3 Tips For Snagging A Parking Spot During The Holiday Shopping Rush

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For those shoppers scrambling to finish up their holiday shopping for the next week, there may be times when — gasp! — they must leave their homes and visit brick-and-mortar stores or malls. Those people are most definitely dreading the idea of finding parking, but you can make it a bit easier on yourself by keeping a few tips in mind.

MarketWatch spoke to some parking experts in the know to get some parking “secrets” to help during this particularly tasking time for parking. Check out a few we found especially noteworthy, and MarketWatch’s slideshow for more.

1. Take the first spot you see: Those people who circle lots constantly know who they are — you’re a “vulture.” And if you stalk someone else, waiting and waiting on them to load their cars up and leave, you’re, well, a “stalker.” And your creepy tactics could be backfiring — the experts say it’s better to just pick the first open spot you can see and walk to the store door from wherever that is. Unless the lot is completely full, in which case, back to creeping.

2. Get there early or go late: Holiday season or no, shopping in the middle of the day or right after work is going to be prime rush time. Instead, go in the first hour the store opens or the last hour before it closes, says Casey Jones, the former chairman of the board of the International Parking Institute.

“This way there’s not as much competition with shoppers who shop during their lunch break of right after work,” he says.

3. Bend technology to your will: Maybe you never thought of casing the joint beforehand to find little-known entrances and exits, but there’s a thing called the Internet and it can help. Simply pull up a map of the parking lot using a map app and check out the bird’s eye view of the area. That way you can look for ways in and out that others might not use that could help you better plan your parking.

7 secrets to scoring a plum parking spot [MarketWatch]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Long After ‘Serial’ Season Is Over, Global Tel-Link Will Keep Charging Inmates Outrageous Phone Fees

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The last episode of the current series of hit podcast “Serial” was made available for download this morning. It’s the last time that millions of listeners will hear a brand name that has appeared in every episode but was likely unfamiliar to them. The people over at Global Tel-Link probably aren’t heartbroken that they’re losing the free product placement, though. As a telecommunications company providing phone service for prisoners, consumer name recognition isn’t very important to them.

Each episode of Serial opens with theme music and the scene-setting pre-recorded announcement: “This is a Global Tel-Link prepaid call from Adnan Syed, an inmate at a Maryland correctional facility.” If you are interested audio stories, true crime, or spending lots of time questioning the nature of truth and the limits of human memory, you might enjoy “Serial,” which is a detailed exploration of the events surrounding the murder of a high school student near Maryland in 1999. For some reason, a lot of issues surrounding the case involve phones: there’s the Best Buy pay phone that may or may not have existed and that the electronics chain joked about last week on their Twitter feed, and the cell phone belonging to the man convicted of the murder that pinged various towers around Baltimore on that day.

Yet the series would be very different or wouldn’t exist without the community phones and Global Tel-Link. Since recording devices aren’t allowed during prison visits, the core of the program is hours of taped phone interviews between host Sarah Koenig and Adnan Syed, who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and has spent his whole adult life in jail or prison. Making phone calls from prison is not cheap, or even all that affordable. Yet maintaining connections outside of prison is important, especially for people who want to lead crime-free lives once they’re out. Bloomberg Businessweek calculates that the 40 taped hours of phone calls could have cost around $2,500 in prepaid prison phone credits.

Serial’s $2,500 Phone Bill and the Prison-Calling Racket [Bloomberg Businessweek]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Police: Man Faked Heart Attack At Walmart While Pal Took Off With Cart Full Of Toys

Anti-Santa takes his toy haul from the store while people tend to his alleged accomplice

You’re shopping or working at Walmart when a young man collapses in front of you, showing signs of a heart attack. What do you do? You tend to the victim, because you are a human being with a soul. However, police say when this happened in Florida, two men took advantage of the functioning souls of the people around them to steal a cart filled with toys.

Surveillance cameras caught all of the action, and police also note that the men arrived at the store and left together in the same vehicle, while pretending not to have anything to do with each other inside the store.

However, police caught up with the men, and there’s that surveillance footage that you see above. They’ve both been arrested and charged with grand theft. The items in the cart included a LeapPad tablet, a motorized Barbie car, a Barbie house, and whatever that giant Fisher-Price thing is that’s visible from the security camera.

Man fakes heart attack so friend can steal Barbie car, deputies say [WESH] (Warning: auto-play video)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

New York AG Tells Walmart, Amazon, Sears To Stop Allegedly Selling Illegal Toy Guns

A prohibited toy gun from Amazon, via the NY AG’s office.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office says several retailers are selling illegal toy guns online, as the items don’t carry an orange stripe required to mark them as fakes and not real weapons. His office annoucned today that it issued cease and desist letters to retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Kmart, Sears and more, demanding they stop the alleged illegal sales.

“When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences,” Schneiderman said in a release announcing his office’s actions. “New York State law is clear: retailers cannot put children and law enforcement at risk by selling toy guns that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.”

Those retailers allegedly sold prohibited toy guns online to residents of New York State, with at least one case of a sale at a Kmart store in Rochester.

The letter calls for retailers to immediately stop selling the toys online and in-stores, pending the final outcome of the AG office’s investigation.

According to the investigation thus far, officials say many of the prohibited toy guns, priced from less than $10 up to several hundred, can be found and purchased easily online in New York.

Some of those were advertised as “realistic looking” and “full size,” so without those orange stripes on both sides of the barrel, the AG says the fake assault rifles, shotguns and pistols could easily be mistaken for real weapons by not only fellow civilians, but law enforcement as well.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Report: U.S. Government Agrees North Korea Actually Is Behind The Hack Attack On Sony

It has been a bad, bad month for Sony Pictures. In the wake of the hack that loosed their employees’ most personal information onto the internet, threats of violence resulted in the cancellation of their Christmas-day comedy release The Interview. And now, federal investigators aren’t sure how to point the finger of blame — not because they don’t know who’s behind it, but because they do. North Korea is indeed to blame, administration officials say, and the U.S. has to figure out how to handle international relations in the face of what is not just another hack, but cyberterrorism.

The New York Times reports that federal investigators have concluded that North Korea is “centrally involved” in the Sony hack. The question then becomes: what to do about it?

Senior administration officials told the NYT that the White House still hasn’t decided if publicly accusing North Korea of the attack is the best tactic. Some in the administration feel that the North Korean government should be directly confronted. Others, however, point out that there may not be any consequences the U.S. can credibly threaten, and that revealing exactly how investigators made the link with North Korea could compromise U.S. intelligence operations in the area.

The hackers brought their intrusion to the attention of Sony employees rather dramatically a few days before Thanksgiving, though the attack itself began long before that. Early rumors immediately put agents from or sponsored by North Korea high on the list of suspects, and Sony’s own internal investigation supported the theory, and federal investigators agree.

This act of what some are calling “data terrorism” has been devastatingly successful. Not only are Sony’s movies and all of their dirty laundry out loose in the wild, but also after theater chains all backed out of showing The Interview, Sony has been compelled to cancel its release entirely.

North Korean representatives have been condemning the film since a trailer was released over the summer. Representatives for the country have denied involvement in the attack, but did say that the hack was a “righteous deed” and could have been carried out by “supporters and sympathizers.”

Investigators have uncovered some signs that indicate the hackers may indeed have had inside help from within Sony.

That a North Korean attack has effectively censored the release of an American film made by a Japanese-owned studio is a deeply troubling precedent. Its success means that hackers (from any nation) have every incentive to do something like this again.

U.S. Said to Find North Korea Ordered Cyberattack on Sony [New York Times]

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Amazon Prime Now: One-Hour NYC Delivery So New, Only One Area Code Has It

Here’s a hypothetical: You wake up one morning to find that you’ve run out of toothpaste, what do you do? Sure, you could walk the two blocks to the local drug store and pick up a box. Or if you’re an Amazon Prime member you could just sit on the couch and wait an hour for some paste to be delivered, that is, as long as you live in a small section of Manhattan and feel like paying a shipping cost double that of the toothpaste.

Amazon announced Thursday that it launched a new service, Prime Now, aimed at delivering tens of thousands of daily essentials to Prime members in as little as one hour; two hours if you want free delivery.

Officials with Amazon say the latest “perk” for Prime members is available from 6 a.m. to midnight seven days a week.

To access the service customers must first download the Prime Now app. After selecting the daily essential you’re currently lacking – anything from batteries to toys and books – the nearest Amazon fulfillment center will dispatch you order.

While the service might seem perfect for those times you just can’t bear to leave the apartment without washing your hair (because you’ve run out of shampoo), there are several rather glaring drawbacks to Prime Now.

For starters, the service is currently only available in select areas of Manhattan. And by that we mean, it seems like only zip code. While Amazon has yet to return Consumerist’s request to define what “select areas” means, the sleuths in our NYC bureau played around with the app and found that only one Manhattan zip code appears to offer the service: 10001.

Here’s a Google map showing the current delivery area for Prime Now service.

When we tried searching the app with an address just 10 blocks north of that 10001 zone, Prime Now shot us down. The same story went for addresses in two other Manhattan zip codes, both south of Central Park.

Amazon says in its announcement about the service that users who download the mobile app will be notified when delivery is available in their area. But at this point it’s unclear when expansions of the service will occur.

The other major downside of the service is the relatively steep cost for one-hour delivery.

Consumers who decide to use Prime Now for daily essentials will have to shell out $7.99 to receive their toothpaste in 60 minutes. However, if they’re willing to wait a little longer, two-hour delivery with the service is free.

Add the expensive one-hour delivery cost to the $99-yearly subscription fee Prime members already pay and that tube of toothpaste is looking pretty expensive right about now.

Amazon Introduces Prime Now: One-Hour Delivery on Tens of Thousands of Daily Essentials Exclusively for Prime Members [Amazon]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Guy Picks The Lucky Gal With Same Name As His Ex To Fly Around The World With Him

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It’s a tale as old as time: Guy meets girl, buys nonrefundable plane tickets for trip around the world, guy and girl part ways, guy seeks new girl but with same name and Canadian passport so tickets don’t go to waste, guy meets new girl, they go around the world. This stuff never gets old.

Back in November, a good chunk of the female population was annoyed to find out that they neither had the same name as the man who wanted someone to replace his ex-girlfriend using her same tickets on a trip round the world, nor a Canadian passport.

Some lucky lady had both the moniker and the paperwork, reports ABC News, and has been chosen to be the bearer of the tickets. It took thousands of emails and 18 actual entrants from women with the right name and documents, as well as hundreds of people who apparently wanted to change their names, ostensibly to go on this trip.

The 23-year-old student and part-time office administrator who won is already in New York City, where the twosome will embark on their three-week journey. On Sunday, they’ll be heading to Milan, Vienna, Prague, Paris, southern Thailand, Bangkok then Delhi, India, before returning home Jan. 12.

“At the end of the day, I’m just a simple guy from Canada,” the man told ABC News. “Initially, when the story broke, it was shocking. I didn’t have any anticipation this would happen. The original story implicated my ex-girlfriend, which was very difficult as well.”

While he was looking for the right person to share his trip, he founded a charity that he says will help “underprivileged and at-risk” people travel, called A Ticket Forward.

“The whole reason the charity started was there was a huge outpouring from people who wanted to travel the world and feared they wouldn’t,” he explained.

The twosome will be staying together in sponsored, separate hotel rooms (she has a serious boyfriend), but will be paying their own way when it comes to food and souvenirs.

“We still have some planning left to do, but we’re getting there. The message of the original post was, here’s a ticket and you can take it,” the male part of the traveling duo says. “[She] has all kinds of stuff that she wants to do and so do I. We’re taking it one day at a time.”

As for the lucky lady, she says her family is all for it… even her boyfriend, it seems, who remains supportive, if not a bit jealous of her trip.

“They were pushing me out the door. Some of my sweetest aunts in the world who would never say anything were saying, ‘If you don’t go on this, you are crazy,’” she told the Toronto Star. “I thought this is a crazy opportunity. Even if I didn’t get picked, I felt like I had to say I tried.”

Canadian Finds Woman With Ex-Girlfriend’s Name to Travel the World Together [ABC News]

Toronto man finds an Elizabeth… to travel the world with him [Toronto Star]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

10 consejos para aumentar la autoridad de una web #infografia #infographic #seo #marketing

Hola:

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10 consejos para aumentar la autoridad de una web

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Marketing de contenidos para el sector retail #infografia #infographic #marketing

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Una infografía sobre Marketing de contenidos para el sector retail. Vía

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Marketing de contenidos para el sector retail

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Sony Pictures Entertainment Cancels Release Of ‘The Interview’

Empty theaters. (Scoboco)

Throughout today, more movie theater chains have announced that they would prefer not to screen the comedy “The Interview” in the wake of vague terrorist threats against theaters screening the film. Sony Pictures Entertainment, had already canceled the scheduled premiere in New York City tomorrow and told theater operators that they were welcome to not screen the movie if they don’t want to. All of the major theater chains took Sony up on this offer, and now the planned Christmas Day release has been canceled.

While the Department of Homeland Security says that there is no evidence of a credible threat to any movie theaters, the three largest theater chains opted to not screen “The Interview.” AMC, Cinemark, or Regal probably own most of your local multiplexes, and Sony has decided not to release the film on December 25th if it won’t be on the vast majority of screens nationwide.

The threatening message came from the same group of cyber-baddies who obtained employees’ personal and financial data, as well as a cache of company e-mails that Sony really, really doesn’t want entertainment reporters, or anyone else, to comb through.

In part, they said:

We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.

Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has not announced at this time whether the release has been delayed or canceled entirely. The Daily Beast reported today that officials from the the U.S. Department of State reviewed the entire film before release, including the scenes depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and had no problems with it being released. Ironically, we know this because of an e-mail exchange leaked by the very group that made these threats, the Guardians of Peace.

Sony Pictures cancels Christmas Day release of ‘The Interview’ [L.A. Times]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist