Whale (origin Old English hƿæl) is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea.
The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it wrongly excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti (toothed whales). This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga whale.

The other Cetacean suborder Mysticeti (baleen whales), are filter feeders that eat small organisms caught by straining seawater through a comblike structure found in the mouth called baleen. This suborder includes the blue whale, the humpback whale, the bowhead whale and the minke whale. All Cetaceahave forelimbs modified as fins, a tail with horizontal flukes, and nasal openings (blowholes) on top of the head.

Whales range in size from the blue whale, the largest animal known to have ever existed[4] at 35 m (115 ft) and 150 tonnes (150 LT; 170 ST), to various pygmy species, such as the pygmy sperm whale at 3.5 m (11 ft).

Whales collectively inhabit all the world’s oceans and number in the millions, with annual population growth rate estimates for various species ranging from 3-13%.[5] For centuries, whales have been hunted for meat and as a source of raw materials. By the middle of the 20th century, however, industrial whaling had left many species seriously endangered, leading to the end of whaling in all but a few countries.

Why do you think saving whales is important?

My story is about me and a girlhood friend who were separated, but miraculously reconnected 23 years later.

The magazine’s program is designed to give celebrity women a chance to direct subject matter about real women stories, and bring it to the masses.   They choose 3 stories a year.  Go to glamour.com for more details.

Hulu Plus supports browsers on the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms, certain Samsung Internet-connected television and Blu-ray Disc players, and Apple’s iPhone 3GS/4, third-generation iPod touch, and iPad devices. Hulu (and Larry Hryb, Xbox Live Director of Programming at Microsoft) promises support for other devices, including the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 game consoles. People can request invitations to join the service until Hulu ramps up the service to let anyone subscribe.

Netflix already offers a subscription streaming service alongside its DVD-by-mail program, and Crunchyroll and The Anime Network are among the subscription streaming services that focus on anime.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/16897

It’s coming to Amazon soon, too.  Check it out!

 The background on FIFA is as follows:
The need for a single body to oversee the worldwide game became apparent at the beginning of the 20th century with the increasing popularity of international fixtures. FIFA was founded in Paris on 21 May 1904; the French name and acronym remain, even outside French-speaking countries. The founding members where Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Also, that same day, the German Association declared its intention of affiliating through a telegram. Its first president was Robert Guérin.

FIFA presided over its first international competition in 1906, but this met with little approval or success. This, in combination with economic factors, led to the swift replacement of Guérin with Daniel Burley Woolfall from England, by now a member association. The next tournament staged, the football competition for the 1908 Olympics in London was more successful, despite the presence of professional footballers, contrary to the founding principles of FIFA.

Membership of FIFA expanded beyond Europe with the application of South Africa in 1908, Argentina and Chile in 1912, and Canada and the United States in 1913.

During World War I, with many players sent off to war and the possibility of travel for international fixtures severely limited, there were few international fixtures, and the organisation’s survival was in doubt. Post-war, following the death of Woolfall, the organisation was run by Dutchman Carl Hirschmann. It was saved from extinction, but at the cost of the withdrawal of the Home Nations (of the United Kingdom), who cited an unwillingness to participate in international competitions with their recent World War enemies. The Home Nations later resumed their membership.

The FIFA collection is held by the National Football Museum in England.

Publishers have begun to evolve, too, especially when it comes to their thoughts on search marketing. Hearst Magazines announced Thursday it acquired iCrossing and will roll the company into Hearst Marketing Services, a new business unit led by Matthew Petersen, senior vice president at Hearst Magazines who previously held a similar position at Meredith.

Not surprising, Hearst’s plan to build out its marketing services will concentrate on digital. A couple of ad and search execs who have met with the Hearst media team say they “don’t get search. With online publishers falling behind, it’s not uncommon to see a publisher the size of Hearst trying and play catch-up by acquiring a company strong in search market and digital media, though Forrester Research named iCrossing as one of the top search firms in 2009.

Hearst’s acquisition of iCrossing is likely to inspire other similar agreements, according to Scott Brinker. Ion Interactive’s president and chief technology officer says in the short term traditional media companies and others supporting old businesses will come under threat by the dynamics of the digital world still have money and power to buy their way into the future.

In the long term, the architecture of the “future” media company continues to emerge, but it makes sense that search marketing and an integrated Web experiences should become a core competency of publishers, Brinker says. For him, the question becomes will Hearst become successful in incorporating iCrossing’s services into their overall strategy and leadership.

For others, the big question remains whether this combined company creates a conflict of interest for the publisher. Could the deal put Hearst in competition with media agencies? Aaron Goldman, principal at Connectual, who tells me independent stand-alone SEM firms are a rare and dying breed, says it it’s a total conflict of interest for an agency that buys media to be owned by a publishing group.

It’s akin to MSFT owning Razorfish or Google owning Performics, both of which have since divested those assets. However, there is precedent for this with Meredith buying Genex and New Media Strategies in late 2006 and early 2007, Goldman says. “Still, iCrossing will undoubtedly continue to serve and chase business with marketers that might otherwise work with different digital shops,” he says, noting the company will likely spruce up its own properties to generate more traffic.

Similarly, Adam Heimlich, Razorfish group search director, who worked at iCrossing in 2005, calls the Hearst/iCrossing relationship “strange, a conflict of interest.” Maybe as a media buying agency for other publishers other than Hearst, but I view iCrossing more as a technology company that provides bid and feed management, SEO automation, display ad serving services, optimization, and dashboard reporting. The media buying would sit on the sidelines for the dozens of Hearst publications, both online and offline.

Industry execs agree iCrossing’s SEO and paid search services for the online versions of Hearst’s magazine portfolio provides obvious synergies. But a “neutral” media buyer looking for the best place to insert a campaign would find conflicts when trying to determine where to place ads for iCrossing clients like Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Epson and Toyota in other publications other than Hearst’s.

Heimlich says you have to compare the price they paid for the company with the price they would pay to rent out services from another agency. A brand could hire Razorfish, for example, to work fulltime for less than $350 million, the reported sale price. For Heimlich, it makes more sense to believe Hearst wants a new revenue stream and plans to get it through iCrossing’s media buying and professional services business.

We’re moving past the recession, but digital now faces an even bigger challenge: an innovation crisis. Starcom CEO Lisa Donohue discusses how a secret weapon will help the industry thrive again.

Though it’s only been two years of managing recessionary business issues, it seems like a decade must have passed in terms of the changes weathered and obstacles overcome in the digital industry. Yet the need for change is what digital was founded on, and for those nimble professionals ready to embrace the opportunities it can bring, today may be nothing less than a renaissance for advertising innovation.

“It’s our time to seize the day,” says Lisa Donohue, CEO of Starcom USA, during her keynote presentation at the iMedia Agency Summit in Austin, Texas. Donohue contends that with clients reassessing the new industry landscape and realizing the increasing need for new ideas, models, and partnerships, digital is tragically mired in outdated structures, processes, and policies that are creating an innovation crisis.

The good news, says Donohue, is that the industry already has the power to steer and control the crisis, and just needs to place more of a priority on strategies that embrace change, reward experimentation, and let creativity lead the way for others to follow.

“The recession really was good for our industry,” says Donohue. “For all the pain it caused, it gave us a clean slate. We can push the reset button on our industry. We can begin from square one where we can reinvent ourselves.”

In the social space, Starcom is adjusting by learning how to keep pace with customers, rather than focusing on what other players in the space are doing. She feels that agencies must first build the necessary tools to understand the consumer mindset and to know what behaviors they are changing. She also believes that to develop these tools and adaptation strategies, change first needs to come from within. “We need to eliminate labels between creative and media, between campaigns and advertising, between traditional and digital,” she says. “These limit us. We need to be more open source. We need to pull information from both within and outside of our own companies.”

The new world order requires new business models

Donohue believes there are four Cs that should be the focal point of the flexible, creative business models that the digital agency of tomorrow needs to be founded on: community, conversation, content, and currency.

Community. We must renew our focus on how to join, build, and communicate with groups of people, based on how those people are doing this in their own social circles.

Conversation. Agencies need to work harder to find and participate in a natural connection with consumers.

Currency. We need to be taking a good, hard look at how we earn loyalty and attention through a dialogue. This applies both to our consumer outreach and among the employees of our own organization.

Content. Content will be the key to the future of digital. We need to stop thinking about our jobs as a means to create advertising and start thinking in terms of how we can create content and messaging opportunities.

Learning to embrace change

Donohue says she takes a look at the capabilities Starcom needs to build to address the future on a daily basis. “The recession allows us to focus on this. The limited resources we’ve had to work with are empowering us to be more creative.” Donohue also stresses the need to consider data to be an aid that can unlock insights into our creative mission, rather than an impediment. “We can use it to prove our worth, rather than explain our value [to clients],” she says.

In order to drive this shift in perception, Donohue contends that we need to develop a new entrepreneurism — and that it all boils down to talent.

But is talent also in crisis in digital marketing? While there is certainly no shortage of innovative minds and creative problem solvers, the industry needs to start fostering business cultures that let entrepreneurial minds take the lead in the industry’s forward momentum.

“Our industry has operated in a walled garden for too long. We hire people from the same old pools of advertising programs. Job descriptions haven’t changed much in 10 years. But walled gardens don’t last forever. Smart people chafe at being restricted,” says Donohue. “What we do isn’t a mystery. We need to invite others in to see how it works and create new ideas.”

How we need to change

Donohue points to three key areas where change should start: structure, culture, and recognition. We need to break down the old world hierarchy to make room for talent to thrive. We need to move from organizational cultures that focus on job descriptions and segmented responsibilities to positions that allow for shared experiences and responsibilities. And we need to shift from recognizing the accomplishments of our team members through financial compensation to a system that provides a variety of meaningful rewards.

“Company leaders are not determined by title or length of service, but rather by how they respect and support each other within the organization,” Donohue says. “It doesn’t all have to be about the money. The next generation of leaders will be about learning and experience.”

Donohue closed by reminding Summit attendees that no matter what the specific reason was that drew them to this industry, there is a commonality: the need to be challenged intellectually and creatively. And this vital quest to realize the possibilities of imagination is the lens through which we must view tomorrow’s digital marketing industry.

“At the heart of this, we are all problem solvers. We want to find creative solutions to the business challenges we face. Now, we need to take those same skills and apply them to our industry itself,” Donohue says. “In leadership, you have to model the behaviors that you seek.”

Jodi Harris is senior editor at iMedia Connection.

Want to hear the latest from this week’s iMedia Agency Summit? Follow the conversation on Twitter #iMediaSummit.

Pan Guang, head of the Center for Jewish Studies Shanghai, said the “Experience China in Israel” event in Tel Aviv, which ends on Oct. 25, would remind both Chinese and Jewish people of their shared experiences.

The research center was responsible for selecting photos for an exhibition focusing on friendly relationship between China and Israel, as part of the largest cultural exchange campaign China has held in Israel.

“Though the Chinese have been deeply influenced by Confucianism, and Jewish people believe in Judaism, the two share many similarities in terms of culture and values,” Pan said.

“For example, both nations attach importance to the functions of family and education, and they both are diligent and good at fighting for their ways of life.”

These similarities made it easier for the two nations to communicate with and understanding each other, said Pan, who received the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award in October 2006 for his two decades of research on Jewish people living in Shanghai during the Second World War.

Jewish people arrived in China via the Silk Road in the Sixth Century. Some established a community in Kaifeng, in the central Henan Province.

The Kaifeng Jews have been assimilated into Chinese culture over more than 1,000 years and had always enjoyed the same rights as other ethnic and religious groups in the city, said Pan, who is also a member of the High-level Group of Alliance of Civilizations under the United Nations.

Shanghai accomodated about 30,000 Jewish refugees from the Nazi holocaust in World War Two, and thousands fled to other countries via Shanghai. The Japanese occupiers at the time restricted their residences to the Hongkou District, in northeastern Shanghai.

Pan said at least 40 documentaries about Jewish experiences in Shanghai during the Second World War had been shot and many books been published.

Jointly held by the State Council Information Office of China and Israeli Foreign Ministry, the “Experience China in Israel” event began Monday and is set to conclude at the end of this month.

It shows the development of China in education, economy, technology and contemporary culture.

Call to artists!
10th Annual Art Connection Members Exhibition at The Irving Arts Center, 3333 N. MacArthur Blvd, Irving, TX 75062. 972-252-7558.
Deadline for Entry: June 30 and July 1, 2010
Open to students and adults who are members of Art Connection.

Not a member? Join Today!
Join Art Connection at www.irvingartscenter.com and showcase your work in the Members Exhibition
July 10 to August 1, 2010. 

Cash prizes totaling $1,650 will be awarded to artists in three categories: Youth/Student, Non-Professional and Professional and an overall Best of Show. The reception is Sunday, July 11 from 2-4 PM.