Nicholas Sparks

The book Dear John by Nicholas Sparks is about a man named John Tyree. He is 23 years old and in the Army. John's father has Asberger's syndrome and has a life passion of collecting coins. While he is home on leave he meets a girl named Savannah. Savannahis 21 years old and is a college student at the University of North Carolina. She is a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. John and Savannah at Wilmington on the beach. Savannah was hanging out with some friends who also volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Savannah's purse falls into the ocean and John dives in to save it.After John saves her purse they start talking and become friends. They start hanging out and eventually go out on a date. The relationship grows very fast since John has to return to Germany in a week. Savannah and John get to know each other and the two of them fall in love. They promise to wait for each other since John has one year of service in the Army left before being honorably discharged. September 11 happen s and John deciding to be a hero re-enlists for the Army. Savannah understands his motivation of heroism but sadly hurt, she continues to wait for John to be honorably discharged.While John is in the Army and stationed in Germany Savannah and John write letters to each other constantly. Every letter declaring their love for each other. Eventually John notices that their letters come less often and savannah becomes less intimate. Soon he gets the letter he has been dreading. The letter telling him that Savannah has fallen for someone else. John does not respond to Savannah's last letter but instead burns all of the letters from her that he had saved. He decides to put all his efforts into being a good soldier.John re-enlists for the Army again and stays away from his home for 3 more years. John's father gets sick and John goes home to see him. He tells his dad how much he means and how much John loves him. His father gets out of the hospital and goes home. John goes back to Germany f or a bit more time. Then his father dies. He goes home for his father's funeral and decides to look Savannah up. He finds out she got married to her long time friend, Tim after he was stricken with melanoma. John and Savannah become friends again while Tim is in the hospital. John figures out his true feelings for Savannah.He decides he wants her to be happy and that meant not breaking up her marriage. He donates money anonymously for treatment to save Tim's life. The book The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks is about a girl named Ronnie Miller. Ronnie is seventeen years old, a vegetarian, and an animal lover. who is sent by her mother to spend the summer after graduation with her ten-year-old brother, Jonah, visiting her father, Steve. Her father is a former Julliard professor. He divorced Ronnie's mother, Kim, three years earlier. He left New York City for his childhood home, Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.Ever since he divorced her mom and moved away Ronnie has refused to talk to him or to play the piano, which was their shared passion and becomes a rebellious clubber. Jonah immediately bonds with Steve over a stained glass window that Steve has been recreating for the local church after the original burned down in a mysterious arson. Ronnie is hostile towards Steve. Ronnie asks Steve to Board up his Piano. Steve boards up his beloved piano and instead pursues his search for God's presence. He also begins writing a piano composition using a piano owned by the church. Eventually she begins to soften towards him.Steve shows Ronnie a Loggerhead Sea Turtle nest that Jonah found near their home. Ronnie vows to protect the endangered creatures. While watching over the turtle nest she meets an aquarium volunteer named Will. They soon fall in love and spend several beautiful weeks together. Will's mother and his ex-girlfriend attempt to drive Will and Ronnie apart. Will's best friend and beach volleyball partner, Scott is annoyed that Will is not practicing for the ir upcoming tournament. Marcus continues antagonizing Ronnie and blackmails Will with his knowledge of the secret that Scott was responsible for the church arson.Will and Ronnie also worry about the end of summer. At the end of summer Will is leaving for Vanderbilt University and Ronnie has a shoplifting trial. While dancing at Will's sister's wedding, Ronnie and Will begin to wander away to Will's boat for privacy. They are followed by Marcus. Marcus instigates Will into a fight which wrecks the wedding reception. Worried that the rich and powerful family will press charges, Marcus decides to raise money to leave town by putting on the most dangerous fire-juggling act the next day, the same day as Will's volleyball tournament.The act begins amazingly but Blaze misses a catch and her shirt catches fire. Her screams and the flames attract the attention of the volleyball tournament crowd, including Ronnie and Will. As they drive Blaze to the hospital, Marcus and his crew run away. Wil l goes to Bower's Point to seek revenge for Blaze and finds Marcus, Teddy, and Lance around a fire drinking beers. He fights with the three of them and right in the middle of beating up Marcus Ronnie stops Will, telling him Marcus isn't worth ruining his life over.Afterward, Scott accuses Will of ruining his life and Will walks out, telling Scott he needs to reveal the truth behind what he has done. Ronnie takes Steve to see them install the stained-glass window in the church when construction resumed because the Blakelees decide to anonymously fund the rebuilding of the church. Following Steve's funeral, Ronnie moves back to New York, auditions for Julliard. Then Will comes back and at moment they kiss. The story is about a guy name logan who finds a photo of a woman while serving a tour in iraq. This picture finds hime good luck so when he gets back home he decides to find her. ll he goes by is the name on the back that says â€Å"keep safe! E† The picture shows the girl wi th two other guys in a fair with a huge ferris wheel behind it. He sets forth trying to find this mystery woman. He trys to look her up in phone books and does research and narrows it down to North Carolina where he finally finds the woman. He travels with his dog Zeus ( i think german shepard) and like a bum he travels while traveling he runs into a cop named Keith who he later finds out is Elizabeth ( the girl hes been looking for's ex husband).Logan teaches Keith a lesson by slashing the police mans tires and I think trashing his camera which Logan caught Keith taking pictures of college co eds nearby at a party house. When Keith goes to talk to the teenagers or whatever logan exchanges a few words with Keith and wanders off and Keith senses that something wrong with this guy. Logan gives a fake name Thibault (actually his last name) to the Keith when he asks for his name so in the story Keith knows logan as Thibault. Keith is a police officer and his dad is like the chief sherri f in town.Logan finally finds where she works at a dog kennel and applies there for a job. At first they think hes kinda weird traveling for so long from far away just to get a fresh start and wants a job here but they soon find him loving and elizabeth soon falls in love with him. She has a son named Ben whos like a genius he must be like 8 or 9 years old and likes to play chess alot! Zeus loves to play with Ben and soon they're grow trust in Logan. Logan. Oh and elizabeths Nana works like day and night in the kennel too. Nana is always right and has a keen aura that she can sense people like if they're lying or nice and stuff like that.Soon Logan gets into their life and roads cross where Keith finds out this weirdo is dating his ex wife whom he still has feelings for or wants to bang.. lol. ( in the book he talks about how her body looks good and he would want a friend with benefit thing or something) and Keith finds the dirt on Logan and tells elizabeth about the photo he has of her and how hes hunted her down like some werido stalker. Elizabeth freaks out and tells Logan to get out of her life. Logan however had showed and given the photo to Ben a few chapters before this happend. He just tells ben to keep it and not tell anyone.Oh ben has this secret get away tree house he loves by the lake and goes there to think and play and stuff. Oh Keith is a fake name that Keith Clayton have given to Logan cause he thought he was shady and lied to him. Keith is Bens biological father and was never close to Ben because ben was smart and liked chess while keith always wanted a kid to play catch and football with, so whenever Ben would go to Keiths like every other weekend he would dread it and hate it and just read a book during the time he was there, keith would make him clean the house and stupid stuff like that.After when Elizabeth wants Logan out her life, Keith tries to swoop in and have a relationship with her and she refuses then Keith says that he'll try to g et full custody over ben if she doesn't date him. This only happens for a chapter then the last chapter Ben is missing and they know hes in the tree house its stormy and the tree house is poorly built and dangerous. In the end Keith dies drowning trying to save Ben. Logan and Elizabeth, Ben and Zeus live together happy in the end. I hope this helps and good luck on your test!Okay so I read this book like a couple months back but have it with me and I will try to make some highlights for you:The story is about a guy name logan who finds a photo of a woman while serving a tour in iraq. This picture finds hime good luck so when he gets back home he decides to find her. all he goes by is the name on the back that says â€Å"keep safe! E† The picture shows the girl with two other guys in a fair with a huge ferris wheel behind it. He sets forth trying to find this mystery woman. He trys to look her up in phone books and does research and narrows it down to North Carolina where he f inally finds the woman.He travels with his dog Zeus ( i think german shepard) and like a bum he travels while traveling he runs into a cop named Keith who he later finds out is Elizabeth ( the girl hes been looking for's ex husband). Logan teaches Keith a lesson by slashing the police mans tires and I think trashing his camera which Logan caught Keith taking pictures of college co eds nearby at a party house. When Keith goes to talk to the teenagers or whatever logan exchanges a few words with Keith and wanders off and Keith senses that something wrong with this guy.Logan gives a fake name Thibault (actually his last name) to the Keith when he asks for his name so in the story Keith knows logan as Thibault. Keith is a police officer and his dad is like the chief sherrif in town. Logan finally finds where she works at a dog kennel and applies there for a job. At first they think hes kinda weird traveling for so long from far away just to get a fresh start and wants a job here but the y soon find him loving and elizabeth soon falls in love with him.She has a son named Ben whos like a genius he must be like 8 or 9 years old and likes to play chess alot! Zeus loves to play with Ben and soon they're grow trust in Logan. Logan. Oh and elizabeths Nana works like day and night in the kennel too. Nana is always right and has a keen aura that she can sense people like if they're lying or nice and stuff like that. Soon Logan gets into their life and roads cross where Keith finds out this weirdo is dating his ex wife whom he still has feelings for or wants to bang.. lol. in the book he talks about how her body looks good and he would want a friend with benefit thing or something) and Keith finds the dirt on Logan and tells elizabeth about the photo he has of her and how hes hunted her down like some werido stalker. Elizabeth freaks out and tells Logan to get out of her life. Logan however had showed and given the photo to Ben a few chapters before this happend. He just tel ls ben to keep it and not tell anyone. Oh ben has this secret get away tree house he loves by the lake and goes there to think and play and stuff.Oh Keith is a fake name that Keith Clayton have given to Logan cause he thought he was shady and lied to him. Keith is Bens biological father and was never close to Ben because ben was smart and liked chess while keith always wanted a kid to play catch and football with, so whenever Ben would go to Keiths like every other weekend he would dread it and hate it and just read a book during the time he was there, keith would make him clean the house and stupid stuff like that. After when Elizabeth wants Logan out her life, Keith ries to swoop in and have a relationship with her and she refuses then Keith says that he'll try to get full custody over ben if she doesn't date him. This only happens for a chapter then the last chapter Ben is missing and they know hes in the tree house its stormy and the tree house is poorly built and dangerous. In the end Keith dies drowning trying to save Ben. Logan and Elizabeth, Ben and Zeus live together happy in the end. I hope this helps and good luck on your test! | |

The Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation

When you watch any movie, TV show or documentary on World War Two, there is one quote that you hear in almost every single one of them. This timeless and moving quote is â€Å"a date that will live in infamy. † This was the opening line said by Franklin D Roosevelt in his National address the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is one of the most replayed and well known speeches in American history. It was the declaration of war against the Empire of Japan and entered the United States into one of the greatest wars it would take part in. Franklin D Roosevelt uses pathos, ethos and logos to deliver a resounding speech for the declaration of war and the entrance of the United States in to World War Two. He essentially assigns a third of the speech to each one of these rhetorical speaking tools. The speech was given at 12:30 p. m. on December 8th 1941 to a joint session of congress and was broadcast over radio and television. It was key for the president to get the people as a whole for the war and united for the cause. He wanted to arouse as many strong emotions from the people as possible. Luckily for him this was very easy to accomplish. At every point in history the American people have exploded with outrage at every deceitful military tactic ever used by another nation or people against America. The populace becomes very motivated to take the fight to the enemy to uphold core American values such as patriotism and justice. A prime example of this was the sinking of the U. S. S. Maine. The ship was unexpectedly sunk by Spaniards in the Havana harbor of Cuba. This event is considered the precipitating event of the Spanish-American war. He plays upon the circumstances in the same way that the Americans did with this instance back in 1898. He portrays America as a purely passive victim through his diction in the portion of the speech. FDR mentions multiple times that America and Japan still had ongoing peace talks and that the attack was completely unprovoked. He elegantly uses Pathos at the throughout his speech and really harps on Americas emotions about the event. After Franklin D Roosevelt talks about the surprise attack upon Pearl harbor, he goes on to list all of the other military advances Japan made shortly afterwards. This list of attacks is viewed as him trying to convince the American people why it is logical and necessary for their country to go to war with this aggressive nation. He lists islands all across the pacific and under American control. Each statement is staccato and kept to the point, followed a pause to let each one individually sink in. He says when each attack happened and where. This is a particularly ominous portion of the speech, and was expertly done by the president. Logical explanations are very important to the American people and are the primary basis of why we do what we do. In the last part of the speech Franklin D Roosevelt makes an effort to talk about the character of the American people. Our countries ethics and moral values are the staple of our nation and the reason our people are willing to do everything necessary to preserve and protect it. This acknowledgment of the American ethos is a testament to the greatness of this country and why the war must be fought and will be won. But the biggest portrayal of this ethics and patriotism shown by Roosevelt is unbeknownst to most Americans at this time. The president had polio early in his life, and was paralyzed from the waist down, but he refused to let the American people know this. When he gave the speech he walked up to the podium and stood tall. This is a perfect example of the determination of the American heart to never let bad circumstances stop someone from what they must do. I consider this one of the most important and powerful speeches ever given on American soil. It speaks to every true Americans heart through patriotism and moral fiber. Franklin D Roosevelt delivered the speech fantastically and ignited a war engine within the United States that was unparalleled at the time. This speech is still a powerful symbol today of a great and shaping time of our country and its people.

Perception, Sensation

â€Å"Perception is more than just a sensation† Introduction Sensation is the passive process of bringing information from the outside world into the body and brain. Perception is the active process of selecting, organising and interpreting the information brought to the brain by the senses. Sensation and perception are two distinct processes, which collaborate to help us make sense of our environment. Perception requires physiological mechanisms and psychological components, these combine to help us understand.Perception is the process of how we acquire and understand information, sophisticated perceptual mechanisms go to work in order for us to gain knowledge. Our perception of the world is â€Å"direct, immediate and effortless† (Mather, 2006). Understanding how perception works is extremely complex and people differ in how they perceive, humans are quick to perceive as Biederman (1990) showed people can recognise and interpret complex novel scenes in as little as 1/ 10th of a second.The differences between sensation and perception are based around the fact that sensation is a physiological process stemming from one of the five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses enable us to detect stimuli in the environment. Perception on the other hand involves an understanding of this sensory information, drawing from the stimuli detected from the senses, our minds must process that information and create a mental representation of the senses. How our mind perceives this depends upon our background knowledge.For example if we smell sour milk, our nose picks up the smell which is the sensation, then perception plays its part by telling us that the milk has passed its used by date. Sensory organs absorb energy from physical stimuli in the environment which pass to sensory receptors these detect stimulus energies and convert them into mental impulses which are sent to the brain. Now perception begins, upon receiving the impulses the bra in organises the input and translates it into something meaningful. However perceptions are not always accurate.The picture below is called the Muller- Lynn illusion. People are asked which line is bigger and people immediately answer with the bottom line, when in fact they are even. This shows that perceptions can be deceived quite easily. What we ‘see’ is not the same as what is ‘there’. Perception and reality differ. Numerous illusions show that the human mind can misinterpret information and inaccurately perceive senses, these include the Poggendorf illusion and the Penrose staircase. Muller-Lynn Illusion. PerceptionPeople perceive through sight, which is one of the senses. The physical stimulus for visual perception is light. (Wavelength > colour and Intensity > brightness. ) Light interacts with objects. (e. g refraction, bending of light. ) This forms the basis of how we perceive visually. Colour is the most important component of our visual experien ce, some of the earliest theories of perception were developed from how we perceive colours. In order to explain colour perception one has to be familiar with, 1.Hue – variations in wavelength, difference between colours. 2. Brightness- the intensity of energy, black v white 3. Saturation – purity of colour, difference between pink and red (how much black/white added to the colour) The human can identify approximately 200 hues, 500 intensity steps and 20 saturations, combining to nearly two million colours. Does colour exist? People just assume that because we see colours, they actually exist in the world. Meaning, that when they see the colour red, that red is a real, physical, tangible, â€Å"thing†.But is it, or is colour just a matter of our perception? If we had different types of nervous systems, we would see things differently (literally) and so wouldn't we think those other things we saw were the real â€Å"things†? The Trichromatic theory Thomas Young, a 19th century English scientist suggested that it takes just three colours for us to see all the colours of the spectrum. He demonstrated this through experiments where he showed that people could match any colour by making a combination of just three colours (wavelengths) of light.Similar to a colour wheel explanation of vision taking just three colours and blending them to make any colour. Seventy years before we knew that humans have three retina cones- red, green and blue. Opponent-process theory Herring (1870) suggested cone photoreceptors are linked together to form three opposing colour pairs, red/green, blue/yellow, light/dark. The two stage theory was output of three cone types recoded by another layer of neutral mechanisms into 6 psychologically primary colours. (Hurvich & Jameson, 1957) Perceptual constanciesSize constancy means objects maintain the same size, despite changes in proximal stimulus, people that are further away do not seem smaller than people that a re close. This is exhibited in the Ponzo illusion. The Ponzo illusion. In the Ponzo illusion, two identically-sized lines appear to be different sizes when placed over parallel lines that seem to converge as they recede into the distance. How Does the Ponzo Illusion Work? The Ponzo illusion was first demonstrated in 1913 by an Italian psychologist named Mario Ponzo.The reason the top horizontal line looks longer is because we interpret the scene using linear perspective. Since the vertical parallel lines seem to grow closer as they move further away, we interpret the top line as being further off in the distance. An object in the distance would need to be longer in order for it to appear the same size as a near object, so the top â€Å"far† line is seen as being longer than the bottom â€Å"near† line, even though they are the same size. Depth perception Images projected to our retina are 2D but we interpret this as 3D dynamic scene.In order to perceive depth we use a number of visual cues both monocular and binocular. Gibson & Walk (1960) ‘visual cliff’ experiment suggests depth perception is not present at birth. ’Visual cliff’ Gestalt psychology Gestalt psychology was founded by German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka and focused on how people interpret the world. The Gestalt perspective formed partially as a response to the structuralism of Wilhelm Wundt, who focused on breaking down mental events and experiences to the smallest elements. â€Å"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts† (Wertheimer, 1923).We perceive a visual array in a way that most simply organises the disparate elements into a coherent form. The Gestalt theory puts forward a number of laws. 1. Law of Pragnanz – things are perceived as simply as possible. 2. Law of proximity – Objects near each other will be seen as a unit. 3. Law of similarity – objects similar to each other will be se en as a unit. 4. Law of continuity – we perceive smoothly flowing or continuous forms rather than disrupted or discontinuous forms. 5. Law of closure – we create illusory contours to perceive incomplete objects.Perception has much to do with processing and we use two methods of processing these are, bottom up processing, and top down processing. Bottom up processing is also known as data driven perception. Sensory receptors register a physical stimulus which in turn sends the information to the brain, sensation starts the process but perception takes over and places the parts together when recognition occurs. This is the most basic form of processing. Top down processing is more concerned with higher level mental processes, such as memory and expectation.The information travels down from our brain to influence what we perceive, this is also known as hypotheses driven processing. This is an example of top down processing, this shows how context helps us recognise the le tters in the alphabet. Top down processing speeds up the analysis of the retinal image when familiar scenes and objects are encountered and can complete details missing in the optic array. Perception beyond vision Auditory perception plays a key role in perception, along with the chemical senses- taste and smell.Auditory perception comes from sound, the physical definition being pressure changes in the air or other medium. Sound waves vary in amplitude- loudness, frequency- pitch, timbre- quality of tone. Chemical senses help in our everyday lives by helping us to taste and smell stimuli. Humans are microsmatic meaning smell is not crucial for survival, we typically have ten million olfactory receptors in our noses whereas dogs have one billion which shows how dogs have such keen senses of smell. Taste and smell are seen as the gatekeepers of the body they can induce good or bad responses.Tastes and smells involve a different physiology than vision and sound, this is because the lat ter two are nerve ends tingling, however when chemical senses are induced the person actually inhales some molecules of the smell inducing substance. At any one time there are hundreds of odour molecules in the air, people have the capability to make sense and distinguish between them. This demonstrates perceptual organisation. We can identify approximately 100,000 odours but cannot label all accurately, this is due to our memory not sensitivity.Gender differences can affect ones ability in identifying odours as women are normally better. (Cain, 1982). Due to the fact that memory plays a part in this top down processing is used. Conclusion Sensation is the process by which our senses gather information and send it to the brain. Once the signal is received the brain processes it and allows us to make sense of it. A large amount of information is being sensed at any one time such as room temperature, brightness of the lights, someone talking, an engine sound, or the smell of aftershav e.With all this information coming into our senses, most of our world never gets noticed. We can’t notice radio waves, x-rays, or the microscopic parasites crawling on our skin. We don't sense all the odours around us or taste every individual spice in our gourmet dinner. We only sense those things we are able too since we don't have the sense of smell like a bloodhound or the sense of sight like a hawk, our thresholds are different from these animals and often even from each other.Perception has all the previous components working at the same time so that we can function and make sense of things. How we perceive things can depend upon many factors but without perception nothing would make sense. Sensation differs from perception, but the two go hand in hand to help us gain a greater understanding of the world around us. Perception forms such a large part in our day to day lives and many don’t grasp how important it is to us and how lost we would be without our percept ions.

A Commentary or Analysis on Recent Economic Issues Essay

A Commentary or Analysis on Recent Economic Issues - Essay Example As the report declares the higher growth in 2004 reflects, that there has been collective progress in economic conditions except in the South Asian and Common Wealth Countries, where growth slowed down, yet remained at 6 and 7 percent. The growth in majority of the developing countries occurred in the manufacturing, with continuous growth in 2005. In the developed countries the economic performance remained mixed. North America growth was strong, with moderate growth in Japan, however pace remained slow in Europe, with the exception of new EU members. This essay stresses that the world economy has slowed down due to a number of reasons, with basic reason being the sudden and un-expected shocks in 2004, such as Tsunami in Asia and the latest stun is the increase in oil prices by 60 percent in first ten months, although it eased at the end of year. A much greater surprise was the fluctuating exchange rate among difference currencies with Euro and Yen appreciating by 14 and 11 percent respectively. And the last surprise was the increase in commodity prices due to increase in oil prices, especially in developing countries. However the picture of world economy is not as rosy as it seems in figure. One major problem in today’s world economy is unemployment and the under employment which is prevalent in developing counties. Unless unemployment is reduced, it is hard to reduce poverty. The East Asia, the fastest developing region is facing the problem of un-employment.

Bureaucracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Bureaucracy - Essay Example Proponents of bureaucracy claim that the elected officials including the President cannot monitor all affairs of the country and there is need of institutions to support the other three arms of government (Meier & O’Toole, 2006). In this case, the proponents assert that bureaucrats have technical expertise that is essential for smooth running of the country since the elected officials may not have the necessary knowledge and skills to manage certain aspects of the society such as technology development or defense of the county (Meier & O’Toole, 2006). The opponents of bureaucracy assert that public agencies assist in policy formulation and implementation since the Congress only passes the laws and allows the relevant agencies to implement such laws in terms of government policies (Stillman, 2004). The proponents are of the idea that the capacity of government to administer public policies depends on the ability and authority of appointed officials since politicians may have self-interests in certain policies thus jeopardizing the benefits that would have accrued from implementation of the public policy (Wilson, 1989). On the other hand, opponents of this type of administration claim that the legislature can pass the laws in terms of public policies and thus government agencies must not be equated with the other three arms of the government that are outline in the constitution (Meier & O’Toole, 2006). The opponents claim that the Congress is the representative of people voices and allowing bureaucrats to participate in crea ting the laws and regulations overrides the need of voting and having a representative government as guaranteed by the US constitution. Indeed, the opponents assert that bureaucrats are unreachable and this limits public participation is setting up public policies (Stillman, 2004). The opponents of bureaucracy argue that government agencies are wasteful and offer minimal services to the

Author & Aposs Bias Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Author & Aposs Bias - Essay Example Thus the picture of the diet of hominids can be so hazy judging from what they present as evidence of them hunting and gathering fruits. The writer argues that organisms will select their foods based on their profitability and accessibility. Thus in a variety of foods, any organism will go first for the most nutritious and then in a case where the profitable foods are scarce then the animal tends to broaden their diet to acquire the nutritious components from diverse foods. Secondly, the evidence given does not give credible information about the importance of such foods and thus lacks a critical argument that would set hominids aside from other living primates. This is because the foods the researcher's list is all eaten regularly by monkeys and other apes. Thirdly, that the prescriptions in the argument about the diet of our ancestors have been drawn from mere observations of the modern humans whose lifestyle is at least a partial hunter-like and gatherer in a manner of existence. This is based on the observations that scientist make on those who have chosen a feeding mannerism that is closely similar to the hunters and gatherers by way of their diet choices and preferences. The author’s bias is therefore that the evolution of hominids is not supposed to be argued based on forage strategy as the mere reason they evolved to the current existing humans. He argues that rather a flexible combination of both social and ecological adjustments that evolved over time due to the search for better life options. The social adjustments can be understood as the adjustments around the social nature of beings that include communication, organizations among others. The ecological would then include diet modification habitat and among others.

Transportation through the various parts of the Denver metropolitan Term Paper

Transportation through the various parts of the Denver metropolitan area - Term Paper Example After this point we were Pecos working our way onto West 56th towards Federal back onto Pecos via I-76 and followed this route all the way to West 106th where we turned around at North Glen marketplace and went back to where I started. In the interest of full disclosure I perhaps did not choose the best time to ride Denver’s Public Transit because my journey was largely during Rush hour and it was quite dark. At the beginning of my journey on 15th street one notces that the streets were eerily empty of pedestrians and some of the buildings are quite tall. Along this street the buildings are also separated by several paring lots above ground and traditional. All one sees for several blocks was empty streets and parking lots.The next major sight that we passed was Coors Field on 20th Street. Baseball season is over and the road is sided by two large concrete walls which gave a very unpleasant feeling. The next major transition was onto Navajo Street with its small house. Without question this region is distinctly residential but passes by the occasional tavern, Church or auto body shop. I remember seeing a small altercation by a bar I think was called the ‘Arabian Bar’. Aother sight that soood out in my mind was the ‘Bug Theatre’ Which had a large group of people outside of it although I could not tell of there was anything go on that evening. The bus eventually turning onto Pecos street where there were vast empty fields and huge houses or gigantic industrial park type buildings and mega parking lots with big box stores which then transitioned back into a largely empty residential area. It was a strange transition from tightly packed inner city to a more casual residential area and then finally into such an open area only to turn around and repeat the process. Although it was the case that I hardly saw any people outside of the inner city and the residential area for some reason being in the rural area on Pecos

Economic of Immigration Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Economic of Immigration - Research Paper Example From the study it is clear that acquisition of technical knowledge imparts the adequate skills to the masses in the USA while low level of education and hence lack of high-end skills for immigrants from Mexico enables Americans to keep top level jobs. Implementation of different trade policies and immigration programs between the US and the Mexican government led to greater influx of immigrants into the USA. According to the paper findings the economics of immigration in Mexico is of interest because Mexico borders an economic superpower-USA. This it means that immigrants from Mexico affect many different sectors of a world class economy. Immigration has social, demographic, economic effects some of which are good while others detrimental. Most legal immigrants are not subject to a great deal of public scrutiny and suspicion because of the belief that they are rightfully there while the illegal ones are subject to both police and public scrutiny because of the belief that they affect the economy and society negatively. In order to enhance economic welfare the US government tries to reduce the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico by converting them to legal immigrants or by not allowing them near the border. In Mexico the immigration policy requires that immigration of individuals with skills that are limited in supply and those whose tax contributions and net cost of public services received are large should be well monitored. It implies that those who contribute positively to economic growth are the ones who should be granted the legal admission. Also admission of immigrants in limited occupations leads to increased aggregate income as a result of high labor demand and mobility across borders e.g. for international trade. Cortes (2005) states that continuing high levels of immigration weaken the enforcement of labor market regulations by the USA as a result of the influx of Mexican immigrants. This is because the inflows of aliens relax the commitment of employers in USA and create a population of workers who are not adequately equipped with the necessary skills. This is as a result of lower education levels thereby earning less as compared to the highly educated and well paid Americans resulting into lower tax payments and thus increased poverty levels. The Mexican Immigrants Act offers subsidy to those businesses that employ lowly skilled workers since they contribute a small portion of the aggregate income. Wayne (2001) states that illegal immigrants have

Trade Mark Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Trade Mark - Case Study Example Second life. This scenario discusses whether the following trademark owned by Georgio currently registered as a Class 15 trademark for the past decade can be protected from infringement and potentially "passing off" by Donald and Bernard and /or Trade Mark Infringement under section 10 of the Trade Marks Act 1994. It is stated in the question that Georgio has traded under this trademark as world renowned producer of the finest musical instruments in the world and is currently a favourite brand with the high and mighty of tinsel town and it is also stated that his trademark is used to convey luxury. Therefore the question has been divided into two scenarios: A&B. I have been asked to advise Georgio as to the likelihood of the actions of Barnard being construed under the law as trademark infringement as he has launched an advertising campaign on billboards aiming to sell expensive chocolate by depicting a 'Georgio' piano dripping with liquid chocolate and in which the logo is clearly visible.The Question would also like me to consider the legalities of such a scenario in the virtual world like second life. In this part of the question I have been ... The theoretical premise of Property rights and trademarks An understanding of the philosophical premises behind Property rights are necessary in the understanding of the tug of war between the owners and the users of intangible information.1 Legal Commentators have often expressed their doubts as to whether these rights are actually rights or privileges as Machlup and Penrose have noted:2 " ... those who started to use the word property in connection with inventions had a very definite purpose in mind they wanted to substitute a word with a respectable connotation, 'property', for a word that had an unpleasant ring, 'privilege'." Intellectual property as a "property" thus is an intangible category of property with boundaries that are not always clear cut and which must be actively defended by the holder against infringements. 3 Tangible property is however visible and documented, and the boundaries are more easily given than for intellectual property.4The law has developed to protect a person who holds certain intellectual property will be able to defend this property only if he/she is granted a particular right over this property. For example in relation to patents the rights are defined by the patent authorities based on what is defined in the patent claims.Like other property (tangible) one has to pay certain fees in order to have their "intellectual" property claim examined and determined and also of continuance fees paid.5 The concept of property rights thus stems from the ideas of John Locke.6Furthermore the notions of property rights developed in the 18th century as one of the core civil rights parallel to-and mutually reinforcing-the right to liberty.7However, most

An interesting product development process. Discuss what kind of Essay

An interesting product development process. Discuss what kind of product they are developing (e.g. technology push, high risk, e - Essay Example The product development process of Apple has been a mystery to many. Adam Lashinsky seeks to demystify Apple in his book, Inside Apple: How America’s most admired and secretive company really works. All Apple’s products are developed using this process: a) Design of the Product Each product at Apple is developed first and foremost from its design. The company lays a lot of emphasis on the designs of its product and the designers assigned to work on the design of each product must conform to the company’s vision. The designers at Apple are highly regarded by the company’s management because the firm is highly critical to the design of the products it brings to the market (Lashinsky, 2012). This is in contrast to other rival companies who leave the design aspect of their products to the manufacturing departments. For Apple, there is no limit as to the amount of resources that its designers can use; the designers have no contact with the finance departments a nd have unlimited resources at their disposal. The company’s design studio, where all Apple products are first generated, is only accessible to a handful of employees so as to keep the new product designs in secret. b) Formation of Start-up If the company decides to go forward with a product, it organizes a team that is separated from the rest of the company using secrecy agreements or even physical barriers. The teams working on specifically sensitive new products are segregated in their own section of the building that is locked to limit entry of unauthorized personnel (Lashinsky, 2012). The formation of this start-up is to ensure focus of the team only in the development of the product and taking it to market. The team is only responsible to the executive arm of the company so that it is freed from the laid down organizational structure. c) New Product Process After the onset of the design development process, Apple structures the whole development process in a document th at outlines the steps that will be undertaken in detail (Lashinsky, 2012). The blueprint of the development of the product is laid down including those responsible for each stage of the process, who will work on what stage and the estimated time of completion of the whole process. d) Product Review At any given time Apple has very few products that it has in production, this is to ensure that the company focusses on the development of high quality products. The executive team keeps tabs on the development process of each product by reviewing the progress of each team. The reviews are conducted every Monday and in case a product does not get a review, it is pushed to the next Monday for a review (Lashinsky, 2012). This ensures that no product stays for more than two weeks before a key decision is made on its development process. e) Bringing to Fruition Apple assigns two people to ensure that the product is brought to fruition once its production commences; the EPM and the GSM i.e. en gineering program manager and global supply manager respectively. The program manager is very powerful and is nicknamed the ‘EPM Mafia’ due to the total control possessed in the product development process (Lashinsky, 2012). The company produces its products in China due to the lower overhead costs incurred in relation to America. Both the EPM and GSM are positions held

Human character Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Human character - Essay Example Others are Confidence, empathy, persistence, compassion, generosity and tolerance. I apply these in my day-to-day life to become a better student. For example, I am ambitious as I have a desire to excel in my academics, I am courageous as I am not afraid to take on new challenges. I am also, tolerant as I persevere until I achieve my targets, I am compassionate to others in the community, and I am also committed to accomplishing my goals. A vice is an immoral behavior and unlike virtues, vices destroy one’s character. Examples of vices include pride that makes one think he or she is better than others. Also, anger which makes one to act irrationally and jealousy which makes one to resent others because they possess something that you do not have. These traits render one self-destructive and make it very difficult for one to maintain close relationships with others. However, since we all possess both virtues and vices, it is important to practice self-love as one cannot

Of Mice and men Essay Example for Free

Of Mice and men Essay Memories? Yeah, Ive had plenty, seen men come an go on this ranch, so many I cant hardly remember them, but two stick in my mind like it was only yesterday, but must be near on twenty years ago oh Im Slim, I lead the mule team, sure does beat busting a gut bucking barley now where was I? Yeah, thats right these two guys Came in one Friday, Boss was sure mad cos they were late. Youve never seen such an odd pair George, he was small, neat, quick witted but Lennie, my was he huge! Funny thing was his name was Small! He was like a great bear and he wasnt too clever either. Funny how he and George strung along together. Anyway, they come in Friday, Boss had been given us hell all mornin! I was out on the fields when they came out. Candy was with them and seemed to be showing them around the barn. Lennie seemed excited bout somethin. George came over and introduced them, Hi, Im George and this big fella here is Lennie. Lennie then tried whispered something to George but I heard every word, George, George, ask him bout dem dogs, please George? George looked a bit embarrassed. Candy tells us you got some new born pups. If theres one goin spare, you reckon Lennie could have it? George asked. Yeah sure you can Lennie, I said Come by the barn later and you can pick one out. He went all shy, with a smile from ear to ear, almost like a little kid. Lennie came down to the barn after he had finshed buckin, he sure was on hell of a worker, and he picked out his Pup. I tried to explain that he shouldnt be taken out of the box , but the big bastard didnt take no notice of it, ha, gawd he must have been the stupidest guy I have ever met. Now where was I oh right, so Lennie had got his Pup an it must have been dusk so we all headed back to the bunkhouse, and little did we know how much was gonna happen that night. We sorry my throats a lil dry, could ya pour us a drink? Cheers. Ah, thats better. Anyway, me and George were headed back to the bunkhouse and I started talkin to George bout Lennie, He sure is some worker, aint he? I mean when you said he were a good worker, I thought you meant he just didnt complain, but by golly, he must have beat every bucker on the ranch, with one hand! George chuckled. If only he wasnt so stupid I could be livin a dream. He said and looked in to the stars. So, how come you travel with him, I mean I aint never seen no-one that looks out for anyone as much as you look out for him. He looked a lil taken back by that but he simply answered, I promised his aunt I would look after him, an by god Ive had too. But he will do anything I tell him too, George started to smile, I once told him too jump in a river, and I knew he couldnt swim but he still did it and nearly drowned cos o me. Ever since then I havent done anything to him that might hurt him. He stared into the ground, almost as if he regretted doin that to him. I broke the silence, So, how come youve ended up here? I asked. He didnt want to tell me, I could tell by his face, but I think he new that he could trust me. You wont tell no-one, will ya? He asked Course I wont I replied Well He started off, We were working in weed, and Lennie was settin under some trees havin a break cos we had finished our morning load in an hour and a half. He smiled with a great sense of pride, Then one of the bosss daughters came over and started talkin to him, and the stupid bastard ended up touchin her dress and the dumbass didnt let go. The daughter ended up shoutin Rape, rape! everyone looked over and saw a girl strugglin with a guys hands all over her. I literally had to smack the big guy to get him off her. We then had to run for a lives. We ended up squatin in a river in some reeds. They went straight past us an never saw us, but there still after us. Luckily I think thats about 100 miles away, thank god. He sighed with relief. Lennie then brought this puppy into the bunkhouse, George, George look at da puppy, Slim gave it to me. George turned aroun and went psycho at him, Lennie, you dumb bastard! You gotta leave the pup in the box with its mum other wise your gonna kill im! Do you wanna kill him? Do ya? Lennie cowered away into the corner. Of course not George. Ill put him back straight away now, He ran out, an nearly hit his head on the top door, ha. Candy then cam in the bunkhouse. He was an old guy, busted his arm and had to stay there, or so he said. He came in with his dog, which wouldnt be so bad, but the old thing stank. Carlson, one of the buckers, offered Candy an option, You should shoot that old dog, Candy. I mean hes no good to any of us. Candy looked at his dog, I couldnt shoot him, Candy said, Ive had him since he was a pup Why dont I shoot him then? Carlson asked, Ye, Ill take him out to the forest and jus shoot him in the back of his head. He wont feel a thing, I swear. Your probably puttin him through more torture keepin him alive than shootin him. A tear was wellin up in Candy. This pup was his only friend. Candy relented and Carlson took the dog and you then heard a shot in the distance. We all looked at Candy, he was starin at the wall. I offered him a new puppy but he didnt answer. Crooks, the niggah entered and told me tha Lennie was messin with the pups. George looked at me and told me to kick him out if hes causin trouble. I went off and made sure he werent doin nothin stupid. Well stupid even for him. I was in the stables, makin sure all the pups were alrigh after Lennie had been messin with em, when Curley came stormin in, shoutin something bout his wife. I didnt want notin to do with it so I went to the bunkhouse but he kept on about how his wife is always sneakin off without his permission, and how he suspected me of havin an affair with his bitch. Ha, if I ever had an affair, it would be with Marilyn Monroe rather than that tart. I went into the bunkhouse and he still wouldnt let it drop so I said to him, Curley, I would never even think about touchin your bitch, cos I dont like that type of tart. All then men a fallin bout laughin and joined in with havin a lil dig at Curley. Sadly though, Lennie was smiling about something, he was in his own lil world, but Curley saw him an thought he was laughin at him. What are you laughin bout you yellow bellied bastard? Curley was squarein up to him and Lennie didnt know what to do. You bastard! Curley smashed the poor fella round the face and knocked him over. Lennie just stood up and did nothing bout it. He looked at George and was screamin at him to make Curley stop. I knew George didnt want no trouble so he kept quiet, but Curley was smashin Lennies head in. Then suddenly George screamed, Get im Lennie! Get im! Then Lennie switched, he grabbed Curleys hand and just squeezed, looked as if he was killin the bastard. George was smackin im tellin im to let go but he wouldnt budge. Lennie had im about 2 ft off the ground. We had to pull the big fella off of Curley. I went over to see Curleys hand and Lennie had jus disintegrated the bone, twas jus skin, not a bone in it. I knew that George and Lennie would get their asss busted for this so I thought Id have a heart to heart wit Curley, I said, If this gets out, Lennies gonna get canned for it. But your reputation as a tough guy will be ruined as well. Now if you say your hand was caught in a machine, then we will say that too, but if you dont, we will ruin your reputation til nobodys gonna be scared o you, you got that? He nodded his head, whilst screamin, and I told the guys to take him to doctors fast. That, thank God, was the end of that night. The next day, notin too much happened. We went into town and Candy, Crooks and Lennie stayed at the ranch. Thankfully that was all that happen that day. Next day was the horseshoe tournament. I never used to be that good at them, but they sure were good fun. Crooks did tell me that Lennie was looking at his pup, but not doin anthin to harm em. We had jus finished the tournament and George went to get som water. He came back, but didnt look to good. I was jus gonna ask him if hes alrigh but then Candy came out of the stables waving his arms bout screamin that somthin had happened to Curleys wife. We all went to see what was wrong, and it werent a pretty site. She was layin on the hay, at first ya thought she were sleepin, but then ya noticed her neck was bent in a bad way. Curley didnt look much sad, more angry then shouted, Im gonna kill the son o a bitch! Everyone started to get agitated and some people started shoutin, Lets get im, and Ill go get ma gun! George had gone real pale and Curley said to im, Your gonna stick wit me, so I don think you were involved, alrigh? George nodded. Curley told Crooks to get all the horses ready, seemed like it were a search party. Well it was but not the usual search party, it was more o a search an kill sorta party. Me, Curley, Carlson and George headed south whilst the others headed west, jus in case. I knew George knew where Lennie was, an we strayed away from Curley and co.. We ended up near this river and George said hell go in alone. I stood by some trees an saw everythin that happened. George went up to Lennie, pulled out Carlsons luger and told Lennie to look out toward the horizon. Lennie was smiling talkin to himself I think, George looked hesitant but found som courage and pulled the trigger. Lennie fell down the bank, and jus lay there. George walked over and didnt look to good. Curley and Carlson came over, makin up som story to tell the others. But I knew that George didnt wanna have to shoot Lennie, so I went and had a chat wit him. I simply said, It had to be done. He looked at me, and seemed glad that someone had said that to him, but still looked troubled. We got back to the ranch an everyone wanted to know what happened. Carlson was leading the story, and half of werent even real. The next couple o days was hard on George. He seemed to be in a completely different world, starin into space. He did get over it though, took him a couple o weeks, and he turned back to the ol George. God, that weekend was the longest weekend I have ever had.

Politics and society in the late roman republic

Politics and society in the late roman republic Politics and Society in the Late Roman Republic â€Å"Augustus restoration of the res publica was all a sham, a facade behind which lurked monarchy.† Discuss The restoration of the res publica occurred in 27 BC when Gaius Octavius returned his powers to the senate and people of Rome. This restoration is a much debated topic in modern literature with particular emphasis placed on the word ‘restoration, as much of the res publica appears to have been changed, albeit behind a number of traditional institutions. A number of scholars support the above statement suggesting the res publica from this point onwards was a monarchy in all but name (Eck, Jones and Wiseman). This essay will however take the alternate view along with a number of contemporary scholars, most notably Millar, Segal and Severy; the idea that Augustus wished to restore the res publica, but also needed to react to the events of the period so as to defend the traditional values of the Roman people. Augustus did however slide towards monarchy during this period, but various authors offer differing dates at which the facade begins to occur. The first point to be discussed is that of Augustus and his links with the Roman military, which can be viewed at first in purely monarchical terms, this reading however can also imply a much more traditional approach towards republican values. The introduction of the Trojan games or Ludi Troiani for example is a return to a much older tradition based within the early sixth century BC (Virgil Aeneid V.596-601, Suet. Aug. 43.2, Severy 2003: 82-3, Taylor 1924: 161). This and the reintroduction of other public events such as the Secular games can be seen as a return to res publica in its earliest form and thus infers an attempt to restore it. Scholars such as Rostovtzeff however think of the Ludi Troiani as an attempt to convince the younger patrician generation that a singular leader would not harm their interests in terms of military glorification (Jones 1960: 16). The return of such military games also reinforced military discipline, reducing the chance of further civil wars and def ection in the next generation (Vel. Pat. 2.64). This does not however have to suggest an idea of Imperial rule; as disciplinewas an important part of the Roman military throughout its history (Goldsworthy 2003: 33). The major controversy surrounding the army is that of Augustus use of his extended family in the major military roles from the 10s BC onwards (Eck 2007: 80). This however is at least 10 years into the ‘new res publica, suggesting that this idea was reactionary rather than an early attempt to introduce monarchy. One event in particular could be linked to this; Cornelius Gallus in Egypt, the prefect placed here due to his friendship with Augustus was later accused of treachery and ended his life after disobeying the senate (Eck 2007: 60, Eck 1984: 131, Dio Cass. 53.23). This episode in the early stages of the res publica must have shaken both the senate and Augustus himself; primarily due to the fact that three legions were accessible in this province (Shotter 2007: 100, Strabo Geog. 17.12, Syme 1933: 25). The senate reformations are also a much discussed topic as a change in Augustus powers (Wiseman 1971: 10-12). The first, genuine reduction in the senate occurred in 29 BC and appears to have removed senators on a voluntary basis (Dio Cass. 52.42, Wiseman 1971: 10); allowing a majority of princeps italiae to remain. This group is viewed as Augustus powerbase in this period, featuring prominently in his elevation to Pontifex Maximus. The appointment however had previously been offered by the Roman people (RG 10, Suet. Aug. 31.1), suggesting that Augustus was respecting tradition by waiting for both the death of the previous Pontifex and approval from the senate. The next of the lectiones, 19 and 11 BC appear to have forced senators to leave, replacing them with Augustus own supporters (Eck 2007: 80, Wiseman 1971: 10-11, RG 8, Dio Cass. 54.13). This reformation appears to mark a turn towards monarchy, as Augustus gains the majority within the senate. Prior to this point Augustus had only used his auctoritas and financial advantages to keep the res publica stable (Eck 2007: 53-4, RG 34). The first settlement of 27BC is the point at which Augustus returned the republic to the senate and people of Rome (res publica restituta) by relinquishing his triumviral powers and abolishing any of the enactments not legally ratified by the senate during the triumvirate (RG 34, Ov. Fast. 1.589, Severy 2003: 45-6). Dio however argues that the caretakership given to Augustus at the senates suggestion was merely a front to the monarchical intentions of the princeps senatus (Dio Cass. 52.1, 53.11.4, Vitruvius preface, Hor. Odes 3.14.15, Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 14-15, Eck 2007: 52). As a source, Dio is not a contemporary, writing around 200 years later. This relates his thoughts to a period in which contemporaries such as Ovid and Velleius Paterculus were writing (Vell. Pat. 2.89, Ov. Fast. 1.589). Augustus retained his consulship until the second settlement of 23BC, meaning that Augustus was still in charge as a traditional magistrate minus the limitation of one consulship per 10 years (Jones 1960: 4-5). It was however during the first settlement that Augustus received control of a number of provinces including Spain, Gaul and Egypt; rather than the senate, due to the rebellious nature of these provinces as proven by later campaigns (Vel. Pat. 2.90, Suet. Aug. 21). The other provinces were returned to senatorial control using the old system of governorship. This would also suggest the reason for the large military presence in these areas. As well as this Augustus is stated to have returned the provinces of Gallia Narbonensis and Cyprus in 22BC (Brunt Moore 1988: 9). Other modern sources infer that the high numbers of legions in these areas were due to Augustus wish to maintain military supremacy (RG 16, Dio Cass. 55.25.1-3, Severy 2003: 85-7, Eck 2007: 51-2). This reduced the chances of further Civil wars by associating the military with one key group of people rather than the original rotational system prior to the Civil wars as by rooting the military to a set number of trusted i ndividuals the army itself was permanently tied to Rome itself rather than its generals. The title of Augustus itself, given by the senate in 27BC conveys much meaning about his relative power. The name is taken from August, associated with the sacred and auguries (Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 16, Ov. Fast. 1.596-616). This relationship gives Augustus an implicit link to the divine power of Rome and also suggests monarchical intentions. The name Augustus can also be seen as a legal title conferred upon him by the senate at the end of the triumvirate and the beginning of his guardianship of the state. Augustus and contemporary sources however do not refer to the name as an implication of power, but utilise it as a new image to that of Octavian; primarily due to its association with the triumvirate. This change of image is illustrated particularly after the first settlement, when Augustus melted down 80 silver statues of Octavian, then dedicated the value in golden tripods to Apollo (RG 24, Severy 2003: 59). This infers that that his image, previously that of a dictator was chan ged to the man who restored the res publica(Eck 1984: 136, Severy 2003: 47). Augustus also received a number of honours from the senate and people of Rome, the first of which is the corona civis (Severy 2003: 46, Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 17). This was a laurel of oak given to one who has saved the life of a roman citizen and is portrayed on a number of coins (RG 34,Mattingly 1923: 3.14, 18.6). It has also been used to represent the saving of Rome during history. Cicero for example is reputed to have received the same honour for his acts during the Catiline conspiracy (Moralee 2004:67). This honour is therefore defined within the traditions of the res publica (Severy 2003: 46), suggesting that the senate was restored to its former constitutional form. The corona civis however also implies a permanent debt to those who gave it (Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 17); in this case the senate and people of Rome, inferring that these groups will forever remain clients to Augustus. The second of the awards attributed to Augustus was that of a golden shield displaying the major virtues of courage, clemency, justice and piety which was awarded to Augustus as defender of the res publica (Hor. Odes 3.2-6, RG 34, Severy 2003: 46, Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 17, Yavetz 1984: 4-5). This suggests that the senate required Augustus to act in such a way as to control the army and subsequently the state. The riots in 22BC illustrate this as when Augustus denies the consulship the people fear for the state (Dio Cass. 54.1, Brunt Moore 1988: 44). These honours form part of Augustus image, primarily in that they respect the tradition of previous magistrates, as the honours are left outside of the domus. This infers a return to early divisions of public and private, portrayed by Augustus himself (Severy 2003: 47, Dio Cass. 53.16.4). The second settlement of 23BC is a further point at which Augustus appears to take control of the empire, and to some marks the maturity of the Imperial system (Severy 2003: 49, Shotter 2007: 100). This was however defined again with magisterial terms, suggesting a role above others in the senate, yet limited to a set number of 5 years (Severy 2003: 49). Augustus relinquished the consulship which he had held since 27 BC due to ‘universal consent (RG 34). He instead received the tribunitia potestas and imperium proconsulare maius. These powers gave Augustus the authority to manipulate but not control the senate, as the right to veto and call emergency senate meetings meant that the body was effectively under his control (Shotter 2007: 100, Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 14). This period appears to mark the beginning of the facade of singular rule. Complete control however is not gained until the title of pater patriae is acquired. The major turning point from res publica to facade appears to occur in the third settlement, a new notion attributed to 19, 18 and 11BC with the introduction of a number of laws (leges) that completely change republican ideals (Severy 2003: 50, 56). The laws relating to marriage named lex Julia de martinandins ordinibus, for example were designed to encourage reproduction amongst the orders particularly within the patrician order (Lintott 2010: 117). This led to a drastic cut in terms of senatorial potential for those of the next generation, instead needing to rely on the generosity of Augustus and later rulers to make up the required property allowance. The law also had another important aspect in that it caused a break from traditional patronage values as freedmen were forced to break their oaths of marital chastity to their patrons(Digest 37.14.6.4, 23.2.19, Severy 2003: 56). This law therefore decreased the nobles relationship between patron and client, whilst further increasing Augustus own association with the people (Shotter 2007: 100, Eck 2007: 51). Another law that greatly affected traditional republican values was that which regarded adultery, known as the lex Julia de adulteriis. This law reduced the power of the pater familias while increasing Augustus own, as prior to the introduction of this law issues regarding adultery were under the control of the pater familias (Severy 2003: 51, 56, Yavetz 1984: 13). The introduction of such laws infer that Augustus was tending towards monarchical rule, and by placing family within the legal status of Roman citizenship, completely changed the values of the res publica (Eck 1984: 131, Severy 2003: 52). This allowed the placing of himself as pater of all Romans; suggesting a monarchical threat to the original constitution of the res publica. The use of Augustus family from 24BC appears to indicate a change of direction towards monarchy. The first of the members, Marcellus was allowed to run for consulship in 24BC, Syme sees this as an attempt to establish an heir (Syme 1939: 342-3, Jones 1960: 6-7 Dio Cass. 53.31.1). Others however disagree, especially as contemporary sources cannot be certain of the apparent heir as a successor (Jones 1960: 6-7). This infers that none knew of Marcellus as heir, and some secondary sources appear to believe that the mention of Marcellus in the Aeneid (Virgil Aeneid 8.860-85, Dio Cass. 53.30.5-6) suggests his apparent role in Augustus life; mentioning him as a good Roman and with no mention of a formal relationship between the two characters. The Secular Games (Ludi Saeculares) however appear to contradict the idea of the establishment of a royal family, as the games although heavily linked to the idea of the family, have little mention of any of Augustus relatives (Severy 2003: 57, Beard, North Price 1998: 71-2, Suet. Aug. 91.2). This infers that Augustus did not wish to portray his family during the games for this reason; by 9BC however the family appears to have become heavily involved in political terms illustrated through the building of the ara pacis and their portrayal on the monument (Syme 1939: 389, Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 70-75). The Games themselves still suggest a return to the Res Publica as they are a traditional event held every 100-110 years to coincide with the complete renewal of the previous attending population (Beard, North Price 1998: 201-6). This infers that Augustus was attempting to keep important events associated with the original Res Publica but also gives the proceedings a new direction in com parison to that of the traditional through its increased association with the family unit (Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 70-1). To conclude Augustus did not begin with the sole intention of becoming a monarch, or creating a facade behind which he ruled. Augustus instead reacted to the events of the period; realising throughout his prolonged guardianship of the state that a single governmental position is required to maintain the Pax Romana. This was indeed achieved during his reign, but still within the definitions of the older constitution of the res publica. It was Tiberius, successor to Augustus that first officially began sole rule. The supposed sham of the restoration of the res publica is therefore similar to a constitutional shift; which had been occurring since the beginning of the government itself. If a point at which Augustus began to obviously affect the constitution needed to be chosen, it would be that of the law changes in of 19-11BC; as this radically affected the people and their associated rights rather than the senate alone. These law changes caused a complete shift in the roles of both Aug ustus and that of a traditional Roman father figure. On the surface this change in the pater potestas appears minimal, but in reality caused the downfall of some of the overlying ideas of the res publica in relation to the family unit, incorporating Augustus within every aspect of life.

Tracking Developments in Media Industry

Tracking Developments in Media Industry Abstract These days the media business is witnessing the next structural transformation in its business model. Due to the reduction of revenues[1] from printed media and advertisements, industry giants are looking for other ways for penetrating additional revenues. The traditional strategy of cost reduction that was previously widely applied does not seem to be sustainable. On the contrary, most key players in the media world see the biggest opportunity in the invention of new models which will contribute to the boost of revenues. To a large extent media executives agree that monetization of online content is the decision they should go for more insistently[2]. One of the reasons why online monetization is a financially attractive way of growth is that, it has zero marginal cost, and as opposed to print media, revenue increase will not induce proportional increase in costs[3]. Another advantage which online news have compared to the traditional printed media is that they can provide news in r eal time regime which is extremely important in this particular industry as â€Å"news is very costly and at the same time highly perishable product†[4]. So far there have been some attempts of online monetization like the Kindle and micropayments but these strategies cant balance the all the losses that the industry bears because of the before mentioned reasons. Up to date, unfortunately for the industrys decision makers, choosing the right model for online monetization was not the only challenge they had to face. Challenges like search engines, which are generating their content and giving it out to customers for free, are not easy to overcome. In fact, bloggers and social networks like Facebook and Tweeter could be considered as posing similar risks for traditional media companies. However in chapter 4 we will see that the attempts of transforming these risk bearing factors into opportunity and getting some kind of revenues from them has started, which logically should lead us to some type of â€Å"business to business† model which will become beneficial for both parts. In this thesis, because of different reasons[5] I will not claim to have found the ideal model for content monetization, but rather will present several alternative models for monetizing online media content, and whats more important, will discuss the most successful models employed thus far which are applied by leading players in the industry. I will compare their features to each other, analyze their advantages and disadvantages. I will also look empirical data of results of each model to give the reader a better sense of each models financial success and the importance of online content in their business, to have better understanding what role content monetization might mean for these news providers. Besides I will help the reader to have knowledge about the obstacles which should be taken in consideration by stakeholders, if they want to find the best match pay model for their news web-site. 1. Introduction Throughout its history the media business, which is one of the most dynamic and fast-developing industries, has passed through many development cycles, each prone to tremendous changes in terms of strategy, structure and model it operated with. The reasons of these changes in different times were different processes taking place in parallel, e.g. advances of post-delivery system, facilitating transportation and logistics around the world, various technological innovations etc. However, without any doubt, the emergence of the Internet and the subsequent development of digital media is the greatest change of at least last two decades. It has once again revolutionized the whole industry dramatically, more than any previous development. Currently we are witnessing a transformation process which might become a ground for the conceptual change of the whole media industry. â€Å"Due to the reduction of revenues[6] from print media[7] (one of the reasons of this is decreased circulation of print newspapers, Exhibit 1) and online advertisements, industry giants have started to explore new ways to restructure their portfolios of income, and how to make their readers pay for the information they get online†[8]. The latest financial crisis played a role in accelerating this process. The downturn of revenues pushed the media companies to sharpen cost cuttings first of all indicated by the massive layoffs of the staff. However as many industry experts like freelance photojournalist Mike Fox believes, massive layoffs itself is not a sustainable strategy for the future[9]. The same view is shared by management consulting firm Booz Company in their research about the media industry. They admit that cost cutting is an imp ortant tool for managers, but in order to stay capable of growing in the long run, companies cant focus only on the expenditures side of their income statement.[10] Media executives are still optimistic about the future. As the survey in the same research from Booz Company shows, â€Å"most of the respondents (nearly 70%) believe that their companies are financially healthy. The which even higher to 80 percent when it comes to the opinion of integrated players (Exhibits 2), and surprisingly just one forth of the surveyed executives expected they would meet the end of recession with a deteriorated situation (Exhibit 3). Moreover, more than half of media executives (57%) believe that they still hold the wheels to control situation despite financial crisis and think that with structural trends developing in the industry they can outperform the negative results of economic downturn. Print executives are even more optimistic, this opinion is shared by 67 percent of them†. Booz Co sees the future of media companies in their ability to identify the markets where they can compete successfully and the business models which will help them to do s o. In the June of 2009, at the Cable Show[11] in Washington D.C, American News Corps owner Rupert Murdoch gave a speech, which also covered the current challenges of media industry, where he specifically underlined the inevitable need of content monetization. He underlined that times when people where reading news online for free should be over, and thus gave a hint to the whole industry that the process of â€Å"online content monetization† is not only non-reversible process, but indeed it should accelerate whether somebody likes it or not. Murdoch mentioned that only online ads cannot cover media companies costs and named New York Times, as a vivid example of that. NYT has one of the most popular U.S newspaper websites, but still their online ad revenues are not sufficient for cost coverage[12]. The signal form the industry guru was correctly understood by other giant players of media world and many of them like Axel Springer and New York Times[13] already second time, started thinking how to charge their readers for online news in the way not to harm online traffic and ad revenues. Finding the balance among these two will be the biggest challenge for the â€Å"followers of the trend†. In the process of monetizing online media choosing the right type of model which will fit to one or another news providers overall strategy and values is a big deal of question. Currently most news online is free, but there are some existing newspapers successfully charging their readers at least for the part of the information they provide to them. 1 shows the increased consumer spending (black curve) and penetration (grey curve) in online content. The research conducted by Online Publishers Association shows the same trend, that the money spent by consumers on online content in United States increase from 1.31 billion USD in 2002 to 1.78 billion USD in 2004, which meant annual growth rate of 17%. However this growth occurred in the entertainment area such as adult material, music, gaming and sports[14]. Currently, among them most successful in terms of revenues generated from online media content, are American The Wall Street Journal and the British Financial Times. Both of these newspapers are providing financial news and are most direct competitors of each other. Finance is one of those few areas which experts consider possible to monetize. The Booz Co research mentioned before makes focus on prior experiments of publishers who tried to monetize content and boost sales with which such an innovative tools as Kindle (Exhibit 4) sales, multi-title subscriptions and micropayments are, but as the results show these methods cant regain all the revenues lost which the media industry faced in the last two years. It also shows that inevitable steps are needed from the whole industry to look for new business models and as the survey in the same research shows, media executives expect most increase of revenues from the innovations in the digital media, from the new innovative models. (Exhibit 5). Expectations towards online monetization is a great, at least from the side of news providers, however the way on which they will have to go does not seem smooth and easy. There are various challenges monetizing volunteers will have to deal with; on the one hand there is a problem of search engines and bloggers â€Å"stealing† news from their web sites and offering them to readers on aggregate web-sites, and on the other hand there is a psychology of people and understanding their personal motivations, what would make them to pay money in online news. Furthermore, it will not be easy to make people pay for the information which they were used to get for free previously[15]. However despite all challenges and obstacles which is expected for industry players, Booz Co concludes that process of media digitization is on its way and nothing can stop it. Mathias Dà ¶phner comes up with same opinion: â€Å"I do not share this kind of pessimism that content business is dying. The opposite is right. Thats the tremendous opportunity through the digitization.†[16] One more factor which theoretically should give more hope to media magnates is psychological: as various studies about personality drivers during online purchase show, the experience of using internet and reading news online are positively correlated with purchase intention. Once the usage of internet and reading news online is a growing tendency in current reality, and the age of internet usage is also shifting fast, we can say that time works on media companies. In this research I will analyse existing online paying models which successfully operate and give the hope to industry players for the â€Å"brighter† future in that prospect. 2. Review of search methodology The aim of this thesis is to find out the features of existing paid models in online news which are already operating successfully. I will also try to measure their effectiveness/importance by various criteria, both objective such as existing financial and quantitative data, and also more partly-objective, such as different expert opinions[17]. The research will be developed in three main parts: Review of types of content which can be monetized, where people show some willingness to pay money (or are already paying) As related to the previous chapter, analysis of the personality drivers and its importance while consumers conduct online purchase Analysis of existing successful models, their features and their effectiveness in terms of empirical results For the sake of development of this three-pillar structure, the information will be obtained through various sources such as existing literature researches, articles, blogs, expert opinions and the consulting project ran by me and my classmates during our practice project[18]. 2.1. Sources for identifying online-chargeable content and consumers personality drivers The biggest contribution for the author in understanding of this issue were insights from consulting project workshop conducted by the ESMT Practice Project of which the author was a team member[19] in the late 2009. During this project, besides analyzing already available literature regarding topic, the team interviewed different kind of experts and also ran a representative survey among 300 German online readers to understand the areas where customers showed some willingness to pay. According to the results, there are not many areas which can be monetized, but only: Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers Local news Online sports events The point is almost completely shared by Mathias Dà ¶phner, the CEO of German media company Axel Springer, who held a discussion around the topic at Monaco Media Forum 2009: â€Å"There are not many areas where people are willing to pay money: 1) This is finance, which is related to power; 2) Plus sports or games 3) Regional environments, people around you; 4) And then we are coming to two existential areas: sex and crime, or love and death. â€Å" â€Å"These are areas where people are generally interested in and why should that change in digital business?† asks Dà ¶phner rhetoric question. The CEO of Axel Springer also commented the fact that currently most news online is free and called this fact a â€Å"structural mistake† which has to be corrected step by step. According to Dà ¶phner there is not need of revolution, once most appropriate rules and procedures in legislation already exist. They just need some moderation and then execution. Continuing on the issue Dà ¶phner summed up with the hope that in the long run, for hundreds of years, people are willing to pay for things they are interested in. â€Å"Commodity news will be for free, but special information, added value services, exclusive information should be charged†. Currently, there are already obvious movements in the industry towards fixing the â€Å"structural mistakes† Mr Dà ¶phner talked about. This will be discussed more detailed in chapter 3.2, named â€Å"challenges†. 2.2. Personality drivers of consumers to purchase online Understanding and analyzing consumer drivers while conducting online purchase, is critical for building prominent, profitable business model. However until today there is no perfect study in the area which could claim on being perfect in identifying and analyzing of all motivators which make consumers to pay money online, and whats more important, all researchers would agree on that claim of this study. One of the best researches in this field conducted by Wang et al claims that the main factors which affect consumers willingness to pay money online and are positively correlated with the one, are consumers perceived convenience, essentiality, added-value and service quality. However another research on the same topic e.g. from Choi, Lee and Soriano focuses on following factors: perceived consequences after purchase of product, easiness of use of internet, social factors such as environment around person, satisfaction of the reader after purchase and existing alternative sources to get the same particular information. As we see on this example two group academics have completely different approach and beliefs towards one topic. These two researches are clear evidence how diverse is different researchers approaches to the issue. To all of these factors I looked also form the prospective of researches which are dedicated to analyzing a bit broader field consumers purchasing drivers in whole online market rather than only in online media. In these researches, some of above mentioned factors are considered to be important but others are doubted. Its hard for someone to persist himself not to criticize some of the factors mentioned above, e.g. the word â€Å"perceived† is already very dubious and at the same time very subjective, however very important one. As Barkhi, Belanger and Hocks claim in their â€Å"model of the determinants of purchasing from virtual stores†, the notion perceived/perception has already enormous importance itself, as it defines consumers later attitude towards whole online purchase procedure. To continue analysis, factor such as social community is neglected in Bosnjiaks research, where he referring to Senecals 2005 research claims that recommendations made from close community make decision making process more complex but it does not affect final choice of consumer. Regarding service-quality we can say that, the word quality itself already induces some confusion because its pretty subjective notion. For different people quality might mean different things. For some people service-quality might mean the urgent delivery of hottest news and the exclusivity of this information, whereas for another person the quality of service might be associated with deeper analysis of the article or the easiness of ways to pay money online. Such an arguing can continue further, but what is more important, arguable are not only factors on which researchers build their different models, but also some general statements which are made by them. For example, the work of Wang et al claim the business model is sustainable if revenue-generating method is accepted by majority of the potential customers. However despite all the respect towards the authors and research itself, such a claim can easily become a reason of discussions, because still, the success of any model depends on the ideal proportion of ad revenues and online subscription revenues and for different newspapers the ideal conversion rate of readers to paid customers might be different. Even this research itself contradicts to its statement when brings an example of Wall Street Journal Online and Hoovers Online telling that they managed to make e-content portal profitable by only 10% of conversion rate. While conducting our consulting project, we also got results th at some high circulated newspapers would make their portals profitable even by 3% conversion ratio. Further more, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, has only 0,8% conversion rate of subscribers on its niche site for hardcore Green Bay Packers fans, making revenues of 600,000 USD annually. In other words, depending on the content offered by particular newspaper, and the number and type of readers they have, the effective proportion of online content and ad revenues should be found. More analysis should be conducted to understand the price of lost customers amount versus converted ones and the ideal balance of subscription revenues versus lost ad revenues. To this issue has dedicated his discussion Jeff Jarvis, on the blog-web BuzzMachine. Jeff Jarvis is an American Journalist, former television critic, editor, publisher and columnist. Among the companies he has been working are: New York Daily News, San Francisco Examiner, New York Times Company, MediaGuardian a supplement of British newspaper The Guardian. Besides he is an associate professor at the City University of New Yorks Graduate School of Journalism directing its new media program. He is also creator of weblog BuzzMachine[20]. Jeff Jarvis in his article about paid content published on Weblog BuzzMachine is more persuasive about the complexity of the issue[21] and based on his vast experience highlights for the readers how many different factors should be taken in consideration for identifying one or another model for particular newspaper. For those who will catch in Jeff Jarvis approach some â€Å"sense and consciousness† will become clear that based only on the analysis of psychological traits of people and their purchasing drivers, it will not be easy to find an ideal model, and that the issue needs rather practical approach. Findings of Jeff Jarvis will be discussed more detailed in the 5.1 chapter named â€Å"Expert opinions and Conclusions†. Before moving to the following chapter, we should conclude the started topic and mention that there is still needed some research in the area of personal motivators for online purchase, in order we could claim by 100% confidence that we are using the best model for identifying the online paid model. 2.3. Discussed models and criteria for their comparison Once we are analyzing the existing models, the criteria for assessment of one or another method is the time of their existence and their results shown throughout their lifetime. Besides looking at the thematic differences in the features of the models both in Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) models, we will look at their financial results, their generated income through online sales and he dynamics in online subscription amount. The biggest attention the author paid was to the models of Financial Times and Wall Street Journal as the most successful financial players in B2C business. In addition, the author took a look at Bloomberg and Reuters as successful players of B2B model. New York Times was an interesting case for the author because it is a case, when after first unsuccessful trial, they are going to try monetizing online content already second time. Taking in consideration their prior experience it should be important to track which model they will choose for the second attempt. Finally, the author took a quick look at some other examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts of monetizing online content so far. Information was gathered from reviews of their websites as well as from articles about these news-providers, and various expert opinions about their models. 3. Possible models which can help to monetize online content Technological advancement has made most news content widely available for free online, which pushed most newspapers to give up subscription fees in the hope of getting more readers and hence by increasing traffic, get more advertisement revenues. However such movements contribute even more to the availability of free content in the web and hence induce decrease in print media circulation and advertisement revenues[22]. Charging for online news is very hard. The biggest risk that media companies face is loosing the visitors, because reduced traffic will induce less interest of advertisement providers on the particular site. Ads are still major source of revenues for most media companies and it will remain so in the nearest future. As Rupert Murdoch commented previously on the example of Wall Street Journal, â€Å"charging online content is not bad but still its not a gold mine†[23]. However, recently after presenting the idea at WSJ to impose premium paid model, Murdoch Justified their decision with telling that, in their case, ad revenues are no any more critical part in revenues and they pay more attention to subscription based revenues[24]. The high risk of loosing switching is easily explainable for SearchDNA founder John Straw, who admits that he himself would never pay for online content if he could get it somewhere else[25]. 3.1. Findings from consulting project While working on our consulting project[26], our group consisting from four MBA participants, I and my three classmates, identified four different types of models which could imposed during presenting the pay wall. The consulting project itself and its results is based on the basis of numerous articles and literature about previous experience, industry expert interviews and representative survey conducted among 299 German media readers. In column 1, table 1 explains four different pay-wall models which are possible to impose on online content in different situation, and column 2 explains the situations in which these different models would have chance to work â€Å"keeping other conditions constant†. Table 1: Types of models applicable in monetized online media[27] Types of Possible Models Situation explaining the feasibility of model Locking down the whole content Really unique content Locking down selected articles Unique content should be part of broader content Limiting the number of customers Very high overall quality, breadth of content offering Locking down the niche articles Want to monetize only highly specific â€Å"hidden† articles Source: consulting PP final draft Its upon news providers which type of model they will choose to match with the content they want to lock down. As we already discussed, there are few things which would motivate people to pay money online for, in other words online readers show at least some willingness to pay in following areas: * Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one * Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers * Local news * Online sports events Here we can provide some examples of successfully using some of these methods of pay-wall. The method of locking down selected articles is used by Wall Street Journal. In this case most daily news including political are considered as commodity information and they are given out for free, however if some specific interest area, e.g. finance, have deeper expert analysis, which you cant meet in other newspapers, the articles are locked down in this case. The method of limiting the number f articles is successfully used by Financial Times. New York Times decided to go on the same way from 2011. A good example of locking down niche content is Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and its Packer Insider: The journal locks down specific information, deep content about football club Green Bay Packers, for its fans. In deep content in this case is counted e.g. chat sessions with players. As the same Practice project showed, locking down whole content, â€Å"keeping other conditions equal†, is p ossible if the whole content is really unique. Here we have also to mention that during consulting project about online content monetization, we had some more interesting insights about the factors which increase readers willingness to pay: To our surprise content is not always the thing which might make readers to pay online: 35% of surveyed 299 German readers named following three factors as the possible motivators in increasing willingness to pay: Promotions/ Give-aways Customization Specific additional content As a conclusion of this chapter we should say many experts predict for the future that, free content will be used primarily as a marketing ploy: a complementary trial period is strictly used for purposes of enticing customers to subscribe to a service or buy a product online. (Wang et al). Alternatively some sites attract customers by offering a limited amount of free content. They then hope to convince their customers to shift to a variety of â€Å"premium†, fee-based content (Outing 2002). (Wang et al) 3.2. Challenges Innovative online ways of distributing news like news aggregate sites, blogs, social networks (Facebook, Tweeter, etc.) which are free to access, become more and more of a threat for media companies, because news is a costly product to produce, as well as it its distribution in traditional way. But distribution of news in online has zero marginal cost, as it takes nothing to the person to copy and paste a particular article or link it to the other page (Exhibit 6). Traditional media companies demand from these innovative producers of news â€Å"fair ways of playing†, which means either they should produce their own information or they should pay to original producers some fees for utilizing their articles. In his interview, Mathias Dà ¶phner mentioned that they are not demanding banning of these alternative sources. â€Å"We understand that future is mixed model, mutual existence of both of us declared Dà ¶phner. We also do not request something new and innovative. We just need fairness, respecting each other, respecting copyright rules, paying royalties as it is supposed to be done and for of all this playing rules are already there, we just need to make them better and then follow to†. Rupert Murdoch went even further and called search engine Google stealers, as they take others information without permission and put it on their pages. Regarding this phenomenon, Axel Springer CEO Dà ¶phner told very appropriate example to the Huffington Post co-founder. â€Å"If you want to give others your beer for free, please brew your own beer and then you are welcomed to do so, but please stop taking my costly beer and then giving it to others for free†. Recently there is a clear evidence of starting changes in this regard: Google agreed with several news-provider companies to restrict their articles readerships through Google to maximum amount of five. Another web-site YouTube started removing from their site unlicensed videos. In other words, Mathias Dà ¶phners prediction that the current reality would start changing step by step has obviously started to become true. Thus in nearest future we should anticipate emergence of new pay-models, when media companies will have to think, how to share the cake with news aggregate web-sites, social networks and bloggers. We are witnessing enormous changes not only because of monetization, but because of establishment new type of relationships between industry participants, which ideally should bring in new opportunities. (Exhibit 9) 4. Existing paying models, analysis Studies claim[28] that in order managers found ideal subscription business model for online monetization they need to understand their subscribers personality drivers, their perceptions and attitudes, what makes them purchase news online? In fact there is not breadth of information about consumers personality drivers, indeed the researchers actively continue investigating this area and thus provide us with new and new models. Non-existence of ideal model in this area is one of the reasons why we cant predict ideal online pay model. The other reasons are â€Å"closer† to business. Referring to Jeff Jarvis argumentation in his article about paid content models, there are plenty of criteria which determine the success of one or another model. Once these criteria are individual and very specific for each newspaper, no one can/should claim yet, on identifying one general ideal model which will fit to all news-providers. As director of Association of online publishers, Lee Baker commented in News Media, half of their members already charge for online content and another 19% is going to do so in the nearest 12 months. â€Å"Paid content modelling is important to our members†, continues Mr. Baker. â€Å"Our members are trying to penetrate new areas such as mobile apps. More than half of them express desire to create paid-for apps†. Despite we cant claim on building the ideal model as a proxy for the future, we can cover the most successful news providers and their models which are currently successfully used, both in B2C and B2B business. 4.1. Financial Times VS The Wall Street Journal Currently the most distributed B2C pay models in online media are two: one is Financial Times way restricting the definite amount of free articles for subscribers and then charge the readers if they exceed this amount, and another is Wall Street Journals way offering readers only one or two paragraph for reading and making available the rest only for subscribers[29]. To compare these two models in more details lets take a more detailed look at the ways which they are used by their most successful implementers. Of course there is some room for deviations and different news providers can apply to some minor changes, e.g. in the amount of text which should be given out for free, but the concept remains the same. Table 2 below shows clear distinctions between the features of these two models in the case of FT and WSJ. The essence of difference of these two models is the amount of information provided for free and the ways how it is done: The Wall Street Journal makes clear distinction between commodity and high-value content. The so ca Tracking Developments in Media Industry Tracking Developments in Media Industry Abstract These days the media business is witnessing the next structural transformation in its business model. Due to the reduction of revenues[1] from printed media and advertisements, industry giants are looking for other ways for penetrating additional revenues. The traditional strategy of cost reduction that was previously widely applied does not seem to be sustainable. On the contrary, most key players in the media world see the biggest opportunity in the invention of new models which will contribute to the boost of revenues. To a large extent media executives agree that monetization of online content is the decision they should go for more insistently[2]. One of the reasons why online monetization is a financially attractive way of growth is that, it has zero marginal cost, and as opposed to print media, revenue increase will not induce proportional increase in costs[3]. Another advantage which online news have compared to the traditional printed media is that they can provide news in r eal time regime which is extremely important in this particular industry as â€Å"news is very costly and at the same time highly perishable product†[4]. So far there have been some attempts of online monetization like the Kindle and micropayments but these strategies cant balance the all the losses that the industry bears because of the before mentioned reasons. Up to date, unfortunately for the industrys decision makers, choosing the right model for online monetization was not the only challenge they had to face. Challenges like search engines, which are generating their content and giving it out to customers for free, are not easy to overcome. In fact, bloggers and social networks like Facebook and Tweeter could be considered as posing similar risks for traditional media companies. However in chapter 4 we will see that the attempts of transforming these risk bearing factors into opportunity and getting some kind of revenues from them has started, which logically should lead us to some type of â€Å"business to business† model which will become beneficial for both parts. In this thesis, because of different reasons[5] I will not claim to have found the ideal model for content monetization, but rather will present several alternative models for monetizing online media content, and whats more important, will discuss the most successful models employed thus far which are applied by leading players in the industry. I will compare their features to each other, analyze their advantages and disadvantages. I will also look empirical data of results of each model to give the reader a better sense of each models financial success and the importance of online content in their business, to have better understanding what role content monetization might mean for these news providers. Besides I will help the reader to have knowledge about the obstacles which should be taken in consideration by stakeholders, if they want to find the best match pay model for their news web-site. 1. Introduction Throughout its history the media business, which is one of the most dynamic and fast-developing industries, has passed through many development cycles, each prone to tremendous changes in terms of strategy, structure and model it operated with. The reasons of these changes in different times were different processes taking place in parallel, e.g. advances of post-delivery system, facilitating transportation and logistics around the world, various technological innovations etc. However, without any doubt, the emergence of the Internet and the subsequent development of digital media is the greatest change of at least last two decades. It has once again revolutionized the whole industry dramatically, more than any previous development. Currently we are witnessing a transformation process which might become a ground for the conceptual change of the whole media industry. â€Å"Due to the reduction of revenues[6] from print media[7] (one of the reasons of this is decreased circulation of print newspapers, Exhibit 1) and online advertisements, industry giants have started to explore new ways to restructure their portfolios of income, and how to make their readers pay for the information they get online†[8]. The latest financial crisis played a role in accelerating this process. The downturn of revenues pushed the media companies to sharpen cost cuttings first of all indicated by the massive layoffs of the staff. However as many industry experts like freelance photojournalist Mike Fox believes, massive layoffs itself is not a sustainable strategy for the future[9]. The same view is shared by management consulting firm Booz Company in their research about the media industry. They admit that cost cutting is an imp ortant tool for managers, but in order to stay capable of growing in the long run, companies cant focus only on the expenditures side of their income statement.[10] Media executives are still optimistic about the future. As the survey in the same research from Booz Company shows, â€Å"most of the respondents (nearly 70%) believe that their companies are financially healthy. The which even higher to 80 percent when it comes to the opinion of integrated players (Exhibits 2), and surprisingly just one forth of the surveyed executives expected they would meet the end of recession with a deteriorated situation (Exhibit 3). Moreover, more than half of media executives (57%) believe that they still hold the wheels to control situation despite financial crisis and think that with structural trends developing in the industry they can outperform the negative results of economic downturn. Print executives are even more optimistic, this opinion is shared by 67 percent of them†. Booz Co sees the future of media companies in their ability to identify the markets where they can compete successfully and the business models which will help them to do s o. In the June of 2009, at the Cable Show[11] in Washington D.C, American News Corps owner Rupert Murdoch gave a speech, which also covered the current challenges of media industry, where he specifically underlined the inevitable need of content monetization. He underlined that times when people where reading news online for free should be over, and thus gave a hint to the whole industry that the process of â€Å"online content monetization† is not only non-reversible process, but indeed it should accelerate whether somebody likes it or not. Murdoch mentioned that only online ads cannot cover media companies costs and named New York Times, as a vivid example of that. NYT has one of the most popular U.S newspaper websites, but still their online ad revenues are not sufficient for cost coverage[12]. The signal form the industry guru was correctly understood by other giant players of media world and many of them like Axel Springer and New York Times[13] already second time, started thinking how to charge their readers for online news in the way not to harm online traffic and ad revenues. Finding the balance among these two will be the biggest challenge for the â€Å"followers of the trend†. In the process of monetizing online media choosing the right type of model which will fit to one or another news providers overall strategy and values is a big deal of question. Currently most news online is free, but there are some existing newspapers successfully charging their readers at least for the part of the information they provide to them. 1 shows the increased consumer spending (black curve) and penetration (grey curve) in online content. The research conducted by Online Publishers Association shows the same trend, that the money spent by consumers on online content in United States increase from 1.31 billion USD in 2002 to 1.78 billion USD in 2004, which meant annual growth rate of 17%. However this growth occurred in the entertainment area such as adult material, music, gaming and sports[14]. Currently, among them most successful in terms of revenues generated from online media content, are American The Wall Street Journal and the British Financial Times. Both of these newspapers are providing financial news and are most direct competitors of each other. Finance is one of those few areas which experts consider possible to monetize. The Booz Co research mentioned before makes focus on prior experiments of publishers who tried to monetize content and boost sales with which such an innovative tools as Kindle (Exhibit 4) sales, multi-title subscriptions and micropayments are, but as the results show these methods cant regain all the revenues lost which the media industry faced in the last two years. It also shows that inevitable steps are needed from the whole industry to look for new business models and as the survey in the same research shows, media executives expect most increase of revenues from the innovations in the digital media, from the new innovative models. (Exhibit 5). Expectations towards online monetization is a great, at least from the side of news providers, however the way on which they will have to go does not seem smooth and easy. There are various challenges monetizing volunteers will have to deal with; on the one hand there is a problem of search engines and bloggers â€Å"stealing† news from their web sites and offering them to readers on aggregate web-sites, and on the other hand there is a psychology of people and understanding their personal motivations, what would make them to pay money in online news. Furthermore, it will not be easy to make people pay for the information which they were used to get for free previously[15]. However despite all challenges and obstacles which is expected for industry players, Booz Co concludes that process of media digitization is on its way and nothing can stop it. Mathias Dà ¶phner comes up with same opinion: â€Å"I do not share this kind of pessimism that content business is dying. The opposite is right. Thats the tremendous opportunity through the digitization.†[16] One more factor which theoretically should give more hope to media magnates is psychological: as various studies about personality drivers during online purchase show, the experience of using internet and reading news online are positively correlated with purchase intention. Once the usage of internet and reading news online is a growing tendency in current reality, and the age of internet usage is also shifting fast, we can say that time works on media companies. In this research I will analyse existing online paying models which successfully operate and give the hope to industry players for the â€Å"brighter† future in that prospect. 2. Review of search methodology The aim of this thesis is to find out the features of existing paid models in online news which are already operating successfully. I will also try to measure their effectiveness/importance by various criteria, both objective such as existing financial and quantitative data, and also more partly-objective, such as different expert opinions[17]. The research will be developed in three main parts: Review of types of content which can be monetized, where people show some willingness to pay money (or are already paying) As related to the previous chapter, analysis of the personality drivers and its importance while consumers conduct online purchase Analysis of existing successful models, their features and their effectiveness in terms of empirical results For the sake of development of this three-pillar structure, the information will be obtained through various sources such as existing literature researches, articles, blogs, expert opinions and the consulting project ran by me and my classmates during our practice project[18]. 2.1. Sources for identifying online-chargeable content and consumers personality drivers The biggest contribution for the author in understanding of this issue were insights from consulting project workshop conducted by the ESMT Practice Project of which the author was a team member[19] in the late 2009. During this project, besides analyzing already available literature regarding topic, the team interviewed different kind of experts and also ran a representative survey among 300 German online readers to understand the areas where customers showed some willingness to pay. According to the results, there are not many areas which can be monetized, but only: Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers Local news Online sports events The point is almost completely shared by Mathias Dà ¶phner, the CEO of German media company Axel Springer, who held a discussion around the topic at Monaco Media Forum 2009: â€Å"There are not many areas where people are willing to pay money: 1) This is finance, which is related to power; 2) Plus sports or games 3) Regional environments, people around you; 4) And then we are coming to two existential areas: sex and crime, or love and death. â€Å" â€Å"These are areas where people are generally interested in and why should that change in digital business?† asks Dà ¶phner rhetoric question. The CEO of Axel Springer also commented the fact that currently most news online is free and called this fact a â€Å"structural mistake† which has to be corrected step by step. According to Dà ¶phner there is not need of revolution, once most appropriate rules and procedures in legislation already exist. They just need some moderation and then execution. Continuing on the issue Dà ¶phner summed up with the hope that in the long run, for hundreds of years, people are willing to pay for things they are interested in. â€Å"Commodity news will be for free, but special information, added value services, exclusive information should be charged†. Currently, there are already obvious movements in the industry towards fixing the â€Å"structural mistakes† Mr Dà ¶phner talked about. This will be discussed more detailed in chapter 3.2, named â€Å"challenges†. 2.2. Personality drivers of consumers to purchase online Understanding and analyzing consumer drivers while conducting online purchase, is critical for building prominent, profitable business model. However until today there is no perfect study in the area which could claim on being perfect in identifying and analyzing of all motivators which make consumers to pay money online, and whats more important, all researchers would agree on that claim of this study. One of the best researches in this field conducted by Wang et al claims that the main factors which affect consumers willingness to pay money online and are positively correlated with the one, are consumers perceived convenience, essentiality, added-value and service quality. However another research on the same topic e.g. from Choi, Lee and Soriano focuses on following factors: perceived consequences after purchase of product, easiness of use of internet, social factors such as environment around person, satisfaction of the reader after purchase and existing alternative sources to get the same particular information. As we see on this example two group academics have completely different approach and beliefs towards one topic. These two researches are clear evidence how diverse is different researchers approaches to the issue. To all of these factors I looked also form the prospective of researches which are dedicated to analyzing a bit broader field consumers purchasing drivers in whole online market rather than only in online media. In these researches, some of above mentioned factors are considered to be important but others are doubted. Its hard for someone to persist himself not to criticize some of the factors mentioned above, e.g. the word â€Å"perceived† is already very dubious and at the same time very subjective, however very important one. As Barkhi, Belanger and Hocks claim in their â€Å"model of the determinants of purchasing from virtual stores†, the notion perceived/perception has already enormous importance itself, as it defines consumers later attitude towards whole online purchase procedure. To continue analysis, factor such as social community is neglected in Bosnjiaks research, where he referring to Senecals 2005 research claims that recommendations made from close community make decision making process more complex but it does not affect final choice of consumer. Regarding service-quality we can say that, the word quality itself already induces some confusion because its pretty subjective notion. For different people quality might mean different things. For some people service-quality might mean the urgent delivery of hottest news and the exclusivity of this information, whereas for another person the quality of service might be associated with deeper analysis of the article or the easiness of ways to pay money online. Such an arguing can continue further, but what is more important, arguable are not only factors on which researchers build their different models, but also some general statements which are made by them. For example, the work of Wang et al claim the business model is sustainable if revenue-generating method is accepted by majority of the potential customers. However despite all the respect towards the authors and research itself, such a claim can easily become a reason of discussions, because still, the success of any model depends on the ideal proportion of ad revenues and online subscription revenues and for different newspapers the ideal conversion rate of readers to paid customers might be different. Even this research itself contradicts to its statement when brings an example of Wall Street Journal Online and Hoovers Online telling that they managed to make e-content portal profitable by only 10% of conversion rate. While conducting our consulting project, we also got results th at some high circulated newspapers would make their portals profitable even by 3% conversion ratio. Further more, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, has only 0,8% conversion rate of subscribers on its niche site for hardcore Green Bay Packers fans, making revenues of 600,000 USD annually. In other words, depending on the content offered by particular newspaper, and the number and type of readers they have, the effective proportion of online content and ad revenues should be found. More analysis should be conducted to understand the price of lost customers amount versus converted ones and the ideal balance of subscription revenues versus lost ad revenues. To this issue has dedicated his discussion Jeff Jarvis, on the blog-web BuzzMachine. Jeff Jarvis is an American Journalist, former television critic, editor, publisher and columnist. Among the companies he has been working are: New York Daily News, San Francisco Examiner, New York Times Company, MediaGuardian a supplement of British newspaper The Guardian. Besides he is an associate professor at the City University of New Yorks Graduate School of Journalism directing its new media program. He is also creator of weblog BuzzMachine[20]. Jeff Jarvis in his article about paid content published on Weblog BuzzMachine is more persuasive about the complexity of the issue[21] and based on his vast experience highlights for the readers how many different factors should be taken in consideration for identifying one or another model for particular newspaper. For those who will catch in Jeff Jarvis approach some â€Å"sense and consciousness† will become clear that based only on the analysis of psychological traits of people and their purchasing drivers, it will not be easy to find an ideal model, and that the issue needs rather practical approach. Findings of Jeff Jarvis will be discussed more detailed in the 5.1 chapter named â€Å"Expert opinions and Conclusions†. Before moving to the following chapter, we should conclude the started topic and mention that there is still needed some research in the area of personal motivators for online purchase, in order we could claim by 100% confidence that we are using the best model for identifying the online paid model. 2.3. Discussed models and criteria for their comparison Once we are analyzing the existing models, the criteria for assessment of one or another method is the time of their existence and their results shown throughout their lifetime. Besides looking at the thematic differences in the features of the models both in Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) models, we will look at their financial results, their generated income through online sales and he dynamics in online subscription amount. The biggest attention the author paid was to the models of Financial Times and Wall Street Journal as the most successful financial players in B2C business. In addition, the author took a look at Bloomberg and Reuters as successful players of B2B model. New York Times was an interesting case for the author because it is a case, when after first unsuccessful trial, they are going to try monetizing online content already second time. Taking in consideration their prior experience it should be important to track which model they will choose for the second attempt. Finally, the author took a quick look at some other examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts of monetizing online content so far. Information was gathered from reviews of their websites as well as from articles about these news-providers, and various expert opinions about their models. 3. Possible models which can help to monetize online content Technological advancement has made most news content widely available for free online, which pushed most newspapers to give up subscription fees in the hope of getting more readers and hence by increasing traffic, get more advertisement revenues. However such movements contribute even more to the availability of free content in the web and hence induce decrease in print media circulation and advertisement revenues[22]. Charging for online news is very hard. The biggest risk that media companies face is loosing the visitors, because reduced traffic will induce less interest of advertisement providers on the particular site. Ads are still major source of revenues for most media companies and it will remain so in the nearest future. As Rupert Murdoch commented previously on the example of Wall Street Journal, â€Å"charging online content is not bad but still its not a gold mine†[23]. However, recently after presenting the idea at WSJ to impose premium paid model, Murdoch Justified their decision with telling that, in their case, ad revenues are no any more critical part in revenues and they pay more attention to subscription based revenues[24]. The high risk of loosing switching is easily explainable for SearchDNA founder John Straw, who admits that he himself would never pay for online content if he could get it somewhere else[25]. 3.1. Findings from consulting project While working on our consulting project[26], our group consisting from four MBA participants, I and my three classmates, identified four different types of models which could imposed during presenting the pay wall. The consulting project itself and its results is based on the basis of numerous articles and literature about previous experience, industry expert interviews and representative survey conducted among 299 German media readers. In column 1, table 1 explains four different pay-wall models which are possible to impose on online content in different situation, and column 2 explains the situations in which these different models would have chance to work â€Å"keeping other conditions constant†. Table 1: Types of models applicable in monetized online media[27] Types of Possible Models Situation explaining the feasibility of model Locking down the whole content Really unique content Locking down selected articles Unique content should be part of broader content Limiting the number of customers Very high overall quality, breadth of content offering Locking down the niche articles Want to monetize only highly specific â€Å"hidden† articles Source: consulting PP final draft Its upon news providers which type of model they will choose to match with the content they want to lock down. As we already discussed, there are few things which would motivate people to pay money online for, in other words online readers show at least some willingness to pay in following areas: * Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one * Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers * Local news * Online sports events Here we can provide some examples of successfully using some of these methods of pay-wall. The method of locking down selected articles is used by Wall Street Journal. In this case most daily news including political are considered as commodity information and they are given out for free, however if some specific interest area, e.g. finance, have deeper expert analysis, which you cant meet in other newspapers, the articles are locked down in this case. The method of limiting the number f articles is successfully used by Financial Times. New York Times decided to go on the same way from 2011. A good example of locking down niche content is Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and its Packer Insider: The journal locks down specific information, deep content about football club Green Bay Packers, for its fans. In deep content in this case is counted e.g. chat sessions with players. As the same Practice project showed, locking down whole content, â€Å"keeping other conditions equal†, is p ossible if the whole content is really unique. Here we have also to mention that during consulting project about online content monetization, we had some more interesting insights about the factors which increase readers willingness to pay: To our surprise content is not always the thing which might make readers to pay online: 35% of surveyed 299 German readers named following three factors as the possible motivators in increasing willingness to pay: Promotions/ Give-aways Customization Specific additional content As a conclusion of this chapter we should say many experts predict for the future that, free content will be used primarily as a marketing ploy: a complementary trial period is strictly used for purposes of enticing customers to subscribe to a service or buy a product online. (Wang et al). Alternatively some sites attract customers by offering a limited amount of free content. They then hope to convince their customers to shift to a variety of â€Å"premium†, fee-based content (Outing 2002). (Wang et al) 3.2. Challenges Innovative online ways of distributing news like news aggregate sites, blogs, social networks (Facebook, Tweeter, etc.) which are free to access, become more and more of a threat for media companies, because news is a costly product to produce, as well as it its distribution in traditional way. But distribution of news in online has zero marginal cost, as it takes nothing to the person to copy and paste a particular article or link it to the other page (Exhibit 6). Traditional media companies demand from these innovative producers of news â€Å"fair ways of playing†, which means either they should produce their own information or they should pay to original producers some fees for utilizing their articles. In his interview, Mathias Dà ¶phner mentioned that they are not demanding banning of these alternative sources. â€Å"We understand that future is mixed model, mutual existence of both of us declared Dà ¶phner. We also do not request something new and innovative. We just need fairness, respecting each other, respecting copyright rules, paying royalties as it is supposed to be done and for of all this playing rules are already there, we just need to make them better and then follow to†. Rupert Murdoch went even further and called search engine Google stealers, as they take others information without permission and put it on their pages. Regarding this phenomenon, Axel Springer CEO Dà ¶phner told very appropriate example to the Huffington Post co-founder. â€Å"If you want to give others your beer for free, please brew your own beer and then you are welcomed to do so, but please stop taking my costly beer and then giving it to others for free†. Recently there is a clear evidence of starting changes in this regard: Google agreed with several news-provider companies to restrict their articles readerships through Google to maximum amount of five. Another web-site YouTube started removing from their site unlicensed videos. In other words, Mathias Dà ¶phners prediction that the current reality would start changing step by step has obviously started to become true. Thus in nearest future we should anticipate emergence of new pay-models, when media companies will have to think, how to share the cake with news aggregate web-sites, social networks and bloggers. We are witnessing enormous changes not only because of monetization, but because of establishment new type of relationships between industry participants, which ideally should bring in new opportunities. (Exhibit 9) 4. Existing paying models, analysis Studies claim[28] that in order managers found ideal subscription business model for online monetization they need to understand their subscribers personality drivers, their perceptions and attitudes, what makes them purchase news online? In fact there is not breadth of information about consumers personality drivers, indeed the researchers actively continue investigating this area and thus provide us with new and new models. Non-existence of ideal model in this area is one of the reasons why we cant predict ideal online pay model. The other reasons are â€Å"closer† to business. Referring to Jeff Jarvis argumentation in his article about paid content models, there are plenty of criteria which determine the success of one or another model. Once these criteria are individual and very specific for each newspaper, no one can/should claim yet, on identifying one general ideal model which will fit to all news-providers. As director of Association of online publishers, Lee Baker commented in News Media, half of their members already charge for online content and another 19% is going to do so in the nearest 12 months. â€Å"Paid content modelling is important to our members†, continues Mr. Baker. â€Å"Our members are trying to penetrate new areas such as mobile apps. More than half of them express desire to create paid-for apps†. Despite we cant claim on building the ideal model as a proxy for the future, we can cover the most successful news providers and their models which are currently successfully used, both in B2C and B2B business. 4.1. Financial Times VS The Wall Street Journal Currently the most distributed B2C pay models in online media are two: one is Financial Times way restricting the definite amount of free articles for subscribers and then charge the readers if they exceed this amount, and another is Wall Street Journals way offering readers only one or two paragraph for reading and making available the rest only for subscribers[29]. To compare these two models in more details lets take a more detailed look at the ways which they are used by their most successful implementers. Of course there is some room for deviations and different news providers can apply to some minor changes, e.g. in the amount of text which should be given out for free, but the concept remains the same. Table 2 below shows clear distinctions between the features of these two models in the case of FT and WSJ. The essence of difference of these two models is the amount of information provided for free and the ways how it is done: The Wall Street Journal makes clear distinction between commodity and high-value content. The so ca