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Daily Archives: May 1, 2011
Housing Market Remains Weak In Katonah NY | Katonah NY Real Estate
The U.S. housing sector is struggling to gain upward momentum. As has been the case since the homebuyer housing tax credit was removed last June, monthly gains in home sales are followed by monthly drops in home sales; a step forward followed by a step backward.
All three major housing measures-existing home sales, new home sales and housing starts– are exhibiting growing pains. Existing home sales fell by 9.6 percent in February, wiping out half of the slight gains that home sales made in the previous few months. The annualized pace for existing home sales in February stood at an anemic 4.88 million units.
Similarly, the demand for new homes remains alarmingly weak. New home sales fell in February to 250,000 annualized units, a decline of 16.9 percent from January. A meaningful part of this drop is likely due to harsh winter weather conditions throughout a large part of the country which discouraged home shopping. Nevertheless, new home sales averaged a depressing 286,000 annualized units over the last six months.
To make matters worse, new residential construction activity is not faring well. Housing starts plummeted 22.5 percent in February to an annualized pace of 479,000. A large chunk of this drop is attributed to multifamily starts, but single-family starts also fell by a solid 11.8 percent.
Indications from leading indicators for housing activity suggest the nation’s housing sector will continue to struggle in the coming months. Housing permits fell 8.2 percent in February from a month earlier, which means home builders will be digging fewer holes in the ground in early spring. The National Association of Realtors’ pending home sales index rose 2.1 percent in February compared to a month earlier but this gain only reversed part of the large decline experienced in January. The pending home sales index remains below its 2010 year-end level. So don’t expect a meaningful rebound in existing home sales anytime soon.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of mortgage applications to purchase homes was down 4.7 percent in the week ending April 8. The purchase index is now 191.7 and has hovered below 200 throughout most of the year. Historically, a purchase index below 230 indicates weak home sales in the coming months.
Fortunately, the economic recovery shows signs of strengthening which could eventually provide a boost to a struggling housing sector. The labor market experienced two consecutive months of solid growth. Non-farm payrolls rose 216,000 in March after rising by 194,000 in February. The job sector is picking up momentum despite higher oil prices and worries about the Japanese and European economies. Many economic forecasts expect payroll employment gains to average at least 200,000 per month throughout the remaining months of this year. This pace should boost household confidence and consumer spending slightly. Any improvement in confidence and/or a household’s financial situation provides needed support for housing demand. Looking forward, the outlook is for continued gains in the economy, led by a stronger labor market.
Although the economy promises to provide support for the housing sector, many challenges remain before the housing markets enter full recovery mode.
There is reason to believe that recent slowing in the housing indicators is temporary. The combination of a growing labor force and high housing affordability offers solid support for future home buying. In addition, restrictive mortgage credit conditions are expected to slightly loosen as the year wears on.
On the negative side, home prices are expected to drop further before stabilizing by the end of the year. This is due to a large number of foreclosures in the pipeline of banks. A meaningful number of distressed home sales are expected throughout the year, depressing home values. Further, many household balance sheets are plagued by negative home equity, making it difficult for these households to purchase big ticket items like automobiles and homes.
On balance, I expect home sales to gain momentum as we head towards the summer months. But truth be told, it is difficult to concoct a rosy scenario for the housing sector until downward pressure on home values subsides which will not likely occur until 2012.
Hubspot Says the Web is Changing | Katonah NY Homes
We’ve already seen signs of it — targeted ads on Facebook, suggested people to follow on Twitter, even Google Instant seems to know what you’re thinking — but how is behavioral targeting changing the Internet at large?
Here’s how behavioral targeting works: Targeting companies establish an agreement with a publisher, who puts a piece of code on his website. (That publisher must have a clearly stated policy for the consumer to opt out from having data collected.) Then, when you’re browsing the web, the site will put a cookie on your browser, which populates as you surf. (Though one interviewee, ContextWeb, targets based on content and not cookies.)
Now that your browser has a cookie, the targeting begins. Data points amass as you click your way from site to site, taking note of what you buy, what you read and what you search for. The more time goes on, the more data is collected. Back in 2003, we had audience targeting, which assigned people to various demographics and targeted these demographics based on age, gender and location. Now, with more data, the targeting can be — and is — much more dynamic, and can gauge your interests and preferences. Companies that specialize in targeting can nearly promise more ad engagement by targeting people who have indicated -– through their behavioral patterns on the web -– that they might be interested in the product at hand. It’s a more costly form of advertising, but the conversion rate can offset the increased cost.
All of the data that has been collected by targeters has huge implications for the Internet of the future. We spoke with three experts in the field of behavioral targeting to discuss the biggest effects that targeting will have on the web as we know it.
1. Your Internet Experience Will Be More About You
You know how Amazon suggests items that might interest you, based on the items you’ve perused? That’s how the entire Internet could be soon. With systems tracking your cursor and keeping tabs on your browsing history, the Internet can get to know you better — and be smarter than ever. In fact, Amazon’s algorithm is a paragon of excellence for targeters.
“Amazon does a fantastic job at making the Amazon experience reliable for the consumer. The entire experience is relevant and more efficient,” says Jeff Hirsch, president and CEO of AudienceScience.
And since data collection has been ongoing for years at Amazon, the data points and algorithms have been refined. Years ago, a man might buy a princess outfit for his 3-year-old niece and then be presented with ads for toddler items the next few times he logs on. That doesn’t happen anymore, says Ted Shergalis, founder and chief strategy officer of [x+1]. “As targeters accrue more data and more sophisticated algorithms, they can lessen the impact of statistical outliers,” he says.
And what’s been done to the algorithm at Amazon is happening all over the web. Shergalis cites the advent of Google Instant as a huge shift in the web’s evolution — results are repositioning information in a way that is more focused on the query. “Marketers are hoping to do that with all of their work,” he says, meaning that the web might be able to tell you what you’re looking for before you even finish typing it.
Hirsch jokes that in 10 years, we may very well look back and laugh that we ever had to type something into Google to find what we were looking for. “Smarter” and “more useful” are two terms he uses to describe how the targeted curation will affect your web experience.
Best of all for marketers, Hirsch says, is that more relevant content can lead to more engagement.
Rose Ann Haran says ContextWeb, where she is the CMO, strives to “curate content so that we can drive a better experience for people online.” She cites how TV and radio, which now have hundreds of content channels, have evolved so that we can curate what to consume. Technology allows us to hand-pick what programs we’d like to watch and when, along with what kind of music we’d like to listen to. That’s exactly where the web is going, she says. “If you think about the online experience, you can really make the analogy to TV and radio.”
2. The Web Could Change Its Appearance For You
So when the web is all about you, will it also change its interface, too? Shergalis says the data that would drive such customization is available today, but that cost, time and resources are what’s hindering us from getting to that next level.
But, he says, “Consumers are going to come to expect it — you can’t just have a simple, one-size-fits-all experience” for all consumers.
“I think the expectations are increasing. I don’t see people wanting to go back to a less personalized, less social, more irrelevant experience, so I think [the customization] trend is going to continue,” Shergalis adds. Especially because there’s so much more information to gather, and the more consumers share their interests with marketers, the more relevant and suited products will be for us, he says.
Haran cites her own Google homepage — and how radically different it is from her daughter’s page. She says they have different widgets above and below the fold and they each have a different number of ads, based on their preferences. So it’s clear that customization on the web isn’t a farfetched idea, and sites could soon know whether you like a clean page with only two ads, or whether you’re tolerant of up to eight ads.
“The tech is there to be able to provide that unique experience for you,” Haran says. But since there are so many players in the market, only “an orchestrated approach would allow us to do that [targeting].”
3. It Will View You as a Multi-Dimensional Person With Many Interests
So you browsed through ESPN.com — does that mean you’ll only get Nike and Adidas ads from now on? No, because there’s more to you than your interest in sports, and the data knows that. It won’t try to pigeonhole you.
This is especially important because there is concern that curation and customization lead to tunnel vision and ignorance of everything else that’s out there. That’s why behavioral targeters are testing demographics and creating algorithms to determine other interests and speak to a person’s depth and varied interests and give them an element of choice. Such algorithms will help marketers “discover a whole new audience and develop a new understanding” of this dynamic, multifaceted audience, says Hirsch.
As mentioned before, ContextWeb targets based on content. Instead of interpreting CNN as a news site, it breaks it down into retirement, personal finance, education — it’s no longer a one-dimensional perception of the site. And that precision helps to refine the algorithm.
“We’re all multi-dimensional people who consume content in different contexts,” says Tanayia Washington, insights and analytics manager at ContextWeb.
4. It’s Tapping Into Social and Mobile
To some, behavioral targeting seems like an invasion of privacy, though the FTC has taken steps to ensure that privacy is respected (no data is personally identifiable).
But privacy seems to be less of a priority among millennials, who tend to be more accepting of behavioral targeting than their boomer counterparts. Perhaps it’s because they grew up with LiveJournals and were the first generation on Facebook, so they’re used to living their lives out loud. Whatever the reason, the things they broadcast on social networks -– where they are, what they’re buying, who they’re with -– are ripe for the picking by marketers, says Shergalis. By virtue of being on these platforms and being so socially connected, young users are essentially opting in and showing a “willingness to participate” for advertisers and marketers. Therefore, behavioral targeters can take advantage of the wealth of consumer information that’s out in the open on Twitter and Facebook, learning tweet by tweet about the audience it’s trying to reach.
And that’s just one aspect of behavioral targeting’s branching out — targeting will also impact the web experience on iPhones, iPads, Androids and other mobile devices. “You’ll see some pretty amazing innovations … and that will get caught under the heading of behavioral targeting,” says Shergalis.
What’s Next?
When you’re on your laptop, a targeter can assume that you’re the only user. But let’s say there’s a family of four that shares a desktop computer. How do you know if it’s the accountant dad, the PTA mom, the soccer star son or the Bieber-obsessed tween daughter? What if the husband is shopping for the jewelry for the wife, and then the wife starts seeing diamond ads?
“[Data] is not personally identifiable, so in a family of four, you wouldn’t really know who was browsing at what point,” says Hirsch. “There is some efficiency lost in that respect, which is a good example of why consumers need choice.”
In short, behavioral targeting is not perfect, but it has immense potential to change the way we consume and search for information. And this potential is more within reach every day as more data is collected and analyzed. In fact, by the time you read this post, millions more data points already will have been collected, making the Internet that much smarter.
5 Sure Fire Social Media Tactics To Jump Start Your Job Search in Pound Ridge NY | Pound Ridge Luxury Homes
Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.
Powered by WP Greet Box WordPress PluginA few years ago when I got laid off from Microsoft, I got a quick lesson in how
important it was to invest time in your personal brand regardless of your job situation. I had not done that, and was then left with no online identity to fall back on. I was competing with thousands of other job applicants with my traditional cover letter and resume, and regardless of my qualifications, was often buried in an inbox of competition.Fast forward to today and I have a fantastic job that I absolutely love, and my path to it was a direct result of the dedication I put into defining and establishing my personal brand using the following five tactics that I still follow to this day.
- Personal Blog – I can’t say enough about how having a personal blog that you contribute to regularly can stand you out from the crowd. By sharing your insights, knowledge and expertise in an open environment, you are able to establish yourself and gain credibility that future employers would never be able to glean from a resume. Make the commitment to creating and writing to a personal blog 1-2 times a week, and you’ll be amazed at what doors can open up for you. Be sure to check out these previous posts I’ve written to help you get started. How To Blog More Effectively Part 1: Keywords Social Media-ize Your Blog 5 Steps To A Professional Grade Blog On A Budget
- Create Your Keyword List – What you write and share should be a reflection of who you are and what you know. Take some time to create a keyword list that defines you personally and professionally. It’s this keyword list that you should use regularly to describe yourself in your social media profiles and the blog posts that you write.
- Get Serious About Twitter – Many people just stick with Facebook and never think Twitter is worth their time. If used properly, Twitter can be a great tool to establish yourself professionally, grow an audience, and network. Take the time to brand yourself appropriately, and get into a rhythm of using Twitter to share relevant content, engage with like minded users, and network for opportunities. Use tools like Hootsuite, Hootlet and TwitrBackgrounds.com to get up and running.
- Get Active With LinkedIn Groups – Linked In Groups are an often unknown resource that can pay big dividends in a variety of ways. Outside the obvious that it’s a community directly tied to job opportunities, there are thousands of great communities with vibrant discussions. Take the time to contribute to these conversations, share your content, and establish yourself. In addition to the uptick in traffic you’ll see to your blog, you’ll make some great connections that can lead to future opportunities. As a side note, it goes without saying to make sure your LinkedIn Profile is up to date and updated frequently to stay fresh.
- Have The Jobs Come To You – Searching endlessly for job listings is tedious and time consuming. Instead, use a tool like Google Reader and subscribe to job listings where applicable. Create a job folder in your Google Reader, and add RSS subscriptions from Craigslist on searches relative to your job hunt. Also consider resources like Indeed.com which also let you grab an RSS feed based on your custom searches. You’ll save yourself countless hours by being able to quickly and easily browse job listings this way instead of manually searching.
Put these simply actions into play, and you’ll find yourself above and beyond most candidates who continue to play the resume game. Good luck!
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Beware when canceling real estate contract | Inman News in Bedford NY
DEAR BENNY: My husband and I signed a contract in November and put $1,000 down. The real estate agent put financing as “n/a” (not applicable) because we were preapproved by our bank. He sent us to a bank and the loan was approved, with a great interest rate and no points. Then problems started.
The underwriter said a road maintenance agreement was needed, which was not disclosed in contract. We told the other side we want out, and to give us our money back. The agent said an attorney was working on the road maintenance issue with 28 families.
We still have not gotten our deposit back, and the agent said if we pay the seller’s fee of $500 for the attorney doing the road maintenance agreement, they might release us from contract.
I filed a complaint with the Department of Real Estate because of the nondisclosure of road maintenance, and they said there is no violation. Now the home inspector is calling us wanting his money, and we have told him the agent still has it. We did sign a release of contract designating where the $1,000 should go, and when we called the agent he said the owners are still thinking about it. Do we have any options left, other than paying even more money for an attorney? This has been a nightmare. –Tom
DEAR TOM: Does your state require sellers to disclose known conditions of the property? If so, and if the road condition was not disclosed, I believe you have a good case against the sellers — not the real estate agent.
If disclosures are not required by your state, I suggest you call the attorney involved with the 28 other families. Find out the situation and ask why you have to pay the $500. That attorney is not representing you, and the seller will have to pay that fee regardless of who buys the house.
You should also discuss this with your own attorney. It may very well be that the road maintenance issue is a cloud on title, which would have prohibited you from buying in any event.
Generally, there is a provision in real estate sales contracts that the seller is conveying good and clear title. Under these circumstances, because the seller may not have had clear title to convey, you should get your money back. Furthermore, you may even have a claim for reimbursement of the home inspection fee.
There is, of course, a good lesson to be learned from your experience. Even though you had a preapproval letter from a lender, you still should have included a financing contingency in your sales contract. I know that real estate agents will object, stating that your contract was more attractive without that contingency, and I would agree with them. But I want homebuyers to be fully protected, and contingencies are consumer protections.
DEAR BENNY: I’d like to know if a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure is possible in the following situation: I am the sole mortgage holder on our house. I listed it as a short sale for a year to no avail. I am recently divorced, but my ex can reside in the house. Both of us are on the deed.
In our divorce settlement agreement, because the house mortgage is in my name only, he must allow me to try to sell it. I spoke with the bank and a deed-in-lieu is an option I would like to pursue. However, does my ex husband need to be involved with any of the official documents in the deed-in-lieu process? I guess what I am asking is although I am able to pursue selling however I choose, would a deed-in-lieu be considered the same thing? –Lisa
DEAR LISA: First, a quick explanation of a “deed-in-lieu.” This is a process whereby your mortgage lender agrees to take back the house instead of (i.e., in lieu of) spending the time and money foreclosing on the property. Some lenders will agree to this, especially if there is only one mortgage on the house.
Have you discussed the situation with your ex-husband? Does he understand that he will probably have to move out, whether it is sold or the deed is given back to the lender?
Keep in mind that even if you have the absolute right to sell, your ex will have to sign any deed. Although you are the only one on the mortgage (in some states that is called a deed of trust), he still has an ownership interest in the property and will have to sign the deed along with you.
If you believe you can sell through a short sale, whereby you will not get any of the sales proceeds, I believe you would have the same right to give the deed back to the bank.
But before you proceed down either path, make sure that your ex will be on board. Talk with your divorce lawyer to confirm that you have the right to do a short sale. If so, then I think the deed-in-lieu will also fly.
DEAR BENNY: Your comments in a recent column to an elderly person seeking advice on possibly renting were unfair. Suggesting to this person that he or she watch “Pacific Heights” is like telling someone interested in country life to first see “The Amityville Horror.” Painting such a gloomy picture is as wrong as saying renting leads to the road of riches.
There are pitfalls to renting, as you suggest, but there also are many benefits. A person could get help from a trusted family member, attorney or friend in screening applicants and learning the ins and outs of renting. Some older people might appreciate the companionship of a renter.
Although renting is not for everybody, someone who does his or her due diligence may find it very rewarding. I wouldn’t recommend that my 80-year-old mother rent her house, but I do know seniors who have been successful landlords.
We have been landlords for years and have never had anything remotely close to a “Pacific Heights” experience. I am sure you were looking out for the best interests of the elderly, but a more balanced column would have been more helpful. –Steve
DEAR STEVE: I accept your criticism, and perhaps I was a little too harsh in my response. But as you point out, renting is not for everyone, and sometimes one has to point out the extreme risks in order to get the point across.
As always, I welcome comments and suggestions from my readers — positive or negative.
Benny L. Kass is a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., and Maryland. No legal relationship is created by this column. Questions for this column can be submitted to benny@inman.com.
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WP Troubleshooting Tips From the Trenches | Armonk NY Homes
This guest post is by Dan Sheehan of DSConstructiontahoe.com.
I’m one of those types who believe when something’s working fine, it’s a good time to mess with it. After all, isn’t that how progression and innovation happen?
My construction business had been slow so I decided to build my own website during some down-time.
I learned a lot about WordPress and SEO through my toying, tweaking, and dismantling of this website, and I think my tips might help newbies and seasoned WordPressers alike!
Google Webmaster Tools
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you sign up for a free Google Webmaster Tools account. Much of the following post is based on the information you can get from this extremely important tool.
It is never fun to go to your Google Webmaster Tools account to find that the Googlebots have been discovering pages of your site that you never knew existed, or URLs that are non-existent. Or to find that your home page isn’t being indexed because there’s a trailing slash on the end of your home URL. The worst was when I found that both the www and non-www versions of my URL were being indexed—that’s not good for SEO.
Redirection and link juice plugins
Along the journey, I’ve tried many plugins. One thing I have tried to do is use as few a plugins as possible in an attempt to make my site as fast as possible (since Larry Page is such a speed freak).
I present here are a few plugins that I have found help my site play nice with Google, and are well worth the weight they add to my WP installation.
After changing my permalink structure four or five times and my domain name twice, I had a mess that Google pointed out to me under the “crawl errors” and “html errors” sections in the Webmasters tools.
Two plugins helped clean up a lot of this mess: Redirection and Link Juice Keeper.
The Redirection plugin allows you to place a 301 redirect on any URL within the domain. To tell you the truth, in many cases I had no idea where these bad URL’s came from—I only knew that Google was telling me they were crawl errors. And the reasons as to how I got all those errors are beyond the scope of this post. When you use a 301 redirect, any PageRank from that homeless page transfers to the page you are 301-redirecting to.
Link Juice Keeper (or LJK) is what I use to basically clean up all the bad URLs for which I can’t find a page to redirect to. LJK automatically redirects all non-existent URLs and 404 errors to your home page. So after you go through and 301-redirect URLS that can be pointed to good, specific pages, you can let LJK pick up the rest—plus any others that pop up.
However, keep in mind that any of the subsequent redirections that LJK makes might be better replaced by a redirection to a more appropriate page on your site, so it’s good periodically to check for any new errors, and properly redirect them if possible, rather than just letting them go to your home page.
By giving a home to all these “homeless pages” you are preserving any link juice that those pages have within your domain. If a page with a bad URL can be found on the ‘net, then it has value—but not if it goes to a “page cannot be found” page. Why not make use of all those pages and have them become paths to the content that you want to rank for?
Anti-spamming plugins
Another great plugin I came across is cbnet Ping Optimizer.
Did you know that every time you make an edit to a post or a page on your WordPress blog, you’re pinging a bunch of update services like Google, Technorati, and many more? This action lets them know that you have some new content and that they should send over their crawlers to take a look.
That’s great … unless you’re like me, and are constantly correcting some spelling, or tweaking your pages on a very regular basis. Maybe you’re reformatting a post, and keep updating and publishing over and over until it looks just right.
While you’re consciously improving your content, you’re also making yourself out to be a spammer in the eyes of those update services. What cbnet Ping Optimizer does is control those pings so that you only ping the update services when you create something new (a post or a page)—not when you edit an existing post or page. If you’ve made a bunch of edits that have significantly changed the page or post, then you can go ahead and manually force-ping the services.
A Firefox addon that’s been helpful to me is SEO Doctor.
SEO Doctor provides great SEO-related information about the page that’s displayed in your browser. It will let you know, for example, if you are using two H1 tags (not good), as well as many other SEO blunders.
SEO Doctor told me that an important page on my blog was not being indexed because of a canonical link issue. In the end I found that the plugin All In One SEO was the culprit. Once I unchecked the Canonical URLs option, the issue resolved. I still love AIO SEO and find it invaluable, but without SEO Doctor, I’d never have found this problem.
Site Meter: a handy watchdog
The other day, I had noticed from my Site Meter account that Google was indexing my site with both www and non-www URLs.
Site Meter, unlike many other trackers, shows Googlebot visits, which I love. I was able to see that Google actually came to my site using specific keyword search terms! Tracing these back to the SERPs, I saw that there were both forms of the URLs in the search results. After an unrelenting research, I came across a website that mentioned the same WordPress problem. The author disabled the plugin W3 Total Cache and the problem was resolved.
I cleaned up my .htaccess file and reordered the rewrite rules and that seemed to fix it, but I’m skeptical. To be sure it does not happen again, I made the non-www URL (www is my preferred format) the link I use to check out my site from my desktop and bookmarks. So when I click the link, I look in the Address bar of the browser to be sure that the non-www URL resolves to the www version.
The last thing you want is to make Google unhappy with you. For the beginner I think it is important to monitor all these things vigilantly until the dust settles. If you do not think you need to monitor your site then you must be doing nothing to optimize it. If you are, you’ll have no feedback about the search engine, and your progress could be hindered.
These are my favorite WP troubleshooting tips. What are yours? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
Dan Sheehan is a snowboarder, general contractor, and jack of all trades. His hobby with PCs has also turned into a small computer repair business on the side. Typically he works on something until it breaks and then he improves on it.
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Armonk NY Real Estate Sales Down 31% from Last Year | Robert Paul Real Estate | Armonk NY Homes
RobReportBlog Three Month Snapshot Report
Armonk NY real estate sales are down 31% over the past three months compared to the same period in 2010. This year there have been 11 sales and in 2010 there were 16 sales. The median price has dropped 2.6%. The current median price in Armonk NY for a sold home is $1,200,000. Last year it was $1,233,750.
2011 Armonk NY Real Estate Sales Report (3 months) RobReportBlog
11 homes sold
$1,200,000 median price
$2,850,000 high price
$572,000 low price
4478 average size
$313 average price per foot
291 average dom
92.98% average sold to ask
2010 Armonk NY Real Estate Sales Report (3 months) RobReportBlog
16 homes sold
$1,233,750 median price
$4,000,000 high price
$460,000 low price
4307 average size
$325 average price per foot
224 average dom
91.76% average sold to ask
Katonah-Lewisboro NY Teachers Union Gets Kick in the Pants From New Superintendent | Katonah NY Real Estate
The rowdy protest last week against the hiring of New Berlin, Wis., Superintendent Paul Kreutzer as the next superintendent of the Katonah-Lewisboro schools, which brought out hundreds of teachers from around Westchester and Putnam, gave teachers an outlet for their frustration at being blamed for financial problems faced by districts and taxpayers.
But it was also an attempt to send the message that New York teachers would not accept the changes to union rights seen in other parts of the country and reflected a fear that those policies could gain a foothold here.
Kreutzer became a flashpoint in Westchester because he stood next to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and endorsed his bill stripping most public employees of collective bargaining rights. Despite that, Kreutzer was hired in a unanimous vote of the Katonah-Lewisboro school board.
The protest was a statement that “we’re not going to tolerate that in New York,” said Richard Iannuzzi, the president of the New York State United Teachers.
Pat Puleo, the president of the Yonkers Federation of Teachers, which sent teachers to the protest along with unions from Bedford, Brewster, Yorktown, Rye, Greenburgh, Chappaqua and other districts, said Kreutzer’s hiring sent a powerful negative message.
“What we saw happen in Wisconsin was like taking a knife to teachers’ throats,” she said.
While Iannuzzi and others acknowledge that Wisconsin-style changes to union rights are unlikely in New York given the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and most state lawmakers for collective bargaining rights, they are pushing back against proposals to base layoffs on evaluations and not seniority and to repeal the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law.
The Triborough Amendment says that the provisions of an expired contract, including step increases but not salary increases, stay in place while a new contract is negotiated.
Katonah-Lewisboro and several other districts have signed onto a resolution put forward by the Westchester-Putnam School Boards Association that calls out the Triborough amendment as an impediment to cost control by districts. That is an attack on collective bargaining rights, said Katonah-Lewisboro District Teachers Union President Sandy Grebinar.
Enhancing Twitter: Part 3 “Sound and Vision” | Twitter for Pound Ridge NY Real Estate
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21Apr 2011Posted by Jesse BarnesEnhancing Twitter: Part 3 “Sound and Vision”
Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.
Twitter is certainly a useful tool, but no tool is perfect, and none can do without a few enhancements. I’d like to present to you the third part of a several part series on enhancing twitter and your social media experience.
Today I’m going to cover the various twitter-specific media upload sites as well as how to broadcast what you are listening to through twitter.
First up on the block are the media hosting sites for enhancing twitter through pictures and video.
TwitPic: Twitpic is probably the most commonly used image hosting site for twitter. Besides being just a file hosting service, it is also integrated with twitter and the twitpic api can be found on many other twitter softwares. They even have a photo widget that you can host on your site or blog. But the coolest feature, in my opinion, has to be the personal stats page. It tracks how many photos you’ve uploaded, how many events you’ve created, and, just like facebook, you can be tagged in photos. I personally love that feature. The great thing about this though, is that it’s really fun to scroll through other users’ photos and see all the different places they’ve been.
Twitxr: Twitxr is a twitter media hosting application that is mainly tagged as a “mobile” application and is supported on many phones. It has many of the same features as twitpic, including a widget, profile, and public timeline, but it also includes a following system- almost like a social media site within itself- and a cross platform updating system that includes facebook, flickr, and picasa as well as twitter. Even though the site is centered around the mobile applications(hence the name “twitxr”, an amalgam of twitter and text) you can upload from your browser as well. Personally, I’d go with Twitpic, but the cross platform feature of twitxr may appeal to those that love to save time and the hassle of uploading to many different sites.
Next up on the block are the music applications for enhancing twitter through music sharing and streaming.
Foxytunes: Foxytunes is a web browser add-on that allows cross platform updating of the tunes that you are listening to. If you are familiar with last.fm and it’s “scrobbling” features, it’s similar to that- in fact it includes it. Basically once you’ve installed the foxytunes app all you need to do is connect it with your media player of choice(the foxytunes app supports practically every media player there is), sign into whatever social media sites you wish to send updates to and then bam, send. You can choose the premade text they have or text of your own and when it does send it tacks on a nice little link at the end directing your followers to the artists page on yahoo music. You can even choose to make it auto update though I would not recommend that because if you are like me then you listen to a lot of music all the time. It’s really a fantastic tool. One of the main points I like about it is how out of the way it is. I almost couldn’t find it because the toolbar just sneaks down into the bottom right corner of your browser. The only draw back is that I’m primarily a google chrome user, and foxytunes only supports firefox and IE.
Blip.fm: Blip.fm is much like Foxytunes. Except it’s not a toolbar. And it’s got a nice social aspect to it. And also you can find and stream free music so other people can listen to what you listen to. In retrospect, it’s not a lot like foxytunes. Like foxytunes, you can share what you are listening to across several different social media platforms. Unlike foxytunes, you are actually sharing what you are listening to. Anyone can click the link at the end of your tweet of facebook update and listen in, which is ACES, in my opinion. To expound on the social aspect a little more- it’s AWESOME! You set up who you’re favorite artists are and you get a feed of other users listening to those artists or similar. You can hand out “props” and follow other “djs”. There is even a whole “leveling” aspect in which you can earn various badges and levels by using the site- the kind of thing I can’t resist. It even has a widget!!!
Jesse Barnes
One might describe me as obtuse. I prefer non-euclidean.
Posted in: SocialMatica
Tags: social media, social media intelligence platform, social media platform, targeting intelligence, twitterRelated Posts
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