Zynga CFO David Wehner deflects to Facebook

NEW YORK (AP) — Zynga‘s finance chief is leaving the troubled online game company to join Facebook.

San Francisco-based Zynga Inc. said Tuesday that David Wehner will take a “senior finance position” at the social networking company. His exact title will be vice president of corporate finance and business planning, Facebook said.

Chief accounting officer, Mark Vranesh, is replacing Wehner as chief financial officer, returning to the post he held from 2008 to 2010, while Zynga was still a private company.

Zynga also reshuffled its executive ranks, a move CEO Mark Pincus said puts the company in a position for “long-term growth.” Zynga, whose games include “FarmVille” and “Texas HoldEm Poker,” has seen its stock price fall sharply in recent months amid concerns about its ability to make money from mobile games, off of Facebook.

David Ko, who was previously chief mobile officer, is now chief operations officer. Barry Cottle, who came to Zynga from Electronic Arts Inc., is now chief revenue officer. He was previously executive vice president of business and corporate development.

The appointments seek to fill some of the holes left by executives who’ve left Zynga in recent months. John Schappert, Zynga’s chief operating officer, left in August after less than a year and a half on the job. Schappert’s exit was followed by that of Mike Verdu, the company’s chief creative officer. And in September Jeff Karp, the chief marketing and chief revenue officer, left the company.

Zynga is also reaffirming its guidance. The company still expects adjusted earnings of 2 or 3 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expect 3 cents.

Zynga shares closed up 1 cent at $ 2.11 and added 2 cents in after-hours trading.

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She’s got the voice, now Christina Aguilera looks for hits

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Christina Aguilera has the vocal chops, the look, the strut and millions of new fans thanks to her stint as a judge on TV singing contest “The Voice.”

But can she still sell records?

The singer, who had global hits with “Genie in a Bottle” and the female empowerment ballad “Beautiful” more than 10 years ago, bids to reclaim her status as one of the world’s biggest pop stars with her new album, “Lotus,” released on Tuesday.

Aguilera, 31, says the title and the mixture of dance-pop, ballads and rock-tinged tracks reflect the hopes and disappointments of recent years that saw her 2010 tour for album “Bionic” canceled, a divorce and the box-office flop of her debut feature film, the musical “Burlesque.”

“Lotus represents the unbreakable flower that stands the test of time. No matter the roughest of weather conditions, it remains strong and continues to thrive. (The album) is a nod to my fans who have been here with me the whole journey, and a nod to myself,” she said.

“It is a record of freedom and embracing that…It is very artistic at times, it is very fun at times, it is very free. I think that’s how music and life should be, away from all the negativity,” the four-time Grammy winner said in an appearance at a Billboard Film and TV Music conference in Los Angeles last month.

Aguilera will perform one of the tracks – “Make the World Move” – with her fellow judge Cee Lo Green live on “The Voice” this week for the show’s more than 10 million viewers.

But music industry experts say Aguilera’s popularity on “The Voice” – where her powerhouse performances leave aspiring pop stars in the dust – may not guarantee huge album sales and won’t give the singer a No. 1 hit.

This week also sees new releases from British boy band One Direction and singer Susan Boyle as well as the new “Twilight” film soundtrack.

NOT A BLOCKBUSTER

“I think ‘Lotus’ will certainly debut in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 album chart. But we don’t see it as being a blockbuster out of the gate,” said Keith Caulfield, associate director of charts at Billboard.

“It is a long road to rebuilding Christina as a brand and as a musician, after the last album didn’t so very well,” said Caulfield. “But it’s not always about first week sales.”

Much like Jennifer Lopez on “American Idol,” Aguilera has seen her star rocket in her 18 months on “The Voice.” Just a few months before the TV show made its debut in spring 2011, Aguilera was arrested for being drunk in public in West Hollywood, and her 2010 album “Bionic” had sold a disappointing 312,000 copies.

“‘The Voice’ has reinvigorated her entire career. A lot of people think she is the star of ‘The Voice’ – the judge you tune in for,” said Lyndsey Parker, managing editor at Yahoo! Music.

Yet the first single – “Your Body” – from the new album failed to make a big impact when it was released in September. It peaked at No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and never really caught fire on radio.

“It came and went, which surprised me because I think it is a very strong song. And pretty much everything I have heard on this album is strong. I think it’s a real return to form,” said Parker.

“There are very few people in pop who can sing like her. I do think there is a renewed appreciation for great singing that can be done live and that isn’t just about flash. And Christina is coming back to prove that. I think some people are looking at her to take back her crown,” Parker added.

“Lotus” includes duets with both Green and Aguilera’s fellow “Voice” judge, country singer Blake Shelton. It also features the piano-driven ballad “Blank Page,” which is reminiscent of her 2002 hit “Beautiful” and rock-tinged tracks like “Army of Me.”

Aguilera says she hopes to inspire a new generation of singers who were not around in 1999 for her first big hit “Genie in a Bottle.”

“It’s so exciting for me to show them what I do as an artist,” she said. “I’ve been through a lot over the past few years, going through ‘Burlesque,’ a divorce…having a few setbacks….Stuff happens! This is the business. It’s not going to be all cute and pretty and tied up in a bow.

“All of that combined is in ‘Lotus.’ It embraces the woman that I’ve become, and embracing myself coming full circle as a pop star,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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Congress, Obama playing with dynamite, CEOs say of “fiscal cliff”

BOSTON (Reuters) – Corporate America is raising the volume of its plea that the U.S. government avert a year-end “fiscal cliff” that could send the nation back into recession, but chief executives aren’t pushing the panic button just yet.

With a heated election season in the rear-view mirror, executives are calling on the White House and congressional leaders to head off a self-imposed deadline that could bring $ 600 billion in spending cuts and higher taxes early in 2013 if they are unable to reach a deal on cutting the federal budget deficit.

The Business Roundtable on Tuesday kicked off a print, radio and online ad campaign on which it plans to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars featuring the chiefs of Honeywell International Inc , Xerox Corp and United Parcel Service Inc calling on lawmakers to resolve the issue.

In an opinion piece published on Tuesday evening on the Wall Street Journal’s website, Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein urged the business community and the Obama administration to compromise and reconcile so as not to derail the fragile recovery.

One of the more dramatic warnings of the consequences of allowing the U.S. economy to go over the fiscal cliff came from Honeywell CEO David Cote.

“If the last debt ceiling discussion was playing with fire, this time they’re playing with nitroglycerin,” Cote said in an interview. “If they go off the cliff, I think it would spark a recession that’s a lot bigger than economists think. Some think it would just be a small fire. I think it could turn into a conflagration.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the U.S. economy would contract 0.5 percent in 2013 if the government fails to stop the budget cuts and tax increases – far below the 2 percent growth economists currently forecast.

A failure in Washington to solve the crisis by the year’s end could prompt major companies to curtail investment plans, said Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext , operator of the New York Stock Exchange.

“We simply won’t be investing in the United States. We will be investing elsewhere where we have more certainty of the outcome,” Niederauer said in an interview.

About a dozen top U.S. CEOs, including General Electric Co’s Jeff Immelt, Aetna Inc’s Mark Bertolini, American Express Co’s Ken Chenault and Dow Chemical Co’s Andrew Liveris are scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

The four are members of “Fix the Debt,” an ad-hoc lobbying organization that this week launched an advertising campaign that advocates long-term debt reduction.

UNCERTAINTY FACTOR

Bank of America Corp CEO Brian Moynihan said on Tuesday that worries about the cliff have companies holding off on spending.

“That uncertainty continues to hold back the recovery,” Moynihan said, speaking at an investor conference in New York.

Sandy Cutler, CEO of manufacturer Eaton Corp , shared his concern.

“Until we solve the fiscal issues (in the United States and Europe), you’re not going to get back to normal GDP growth,” Cutler told investors on Tuesday.

CEOs are not alone in this worry. The CBO report warned that failure to reach a deal could push the U.S. unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent, the highest since July 1991. It is currently 7.9 percent.

Obama and the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives have signaled a more conciliatory tone since last week’s election, when Obama soundly defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney, whose party retained a majority in the House.

Wilbur Ross, an investor known for taking stakes in distressed companies, is bracing for higher tax rates in 2013.

“We, like many people, have been trying to utilize gains this year. It does seem that the probability is that rates will go up,” Ross said in an interview with Reuters Insider. “We don’t have a “for sale” sign on anything. But we are mindful that there is a benefit to concluding things this year rather than next.

NO SIGNS OF PANIC

Concerns about the cliff have not prompted customers to cancel orders, though they have added to an overall level of uneasiness that has companies wary of making large capital purchases or hiring significant numbers of new workers.

“We haven’t seen the panicking, like, ‘I’m not going to order something because of the fiscal cliff,’” said Steve Shawley, chief financial officer of heating and cooling systems maker Ingersoll Rand Plc . “Customers are being very judicious with their orders.”

Likewise, JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon last month told investors he did not expect the negotiations to hurt lending in the fourth quarter.

“The fiscal cliff isn’t going to change us,” Dimon said, referring to JPMorgan’s commercial bank, which loans money to businesses. The bank’s investment banking side could be more vulnerable if the debate makes investors jittery, he allowed.

WEAPONS, MEDICINES IN THE CROSS-HAIRS

The defense and healthcare sectors are the most vulnerable to the fiscal cliff, as they face the threat of sequestration — automatic, across-the-board cuts to their funding.

Makers of weapons systems note that they have long been preparing for declining sales as the United States winds down two long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The industry has already shed tens of thousands of jobs and closed facilities.

Lockheed Martin Corp’s new president and chief operating officer, Marillyn Hewson, told analysts on Monday her company had been preparing for tighter defense budgets for years, even before the sequestration deal.

“We aren’t going to see a major change,” said Hewson. “We’ve been very proactive as a leadership team in taking actions in recent years to address our cost structure, to look at how we can make our product more affordable.”

Automatic cuts to the federal budget could reduce federal health spending by $ 21.5 billion in 2013, potentially affecting everything from Medicare to the Food and Drug Administration, according to an analysis by PwC’s Health Research Institute.

Vincent Forlenza, the CEO of Beckton Dickinson & Co , said the labs he supplies have held off on buying new instruments because of the threat of spending cuts.

“If we don’t get to a deal we will have another year of paralysis and putting off research,” Forlenza said. “The impact of uncertainty on the (National Institutes of Health) budget is causing our research customers to put off research.”

(Additional reporting by John McCrank, Nick Zieminski, Caroline Humer, Jed Horowitz, Sharon Begley and Daniel Wilchins in New York, Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nichola Groom in Los Angeles, Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington, Debra Sherman in Chicago and Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by Patricia Kranz and Steve Orlofsky and Carol Bishopric)

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EU workers in austerity protests

13 November 2012 Last updated at 20:19 ET

Workers across the European Union are set to stage a series of protests against rising unemployment and austerity measures.

The Day of Action and Solidarity calls on leaders to address growing social anxiety and abandon austerity measures.

Some 40 groups from 23 countries are involved in Wednesday’s protests.

Strikes are expected in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy, with other protests planned in Belgium, Germany, France the UK and some eastern EU states.

Wednesday’s action, which may affect some transport links and services across the continent, has been urged by the European Trade Union Confederation.

“Austerity is a total dead end, and must be abandoned,” said the group in a statement.

Continental protests

Unions in Spain and Portugal started strikes at midnight local time (23:00 GMT), to protest against austerity measures that have combined cuts in salaries, pensions, benefits and social services with hikes in tax rises.

Italy will see a four-hour national strike which transport workers are also expected to join.

In Greece the strike action is the third major walkout in two months as the country tries to reduce its budget deficit in line with international demands.

Continue reading the main story

The government must meet a 5bn-euro debt repayment by Friday and says it needs the bailout cash to avoid going bankrupt.

Greece must back a package of salary and pension cuts, and labour market reforms, and the 2013 budget, to receive the next part of a bailout – a 31.5bn-euro instalment from the International Monetary Fund and European Union that has been on hold for months – and avoid bankruptcy.

The BBC’s Mark Lowen in Athens says that with proposals for a fifth consecutive cut to pensions, an increase in the retirement age and reductions to salaries, benefits and healthcare, the fury among Greece’s population is growing.

In France, the CGT union has called for public sector strikes, but there are questions about how many workers will stay away.

The strikes are not anti-government, correspondents say, but rather a way of showing that workers in France are in solidarity with their fellow-workers elsewhere in Europe.

While some Belgian unions have told the BBC they will not be striking, all have expressed solidarity with the day’s protests, which is expected to see demonstrations outside the Brussels embassies of Germany, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland.

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Canada seen needing to spell out rules for natural gas projects

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The fate of a handful of liquefied natural gas projects planned for Canada’s Pacific coast may depend on the Canadian government‘s willingness to spell out rules for foreign investment in the country’s energy sector, according to a study released on Thursday.

Apache Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Petronas, BG Group Plc and others are in the planning stages for LNG projects that would take gas from the rich shale fields of northeastern British Columbia and ship it to Asian buyers.

But the federal government’s decision last month to stall the C$ 5.2 billion ($ 5.2 billion) bid by Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas C$ 5.2 billion for Canada‘s Progress Energy Resources Corp could lessen the appetite of Asian buyers for Canadian LNG, energy consultants Wood Mackenzie said.

“Some potential off-takers of Canadian LNG like the idea … because it’s perceived as having low political risk, and another reason is because they see the potential for investment opportunities,” said Noel Tomnay, head of global gas at the consultancy.

“If there are going to be restrictions on how they access those opportunities, if acquisitions are closed to them, then clearly that would restrict the attractiveness of those opportunities. If would-be Asian investors thought that corporate acquisitions were an avenue that was not open to them then Canadian LNG would become less attractive.”

The Canadian government is looking to come up with rules governing corporate acquisitions by state-owned companies and has pushed off a decision on the Petronas bid as it considers whether to approve the $ 15.1 billion offer for Nexen Inc from China’s CNOOC Ltd.

Exporting LNG to Asia is seen as a way to boost returns for natural-gas producers tapping the Montney, Horn River and Liard Basin shale regions of northeastern British Columbia.

Though Wood Mackenzie estimates the fields contain as much as 280 trillion cubic feet of gas, they are far from Canada’s traditional U.S. export market, while growing supplies from American shale regions have cut into Canadian shipments.

Because the region lacks infrastructure, developing the resource will be expensive, requiring new pipelines and multibillion-dollar liquefaction.

Still Wood Mackenzie estimates that the cost of delivery into Asian markets for Canadian LNG would be in the range of $ 10 million to $ 12 per million British thermal units, similar to competing projects in the United States and East Africa.

($ 1 = $ 1.00 Canadian)

(Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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U2′s Bono to urge U.S. politicians not to cut aid programs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Irish rocker and anti-poverty campaigner Bono will appeal to Democrats and Republicans during a visit to Washington this week to spare U.S. development assistance programs from cuts as Congress tries to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending reductions early next year.

The U2 lead singer’s visit comes as the Obama administration and congressional leaders try to forge a deal in coming weeks to avoid the economy hitting the “fiscal cliff” – tax increases and spending cuts worth $ 600 billion starting in January if Congress does not act.

Analysts say the absence of a deal could shock the United States, the world’s biggest economy, back into recession.

Kathy McKiernan, spokeswoman for the ONE Campaign, said Bono will hold talks with congressional lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials during the November 12-14 visit.

During meetings he will stress the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs and the need to preserve them to avoid putting at risk progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, she said.

Bono, a long-time advocate for the poor, will argue that U.S. government-funded schemes that support life-saving treatments for HIV/AIDS sufferers, nutrition programs for malnourished children, and emergency food aid make up just 1 percent of the U.S. government budget but are helping to save tens of millions of lives in impoverished nations.

The One Campaign would not elaborate which lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials Bono will meet.

On Monday, Bono will discuss the power of social movements with students at Georgetown University. He will also meet new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for a web cast discussion on Wednesday on the challenges of eradicating poverty.

(Editing by W Simon)

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¿Quién califica online a los profesionales de la salud y qué se puede hacer al respecto?

ATLANTA (Reuters Health) – “Cada médico, cada asistente,

cada enfermero de Estados Unidos está siendo calificado en este

momento. No hay nada que podamos hacer para protegernos, excepto

proporcionar atención de calidad centrada en el paciente”,

aseguró el doctor Scott Manaker durante la última reunión anual

del Colegio Estadounidense de Neumonólogos (ACP, por sus

iniciales en inglés.

Manaker y tres colegas del Sistema de Salud de University of

Pennsylvania, hablaron en una sesión plenaria de CHEST llamada

“Calificaciones Médicas: ¿quién está escribiendo sobre ti y qué

están diciendo?”.

“Sea buena o mala, precisa o sesgada, la publicación de la

información es parte de la práctica moderna de la medicina y

necesitamos ocuparnos de esos datos”, indicó Manaker por correo

electrónico.

Un informe de la Fundación Robert Wood Johnson revela que

“unos 38 millones de personas están observando en algún momento,

de alguna manera, y evaluando lo que usted está haciendo como

profesional de la salud. Y esa cifra seguirá creciendo”, dijo en

la misma sesión Ed Dellert, vicepresidente senior para

educación, informática y educación clínica de ACP.

Entre las agencias oficiales y privadas que monitorean la

atención clínica y califican a los profesionales de la salud

están los Centros para los Servicios de Medicare y Medicaid

(CMS, por sus siglas en inglés); el sitio online Hospital

Compare y, próximamente, Physician Compare, y beneficiarios

privados, entre otros.

Manaker consideró que para que un profesional obtenga una

buena calificación, deberían brindar la mejor atención y

utilizar un código preciso y completo de diagnósticos para

ajuste de riesgos.

Es “extremadamente importante que todos comprendan que como

profesional, como hospital, negociará con las empresas de

seguros de salud, que reunieron información durante años sobre

los resultados en los pacientes. A diario, les envían un detalle

de la facturación, los servicios prestados y el diagnóstico del

paciente a cambio de un pago. ¿Piensan que las empresas tiran

esa información a la basura? La usan para armar una base de

datos de qué funciona y qué no”, precisó Adrian W. Scipione en

otra presentación. Scipione es abogado y jefe operativo de

Respiratory Specialists, Wyomissing (Pensilvania).

En cambio, la calificación de los consumidores es otro

desafío, y los médicos necesitan otra estrategia para defender

su reputación online.

El doctor Burt Lesnick, de Georgia Pediatric Pulmonary

Associates (Atlanta), mencionó durante su presentación a los

sitios online US News & World Report Top Doctors, Consumer’s

Guide to Top Doctors y Super Doctors como algunos ejemplos donde

los profesionales pueden nominar colegas excelentes en su

especialidad, mientras que Vitals y UCompareHealthCare incluyen

las evaluaciones de los pacientes.

Señaló que un comentario negativo con pocos comentarios más

puede reducir la calificación. En el sitio Healthgrades, dijo

que “cualquiera puede registrarse. En teoría, deberían ser los

médicos quienes lo hagan, pero cualquiera puede fingir la

identidad”.

Agregó que “pocas empresas son independientes. Todos

comparten la información. Otros sitios compran los datos de

Healthgrades para publicar”, agregó Lesnick.

El sitio Angie’s List es independiente. Sólo los miembros

que pagan una tarifa mensual pueden leer las evaluaciones, pero

cualquier puede publicarlas.

“El sitio Superior Business Network me atribuye un teléfono

profesional que no tengo desde hace trece años en una dirección

que ya no existe, mientras que HIPAASpace publica mi código

identificador nacional de proveedores (NPI, por su sigla en

inglés) y mi número único de identificación médica (UPIN, por su

sigla en inglés)”, puso Lesnick como ejemplo.

Aun así, no todo está fuera de control. Lesnick recomendó

ser proactivos: “Tengan una cuenta de Facebook para compartir

información sobre sus servicios. Twitter es una buena

herramienta para mantener a los pacientes actualizados sobre los

servicios médicos, los riesgos ambientales, las advertencias de

la FDA, las alertas de contaminación ambiental, los retiros de

fármacos”.

Enviar un mensaje diario es una buena opción, como así

también “monitorear los sitios de consumidores (…) Busque

sitios que denigren su dirección web (…) Si uno encuentra un

sitio cuya dirección es su nombre más la palabra

sucks(apesta).com es posible que exista algún paciente

disgustado y ese sitio podría aparecer primero en la lista de

búsquedas si muchas personas lo consultan”.

“Lo mejor sería registrar esos dominios proactivamente” para

que nadie pueda utilizarlos, agregó el doctor.

Y si un sitio se niega a rechazar información imprecisa o

negativa, Lesnick sugirió contratar a una consultora

especializada que podrá ocultarla a cambio de una tarifa.

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Microsoft Shows Its Windows Chief the Door

Fresh off the release of Windows 8, Microsoft (MSFT) has decided to part ways with its Windows chief.

Microsoft issued a press release late Monday evening, saying that Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows Division, will leave the company, effective immediately. Sinofsky had spent close to 25 years at Microsoft and developed a reputation as someone who could oversee large, complex software projects and bring them in on time—or whatever counts as on time in Microsoft land. Before shepherding products such as Windows, Windows Live, and Outlook.com, he oversaw many iterations of Office.

The big knock on Sinofsky was his often-prickly nature. He wasn’t seen as a team player within Microsoft and was instead known for protecting his fiefdom. That approach doesn’t go over well at today’s Microsoft, which needs to prove that Windows is just one piece of a larger collective that includes phone software, online services, and entertainment products delivered via the Xbox. Sinofsky also proved reticent to speak with the press and was barely heard from as Windows 8 hit the market late last month.

Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer, said all the standard, polite things in the statement about Sinofsky’s departure. “I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company,” Ballmer said. Julie Larson-Green, a Microsoft veteran, has been tapped to run Windows software and hardware engineering and will report directly to Ballmer.

Windows 8 is Microsoft’s biggest gamble in years. The software has a radical new interface that’s equal parts beautiful, playful, and confusing. It brings Microsoft into the modern era, giving the company something that can run on tablets, smartphones, laptops, and PCs.

Sinofsky had been put in charge of Windows to make sure that Windows 8 did not end up a mess. The software has received mostly favorable reviews to date, although Microsoft has failed to drum up a ton of early interest around its application store. Critics of Sinofsky can point to this as an example of his inability to play nice with others and drive partner support. Ultimately, he was the guy who delivered big, complex software programs and did it well—and this was not seen as good enough at a time when Microsoft needs plenty of diplomacy and crafty tactics to regain consumer interest.

“It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft,” Sinofsky said on his way out. ”I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company.”

Businessweek.com — Top News

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Political Polling After the End of the Phone

With over a third of U.S. households forgoing the land-line and people using their phones less and less for talking, the phone call is no longer the best way for pollsters to reach the people they need to speak with. With that changing trend, this election season polling places like Gallup worked cell-phone calls into its repertoire to get a better reflection of society, Gallup spokesperson Frank Newport told Wired‘s Mat Honan. And, logically, as more people replace landlines for cell phones, polling would increasingly throw cell-phones into the mix. But, it doesn’t look like that’s really the next frontier in polling. For one, it’s expensive. A 1996 Federal regulation requires that calls to cell phones be hand-dialed, rather than computer generated, which costs more money because employing people (rather than machines) takes dollars, notes Bits Blog’s Quentin Hardy. Plus, because of caller-ID, guilting cell phone users into taking a poll proves harder than haranguing an unsuspecting land-line answerer. (Of course, many land-line owners have caller-ID, too.) So, if the annoying, always disruptive at the worst time, pollster phone call is on the outs, then what does the future of political polling hold?

RELATED: More Than Half of America Likes Obama Again

Survey Monkey

RELATED: Poll: Rick Perry Bests Mitt Romney Among Tea Partiers

For real. The amateur-looking website conducted a series of polls throughout this election period, at times with better accuracy than the over-the-phone guys. In an explanatory post on the site, the company explains it had 96 percent accuracy with its methods. Over 60,000 people took one of the site’s surveys the day before election day alone, SurveyMonkey’s vice president, Philip Garland, told Hardy. 

RELATED: Poll: GOP Race Now Between Newt, Sarah, Mitt and Everyone Else

Though some have questioned the accuracy of the online poll because of its newness to the field. Nate Silver, whose words on all things polling we should now consider law, confirmed that many of the most accurate polling came from online surveys. “When people are asked questions by a person, they feel like they should make a choice,” Garland added. People are more candid on the Internet, which is not at all surprising. 

RELATED: Rick Perry Is Still Leading Despite Some Bad Debates

Text Messages

RELATED: Less Than Half of America Knows What GOP Stands For

Though a new survey says that text messaging is on the decline, Gallup is already experimenting with it as a polling technique in Central and South America, notes Honan. Though it doesn’t sound that different than screening a phone call, text messages are a lot less invasive and they don’t require an answer right away. Also, increasingly, it is how people do much of their communicating. 

Emails, Unfortunately

Though that sounds logical since so many Americans are accessible by email, it turns out it is too hard to get a good sample using email, since many people have multiple email addresses, and it’s hard to account for that difference. Also, isn’t it just so easy to click delete without opening? However, that hasn’t stopped certain organizations from using it, as Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Peter Coy explains. Some firms use email lists that aren’t representative of the general population, he notes. 

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Elmo puppeteer accused of underage relationship

NEW YORK (AP) — The puppeteer who performs as Elmo on “Sesame Street” is taking a leave of absence from the popular kids’ show in the wake of allegations that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old boy.

Sesame Workshop said puppeteer Kevin Clash denies the charges, which were first made in June by the alleged partner, who by then was 23.

“We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action,” Sesame Workshop said in a statement issued Monday. “We met with the accuser twice and had repeated communications with him. We met with Kevin, who denied the accusation.”

The organization described the relationship as personal and “unrelated to the workplace.” Its investigation found the allegation of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated. But it said Clash exercised “poor judgment” and was disciplined for violating company policy regarding Internet usage. It offered no details.

“I had a relationship with (the accuser),” Clash told TMZ. “It was between two consenting adults and I am deeply saddened that he is trying to make it into something it was not.”

At his request, Clash has been granted a leave of absence in order to “protect his reputation,” Sesame Workshop said.

No further explanation was provided, nor was the duration of his leave specified.

“Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of ‘Sesame Street’ to engage, educate and inspire children around the world, as it has for 40 years,” Sesame Workshop said in its statement.

“Sesame Street” is currently in production, but other puppeteers are prepared to fill in for Clash during his absence, according to a person close to the show who spoke on condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to publicly discuss details about the show’s production.

“Elmo will still be a part of the shows being produced,” that person said.

The 52-year-old Clash, the divorced father of a grown daughter, has been a puppeteer for “Sesame Street” since 1984. It was then that he was handed the fuzzy red puppet named Elmo and asked to come up with a voice for him. Clash transformed the character, which had been a marginal member of the Muppets troupe for a number of years, into a major star rivaling Big Bird as the face of “Sesame Street.”

In 2006, Clash published an autobiography, “My Life as a Furry Red Monster,” and was the subject of the 2011 documentary “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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