reach a wider audience.

Sold.my has not followed the expansion of Sold.sg yet. Are there plans to the Malaysian side of the business?

Yes, we are looking at 1st quarter of 2013.

What are the key trends in the e-commerce space that the Sold.sg team has noted that presents strong opportunities for the future expansion of the business?

I think without a doubt, there is a growing trend in e-commerce in both Singapore and Malaysia. Singaporeans are generally quite comfortable buying things online. In Malaysia,?online sales and online buyers have nearly doubled over the last two years and this shows that consumers are slowly beginning to have more faith in e-commerce. It also helps that the various online transaction methods available have increased their safety measures, to ensure consumers are more comfortable utilising them.

In some of the other ASEAN countries, based on our research, online buying is low but growing. Trust issues with making payment online and product fulfilment are still prevalent in these countries. However, we are seeing more and more new companies come up with solutions to tackle these issues. This coincides with rising incomes, internet penetration rates, usage of smart devices, and willingness to transact online.?Like Malaysia, we only expect exponential growth in online buying over the next few years. We are definitely looking to expand to these countries and be there to capture this opportunity.

Image Credits: Cookieologic

The post Sold.sg seizes opportunities in e-commerce by moving beyond online auctions appeared first on e27.

Link to full article

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Source: http://web2asia.blognhanh.com/2012/12/soldsg-seizes-opportunities-in-e.html

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Eric Chua : Life, Business and Real Estate in Singapore ? Imporant ...

Using Internet marketing, you can make your business more profitable. The biggest draw of marketing on the Internet is that your market share is worldwide. There are some tricks, however, to market your business more effectively. Read on for some ideas on getting the most out of your Online marketing efforts.

To convince people to purchase the products you are selling, consider sending them a content page filled with product information and maybe even a video. This will arm them with more information about what you want them to spend their money on. When you do this you show them the value of a product, and they don?t feel like you are just trying to sell them random stuff.

Try offering special discounts for buying the same product regularly. For example, if a customer purchases a ream of computer paper, offer him or her a twenty-five percent discount if he or she signs up to buy a ream every month.

TIP! Give customers a chance to pay wholesale or retail prices, which can be dependent on how much they buy of an item. Selling wholesale items at a small amount of profit is one way to boost the amount of items you sell.

Try and make all the information you send out through correspondence as personal as possible. Most people are sick and tired of the usual spam-like bulk emails. There isn?t anyone who enjoys getting hundreds of useless emails on a daily basis. When you personalize the emails you can differentiate yourself from the other guys and make an impact.

If you are interested in having more visitors to your site, it is vital that you rank higher and employ SEO tactics. Simply using the same information, descriptions and graphics will simply let your website fade and it will not stand out to potential customers. This will allow you to gain an advantage over your competitors.

Words such as ?simple? and ?easy? work very nicely in strategies for Web marketing. People generally dislike overly complicated things, so adding tags like ?easy to order? and ?easy to use? can entice them to use your product. This can be a powerful strategy to grow your sales.

TIP! The more you know about your competition, the more successful you will be. Familiarity with the products of your competitor and good marketing skills equal success for you and will leave your competitor watching gape-jawed as you successfully and profitably win the day.

Stay up-to-date with what the Internet is up to. The internet is forever morphing, it is very useful to keep up with new things and websites so you can put your niche in the public eye.

Start small when launching a new website to introduce your offerings. Search engines are built to pay more attention to sites that have 10,000-20,000 pages, rather than to sites that have a million or more pages.

To increase your ad clicks, place an image on your page that, when clicked, leads to a page that describes the item you are advertising or selling. Try creating an advertisement that blends seamlessly with the text of an article, so that it appears to be a continuation of the content. This stealthy method does not look like a traditional advertisement.

TIP! To get a better idea of what is most effective with your customers, test your emails. A/B testing is often used.

Email marketing services are available to help with Internet promotion, but it is best if you learn the proper methods yourself. It is simple to use auto responders, send bulk emails and build contact lists once your know what you?re doing. At the end of the day, the hands-on experience you?ll pick up is truly invaluable. What you learn today will help you indefinitely.

It is always best to handle customer complaints personally. Some business owners outsource this work to specialized companies, but you are best equipped to resolve these issues yourself. If a customer sends you an email about a problem he or she experienced with your product or service, send a personal response back to the customer that offers a method of resolving the issue.

Your website should be coded in a way that links are easily visible. This will keep your audience engaged and they won?t have to dig around for links.

TIP! To have proper internet marketing, you will want to be listed in Google. You need to know what terms people are searching for on Google that relate to your business.

Solicit referrals from your customers by offering incentives. Turning one sale into multiples is easy if you offer your customers something free for referring others to your business. People love free gifts, and this can increase sales!

Ensure your website has relevant information your customers desire. A minimalist one page website which only provides your business address and hours isn?t going to draw traffic and will be easily passed by. To increase the potential to your website add content that will help your prospective customers, such as articles, product reviews and other information pertaining to your product.

Don?t delete stuff that hasn?t yet worked. It may not have worked recently but could work now. Change is extremely rapid in the online world, and users are interacting with websites and each other in new ways all the time. Keep ideas that didn?t work and learn from them and keep them in mind in case they could be workable in the future.

TIP! Provide a money back guarantee as part and parcel of any Internet marketing strategy that you use. This provides your customers with a sense of security in addition to adding credibility for your company.

It is essential when owning a business that you spend your advertising dollars in the right ways. You don?t want to pay a lot for anything that isn?t helping your business. When you spend money, you want to get good deals and that?s why banner ads can be a good investment.

Now you know considerably more than you did about internet promotion strategies. Now you?re ready to start applying these tips to your business. You may well find that you need to modify how you operate. Just remember to keep learning and be daring enough to try new techniques.

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www.facebook.com/maynaseric

Source: http://www.maynaseric.com/imporant-tips-for-beginner-and-expert-internet-marketers

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New Android apps worth downloading: Shopular and Facebook updates, Santa Rockstar

Find some great deals to start the week with Shopular?s app designed specifically for mall shoppers for finding deals at different stores. We?ve also got a big update to Facebook?s mobile app that makes it work faster, and Santa Rockstar, a rhythm game that combines holiday songs with tapping and rock music.

What?s it about? This deal-finding app by Shopular brings you all kinds of sales from various stores.

What?s cool? Shopular allows users to search for deals a whole lot of popular stores, like Old Navy, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, Hollister and more. The app brings users sales from more than 700 malls across the U.S., and it makes use of your Android device?s GPS capabilities by making sales available to you every time you walk into a mall, if there are any to have. Shopular is tuned to keep your battery usage to a minimum whenever possible, but it?s also designed to make sure you know about all the sales available to you whenever you?re out shopping.

Who?s it for? If you like heading out to the mall, definitely give Shopular a try.

What?s it like? For more shopping deals check out The Coupons App and shopkick.

What?s it about? The uber-popular social network Facebook?s mobile app received another big update, optimizing it for greater speed and efficiency.

What?s cool? Given that Facebook is one of the most popular mobile apps going, it?s more than likely that you?re familiar with its features ? the ability to see your profile and your friends? profiles and to post updates, videos and photos. Its latest update makes the app work even better, loading elements like News Feeds faster than ever, and adds additional items such as the News Stories bar that?s found in Facebook?s web version. You also can open up photos with a single tap to see them in bigger sizes, ?Like? or comment on them quickly and easily.

Who?s it for? If you like social networking and use Facebook ? and given that there are a billion people on the network, chances are pretty good you do ? this is an app for you.

What?s it like? For more potential social networking enjoyment, check out Twitter and Myspace.

What?s it about? Just in time for the holidays, Santa Rockstar combines a burly rockstar Santa with rhythm game mechanics.

What?s cool? Like games such as Guitar Hero, Santa Rockstar is about listening to music and tapping along to score points. You?ll be prompted to tap areas on the screen that correspond to one of four colors; the closer you hit the rhythm of the music, the more points you?ll score along the way. If you miss too many notes, though, you?ll fail your song and have to start over. Santa Rockstar includes five different rock-style holiday songs, and as you play you can unlock other holiday characters to play with and additional worlds to play on, as well. You can also connect with your Facebook friends through the app and compare scores, unlock and choose guitars, amps and other bits of equipment to give you a leg-up during your performances.

Who?s it for? Holiday music fans, Santa Rockstar turns the tracks you love into a game!

What?s it like? Tap Tap Revenge 4 is another very solid entry into the rhythm game genre, as is Neon Rhythm.

Download the Appolicious Android app

Source: http://www.androidapps.com/tech/articles/13050-new-android-apps-worth-downloading-shopular-and-facebook-updates-santa-rockstar

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Home Improvement the Green Way | promovers.net

There are several reasons why creating environmentally friendly improvements in your dwelling is logical. Over time you will save some money on energy and living expenses but you will be aiding the environment as well. You are capable of causing transformation that can make a distinction when you begin to realize the multiple ways you can make your residence more green. Begin by putting into place the accompanying home improvement suggestions which are environmentally friendly.

Most of the time people will address their kitchen first when they want to remodel their home. There are many green options to choose from in the kitchen, for example your appliances and the worktops you use. Using materials for the countertops that are local and natural, such as stone, clay or porcelain tiles, you?re not only making a green choice but you can give your kitchen a new and distinctive look. Also you should try to find out whether or not your kitchen appliances are up to date with the latest energy efficiency standards. Look for appliances with an Energy Star logo, which many new ones will have.

While this is all relevant to your discovery, a few items about green home improvement projects carry more weight than others. But in the end you are the only person who can correctly make that call. Yet you do realize there is much more to be found out about this. The balance of this read contains much more that will help your particular situation. We believe you will find them highly pertinent to your overall goals, plus there is even more.

You can make your home a lot greener by conserving water and in addition to this you can save yourself money by simply being more efficient with water. You can conserve water by modifying your toilet to have a light flush mode. You can also add aerators to your taps to save water as well as adding a low flow head to your shower. It may also be a good idea to take a closer look at your water heater. Instead of your water heater supplying hot water continually, an energy efficient one will just provide you with water when it?s needed. This is a good way of reducing your costs. You can limit your water usage by simply collecting rain water in water barrels. The water collected can be used for watering your grass.

Looking into low cost methods of ensuring your home stays cool is worth taking a look at if you live in a place where it gets hot in the summer. Central air conditioning is an expensive and not very eco-friendly solution that many people choose, but there are certainly alternatives. One of the best methods of efficiently cooling a room down is by using fans. You can also make use of what is known as passive cooling, which means making use of curtains and shades to keep out the heat during the day. Creating more shade is possible by simply planting some large trees in key areas. It?s not too hard to come up with more cheap ways of making your home cooler if you just think about it, so you won?t need to always rely on the air conditioning.

You?ll soon realize that making green choices when improving your home isn?t as hard as it first seemed. Things actually become easier for you because you?re less dependent on others and you will be reducing your bills. You may have to make an initial investment for solar panels or insulation though. Green choices will however be worth it in the end.

The writer is an internet marketing and advertising expert ? who writes on numerous home improvement related matters such as Learn More, roof coatings Austin, and Austin commercial roofing. ?Quality Austin Roofing Services ? 7703 North Lamar Blvd., # 680 Austin, Texas 78752 (512) 201-2987

Source: http://promovers.net/wpress2/?p=2981

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Ala. police kill suspects after separate shootings

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) ? Police in Alabama fatally shot two suspects Saturday following separate shooting incidents 75 miles apart that left several others, including two officers, wounded.

Authorities said Jason Letts, 38, of Jemison opened fire early Saturday morning at a hospital in Birmingham, wounding a police officer and two employees before being shot and killed by another officer.

Police were sent to St. Vincent's Hospital around 4 a.m. to check on a report of an armed man inside the facility. Two officers who arrived separately converged on the suspect on the hospital's fifth floor.

"When the officer encountered the suspect, there was immediate gunfire from the suspect," Birmingham Police Sgt. Johnny Williams said. He said detectives were still trying to establish a motive.

A handful of cardiac patients and several staff members were on the fifth floor, hospital spokeswoman Liz Moore told reporters during a news conference. She said the hospital is secure and stable, and patient care was not interrupted.

"In light of the recent mass shooting in Connecticut, too many of these incidents end with unimaginable tragedy," Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper said in a statement.

In a separate incident, police officers in eastern Alabama shot an assailant armed with an AK-47 assault rifle toward the end of a pursuit that left several people injured, authorities said.

The pursuit began after a shooting in Cleburne County, Oxford police Lt. L.G. Owens told The Anniston Star. The county is near the Georgia state line.

Oxford Police Chief Bill Partridge said a woman and two children were shot, but he did not know their conditions.

Around noon, the chase reached the intersection of Leon Smith Parkway and U.S. 78, a busy retail district. Owens said the suspect fired at law-enforcement officers, injuring a Heflin police officer. Partridge said the suspect used an AK-47 during the firefight.

Officials said the suspect then forced his way into a Nissan at the intersection, although the occupants were able to escape.

Police caught up with the assailant about an hour later in nearby Coldwater. Partridge said two members of the Oxford police SWAT team fatally shot the suspect.

The number of people injured during the spree was not immediately clear. Police officials did not immediately return messages left by The Associated Press.

Law enforcement officials were examining multiple crime scenes Saturday afternoon, trying to determine what happened, said Lynn Hammond, the chief assistant district attorney for Calhoun and Cleburne counties. She said that authorities are investigating a homicide, but she declined to comment further.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ala-police-kill-suspects-separate-shootings-223414544.html

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