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Many have tried, but no European company has become as successful as Venmo so far. Venmo is a great way to pay back your friends in a few taps without having to pay any fee. But its main issue is that it only works in the U.S. Stealth startup Cookies wants to do just like Venmo, but in Europe. Read More
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In a Monday Night Football matchup that was making more headlines for who was not going to play instead of those on the field, the Cleveland Browns lost what looked a sure win and they lost it in true stomach-punch fashion.
The bizarre set of twists and turns began with less than two minutes remaining when the Browns backup quarterback, Austin Davis (who was their third string quarterback last week behind Johnny Manziel and had not thrown a pass all season prior to the game) threw his first touchdown pass since Week 9 of last season with the St. Louis Rams. That touchdown tied the game 27-27.
The Ravens then seemingly had plenty of time to get into field goal range to win the game. Instead, their backup quarterback, Matt Schaub, filling in for the injured Joe Flacco, threw an ugly interception with less than a minute left.
This left the Browns needing only about 15-20 yards to get into field goal range to attempt their own game-winning field goal.
Sure enough, after a Davis scramble, the Browns set up for a 51-yard field goal with three seconds remaining. Certainly this was not an easy field goal, but this is one an NFL kicker is expected to make.
Only there is one problem. Long field goals tend to be more susceptible to being blocked because the kicker wants a lower trajectory on his kick in order to kick it farther. Sure enough, the kick was blocked.
But to make matters worse, the Ravens then scooped it up and ran it all the way back for a game-winning touchdown. Here is the play with the call from Browns radio (via ESPN and Fox Sports 1).
That’s a terrible way to lose a game and it came against a division rival, a team that had left Cleveland in 1996, and in the midst of yet another season where nothing ever seems to go right for the Browns.
Afterwards, Browns coach Mike Pettine sounded devastated when speaking with the media.
“Tough one to wrap your brain around,” Pettine said dejectedly. “Frustrating. Our guys battled back and came back from some deficits … didn’t finish it. That’s the frustrating thing.”
Pettine went on to describe the mood in the locker room.
“Like I said, frustrating,” Pettine continued. “Hard to look at the men in the room, to see just the looks on their faces of being that close and coming up short. The competitiveness, the pride, that’s a tough one to deal with.”
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A person with knowledge of the decision tells The Associated Press that Oregon offensive coordinator Scott Frost will be the new head coach at Central Florida.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement was still being finalized.
The former Nebraska quarterback has been an assistant with the Ducks since 2009 and offensive coordinator since 2013.
He will take over a team coming off the worst season in program history. The Knights finished 0-12 and during the season longtime coach George O’Leary retired.
However, just two years ago the Knights beat Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl to finish 12-1.
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Making movies is expensive.
Aside from the millions of dollars spent on marketing, the filmmaking process itself is quite costly, which can be daunting for aspiring or amateur filmmakers. For example, it can easily cost over $80,000 just to get a camera that offers true film-style quality.
And even then, those expensive cameras are large, heavy, and can only film in one direction.
But entertainment is changing, and so are movies. Right now, filmmakers are rushing to make content to work with virtual reality headsets, where there’s a major opportunity to make an impact due to the overall lack of content.
With three major virtual reality headsets getting ready to go mainstream next year — Samsung’s Gear VR is already sold out among the major online retailers — Nokia aims to address the lack of virtual reality content out there with a new product aimed directly at filmmakers: the Ozo camera.
Here’s how it works:
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Business Insider is hiring a Senior Programmatic Account Manager in our New York office.
The Senior Programmatic Account Manager will join a growing team responsible for executing on our programmatic ad buying strategy, troubleshooting issues with our partners, and teaching internal teams about working with programmatic clients. He or she will be responsible for managing programmatic deals and partnerships from start to finish.
The Senior Programmatic Account Manager will be part of a team that ensures programmatic ad campaigns work properly by working with our partners, as well as interfacing with our clients to navigate issues, ensure good performance, and grow client relationships. She or he will also work with internal teams to educate them on best practices in the ever-changing programmatic arena. She or he will work with BI’s sales, finance, business development, marketing, and ad traffic groups to ensure client goals are achieved in each campaign.
We are looking for someone who is passionate about digital programmatic advertising, great at client service, and an excellent problem solver.
Responsibilities include:
The candidate should bring the following:
If this is the right gig for you, please apply online and tell us a bit about why you’re a good fit with the role. Thanks in advance.
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President Barack Obama bluntly predicted on Tuesday that a Democrat will succeed him after the 2016 presidential race.
“I’m anticipating a Democrat succeeding me,” Obama said. “I’m confident in the wisdom of the American people on that front.”
Obama made the comment at a press conference in Paris, where he is meeting with other world leaders for a global conference on climate change.
He was responding to a reporter’s question as to whether he’s confident that a Republican successor would follow through on a potential climate-change agreement.
Obama said that even if a Republican replaces him, the next president would still follow through on an agreement aiming to curb the effects of climate change.
“But even if somebody from a different party succeeded me, one of the things that you find is when you’re in this job, you think about it differently than when you’re just running for the job,” he said. “American leadership involves not just playing to a narrow constituency back home. But you are now in fact at the center of what happens around the world.”
Obama suggested other world leaders think climate change is “a really big problem,” even if Republicans don’t.
“So whoever is the next president of the United States, if they come in and they suggest somehow that that global consensus — not just 99.5% of scientists and experts, but 99% of world leaders — think this is really important, I think the president of the United States going to need to think this is really important,” he continued.
He further said the broader American public was with him on the issue.
“It’s important for us to not project what’s being said on a campaign trail but to do what’s right and make the case,” Obama said. “And I would note that the American people, I think in the most recent survey, two-thirds of them said America should be a signatory to any agreement that emerges that is actually addressing climate change in a serious way.”
Obama added: “So the good news is the politics inside the United States is changing as well.”
SEE ALSO: Donald Trump releases ominous Instagram video featuring ISIS and Obama with a selfie stick
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NOW WATCH: An inside look at Marine One — Obama’s favorite presidential perk
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Networking is not cheating, and everyone does it.
That is what Sallie Krawcheck, the CEO of Ellevate, wants young women trying to make it in male-dominated industries to understand.
In an interview on Bloomberg anchor Betty Liu’s podcast, Krawcheck — a former CFO at Citigroup who also led Bank of America’s wealth-management division — set out what it takes for a woman to break into the boys’ club.
“Hard work matters. Results matter,” she said. “Number two: Network, network, network, network.
“The board positions I’ve had, the advisory-board position I’ve had, have been through my network,” Krawcheck said. “Your next business opportunity is much more likely to come from a loose connection than a close connection. It’s someone who you see twice a year, you run into them at this work event, or you have this quick drink with him.”
The importance of networking is particularly hard for young women to stomach, Krawcheck said.
“For some reason, particularly young women, when I talk about this, say, ‘Well, that’s cheating. I want to do this on my own. I don’t want to do it through my contacts and connections,'” she said. “I’m like, ‘Well, how do you think the guys are doing it? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using your connections.'”
Women are drastically under-represented in finance and tech. According to the 2013 Catalyst census, just 17.6% of executives officers in finance and insurance industries were female.
Women make up only 23% of the tech workforce, according to an April study by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, a nonprofit aimed at recruiting women for the industry. And for women who abstain from using their connections to break into these industries, it’s lost time.
“The research shows that it’s only about their mid-30s as the guys get promoted ahead of them, they say, ‘Oh, networking is important.’ So, I’m a big fan … In fact, I’ve laid out before, buying the Ellevate Network was because of nine different connections,” Krawcheck said.
SEE ALSO: One thing every successful woman on Wall Street has had to master
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NOW WATCH: What you need to know before going into business with family
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Criteo, a public ad tech company that works with retailers to “re-target” online ads at users likely to be in the market for buying products, has joined the list of big internet advertising companies that pays the popular ad blocker Adblock Plus for its ads to be unblocked, French publication Le Journal du Net first reported.
Companies including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Taboola pay huge fees — The Financial Times pegged the price at “30% of the additional ad revenues” they would have earned were ad unblocked — to appear on Adblock Plus’ “Acceptable Ads List,” which means Adblock Plus users will see their ads unless they adjust their settings from the default to the strictest possible.
The whitelist — which allows ads through the blocker that meet certain “non-intrusive” criteria (listed here) — is free for smaller sites, but bigger companies are asked to pay a fee. Only around 10% of companies (~70 companies) on the Acceptable Ads List have paid to be there, according to Adblock Plus owner Eyeo, which says the charge is levied because it takes a lot of work for its small team to whitelist a big advertising network or publisher.
Both Criteo and Adblock Plus confirmed to Business Insider that some — not all — Criteo ads are now part of its Acceptable Ads initiative. Neither commented on the fee Criteo is paying.
Here’s the proposal submitted to the Acceptable Ads community, which helps Adblock Plus decide whether an ad should be whitelisted or not.
What’s interesting here is not only that we know another of the big companies that is paying Adblock Plus, but also the type of advertisement Adblock Plus is letting through.
A demo page in the proposal shows the type of “personalized banner ad” Adblock Plus users might now see.
I was served an ad for a takeaway website and the local Indian restaurant I ordered from the other day.
Therein lies the issue around retargeting. Often these ads are really useful, and serve as useful reminders of products you once browsed but didn’t go on to buy. Retargeting is hugely popular amongst advertisers because the method can lead to direct sales and results are easily measurable — hence why Criteo, which was once dubbed the “poster-child” of retargeting, has been outperforming the majority of the other publicly-traded ad tech companies right now.
But often you are followed around the internet by products you have already bought — it’s the biggest complaint about this type of advertising.
Adblock Plus does have an anti-tracking feature users can turn on, and the Acceptable Ads List focuses on the style of advertising formats rather than the targeting methods used.
Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how the Adblock Plus user community reacts when they see Criteo ads as they browse the web (nobody has replied to the proposal on the forum yet.) It may well be that they genuinely find these ads useful. Or it might spark debates about whether Adblock Plus’ Acceptable Ads list should also extend to the way advertising companies track and target users too.
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BlueCrest Capital, the once-massive hedge fund led by Michael Platt, will immediately start to return all outside capital to investors, according to a letter.
The 15-year-old fund plans to operate as a private firm “focusing solely on the management of the assets of its partners and employees,” the letter said.
At its peak in May 2013, BlueCrest was one of the world’s largest funds, managing $37 billion in assets. It was last managing around $8 billion, according to Bloomberg News.
The fund has been hit with a slew of large redemptions from pensions and endowments in the last two years due to lackluster performance, according to an August report from the Financial Times’ FundFire.
“Recent developments in the industry, including, among other things, downward pressure on fee levels, the increasing cost of hiring the best portfolio management talent and the difficulty in tailoring investment products to meet the individual needs and constraints of a large number of diverse investors, have all significantly reduced industry profitability and flexibility,” Platt wrote in the letter.
“These factors have affected BlueCrest along with many other industry participants, and BlueCrest believes that a transition to a Private Investment Partnership model is now appropriate for the business.”
Here’s Platt’s letter in full:
Dear Investor,
We are writing to inform you of a significant development with respect to the business of BlueCrest Capital Management Limited, acting as general partner to BlueCrest Capital Management LP (“BlueCrest”).
Introduction
With effect from 1 December 2015, BlueCrest, the Investment Manager to the BlueCrest suite of funds, and the Board of Directors of each of the relevant BlueCrest funds (or General Partner, where appropriate) have each determined that the BlueCrest funds will embark upon a programme to return the capital managed in these funds to investors (as described in more detail below) and will not accept any further investment subscriptions from third party investors. Following the completion of this process, BlueCrest will become a ‘Private Investment Partnership’, focusing solely on the management of the assets of its partners and employees.
We would like to thank all of our investors who have supported us over the last 15 years and are pleased that, as we make this decision, all of the current BlueCrest funds are at, or close to, their ‘high water mark’.
Recent developments in the industry, including, among other things, downward pressure on fee levels, the increasing cost of hiring the best portfolio management talent and the difficulty in tailoring investment products to meet the individual needs and constraints of a large number of diverse investors, have all significantly reduced industry profitability and flexibility. These factors have affected BlueCrest along with many other industry participants, and BlueCrest believes that a transition to a Private Investment Partnership model is now appropriate for the business.
Process
The BlueCrest Capital International (“BCI”) suite of funds will divest its investment portfolio in an orderly manner commencing immediately. All BCI investors will be redeemed/withdrawn in full in respect of the redemption/withdrawal day falling on 4 January 2016. Approximately 75% of redemption proceeds is expected to be paid to investors before the end of January 2016, growing to approximately 90% by the end of Q1 2016, with the remainder as soon as practicable thereafter.
The AllBlue suite of funds will be redeemed from each of its seven underlying holdings with respect to the next applicable redemption day. All AllBlue investors will also be redeemed/withdrawn in full in respect of the redemption/withdrawal day falling on 4 January 2016. Approximately 75% of redemption proceeds is expected to be paid to investors before the end of January 2016, growing to approximately 90% by the end of Q1 2016, with the remainder as soon as practicable thereafter, although the process by which the AllBlue funds will receive proceeds from their underlying holdings will vary on a fund by fund basis as set out below:
(i) BCI (as per the process above), BlueCrest Multi Strategy Credit funds (“Credit”), BlueCrest Mercantile funds (“Mercantile”) and BlueCrest Quantitative Equity funds (“BQEF”) will divest of their investment portfolios in an orderly manner;
(ii) The BlueTrend 2x suite of funds (managed by Systematica Investments) will return redemption proceeds in early 2016; and
(iii) The BlueCrest Emerging Markets funds (“Emerging Markets”) and BlueCrest Equity Strategies funds (“BESF”) will each return redemption proceeds to investors during January 2016 and will continue to be managed by BlueCrest on behalf of its partners and employees.
Third party investors in Emerging Markets and BESF, and all investors in Credit, Mercantile and BQEF will be redeemed with effect from 4 January 2016.
With respect to all funds, in order to effect this process of returning capital to investors, to the extent that any requisite notice periods are not met, these will be waived by each fund’s Board of Directors/General Partner. With respect to all funds, investors who have already submitted a redemption/withdrawal notice in respect of the redemption/withdrawal day falling on 1 December 2015 will have their requests processed in the usual manner. With respect to all funds, any investor that has already submitted a redemption/withdrawal request in respect of a redemption/withdrawal day falling after 1 December 2015 will also be redeemed with respect to the 4 January 2016 redemption day and will thereby be treated equally with other investors similarly situated. All subscriptions for all funds that have been submitted in respect of the 1 December 2015 subscription day will be promptly returned in full.
Fees
Monthly investment management fees will cease to be payable to BlueCrest from 1 January 2016. Performance fees/incentive allocations for the financial year 2015 will, as appropriate, crystallize as at 31 December 2015. BlueCrest may also receive a performance fee/incentive allocation after this date, upon the completion of the orderly realization of assets, to the extent that the ‘high water mark’ of an investor’s holding has been exceeded. Such fees/allocations would be determined at the current applicable rates.
Following completion of the divestment programme, each of the relevant BlueCrest funds as referred to above (except for the Emerging Markets and BESF funds, which will continue to be managed by BlueCrest on behalf of its partners and employees) will each propose a liquidation process for its Board’s consideration. The costs of the liquidator would be met by BlueCrest.
Once again, we would like to take the opportunity to thank sincerely all of the investors who have entrusted money to the BlueCrest funds over the last 15 years and to wish them well in their future investment endeavors.
For further details in respect of this business transformation, as well as for any questions regarding process and timing, we would ask that you contact your usual representative at BlueCrest.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Platt
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Spotify has released its end-of-year statistics, and Drake reigns supreme, topping 1.8 billion streams in 2015. Rihanna took the top spot for a female artist, clocking in at 1 billion streams.
The biggest hit of the year was Major Lazer’s “Lean On” featuring breakout Danish pop star Mø. It racked up 540 million streams and became the most-streamed song of all time.
One notable absence was Adele, who has refused to put her new album “25”on Spotify. Even so, her single “Hello” is on Spotify, but it didn’t rank on Spotify, likely due to its late release in the year.
Here is the full data from Spotify, including top artists, tracks, albums, and more.
Top Five Artists in U.S.
Top Five Males in U.S.
Top Five Females in U.S.
Top Five Tracks in the U.S.
Top Five Albums in the U.S.
Top Five Viral Tracks in the U.S.
Top Five Playlists in the U.S.
SEE ALSO: These are the top 30 songs college students are going nuts for, according to Spotify
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