Compiled by Ray Young (RPM) and John Kelly (Daily Clips)

Monday February 20, 2017

Japanese Firm to Buy GateHouse Media's Parent Company for $3.3B

Last December, President Donald Trump met with the CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese multinational

corporation that owns Sprint. This week, SoftBank announced the acquisition of the parent company of GateHouse Media,

the publishing juggernaut that owns local publications like the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, the Cape Cod Times and

the Patriot Ledger in Quincy.

The question is: Are the two events related?

Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder and CEO of SoftBank, pledged to Trump that his company would invest $50 billion

and create 50,000 new jobs in the U.S. The latest move by SoftBank, the outright acquisition this week of private-equity firm

Fortress Investment Group for $3.3 billion in cash, might be part of that investment promise. The deal is expected to close in

the second half of this year.

GateHouse is owned by New Media Investment Group (NYSE: NEWM), which is in turn managed by an affiliate of Fortress

(NYSE: FIG). The acquisition gives SoftBank that company's investments in New Media and FHC Property Management

LLC, a senior living property management business. SoftBank is known for its investment in the technology industry,

including in the robotics and internet sectors.

New Media's portfolio includes 564 community print publications, 489 websites, 476 mobile sites and six yellow page

directories across the country. The company — which reported $1.2 billion in sales in 2015 — employed 9,509 employees,

with about 13 percent of the workforce represented by 35 unions as of Dec. 27, 2015, according to a regulatory filing.

GateHouse CEO Kirk Davis, who also serves as chief operating officer, told me that he didn't anticipate much changing.

"We are focused on continuously improving our business and transformation," he said. "Having said that, I did learn a little

about 'Kaizen' working for Fidelity" — referring to the Japanese work for continuous improvement in working practices —

"and expressed to my team that if we stay on that track, we should be in good shape, especially considering the pending

ownership change."

Fortress' New Media connections run deep. New Media's chief executive officer, Michael E. Reed, and chief financial officer,

Gregory W. Freiberg, are both employees of Fortress. Their salaries are both paid by Fortress.

According to SoftBank and Fortress, Fortress founder and chairman Wesley Edens, who is also board chairman at New

Media, will be staying on to continue at Fortress. The other two top Fortress executives, Pete Briger and Randy Nardone,

will also stay on — with all three potentially reaping a combined $1.39 billion from the deal, according to Bloomberg.

Fortress will operate within SoftBank as an independent business headquartered in New York, the companies said. Fortress

had approximately $70.1 billion of assets under management as of Sept. 30, 2016.

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/02/16/did-trump-prompt-softbank-to-buy-gatehouse-medias.html

Wendy’s Plans to Add 1,000 Units by 2020 To get bigger, The Wendy’s Co. is getting smaller. The Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain wants to add another 1,000 locations by 2020, executives told investors on Thursday. One strategy the company plans to use to encourage that growth is a new, more flexible design that will enable Wendy’s to go into smaller spaces. Traditionally, the quick-service chain needed at least an acre of real estate to build its traditional, standalone units. But its new “smart design” can go into much smaller spaces, said Abigail Pringle, Wendy’s chief development officer. “The new designs enable the company to build on half an acre or even a quarter of an acre if needed,” Pringle said. Wendy’s currently has just more than 6,500 locations worldwide. It wants to grow to 7,500 units by 2020. The locations would be both in North America, where the brand has commitments from operators to build at least 500 locations, and internationally — where Wendy’s wants to grow from 439 locations now to 850 units. Traditional sites are more difficult to open because real estate is more challenged today than it was a decade ago. One-acre sites in high-traffic areas don’t exactly grow on trees. And when they come along, they can be expensive. The new design, executives said, is $300,000 cheaper than a traditional site. That’s not the only strategy the company is using to expand add locations. Wendy’s is also adapting to urban areas. “We are looking far beyond suburban markets,” Pringle said. And the company is also looking at co-developing with convenience stores and other real estate opportunities, such as inline sites and strip-center end caps. And the company wants to convert vacated buildings — and not just restaurants. One conversion opportunity, Pringle said, is banks. “The real estate marketing is changing,” she said. “Banks are going less with bricks and mortar. And they already have a drive-thru.” Wendy’s discussed its long-term strategy with investors on the same day it preannounced earnings for the fourth quarter ended Jan. 1. The company said same-store sales increased 0.8 percent in the quarter and 1.6 percent for the full year in North America. Revenue in the quarter fell 33 percent, to $309.9 million, in the quarter, from $464.4 million, due to lost sales from the sale of restaurants to franchisees. Net income also fell, to $28.9 million, or 11 cents per share, from $85.9 million, or 31 cents per share. Executives at the presentation said they want to increase profitability in addition to adding new locations. Some profitabili ty will come from reductions in general and administrative spending. Wendy’s said it wants to cut another $35 million from G&A spending by 2020. “We’re committed to accelerating savings,” Penegor said, although he noted that the company is currently developing plans to cut those costs. Wendy’s said Thursday that it added 58 new restaurants worldwide in 2016.

“That was the highest global total since 2005,” Penegor said. To get operators to build new locations, Wendy’s isn’t just using a smaller design. It’s also offering incentives. In past years, Wendy’s would give operators building new units a 2-percent royalty abatement for the new unit for three years. Now the company will reduce costs by 5.5 percent in the first year the location is open, including a 2-percent royalty discount and a 3.5-percent ad fund discount The abatement is reduced to 4 percent in the second year, including 1 percent on royalty payments and 3 percent on ad fund payments. “This is about driving net new incremental growth,” Pringle said, noting that the company is leveraging its ad fund payments to drive growth. “After year two, there’s more money into the ad budget that was not there before.” Wendy’s has also used its refranchising deals, and even franchisee-to-franchisee sales, to convince operators to add locations. The chain has sold more than 1,000 locations to franchisees since 2013, following the sale of 537 locations in the third phase of that effort. Wendy’s has reduced its company-owned unit count from 1,427 locations in 2012, or 22 percent of the system, to 330 units now, or 5 percent. The company has sold many of these locations to operators willing to build new locations. “We wanted to focus on growth,” Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor said. “We’re bringing in strong operators with strong balance sheets and with commitments to grow the system.” Wendy’s also has a “buy-and-flip” strategy, in which it directs the transfer of franchisee-owned locations to preapproved operators willing to remodel locations and build new units. “We are the ones playing matchmaker,” Pringle said. “We’re evaluating existing franchisees interested in leading the system. We want to work with them to find the right buyers.” As part of these strategies, Wendy’s now has fewer, larger franchisees. In 2012, the company had 440 franchise companies. Today it has 375. The average size of a franchisee has increased from 11 locations to 15 units. “Some larger franchise operators have used the opportunity to consolidate the market,” Penegor said. “They wanted to control pricing, advertising, they wanted to control development and they didn’t want to encroach on someone else. We have a healthier franchise community.” http://www.nrn.com/operations/wendy-s-plans-add-1000-units-2020

CPG Consolidation Fever Heats Up, as Kraft Heinz Pursues Unilever Update: On Feb. 19, two days after the offer news broke and this article was posted, Unilever and Kraft Heinz issued a terse

joint statement saying that Kraft Heinz had "amicably" withdrawn its merger proposal. "Unilever and Kraft Heinz hold each

other in high regard," the release added. "Kraft Heinz has the utmost respect for the culture, strategy and leadership of

Unilever." No explanation for the withdrawal was offered.

Friday morning’s news that Kraft Heinz Co. made an unsuccessful bid to acquire Unilever PLC, while certainly noteworthy,

was hardly a surprise in today’s mercilessly competitive consumer product goods business.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the $143-billion proposal was rejected by Unilever, and it’s not certain that Kraft Heinz

will make another formal proposal.

Update:On 2.19, two days after the offer news broke, Unilever and Kraft Heinz issued a terse joint statement saying that

Kraft Heinz had "amicably" withdrawn the proposal. "Unilever and Kraft Heinz hold each other in high regard," the release

added. "Kraft Heinz has the utmost respect for the culture, strategy and leadership of Unilever." No explanation for the

withdrawal was offered.

U.K.-based Unilever replied that the offer “fundamentally” undervalued the company, and presented neither financial or

strategic merit, from the perspective of Unilever’s shareholders.

“Unilever does not see the basis for any further discussions,” the company told WSJ. Furthermore, even if the parties were

to agree on terms, a deal would have to be approved not only by U.S. regulators but the U.K. and Dutch governments and

antitrust authorities in numerous countries.

Still, Kraft Heinz stated: “We look forward to working to reach agreement on the terms of a transaction.”

The proposed creation of another mega-company encompassing many of the world’s largest food, personal care and home

care brands would be another milestone in the worldwide consolidation occurring in the CPG industry.

Why would Kraft Heinz target Unilever at this juncture?

Many U.S. CPG companies are struggling and potentially vulnerable at this point, as a result of consumers’ shift toward

“clean” foods and personal care products, and away from processed goods. In fact, just today, Campbell Soup Co., General

Mills and J.M. Smucker all reported “disappointing” results for their most recent quarters, as WSJ pointed out.

Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital — which, with fellow Heinz majority owner Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway

bought and merged Kraft with Heinz in 2015 — might in theory have gone after those or other CPG companies to apply its

now-renowned formula, notes David Stone, managing partner in The New England Consulting Group.

“3G has determined that well-established brands can survive for three to five years without a lot of marketing or other

support,” says Stone. “That means they can buy a company, sacrifice revenue growth in favor of massive operational cost-

cutting, and dramatically raise margins and investor returns — before then going back and investing strategically in specific

brands.”

Unilever — the world’s second-largest CPG company, after Procter & Gamble — may have attracted 3G for a combination

of reasons, notes Stone: It’s not only potentially vulnerable because of slowing sales and disappointing stock performance in

recent times, but would massively advance 3G’s global strategic objectives.

Furthermore, while Unilever owns several major food brands -- including Hellmann’s, Lipton and Ben & Jerry’s -- its largest

business is the personal care category. Its Axe, Dove, Sunsilk, Rexona and Lux brands alone each generate more than a

billion pounds in sales per year.

“Unilever would expand Kraft Heinz’s CPG footprint beyond food in a major way in a single strategic acquisition,” Stone

points out.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/295407/cpg-consolidation-fever-heats-up-as-kraft-heinz-p.html

What’s Holding Down Spending? William Dudley, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, offered his views on ways consumer

behavior has changed in the United States over the past decade, and the impact of these changes on the retail industry.

Taking a path he described as somewhat different from the usual analysis and projection, Dudley focused his remarks on

the relationship between housing and retail spending.

“I would argue that there have been some significant changes in the ways households finance their consumption,” he said,

“and I believe that changes in housing and mortgage markets have affected the willingness and ability of households to

borrow, and that this in turn has had important consequences for the dynamics of consumption over the last decade.”

These changes in housing and mortgage markets, Dudley said, are an important reason that recovery from the Great

Recession of 2008 has been weaker than many — including the retail industry — would like.

What appears to have happened is that the housing crisis and its aftermath have made homeowners markedly less willing to

leverage their home equity to finance retail purchases. In comparison to their behavior before the crash, they aren’t using

housing equity as collateral for short-term loans or taking out second mortgages.

WHAT ABOUT THE BORDER TAX PROPOSAL?

Dudley questioned House Republicans’ plan to create a new tax on imports, saying it may have “unintended consequences.”

Read more about Dudley’s comments on the border adjustment tax and watch video highlights from his session at Retail’s

BIG Show.

Some of this, Dudley acknowledged, is involuntary: Banks have changed their rules, and it’s harder to get a loan than it used

to be. Much of it, however, appears to be voluntary. Instead of buying second cars or taking extravagant vacations, people

across the wealth spectrum are paying down their mortgages.

And they aren’t — or at least appear not to be — betting that their houses will steadily and permanently increase in value by

borrowing against the future.

All of which, by Dudley’s calculations, subtracts about $500 billion annually from retail spending. One thing that would help

would be a doubling of the current 2 percent rate of economic growth, which is being projected in some parts of Washington,

but Dudley indicated that such aggressive growth is unlikely.

https://nrf.com/news/whats-holding-down-spending

The Outline’s Josh Topolsky: There’s Too Much Sameness in Digital Media While watching the Super Bowl, The Outline founder and CEO Josh Topolsky saw a trailer for the new “Stranger Things.” He

knew what would happen next: Dozens of sites would rush up posts as an excuse to embed the trailer and cadge some

pageviews.

“Everything about digital media is insanely boring,” Topolsky said on this week’s episode of the Digiday Podcast. “Everything

looks the same, everything sounds the same.”

Topolsky, who was behind the founding of tech news brand The Verge, left Bloomberg Media last year and has now started

his own digital media company that’s committed to taking a different path than the scale players busy embedding “Stranger

Things” promos.

“I believe an audience raised on BuzzFeed and on their iPhones and has seen this shit for 10 years is getting numb it” he

added.

“There’s a space not explored with new digital brands,” Topolsky said. “New digital brands get on the scene and say, ‘I’ve

got to get to 20 million [visitors], 50 million, whatever.’ It’s not about cultivating a brand or a voice. We could have the coolest

ad product in the world, but it doesn’t matter if we’re not good, interesting and different and mean something to the audience

we want to reach.”

Digital media can support culturally relevant media

The Outline was born from Topolsky finding that there was a lot of sameness in digital media, as publications chased scale

with lowest-common denominator content. That stood in contrast to what he enjoyed most about culturally significant

magazines like The New Yorker. The Outline is to do that very thing, only with digital as its core.

“I felt like there’s a hole in digital media,” he said. “That hole looks like the stories aren’t very good, the presentation isn’t

very modern, the advertising sucks, and the voice and sensibility of the world you should be occupying isn’t there.”

Digital media business models haven’t evolved enough

It’s no secret that digital media is going through a challenging period. Topolsky raised $5 million to build The Outline on the

idea that an advertising model could be found to support high quality content. Plenty of doubters remain, naturally.

“We’re using a script from 20 years ago about what the business there is,” he said. “There’s a conceit that digital eyeballs

aren’t worth as much. That was definitely true when Google was brand new and The New York Times was trying to figure

out what the internet was. The reality now is we’re in uncharted territory. If you look at what Snapchat is doing with

storytelling, it’s clear that digital can be more than the thing we think it is. We’ve yet to capture what that is in a widespread

way.”

“The business is not built to be modern, the business is built to replicate something that is clearly dying off.”

Scale is overrated

The Outline’s proposition is it won’t be one of the largest sites on the audience, but it will draw a valuable, defined audience

of the smart and influential

“Getting traffic on the internet is easy; getting the right traffic is hard,” Topolsky said. “There are a thousand different ways

on the internet to figure out the system. There are a thousand different stories you can write that will always get traction.

When your goal is numbers, that doesn’t mean anything. Scale is a strange proposition. There are 3 billion people on the

internet. There’s no limit to what your scale can be. If you don’t know what a profitable audience is, that becomes a very

difficult way to run a business.”

Design matters

Too often media overlooks the critical role design plays in not just the user experience but how people perceive brands.

“We live in a world created by Steve Jobs,” Topolsky said. “Apple is obsessed with how things look, how they feel. In news

media in general, the way things look and feel are an afterthought. The way the words are packaged, the way they’re

arranged all matters. Design tells somebody who you are and where you’re coming from.”

http://digiday.com/media/outlines-josh-topolsky-theres-much-sameness-digital-media/

The Go-To Glossary for Marketers Needing to Brush Up on AI

It's not enough for marketers to collect petabytes of data; it takes a sharp mind to make sense of it all. Actually it takes a

nonhuman one.

That's why artificial intelligence has invaded the marketing world, with Facebook, Google, Salesforce, IBM, Amazon and

others building machine learning into their platforms.

Now marketers must understand the lingo if they're going to survive the machines. To help, here's a guide to the terminology

around A.I.

Machine learning

When a machine teaches itself with minimal programming needed. Google showed off the powers of machine learning when

it created a computer that learned the rules to the ancient game Go. Machine learning can be helpful in direct marketing and

email marketing, in particular, by ingesting sense of vast sets of consumer data and using it to determine things such as the

best times to send emails. Proponents say it can also identify the clients or customers that would be most receptive to given

messages. And machine learning is used in ad targeting to help deliver messages to those audiences.

Image recognition

AI looks for patterns in images. Machines can obviously analyze many more images than humans, and with machine

learning they can identify what's in the images and reveal patterns that people would never detect. Brands can use image

recognition technology, for example, to find every photo online in which their logos appear. That could help brands locate

their most loyal customers and tease out other actionable marketing insights. "Computer vision" is a term associated with

image recognition, and refers to computer programs that analyze and categorize digital images.

Clusters

A fancy word for a group of people—or anything—sharing a common characteristic. AI programs can identify clusters within

mountains of data, uncovering patterns that humans alone couldn't perceive or connections that people alone wouldn't draw.

Clusters can lead to developing audiences or segments for marketing purposes, creating a group of people with common

traits and targeting them with ads.

Unstructured data

A term for disorganized pools of data that appear random and unconnected. Machine learning can make sense of the data,

and it can identify clusters within it and other patterns that could be useful when making marketing decisions. Marketers

gather all kinds of data, even if it doesn't seem relevant at the time, because they never know when something interesting is

going to pop up.

Natural Language Processing

The technology that enables machines to interpret what people are saying in words or in text. Sophisticated AI can decipher

speech, not just understanding the words but the context. Advanced natural language processing, or NLP, could detect

sarcasm and other subtle human tones. Natural language processing is essential to the automated customer service of the

future.

Chatbots

The programs running inside messaging apps and on websites that help consumers perform simple tasks. Chatbots were

popularized by apps like Facebook Messenger and Kik, and they operate like apps within the messaging services. Brands

and publishers build chatbots to do things like deliver news stories and facilitate e-commerce transactions. The smarter

chatbots become, the better they understand language, the more useful they can be. Chatbots could become the personal

assistants of the future, booking flights, making reservations and handling schedules.

Deep Learning

A more advanced branch of machine learning, where a computer teaches itself with only minimal amounts of programming.

With deep learning, marketers can make the most use of data and apply it to make predictions about consumer behavior.

Neural Networks

Artificial intelligence programs modeled after the human brain. They incorporate deep learning and natural language

processing to perform functions like recognizing handwriting and faces in photos.

Dynamic Pricing

One of the common tasks that deep learning-based programs can perform, setting prices based on consumer data. Dynamic

pricing means that each consumer is presented with a price based on their own particular circumstances, depending on the

time of day, their financial situation and other factors. Dynamic pricing can come into play in rates for plane tickets, for

instance. AI can help craft personalized prices that are most likely to ensure a sale at the most efficient rate.

Recommendations/Content Curation

AI is useful in figuring out what goods to recommend to shoppers based on data, the way Amazon volunteers products that

a visitor to its site might want. When a consumer visits a sneaker website, for instance, AI can help determine which the

person might like based on their past browsing habits and other factors. A website could be customized for each visitor,

much as Facebook's algorithm personalizes the feed users see, tapping AI to order its content in the way most likely to

appeal.

Weak/Narrow AI

AI that's limited to specific tasks. Basically all of the AI found in marketing is weak. Most AI overall—the code behind

everything from virtual assistants to self-driving cars—is actually considered weak. The next evolution is artificial general

intelligence, bringing us closer to the long-anticipated, futuristic robots that could outperform any human at any task.

http://adage.com/article/digital/essential-glossary-ai-terms-marketers/307679/

Is There a Replacement for Email?

Like countless others, I use email daily, but it’s a love/hate relationship because of the dangers of viruses, trojans, phishing,

spam etc. I think it is unreasonable to expect the average person to be able to tell a valid email from one that is dangerous.

The latest problem is the incorrect identification of emails as spam. I check my spam folder two or three times a week for

emails that my ISP (BT Yahoo) has decided are spam. These could be emails between friends with whom I have been

exchanging emails for years. It has caused some real problems, and I am now adopting the bizarre solution of texting the

person to alert them I have sent an email.

Email is no longer fit for purpose. Can you suggest something to replace it? David

Listen

I don’t think anything is going to replace email in the near future, and probably not in the far future. It’s virtually impossible to

use internet technologies without an email address, because they are used as identifiers by most websites, cloud services,

and even operating systems such as Google Android and Microsoft Windows. Many companies, schools and colleges also

give all their members a unique email address.

Email’s unbeatable advantage is that either everyone has an email address, or can easily get one. There are hundreds of

different ways to communicate, including Facebook Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Slack and so on, but not even

Facebook (1.86 billion monthly active users) has the same reach. Email has an estimated 2.7 billion users with 4.6bn

accounts (PDF).

Email’s second huge advantage is that, unlike Facebook, nobody owns it. Anyone can set up an email service and use open

standards to interoperate with every other email service, without paying anyone a fee. Anyone can write an email client

program, or mail-processing utility, without restriction. There are no gatekeepers. The downside, of course, is that most

email is spam.

Email’s third advantage is that it can be used to distribute any type of file, although some email services may impose file size

or other limits. (Gmail, for example, now refuses to send .exe files.) You can send documents and photos to your friends,

publishers can send you “rich media” newsletters that look like web pages, airlines can send you PDF files of boarding

cards, and so on. The downside is that criminals can send you the same things with added malware.

Email’s fourth advantage is that it’s a store and forward system. People don’t have to be online at the same time to

exchange emails, and the emails can be kept for future reference. They can also be forwarded to other people, or printed

out.

Finally, if you could create an alternative open standard system that could do all the things that email can do, it would

probably have the same problems. That’s why I don’t think it will happen.

Spam filtering

I check my Gmail spam folder three or four times a day to rescue wrongly identified emails, and it often contains more

legitimate emails than spam. I may be an unusual case, because I get a lot of promotional emails, press releases,

newsletters and other things that look “spammy”. However, Google has driven a trend to make spam filtering tougher.

No email filtering system is perfect, but it can be either generous or strict. A generous system will let a few borderline spam

emails through to your inbox, while a strict system will put a few legitimate emails in the junk folder. Spam filters used to be

somewhat generous, so that users didn’t miss some important emails. Gmail took a stricter line. It happily put emails that

should obviously be legitimate – website requests for email verification, vouchers and paid-for tickets, regular newsletters,

messages from Google itself etc – into the spambox rather than let a few spam emails through.

Swapping false positives for false negatives gave users the impression that Gmail was better at spam filtering, even if their

error rates were comparable. This prompted other email providers to toughen their filters (Microsoft’s Outlook.com now does

the same thing, but even worse). This didn’t make their filtering better. It just meant you had to look for “false negatives”

instead of deleting “false positives”.

Sorry, but thou shalt check thy spam folder or suffer the consequences.

Handling attachments

There are two simple rules for handling email attachments. First, don’t open any attachment that doesn’t come from a

trusted source, or that you were not expecting. Second, save the attachment and run a virus check before opening it.

Email services try to filter out viruses, and some anti-virus programs can check email for malware. If in doubt, save the file

and check it. In Windows, you can right-click the file and select “Scan with Windows Defender ... ” or whatever from the

drop-down menu. If in even greater doubt, upload the attachment to VirusTotal, which will check it with more than 50 anti-

virus products.

VirusTotal can also check suspicious web addresses. If you are not sure about a link in an email, you can test it. Right-click

it, choose “Copy link address” and use Ctrl-V to paste it in.

In general, however, try to avoid email attachments. It’s better to upload a file to Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Google’s

Gdrive or a similar service and then email someone the link. This is particularly useful to people who are running out of

space in Gmail, because Google has not kept its word about people never having to delete emails, and because Gmail has

no way to delete an attachment without deleting the email as well.

Switching away from email

Nothing can replace email, but you can change the way you use it and make yourself less email-dependent.

Email can be annoying or even unbearable when it’s used as a messaging system. You can mitigate that problem by limiting

the times you use it. For example, I would only check email three times a day: before starting work, just before lunch, and

before going home. Anybody who expected a quick response soon learned they weren’t going to get one. Someone who

isn’t using email for work shouldn’t need to check it more than once a day. (Turn off email notifications if you get them.)

When you don’t need to keep email records, you can switch to more immediate and more casual messaging systems. These

include SMS texts, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal and similar services. Slack and Microsoft Teams are

alternatives for business users. The drawback is that not everyone you want to contact will be on the system you want to

use.

Facebook Messenger will often be the simplest option because your friends are already using it. WhatsApp and Signal are

the most secure options: both use Open Whisper encryption so that a message can only be read on the two end devices,

where it’s sent and where it’s received. (Emails travel in plain text across many different servers.)

Facebook Messenger has become popular partly because more people are using smartphones to communicate while they

are away from their desks. However, PC users can also send messages from Facebook’s website, or from a number of

alternative applications. Facebook has its own web app at Messenger.com, and Messenger for Desktop provides an

unofficial wrapper that converts it into an app. Facebook also has a Windows 10 app.

Some messaging clients support several different messaging services, including Facebook Messenger. Examples include

Trillian and Franz.

If you can reduce your dependency on email, you should find it less stressful.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2017/feb/16/is-there-a-replacement-for-email

Gannett to Consolidate Printing and Production Facilities in Rockaway

The Gannett Co. Inc. will consolidate most of its New Jersey newspaper printing and production operations to The Record’s

Rockaway plant, Gannett officials announced today.

Gannett’s Freehold Township plant, which prints the Asbury Park Press, The Home News Tribune, The Daily Record, The

Daily Journal and The Courier News, along with two other publications, will close in early June.

The 190,000-square-foot plant opened in 1996 and employs 225 people, 154 full-time.

Affected employees were notified Thursday in a series of staff meetings.

The consolidation will have no impact on home-delivery times for Gannett New Jersey and New York subscribers. The

closure of the Freehold plant will not affect news and advertising personnel who work for the company.

“The Freehold production facility and its loyal employees have been a part of the company for many years,” said Tom

Donovan, northeast regional president for Gannett and president of the Asbury Park Press. “We thank them for their service

and wish them well. We will do all we can to help them transition successfully. “

When Gannett purchased in July 2016 the North Jersey Media Group — the parent company of NorthJersey.com, The

Record, the Herald News, (201) magazine and dozens of community publications — it also acquired an expansive and

modern printing plant, capable of additional capacity. The Rockaway facility will publish eight Gannett daily New Jersey and

New York newspapers, including more than 30 weeklies.

As part of the consolidation, the company will be making a significant capital investment in the Rockaway plant. Staffing

levels there will not be affected.

Consolidations will likely continue for the foreseeable future, or at least until digital revenues replace the income newspapers

made on print, industry experts say.

Media companies have been aggressively looking for cost-saving efficiencies as more traditional print readers migrate to

digital platforms, said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based non-profit journalism

training institute.

“There needs to be constant attention to ways to save money,” Edmonds said.

There are positive signs for media companies, such as digital revenue growth from readership, advertising and marketing

services, Edmonds said. Growth in video traffic and video-driven revenue also are bright spots, he said.

http://www.northjersey.com/story/money/2017/02/16/gannett-consolidate-printing-and-production-facilities-

rockaway/97985072/

This Vermont Newspaper Couldn’t Give Itself Away in an Essay Contest. But it did Find a Buyer.

Last summer, Ross Connelly tried to give away his weekly Vermont newspaper. Kind of.

Connelly, who has run the Hardwick Gazette for 31 years, held an essay contest. It cost $175 to enter. If Connelly got 700

entries, the contest would go forward and he'd make $122,500. He never got that many entries and later tried to raise the

money through crowdfunding. That didn't work either.

But the ordeal wasn't a waste. The Hardwick Gazette has new owners as of tomorrow — and Connelly found them through

the contest.

The new owner, Ray Small, was a contestant who "conveyed a passion for community journalism," according to a press

release announcing the sale. He and his wife, Kim, will take over management on Friday and become the Gazette's 11th

owners since it was founded in 1889.

The Smalls, from Stamford, Connecticut, have backgrounds in business and don't plan any big changes in the near future,

the press release reports.

Connelly's farewell edition ran Wednesday. It included a goodbye editorial from Connelly, with this thoughts on this digital

age of journalism and the future of local newspapers:

I've been asked often whether the newspaper is sustainable in this digital age of social media, sound bites and short

attention spans. My response is that depends on whether the owners are willing to shoulder the work and work the time

needed to gather the news and report it each week.

That includes selling ads, subscriptions and newsstand sales each week throughout the 10 towns covered by the

newspaper. And none of those and other tasks would have been possible without the hard work and commitment of

countless people who worked at and with the Gazette for all these years.

Connelly, who bought the newspaper with his late wife in 1986, will travel and do some writing as a new retiree. He also

plans to keep reading the Gazette.

http://www.poynter.org/2017/this-vermont-newspaper-couldnt-give-itself-away-in-an-essay-contest-but-it-did-find-a-

buyer/449201/

Report: Update on Walgreens-Rite Aid Deal

Walgreens Boots Alliance’s acquisition of Rite Aid is moving closer to getting a green light from the Federal Trade

Commission.

The FTC is expected to approve the sale in the next two to four weeks, reported the New York Post, citing two sources close

to the situation.

The major sticking point was reportedly the number of Rite Aid stores that need to be divested to Fred’s Pharmacy.

The FTC gave “pushback” regarding the initial plan to divest 865 stores to Fred’s, but now that Walgreens and Rite Aid have

agreed to divest up to 1,200 stores, as well improved the quality of stores to be divested, the FTC is much more likely to

approve the deal.

As for the two-to-four-week timeframe, the Post reported Debbie Feinstein, bureau of competition director for the FTC, wants

to get the deal approved before she resigns, expected to be “within weeks.”

Walgreens will pay Rite Aid shareholders between $6.50 and $7 per share once the deal closes, based upon the number of

stores that need to be divested.

Fred’s Pharmacy has pledged to purchase all of the divested stores.

http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/report-update-walgreens-rite-aid-deal

Sears: Is The End Finally in Sight for the World's Slowest Liquidation Sale?

When I left Sears in 2003, I was quite pessimistic about the company's long-term prospects. Some initiatives we had put in

place during a two-year strategic re-positioning effort were gaining traction, but most key metrics were alarming. The apparel

business was well below a sustainable productivity level. The appliance and home improvement segments--which

accounted for roughly 50% of our enterprise value--were losing market share to better positioned competitors, mostly

notably Home Depot and Lowes. And the one strategy that might have saved us was no longer a feasible option. My fear

was that Sears' slow death was inevitable.

The following year Eddie Lampert put two failing retailers together and promptly made a bad situation even worse. While

Sears and Kmart both suffered from challenges driving revenue, Lampert focused on cutting costs. As leading brands

realized that retail was moving to an era of greater customer experience and shopping integration, Lampert set up

merchandise categories as warring factions. Next came the idea of starving the stores further to focus on making Sears

more digitally savvy. Then he became enamored with an emphasis on making Sears "member-driven" by launching "Shop

Your Way," a frequency shopping scheme that only served to lower margins without restoring necessary sales growth.

After witnessing nearly a decade of flailing, in 2013 I publicly declared Sears "the world's slowest liquidation sale" and

suggested that they were a dead brand walking.

I have to admit that Sears has hung in there longer than I would have thought. The degree to which Lampert has been able

to extract value from Sears assets has been surprising and remarkable. But he is rapidly running out of rabbits to pull out of

his hat.

First, and most importantly, Sears has never laid out any realistic strategy to reverse a nearly perfect string of comp store

declines for both the Sears and Kmart brands extending back to 2004. Sears cannot possibly cut enough costs to restore

positive operating cash flow without growing top-line sales significantly.

Second, most store closings only make things worse. Contrary to popular belief, stores are needed to drive online sales, and

vice versa. Sears' fundamental problem is not too many stores, it is that is has become a brand that is no longer relevant

enough for the assets and operating scale it has in place.

Third, with massive operating losses assured for the foreseeable future, Sears must raise a lot of cash to stay afloat. And it

has already sold almost all the good stuff.

Yes, the presumably imminent sale of the Kenmore and DieHard brands may fetch in excess of a billion dollars. Yes, there

is some real estate left to unload. Yes, the Home Services and Auto Centers retain some meaningful value. But don't let the

financial engineering strategies gloss over the fundamental point. There is no viable operating strategy to restore Sears to a

profitable core of any material size. And unless the company can generate cash from operations before running out of

assets to fund its staggering losses, it is not, in any practical sense, a going concern.

The company has been liquidating for many years now. It's just that some of us are finally starting to notice.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevendennis/2017/02/13/sears-is-the-end-finally-in-sight-for-the-worlds-slowest-liquidation-

sale/2/#61e30f61bc7f

Cox Must Pay $8 Million to Cover BMG’s Legal Fees in Piracy Case

Internet provider Cox Communications must pay more than $8 million to compensate the legal fees of music group BMG.

The Virginia federal court argues that the Internet provider crossed a line with its "deeply flawed DMCA defense" and sees

the high fees as a proper incentive to improve its anti-piracy policies.

December 2015 a Virginia federal jury ruled that Internet provider Cox Communications was responsible for the copyright

infringements of its subscribers.

The ISP was found guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered to pay music publisher BMG Rights

Management $25 million in damages.

This week Cox received more bad news. While the case is currently under appeal, the District Court ordered the ISP to

compensate the music group for the attorney’s fees and costs they incurred during the first round.

In its motion, BMG asked for more than $10 million in compensation and after applying a discount, Judge Liam O’Grady

decided to award a total of $8,383,468 in fees and an additional $146,790 to cover the bill of costs.

In a detailed memorandum, Judge O’Grady notes that the objective reasonableness of a party’s position is a major factor in

determining the fees question. In the current case, the Internet provider clearly crossed a line.

Among other things, evidence revealed that Cox appeared to be complying with the DMCA in public, while privately

disparaging and intentionally circumventing the law’s requirements.

“In a hard-fought litigation battle such as this one, discovery disputes and fierce briefing are to be expected, and they should

not be held too harshly against either party,” the Judge writes.

“Nonetheless, there are a few instances in which Cox’s advocacy crossed the line of objective reasonableness. In particular,

both Cox’s attempts to obscure its practice of reinstating infringing customers, and its subsequent assertions of a deeply

flawed DMCA defense evince a meritless litigation position that Cox vigorously defended.”

In addition, the court also awards the legal fees as a deterrent. The high legal costs should motivate the Internet provider to

change its policies and appropriately respond to reported copyright infringements.

In practical terms, this could include a new and improved DMCA program as well as a more responsive approach to

infringement notices from companies like Rightscorp, which were previously ignored.

“However Cox decides to address its users’ repeat infringement, it is clear that the company should be given a proper

financial incentive to change its policies and procedures,” Judge O’Grady notes.

Another factor that weighs heavy in the decision to award legal fees, is the assuring message it sends to other copyright

holders. Picking a legal battle against a company with billions in revenue is quite a risk when attorney’s fees are not

compensated.

“In order to continue to promote the vindication of individuals’ copyrights, therefore, BMG (and others like it) should be

rewarded for facing up against willful infringers with deep pockets,” the Judge writes.

Combining these and several other relevant factors, Judge O’Grady concludes that the $8.3 million in attorney’s fees is

appropriate in this case. This brings Cox’s total costs to well over $33 million.

David Israelite, President of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) of which BMG is a member, welcomes the

court’s decision.

“As defenders of music creators, we applaud BMG for standing up to mass music piracy enablers like Cox, and we echo

Judge O’Grady’s words that awarding legal fees rewards plaintiffs like BMG ‘for facing up against w illful infringers with deep

pockets’,” Israelite says.

“The Court’s firm renouncing of Cox’s conduct serves as a stern warning to web providers who turn a blind eye to music

theft.”

Adding insult to injury, the Judge also denied Cox’s request for legal fees against Round Hill Music, arguing that there can

only be one prevailing party in a lawsuit.

https://torrentfreak.com/cox-must-pay-8-million-to-cover-bmgs-legal-fees-in-piracy-case-170215/