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Priceline.com releases list of top New Year’s party spots

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Priceline.com has released its 5th annual list of top destinations (or can be places to avoid for people who do not like the crowd) for ringing in the New Year.

For the 4th consecutive year, Las Vegas is once again the #1 destination for New Year’s revelers.

To compile its list, priceline.com looked at a sampling of more than 30,000 Name Your Own Price hotel room booking requests made by Priceline.com customers for the New Year’s holiday. Because the survey is based on actual booking requests, and not on consumer preference polls or votes, Priceline.com believes its annual survey is one of the more accurate predictors of New Year’s travel trends. Also, by focusing on hotels instead of airline tickets, the Priceline.com survey is able to include the travel intentions of consumers who will drive to their destination.

Priceline.com’s Top 50 New Year’s Eve Destinations

#1 Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity South
#2 New York City, Chelsea Area
#3 New York City, Times Square/Theater District
#4 New Orleans, Downtown/Convention Center
#5 Chicago, Millennium Park/Loop/Grant Park Area
#6 New York City, Empire State Building Area
#7 Orange County, Disneyland Area
#8 Orlando, Universal Studios/Sea World
#9 San Francisco, Union Square West/Nob Hill
#10 New Orleans, French Quarter [Read more…]

Originally posted on December 29, 2008 @ 11:02 am

Mobile phone market set for slowdown next year

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The impact of the global economic crisis will spread to the mobile phone market resulting in a downturn in shipments in 2009. According to IDC, total mobile phone volumes will be 1.9% lower in 2009 than 2008 levels, the first downturn in annual shipment volumes since 2001 when shipments declined 2.3%. Over the past several years, the mobile phone market has enjoyed double-digit annual growth due to an increased emphasis on emerging markets. However, emerging market growth has been steadily slowing as these markets mature. IDC now expects worldwide growth to be just 7.1% in 2008 before slipping into negative growth in 2009.

The economic crunch has also affected consumer behavior, particularly consumers’ plans to purchase new devices. With less disposable income available and other expenses competing for attention, consumers may choose to hold on to their current devices rather than replace or upgrade them at the next possible opportunity, usually when a service contract expires.

IDC does not expect the downturn in mobile phone shipments to stretch past 2009. By 2010, the worldwide mobile phone market will show signs of improvement as economic recovery plans will have taken effect.

Originally posted on December 19, 2008 @ 4:18 pm

PicApp Launches WordPress Plugin

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Blog readers are attracted to posts with photos, and with this in mind, PicApp launched to provide use of copyrighted photos to independent publishers free of charge. However, it may not always be easy to copy and paste code from one webpage to another. And so PicApp is making its service more accessible to WordPress bloggers, through a WordPress plugin.

Having hard time finding affordable, yet high end, images for your blog? problem solved. Access millions of updated images, of any topic (news, celebrity, sports, events, creative and more) directly from your WordPress environment and add any image easily to your post. The images, legal and free to use under the license terms , will enhance your blog content , improve its SEO and attract a significantly larger readership.

The plugin makes it easier to insert free, quality photos into a blog post by integrating all these into your WordPress interface.

[via XFEP]

Originally posted on December 20, 2008 @ 1:13 pm

Jupitermedia launches SharePointBriefing.com

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Jupitermedia Corporation has launched SharePointBriefing.com, a new content and community site that provides articles, tutorials, and hands-on information related to using, customizing, and extending Microsoft’s SharePoint technologies.

SharePoint is an all-in-one source for collaboration within the enterprise that has resulted in Microsoft selling over 100 million licenses within a business area that is expected to reach one billion dollars this year.

Originally posted on December 19, 2008 @ 2:42 pm

Filed Under: Web

WiFi usage growing rapidly in US and UK

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AdMob is highlighting the growing WiFi usage in the US and the UK in its November 2008 Mobile Metrics Report. Worldwide iPhone requests grew 52 percent month over month to 359 million in November, giving the iPhone 6.3 percent of total requests. In the US the iPhone is now the top device with 9.9 percent of requests.

The iPhone has by far the most WiFi usage, with 42 percent of requests coming in over WiFi instead of a mobile operator network. The inclusion of WiFi on popular new smartphones such as the G1 and BlackBerry Bold indicates WiFi usage will continue to grow in the coming months. WiFi only devices such as the iPod Touch and Sony PlayStation Portable also generated significant traffic. [Read more…]

Originally posted on December 23, 2008 @ 12:11 pm