MMA
Mixed Marital Arts is the fastest growing sport in the world, and the UFC is definitely a major reason for the recent popularity growth. The sport has grown so much that each pay-per-view event gained the Ultimate Fighting Championship over $19 million last year.
Trying to cash out on MMA’s popularity, THQ released the massively successful UFC 2009: Undisputed, and soon after, EA announced their own MMA title called EA Sports MMA. UFC president Dana White does not seem too happy about the title one bit.
Rumors have surfaced that White is threatening UFC fighters who sign on with EA Sports MMA will have their UFC contracts immediately terminated. This isn’t the first time White has released fighters who have not cooperated with his video game demands, however, releasing Jon Fitch in November after Fitch was hesitant to sign a lifetime contract to use his name and likeness in all future UFC games.
In other news sure to piss Dana White off, former UFC superstars Tim Sylvia and Randy Couture have both signed deals with EA’s game, and have publicly bashed the UFC and its fighters.
No wonder people love Mixed Martial Arts; tons of fighting in and out of “The Octagon.”
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Sports
This post was written by admin on July 4, 2009
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French officials have mobilized teams to conduct an international probe into why an Air France plane carrying 228 passengers crashed after taking off from Brazil.
Officials with France’s accident investigation bureau told reporters Wednesday the teams will be dedicated to finding the plane’s flight recorders and analyzing the history of the plane. However, they said they are not confident about finding the flight recorders deep in the Atlantic.
The head of the agency, Paul-Louis Arslanian, says there are no signs so far that the plane had problems before takeoff.
Military planes from France and Brazil have been sent to the wreckage of Air France Flight 447, found Tuesday in the south Atlantic. The big Airbus A-330 disappeared from radar early Monday, about four hours after taking off from Rio de Janeiro Sunday night on its way to Paris.
Brazilian search planes spotted airplane seats, metal parts, and a jet fuel slick floating about 1,000 kilometers off Brazil’s northeast coast. There was no trace of any survivors.
French investigators say an initial report into the crash is due at the end of the month.
The cause of the crash remains a mystery. Before it vanished from radar, the plane transmitted automatic signals reporting multiple failures in its electric and pressurization systems. Air traffic controllers heard no distress call or any other unusual message from the pilots, however.
The plane’s flight path took it across an equatorial zone where weather systems collide and often spawn severe thunderstorms. Modern airliners usually have no trouble passing through such weather conditions.
France is sending deep-diving, unmanned submarines to search for the jet’s flight data recorders. Estimates vary, but the ocean in the area where the plane went down is believed to be about 5,000 meters deep.
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Finance,
World
This post was written by admin on June 3, 2009
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Looking at the likes of L.A. companies such as SpotRunner, which is cutting staff and changing its business model to focus less on local businesses, you might think that businesses that deal in local advertising have a pretty bleak future. But Woodland Hills advertising juggernaut ReachLocal says that business is just beginning to heat up in the local online advertising marketplace.
The company today announced the ReachLocal Xchange, a platform that allows small business to advertise on a host of sitesrather than just major sites such as MSN, Yahoo and Google. As a result, different publishers will be able to compete for the $1,000 a month or so that ReachLocal’s thousands of advertisers each spend on average buying ad space online.
“There’s a flood of dollars moving online,” said Zorik Gordon, co-founder and CEO of ReachLocal. “This will cause an explosion of more ad opportunities for small businesses.”
He estimates that billions of dollars of local advertising are currently moving from the Yellow Pages and print publications to the online marketplace. ReachLocal will be able to help those advertise buy spots on sites such as Fox Audience Network and Ask Sponsored Listings, among 100 others.
“ReachLocal has done something potentially quite significant here, making local inventory more accessible to more marketers,” wrote Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, on his blog.
ReachLocal was launched in Encino of 2004 with the goal of making it easier for small businesses such as dentists, plumbers and car dealers to advertise online. Advertisers liked the idea — the business added 34 offices globally in 30 months. Venture capitalists liked it too: The company raised $55 million in a Series D round in 2007.
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Posted Under:
Business
This post was written by admin on April 21, 2009
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