Tuesday, August 13, 2013

How Manchester United uses Facebook, Twitter, Sina Weibo and Google+

Manchester United

Manchester United has only been active on Twitter and Sina Weibo for one month, and Google + for less than a week.?

But with MUFC website traffic, in the last month of the 2012/2013 soccer season, at 67m page views, it's obvious there's plenty to work with here.

Along with a well-established Facebook page, MUFC has a foolproof and rather well executed strategy, best summed-up by the first G+ post.

Here you'll find a steady stream of iconic imagery, behind-the-scenes access, in-depth analysis and succinct storytelling about our club's rich history.

With Facebook adding many opportunities for MUFC to harvest email addresses from competitions and the like, and G+ a promising prospect for the same, there?s much to be cheerful about. Growing a big sports brand on social media is the equivalent of hitting a cow?s backside with a banjo.

In the words of Richard Arnold, Group Managing Director,

Connecting with our fans is a key part of the Club's strategy...Every month there are over 5m Manchester United related social media posts and the level of engagement we have with our fans via social media is amongst the highest of all top global brands.

Take a look at my review of these platforms below. It's worth noting that Manchester United have also recently launched its own Instagram account, and this fits well with the focus on imagery (which leaps the language barrier), though I haven't covered it here.

(N.B. although I'm crowbarring this in, Manchester United has always had marketing savvy, with former keeper?Edwin Van der Sar now CMO at Ajax).

Both Manchester United?s Twitter and Sina Weibo accounts were created as recently as July 10th 2013. That makes the club a definite laggard as far as Twitter is concerned, although there are already plans for foreign language accounts to follow.

However, despite only a month?s activity, the account already has over 700,000 followers, which shows just how powerful the brand is.?

Here?s the first MUFC tweet:

Of course, many of the club?s players have been using Twitter for years, notably Rio Ferdinand, Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney. Manchester United has mostly benefited from its players? activity, with fewer PR gaffes than some other English Premier League clubs (see Ashley Cole as the archetypal FA-baiting soccer player).

The new @ManUtd account has been utilising the players? fanbase with Twitter Q&A?s; an #askrio (Rio Ferdinand) in the first week helping to raise the profile of the account by virtue of Rio?s 4.5m followers.?

At the moment, the account is an active broadcaster, with around 10 tweets per day (gaining 1k to 3k retweets each). However, the account isn?t replying to any of its followers.

Content

The account is big on imagery, and takes a very creative approach to content. Within the first handful of tweets, new manager and old players were celebrated/canonised by artwork on the account.

On day, two, Vines were being added from the Far East tour. Ok, Michael Carrick pulling a wheely suitcase isn?t going to go viral, but it?s a good start. Fixture updates, links to news and live blogs, and even infographics all go into the mix.

Sina Weibo

Sina Weibo, though well-established in the Far East, is not used by many Western soccer teams. Manchester United?s presence on Sina Weibo is a good indicator of its continued focus on the Far East.

High profile player acquisitions continue (Shinji Kagawa picking up the mantle of Park Ji-Sung) and this year?s pre-season tour of the Far East and Australia included Bangkok, Brisbane, Yokohama, Osaka and Hong Kong.

The extent of commercial interests in the Far East is made clear by partners in the region, which number over 30.

As The Guardian puts it, in their recent season preview:?

This [tour] has so far taken in 34 'partners' who include Yanmar, the official diesel engine partner, Mister Potato (official savoury snack), TM (official integrated telecommunications partner of Manchester United in Malaysia), and Kansai Paint (the official paint partner).

So, to Sina Weibo. First, I had to sign-up. Thanks to Google Translate in my Chrome browser, this wasn?t particularly difficult. I?d advise you to try it out. Being interested in the Chinese market, I was quite interested to see the service advocating I stick to the truth because ?using real avatar, friends find you more easily?.

Much like Twitter, in one month, Manchester United's Sina Weibo page has accumulated almost 800,000 fans. Each post gets lots of comments and shares, hitting over 100 in a few hours.?

Here?s the first post, which has already garnered 1,500 comments and nearly 4,000 shares. Funnily enough, things aren?t much different in the Far East, where the first comment comes from a fan of small club Liverpool, saying how much they hate MUFC.

Content

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Needless to say, there?s some Chinese content I can?t read, but Google translate shows me the posts to the MUFC wall are very similar to the Twitter posts. Here?s a good example ahead of the recent Charity Shield, complete with ?a small pea? (little pea).

Facebook

With 34.5m Facebook likes, MUFC dwarfs pretty much all brands on Facebook. It?s only celebrities such as Rhianna (75m) that beat these kind of figures.

Barcelona is the top sports team in terms of likes, with around 44m. Again, MUFC posts here around 10 times a day, and doesn?t really engage with its fans, likely because there?s a problem with scale.?

Perhaps because Facebook is a richer and more mature platform than Twitter, or perhaps because MUFC sees more of its audience there, it definitely engages more on Facebook.?

For example, there is currently a competition running, with the chance to win a season ticket. With a form embedded in Facebook, including an opt-out for MUFC commercial partners, one can see how a large database to market to will soon be grown.

There?s another live competition run with DHL, to win a piece of Old Trafford turf, and so the account is obviously also used to meet some sponsor requirements. Proving the club?s clout on social media will be directly linked to sponsor revenue, so one can see the argument for maximising as many platforms as possible.?

It?s strange that the club hasn?t yet joined Pinterest, but that may come soon.

Again, the Starting Striker feature/poll on Facebook is another great way of getting the audience to identify itself, this time by giving its opinion on the starting line-up of the team.

?

Finally, there?s an email newsletter and an additional 2013 Tour newsletter sign-up page, giving five or six places where MUFC can harvest email addresses.?

As a nice addition, the timeline is used well by MUFC to display the history of the club, from late 19th Century to present day.

Again, there?s no explicit commerce on this page

On Google + it?s decidedly more difficult to spot the official Manchester United page (below is just a snippet). Although the account is verified, Google would be better served to make this more noticeable rather than the small greyed tick that currently resides.

Once one has found the page, this is what you find??

Here, since August 8th, Manchester United have made a great start. In their words:

Welcome to Manchester United on Google+. Here you'll find a steady stream of iconic imagery, behind-the-scenes access, in-depth analysis and succinct storytelling about our club's rich history.

Here?s one of the first posts, with a vine added.

?

Currently with over 40,000 followers, the account has a surprisingly high amount of interaction from fans, possibly because they are proud to be early adopters and it therefore has a slightly more personal feel.

The content is very similar to the other networks ? pics and stats etc, without the competitions that Facebook offers. Although there?s the promise of competitions and news etc, so one would expect the G+ platform to begin to align with Facebook.

Yet more vines, which is a nice touch, and they certainly stand out on G+.

?

The link to the Manchester United website is quite prominent on the G+ page, and one expects this to eventually become a good source of traffic, either via the G+ page, or via improved visibility in SERPs and mobile SERPs, due to plus ones, rich snippets and content box positioning that G+ brings.

Conclusion

In general, sports seems to be what social media was made for. Manchester United can use all of these platforms, barely engaging, aside from Q&As, and sending out lots of insider photos, branded pics and vines, news and player profiles, and steadily build their brand wherever they care to.?

In many ways, there?s a lesson here for marketers that have a less emotive/borderline religious product to shift. MUFC knows that all these platforms don?t necessarily have to cross-promote, and the Twitter account, for example, doesn?t have to be relentlessly selling bed linen or footballs.

Give the audience what it wants, and commercial success becomes ever more likely. In those terms, soccer clubs have been ?content marketing? for years.?

Of course, most of Manchester United?s success in the brand sphere comes from success on the pitch, with highly marketable stars, such as David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo. As to where the next one comes from, the transfer window is still open.

Back on social media, I can?t help but think G+ has the capacity to outgrow Twitter, in terms of data capture, though it?ll be a long while before Facebook is supplanted for all things fan-based.

Check out our other posts that take a similar look at other brands including?Red Bull,?Cadbury,?Microsoft,?Walmart?and?Nike...?

Source: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/63214-how-manchester-united-uses-facebook-twitter-sina-weibo-and-google?utm_medium=feeds&utm_source=blog

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First-ever SummerSlam press conference streams live tomorrow

Join WWE Champion John Cena, Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and your other favorite Superstars and Divas for the inaugural SummerSlam press conference tomorrow!

Taking place at the historic Beverly Hills Hotel, the press conference begins at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT and will stream live on WWE.com, the WWE App, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest and Pheed. Hosted by Michael Cole, the event will also include comments from World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.

How will The Champ and his SummerSlam challenger, Bryan, address their gigantic WWE Title Match?in one of their final public appearances before The Biggest Party of the Summer rocks Los Angeles? STAPLES Center? What will the always unpredictable Second City Saint have to say mere days before facing Brock Lesnar in ?The Best vs. The Beast? showdown? Find out tomorrow!

View Comments

Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/summerslam/2013/summerslam-press-conference

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Victoria Justice Relives Tour With Big Time Rush, Prank By Prank

'Gold' singer opens up to MTV News about the highlights from the Summer Break Tour with BTR.
By Jocelyn Vena

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1712201/victoria-justice-big-time-rush-tour.jhtml

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Israel to free first group of Palestinian prisoners ahead of peace talks

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Monday published a list of 26 Palestinian prisoners set to go free within days, some after spending more than two decades behind bars, in the first stage of a deal that led to a resumption of U.S.-backed peace talks last month.

The decision was made late Sunday by a panel of three cabinet ministers headed by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and security and legal personnel.

Families of Israelis victimized by the inmates' attacks have 48 hours to appeal their planned release to the high court. Based on past decisions, the court was unlikely to intervene.

The prisoners were the first group of 104 Israel has already decided in principle to free as part of an agreement reached after intensive shuttle diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to renew talks for Palestinian statehood. They reconvened on July 30.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had demanded the release of these men, many held since before a 1993 interim peace deal with Israel, as a condition for agreeing to resume talks that broke down in 2010 in a dispute over Jewish settlement building.

Washington has set a target of nine months for the talks. A second round of negotiations was expected to convene on Wednesday in Israel, and later in the occupied West Bank.

Fourteen of the prisoners going free will be deported or sent to the Gaza Strip, and 12 to the occupied West Bank. Two of the prisoners would have served out their sentences in another six months, and six others over the next three years.

Some of the families of Israeli victims of attacks for which these prisoners were convicted were bitterly opposed to their release, joined by far-right cabinet ministers who voted against the deal last month.

Most of the inmates on the list, as published by Israel Prisons Authority, were jailed between 1985 and 1994. They were convicted of murder, attempted murder or acting as an accomplice in a lethal assault.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel of the far-right Jewish Home party told reporters in anticipation of Sunday's decision that he was "against freeing terrorists. It goes against our security interests".

Israel has a number of times freed Palestinian prisoners before they served out their time, but mostly in swaps for Israeli soldiers or their remains held by the Jewish state's enemies.

TRIUMPH FOR ABBAS

For Abbas the prospective prisoner release is a triumph after years of disappointing talks with Israel. Many of the inmates were said to have had an affiliation with his Western-backed Fatah movement or one of its allies.

Israeli media said some of those being freed belonged to the rival Islamist Hamas group that controls the Gaza Strip and rejects any recognition of Israel.

With thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails, the prisoners issue is highly charged in occupied land, and winning concessions from Israel in this regard carries prestige.

Israel sweetened the deal for far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's centre-right cabinet by moving forward on plans to build nearly 1,200 homes for Jewish settlers.

While condemning settlement expansion, Palestinians have stopped short of threatening outright to abandon the negotiations.

The Israeli Housing Ministry said on its website that tenders were issued for building 793 homes in areas of the West Bank that Israel annexed after capturing the territory and the eastern part of Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

Plots for the construction of 394 units were being sold in Ariel, Efrat, Maale Adumim and Betar, settlements in areas Israel has said it aims to retain in any land-for-peace accord.

Israel's military-run Civil Administration in the West Bank gave preliminary approval on Thursday for the construction of more than 800 new settler homes, some of them in isolated settlements. But it said it needed government approval before building could begin.

Most world powers regard all the settlements as illegal and Palestinians say the enclaves could deny them a viable and contiguous state.

"The international community must stand with this peace process and must stand shoulder to shoulder with us and hold Israel accountable for its continuing settlement activities," Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Some 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem amid 2.5 million Palestinians. Israel withdrew in 2005 from the Gaza Strip, which is now governed by Hamas Islamists opposed to permanent co-existence with the Jewish state.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-free-first-group-palestinian-prisoners-ahead-peace-015823331.html

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Saturday, August 10, 2013

Feherty On Oak Hill: "The longer this golf course gets the easier it plays for these players because it plays wider."

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Source: www.geoffshackelford.com --- Friday, August 09, 2013
Nice David Feherty summary of why Oak Hill was susceptible to (record) scoring during round two of the PGA, ...

Source: http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2013/8/9/feherty-on-oak-hill-the-longer-this-golf-course-gets-the-eas.html

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How to upload multiple files at once to Dropbox for iOS

How to upload multiple files at once to Dropbox for iOS

Dropbox is not only a convenient way to store files from your computer for access anywhere, but a convenient service to free up some physical storage space on your iPhone or iPad. Lots of third party apps support uploading files to your Dropbox. For photos and videos from your Camera Roll, if you don't want to use the instant upload feature Dropbox offers, you can also choose to just upload multiple photos and videos of your choosing only when you want.

Here's how:

  1. Launch the Dropbox app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Navigate to the folder or directory you'd like to upload photos to.
  3. Now tap on the menu icon in the upper navigation, it looks like three dots.
  4. Tap on the Upload button.
  5. Now you can navigation to your Camera Roll, Photo Stream, or any other album on your iPhone or iPad. Tap on the photos you'd like to add and you'll see a blue checkmark appear next to them.
  6. Once you're done selecting photos and videos, tap on Upload in the upper right hand corner.

That's all there is to it. Dropbox will begin uploading your photos.

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/I7IF2C9FPBM/story01.htm

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Friday, August 9, 2013

No, the FBI isn't snooping on all New York Google users

At least not in the instance of a claim from earlier today.

By Dan Murphy,?Staff writer / August 1, 2013

Are they coming for us?

Reuters

Enlarge

A potentially explosive online claim about US government snooping into the email habits of Americans has fizzled.

Skip to next paragraph Dan Murphy

Staff writer

Dan Murphy is a staff writer for the Monitor's international desk, focused on the Middle East.?Murphy, who has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and more than a dozen other countries, writes and edits Backchannels. The focus? War and international relations, leaning toward things Middle East.

Recent posts

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I wrote earlier today about the strange claim of a Suffolk County New York woman who said that the FBI had visited her house based on her, her husband's, and her 20-year-old son's online browsing habits using Google. If her claim was true, it could have had a major impact on the US debate about internet surveillance touched off by the leaks of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The Suffolk County police says the reason they dispatched men to her home was far more prosaic. In an emailed statement, the police department says:

"Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released?employee. The former employee?s computer searches took place on this employee?s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms??pressure cooker bombs? and ?backpacks.?

After interviewing the company representatives, Suffolk County Police Detectives visited the subject?s home to ask about the suspicious internet searches. The incident was investigated by Suffolk County Police Department?s Criminal Intelligence Detectives and was determined to be non-criminal in nature.

Any further inquiries regarding this matter should be directed to the Suffolk County Police Department."

In other words, a business worried about a recently fired employee going postal called the cops and they checked it out and the police handled it with relatively kid gloves. Did the former employer over-react? Almost certainly. But you can't chalk this one up as evidence of an internet surveillance state gone wrong.

It's worth remembering that people call in worries to the police all the time and they check it out. The original story tracks reasonably with this explanation from the local police and I'm inclined to believe them. Perhaps Michele Catalano, the originator of this story, will agree.

To be sure, claims are made about people all the time. When Russian intelligence reported to the FBI that they should look into the Tsarneav brothers who later carried out the Boston Marathon attack, they had a sniff. They didn't find anything and left them alone. In hindsight a tragic mistake, but there wasn't any evidence or reason to haul them in. They erred on the side of leaving people who had carried out no crime (as yet) alone.

Such was the case with Ms. Catalano and her family. In this case, clearly, there was nothing to worry about. But neither is there evidence about the FBI running a vast intelligence operation against everyone who uses the internet in the US.

Let's see how fast it takes this end of the story to run around the internet.

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2013/0801/No-the-FBI-isn-t-snooping-on-all-New-York-Google-users

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History rhymes: Android dominates smartphones like Windows dominated PCs

Google's Android market share approached 80 percent as Apple ceded share in the second quarter to wind up with 13.2 percent of the smartphone operating system market, according to IDC. In other words, Android is doing to Apple what Microsoft did in PCs decades earlier.

Now market share via IDC isn't everything---Apple makes a lot of money from the iOS and iPhone ecosystem, but it's hard to avoid noticing how tech history is beginning to rhyme.

Google with Android has created a vast partnership network as Samsung, LG, Motorola Mobility, Huawei, ZTE and others all have run with the open source operating system. In other words, Android's success doesn't rest with one device. Some hardware partner will cook up something to entice the masses.

Apple has its vast fan club, but iOS relies mostly on the iPhone's success.

androidvsios

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In the early PC era, Windows created hardware partnerships with Intel (Wintel) and various computer makers. Microsoft became dominant and flooded the market. Years later, Microsoft struggled with integrating hardware and software, but still has commanding market share in PCs.

Apple had a big fan base, but was outgunned on market share.

The big question is whether this time in tech history is different. Does market share matter as much? Apple sells a ton of iPhones around the world, but to date has ceded the lower end of the market. Android is the land of inexpensive smartphones.

Should Apple get its low-cost iPhone rolling it can close the Android gap a bit. In fact, the mobile ecosystem may cheer for some platform to keep Android from being too dominant. Windows Phone shipments surged in the second quarter, but still represents a paltry 3.7 percent share. BlackBerry has 2.9 percent smartphone OS share.

It's hard to see Apple struggling like it did in the aftermath of the Microsoft Windows thumping, but the similarities between then and now are appearing more. However, Apple is only a product cycle away from recovering some market share. We'll know in a few years how this saga plays out.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zdnet/thebigquestion/~3/aLnhFl1O2Cc/

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Thursday, August 8, 2013

My laptop stops responding several minutes after windows logon

Help me with my problem. This has been happening for almost 1 week now.

?

I'm not sure if this happened after I cancelled what I am copying last week from a CD. But what happened is stated here: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/502969/unable-to-login-to-windows-after-cancelling-a-copy/?view=getnewpost

?

Actually, after that event, my computer has been encountering this problem (pertaining to the topic title). There are fortunate times that I was able to use my laptop for a long time. Until a while ago, I cannot do anything after windows logon. It stops responding after several mouse inputs but I can see everything is still working (my dropbox is still synchronizing, the WiFi continuously scans for active devices but cannot connect to it although there are and I can still refresh from the desktop).

?

The things that I installed in the past week are Crystal Report and FastReport. I've tried uninstalling both of them from Safe Mode (since I can feel that everything works smoothly in safe mode) but there are error.

?

On FastReport, it says that "The windows installer service could not be accessed. This can occur if the windows installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance".

On Crystal Report, it says that "Fatal Error: At least one port in the range of 4520 - 4539 must be open for the installation to proceed. Please ensure that no application or firewall is blocking this range".

?

Please help. I need my laptop before August 20 since we have our defense on that day.

?

I am using Samsung NP300V4A-S02HK running under Windows 7 Home Premium.

?

Edit: I was able to uninstall the FastReport without a problem in SafeMode (after using the SafeMSI I found here?http://windowsitpro.com/windows/jsi-tip-9233-safemsiexe-freeware-starts-windows-installer-safe-mode?but not with CrystalReport. The same error occurs.


Edited by Kondo, Today, 05:33 AM.

Source: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/503690/my-laptop-stops-responding-several-minutes-after-windows-logon/

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Jay Bilas rants about NCAA?s apparent greed

FILE - In this April 13 2013 file phoTexas A M quarterback Johnny Manziel (2) stands sideline during first half

FILE - In this April 13, 2013 file photo, Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel (2) stands on the sideline during the first half of the Aggies' Maroon & White spring NCAA college football game at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas. ESPN says the NCAA is investigating whether Manziel was paid for signing hundreds of autographs in January. Citing unidentified sources, ESPN's "Outside the Lines" said the Heisman Trophy winner signed items in exchange for a five-figure fee during his trip to Miami for the BCS championship game. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Karen Warren, File) MANDATORY CREDIT

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fileheaderid: 8966530

College basketball analyst Jay Bilas drew national attention this week for exposing the NCAA?s hypocrisy. The embattled governing body of college sports said in recent court filings that it does not sell specific player jerseys and profit from an athlete?s likeness, just from generic representations of their respective schools.

Bilas blew that apart by demonstrating that you can enter a player?s name into the search function for NCAA?s online store and find specific jersey replicas. For example, a search for Mason Plumlee led to a screen full of Duke No. 5 jerseys and shirts. The same occurred with searches for other prominent athletes, like Texas A&M?s Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel and others (until the function was taken down after Bilas exposed it).

This is a critical time for the NCAA, as it deals with a federal antitrust lawsuit that challenges its right to profit from an athlete?s likeness, and faces a potential investigation into allegations that Manziel profited from selling his signature to autograph dealers. Bilas spoke about those topics and the NCAA in general:

Q: That was quite the Twitter sensation you had (about the jerseys).

A: I didn?t intend for any of that stuff to happen. I just went to the site and tweeted about it when I saw it.

Q: Did you just have some time on your hands and decide to check out the search options?

A: No, what happened was I had gotten a message from somebody that included a screen grab. I had said something about Manziel and his jersey, so they sent me a screen grab of that site of a Manziel jersey that had Texas A&M and 2 on the front and then a big number 2 and football on the back where a player?s name would usually be.

And that really caught my attention. It was pretty clear that they?re using his likeness and image without his consent. And I just happened to catch in the upper right-hand corner, I saw that Manziel was in the search box. I thought, ?That can?t be. You can?t search by name and come up with that.? And I tried it myself, and it came up. I tried (Jadeveon) Clowney, and it came up. I tried A.J. McCarron, and all these came up. It was unbelievable.

Listen, it?s perfect business sense. It?s smart business. Never once have I complained about the amount of money the NCAA makes. They should make all they can. It?s great that Mark Emmert makes $2 million a year. More power to him, the more he makes, the more everybody else makes.

The problem I have with it is the rhetoric that they use and the fact that everybody in the sport, at every level, is getting compensated at market rate, and while they?re doing that they?re restricting the revenue drivers, the players themselves.

Q: You?re a trained lawyer, what are your thoughts on the O?Bannon case and what it could end up meaning? (Former UCLA basketball star Ed O?Bannon, along with a few current student-athletes, is taking the NCAA to federal court in attempts to receive compensation for the organization profiting off their likeness in perpetuity.)

A: First of all, I would prefer that the NCAA make changes in policy because it?s the right thing to do. I don?t like it that we?re having to go through this litigation. It puts a lot of people in a bad position. It puts a lot of NCAA people in a bad position of having to justify policies that, in my opinion, are unjustifiable. Just like in that filing, when they made the argument that those jerseys are not representative of players; that?s clearly not true.

Q: Do I think that the O?Bannon plaintiffs are right?

A: I tend to believe they are, yeah. But the courts over the years have given great deference to the NCAA because of this idea that it?s an educational pursuit and sports are an integral part of education. I don?t agree with that, either, but courts have deferred to that. I?m not sure how much longer, given the commercial model as the money is continuing to rise, the courts are going to continue to buy that. ... As the money grows and the players stay at zero, the tension is going to grow.

My guess is that, if we really look into this autograph thing, Johnny Manziel is not the only one those guys got autographs from. We?re going to see a bunch of players in that, and we?re always going to see that.

Q: But do you think that athletes should be able to profit from signing stuff for these guys?

A: I do. I don?t think that they should be restricted from doing it. When you restrict someone from operating in the same market that everybody else operates in, it needs to be within reason, and we don?t have good reason. There?s no reason for it. If you don?t want to pay and provide them with compensation outside of the scholarship, they should at least be able to benefit outside the university. There?s no reason they shouldn?t be able to have autograph signings, do commercials, make appearances, to benefit off their names and likenesses. No other student is told they can?t do that, not even students on scholarship.

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/colleges/21807307-419/jay-bilas-rants-about-ncaas-apparent-greed.html

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Activists: Syrian troops ambush rebels, kill 62

FILE - In this June 18, 2013 file photo, citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian military helicopters at Mannagh air base in Aleppo province, Syria. Syrian rebels captured a major air base in the north of the country on Tuesday after months of fighting, depriving President Bashar Assad's forces of one of their main posts near the border with Turkey, activists said. State TV denied that the base had fully fallen. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)

FILE - In this June 18, 2013 file photo, citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian military helicopters at Mannagh air base in Aleppo province, Syria. Syrian rebels captured a major air base in the north of the country on Tuesday after months of fighting, depriving President Bashar Assad's forces of one of their main posts near the border with Turkey, activists said. State TV denied that the base had fully fallen. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, dead bodies of Syrian rebels are seen on the ground, killed during ambush by Syrian forces near the Damascus suburb of Adra, Syria, Wednesday Aug. 7, 2013. Syrian government forces killed more than 60 rebels Wednesday in an ambush near Damascus, a blow to opposition fighters confronting a regime offensive in the capital, activists said. (AP Photo/SANA)

(AP) ? Syrian government forces killed more than 60 rebels Wednesday in an ambush near Damascus, a blow to opposition fighters confronting a regime offensive in the capital, activists said.

The state news agency SANA confirmed the ambush near the Damascus suburb of Adra at dawn, saying "dozens" were killed. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 62 rebels died. It did not report any government casualties.

SANA said the rebels were members of the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front. It added that they included foreign fighters.

Syrian troops have been on the offensive in the past few months in an attempt to clear out Damascus suburbs used by opposition fighters to threaten President Bashar Assad's seat of power.

State-run television broadcaster Al-Ikhbariya aired footage of bloodied corpses, some in camouflage. It said they were killed in an ambush as they were on their way to attack an army post near Damascus.

The bodies were gathered in what appeared to be a desert area.

Al-Ikhbariya also showed a Tunisian passport of a man who was born in 1978. The picture on the passport was of a bearded man. It also showed Islamic headbands and automatic rifles that were apparently carried by the rebels.

Mohammed Saeed, an activist who is based near Damascus, told The Associated Press that 65 rebels were on their way from the eastern suburbs of the capital to the nearby area of Qalamoun. He added that the rebels were walking the 30-kilometer (19-mile) route because it is dangerous to drive in the area as it is watched by regime forces.

"The regime forces riddled them with heavy machine gun fire," Saeed said via Skype. He added that 62 were killed and three escaped and reached Qalamoun.

"It seems that the regime discovered the secret road that the rebels were using," Saeed said.

In the north, a missile struck the rebel-held city of Raqqa, killing three people and wounding dozens including children, the Local Coordination Committees activist group said. The Observatory said that two children were among the three killed.

Amateur videos showed at least three children who suffered wounds and were rushed away in a pickup truck.

A boy, with minor wounds to his mouth, knees and feet, screamed as he was held by a man in the pickup truck and shouted "Dad!" The man holding him tried to calm him down, saying: "Dad will come soon."

The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.

Wednesday's missile attack came after Human Rights Watch said missiles fired by the Syrian army into populated areas have killed hundreds of civilians in recent months.

Meanwhile, the Observatory said that Kurdish gunmen captured about 70 government troops Wednesday who fled the air base of Mannagh in the northern province of Aleppo. The base was captured by rebels Tuesday after months of fighting.

The Observatory also reported fighting and shelling in the mountains of the coastal province of Latakia, an Assad stronghold. Rebels captured 11 Alawite villages in an offensive earlier this week and troops launched a counterattack to retake it.

Syria's conflict has taken on an increasingly sectarian tone in the last year, pitting predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels against members of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Syria's crisis started as a largely peaceful uprising against Assad's rule in March 2011. It turned into a civil war after opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown. More than 100,000 people have been killed in the violence.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-08-07-ML-Syria/id-03c3e310d8d44ee3a89cf4cf261494f4

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