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China’s Alibaba Opens U.S. Shopping Website

China’s Alibaba Opens U.S. Shopping Website

San Francisco (AFP) – China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched an American shopping website as the company continues a deal binge ahead of a widely anticipated U.S. listing.

The online shopping site, called 11 Main opened on a beta, or test, basis for consumers and is invitation-only in terms of the merchants it features, the site said in a statement.

Visitors are met with a “We’re Opening Soon” message, which adds: “Our shop owners are currently unpacking and getting settled.”

The site “carefully selects merchants, making some of the best and most differentiated boutiques available to shoppers,” 11 Main said in a press release Wednesday.

“At 11 Main, we’re passionate about the shops we invite and helping them grow,” Mike Effle, president and general manager of 11 Main, said in the release.

11 Main, Inc. said it is an Alibaba Group company.

The marketplace, which hosts more than 1,000 merchants selling products ranging from clothing and interior goods to arts and crafts, will help Alibaba compete with Amazon and eBay, Dow Jones Newswires reported Wednesday.

The company plans to add other sales categories, charge as little as half the commission of other venues at 3.5 percent, and screen merchants for the quality of their goods and service, Dow Jones added.

The site is joining a crowded landscape with big players like Amazon, startups such as Etsy and traditional retailers with an online presence like Wal-Mart, the report said.

Separately, Alibaba announced its third deal in a week on Wednesday, saying it will absorb mobile browser developer UCWeb in what it called the “biggest” merger in the country’s Internet industry.

The firm has stepped up acquisitions to expand beyond its traditional online shopping business ahead of a planned U.S. listing that could raise around $15 billion, putting it on a par with Facebook’s $16 billion IPO in 2012.

On Tuesday, the company unveiled an agreement with state-backed Shanghai Media Group to develop an entertainment platform and last Thursday said it will pay $192 million for a 50 percent stake in China’s top football club, Evergrande.

Alibaba will take the one-third stake in UCWeb that it does not already own, it said in a statement.

“UC will be fully integrated into Alibaba Group. This integration will be the biggest merger in the history of China’s Internet industry,” Alibaba said, but gave no value for the deal.

UCWeb chief executive Yu Yongfu said the deal would value his company at more than $1.9 billion, according to a company memo posted online.

He compared the transaction to a move last year in which China’s most popular search engine Baidu fully acquired smartphone app company 91 Wireless Websoft for that amount, showed the memo. A company spokesman confirmed its authenticity.

Alibaba said it would settle the deal through a combined cash and stock swap transaction.

The deal would draw more mobile device users to Alibaba platforms, which have lost out to more nimble competitors, analysts said.

“Alibaba is experiencing a drop in traffic on both personal computers and mobile devices, while its source of traffic has been unstable. So it’s acquiring (UCWeb) to ensure traffic inflow,” Zhuo Saijun, an analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Analysys International, told AFP.

Founded in 2004, UCWeb is a mobile Internet software and services provider based in the southern city of Guangzhou, which claims 500 million quarterly active users worldwide for its flagship browser.

Alibaba operates China’s most popular online shopping platform, Taobao, which is estimated to hold more than 90 percent of the online market for consumer-to-consumer transactions.

Previous acquisitions have allowed the e-commerce firm to expand into entertainment and logistics.

Last month, Alibaba acquired a 10.35 percent stake in Singapore Post, the city-state’s main postal service, for $249 million as part of a strategic cooperation deal.

Prior to that, Alibaba and a private equity fund backed by the company’s founder Jack Ma said in late April they would pay $1.22 billion for a stake in China’s leading online video platform Youku Tudou.

The company has also made other forays into entertainment, including the purchase of a majority stake in Hong Kong-listed ChinaVision Media Group in March.

©afp.com

Conservative California Website Quickly Stirs Controversy

Conservative California Website Quickly Stirs Controversy

By Chris Megerian, Los Angeles Times

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The launch of a new political website in California, intended to highlight conservative success stories in the Golden State, quickly ran into trouble Monday when controversial promotional images cost the organization one of its highest-profile contributors.

The images, including a Photoshopped depiction of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), on all fours in a bikini with her tongue hanging out, prompted House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)…fd, to ask that his column be taken off the website.

“We didn’t condone them,” said Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, referring to the website’s pictures. “We thought it was the right thing to do to ask for the column to be removed.”

Another image on the website, called Breitbart California, superimposed Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg’s face on a topless female body. The picture’s tag line says the website will be “covering Cali-sized IQs & cup sizes.” Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown was shown with a body builder’s muscle-bound physique.

Breitbart California is a spinoff from the larger constellation of websites named for the late Andrew Breitbart, the popular conservative writer and provocateur who was born in Los Angeles.

“For years, California has been written off by conservatives as too far past the point of return, but the truth is every single day there are stories worth telling about the successes of the conservative movement in California and the failures of the left-wing establishment,” said Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon in a statement.

Breitbart California generated its own controversy with the image of Pelosi, which the Democratic National Committee criticized as “demeaning and sexist.”

Jon Fleischman, a conservative blogger well-known in Sacramento circles who is the new website’s politics editor, said critics “need to get over it.”

“The folks at Breitbart have always been known as edgy,” he said. “They made sure there was an element of that in the launch.”

Fleischman declined to answer questions about the removal of McCarthy’s column, and a spokesman for Breitbart, Kurt Bardella, referred inquiries to the congressman’s office.

Republican candidates for governor are using the website to publicize their platforms.

GOP Assemblyman Tim Donnelly wrote a column criticizing Democrats’ education policies, including a recent attempt in the Legislature to restore affirmative action to university admissions in California.

Former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari contributed a piece saying voters are seeking economic prosperity that can be delivered with Republican policies.

“Breitbart California’s launch can only help amplify the message and help us hold Jerry Brown and his fellow Democrats accountable for their record of failed leadership,” he wrote.

Donnelly did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the promotional images. A spokeswoman for Kashkari had no immediate comment.

Ron Nehring, former chairman of the state Republican Party and a candidate for lieutenant governor, wrote his own column about how conservatives need to go on the offensive in California.

Asked about the picture of Pelosi, Nehring said, “I have not seen the image in question. If it is in poor taste, it should of course be taken down.”

Other columns came from U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a potential 2016 presidential contender.

Fleischman said he hopes the website can “change the narrative and change the debate” in California.

“There is more to America than ultraliberal policies,” he said. “But here in California, that’s what is dominating. Our goal is to show there are other ideas.”

Photo: House GOP via Flickr

Mass Surge In U.S. To Sign Up For Obamacare

Mass Surge In U.S. To Sign Up For Obamacare

Washington (AFP) — Hundreds of thousands of Americans rushed to buy President Barack Obama’s new health insurance plans, prompting a victory lap from a White House that paid a steep political price for its greatest achievement.

The scramble to sign up under Obama’s health care law at the end of a six-month enrollment window caused website glitches and long lines at on-the-spot enrollment centers.

But Republicans renewed a vow to repeal the law, which they say costs jobs, handcuffs small businesses and represents a government power grab in the private health care market.

The Health Insurance Marketplace was preparing to close on a record breaking day of operations — with more than three million visits to HealthCare.gov and more than one million calls to the call center as of 8 p.m. (GMT), a U.S. official said.

It remained unclear, however, how many of those people went through the whole process of securing Affordable Care Act insurance plans.

“I signed the #ACA so millions could know the peace of mind that comes with health insurance,” Obama wrote in a tweet.

In a rare moment of triumph in Obama’s so far grim second term, senior White House officials saw the deadline day rush as vindication after the disastrous roll out of the health care website late last year.

“There has been a remarkable story since the dark days of October and November,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

Officials said a problem with the Healthcare.gov website stopped people from establishing new accounts several times.

But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius nevertheless hailed the “huge surge day” in an interview with HuffPost Live.

It will be months, however, before the long-term success of Obamacare in broadening access and making medical insurance affordable can be assessed, and the law remains a political albatross for the president and fellow Democrats.

The law demands that all Americans have health insurance or pay a fine, but offers subsidies for the less well-off to sign up.

The White House said that the final enrollment figures for the first year would be substantially higher than the six million figure already recorded. Officials had earlier set seven million enrollments as the standard for success.

The health care law is Obama’s signature domestic political achievement and the most sweeping social reform in decades in the United States.

Yet its passage and implementation ignited a partisan battle and highlighted deep ideological divisions cleaving the United States.

Republicans, however, are rubbishing administration claims, warning that the new law is crippling small business owners and costing jobs.

“I think they’re cooking the books,” Republican Senator John Barrasso told Fox News Sunday.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner warned “the problem was never just about the website –- it’s the whole law.”

“Millions of Americans are seeing their premiums rise, not the lower prices the president promised,” he added, renewing his vow to repeal the law.

Objective judgments on Obamacare are hindered by a lack of detail in enrollment figures offered by the administration.

It is unknown how many young people have signed up — an important indicator since they are needed to subsidize higher costs of older, sicker patients.

If Obamacare pools skew too old, the cost of premiums could rise next year.

Also unclear is whether everyone who registered for a health plan actually paid for it.

Another unknown is what percentage of those signing up had no prior coverage — a key metric in assessing if the law helped 40 million Americans who lack insurance.

Vice President Joe Biden visited a “one stop” sign-up center in Washington, and told people waiting to enroll that although the process was complicated, it was worth it.

“You are going to be better off for it. The country is going to be better off for it,” Biden said.

As a whole, the health care law remains unpopular: a recent Pew Research poll found that 41 percent approved of it and 53 percent opposed it.

The partisan breakdown of the poll tells the political story — eight percent of Republicans supported the law, compared to 72 percent of Democrats.

The health care row has helped send Obama’s approval ratings to record lows, and Democrats battling to cling on to Senate seats in conservative states are struggling to shrug off the backlash.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

California Gives Further Reprieve For Obamacare Sign-Ups

California Gives Further Reprieve For Obamacare Sign-Ups

By Chad Terhune, Noam Levey and Soumya Karlamangla, Tribune Washington Bureau

LOS ANGELES — Overrun by last-minute demand for Obamacare coverage, California gave many consumers until April 15 to enroll as thousands of people across the nation endured long lines and website troubles.

Despite the problems, the late surge in sign-ups was a substantial boost to President Barack Obama’s signature law, particularly after such a disastrous launch in October.

The final tally from the first year of the law’s insurance expansion won’t be known until later this spring. But as the Affordable Care Act’s inaugural open-enrollment period wound down, an outpouring of interest pushed sign-ups on the new online marketplaces close to the Obama administration’s goal of seven million.

Monday had been the deadline to start signing up for coverage in California. But by Monday afternoon, state officials conceded they couldn’t handle the crowds and offered an opportunity to get coverage over the next two weeks. The state’s website went down periodically during the day while lines at enrollment events swelled into the hundreds.

“We were prepared for a last-minute surge of people coming to our website, but sometimes there’s only so much you can do operationally,” said Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California. “We can’t in good conscience turn people away who simply couldn’t get onto the website on the last day. We weren’t able to build the pipe big enough.”

Under California’s new policy, anyone who tried to enroll by Monday and faced difficulties now has until April 15 to finish an application. The state said no proof is required, so it’s essentially on the honor system.

But those applicants can no longer sign up online on their own. Officials said they must go through Covered California’s call center, an enrollment counselor, insurance agent, county office or health plan enroller.

Supporters of the health care law welcomed the additional time, given the last-minute problems.

“No Californian who tried to enroll should be frozen out of coverage, so this additional consideration is appreciated and necessary,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a consumer advocacy group. “It is both heartwarming to see the lines around the block and troubling because those lines and website glitches may discourage people from even trying.”

Santa Fe Springs resident Stephanie Ybarra, 52, was at the end of an enrollment line in City of Commerce around 6 p.m. Monday behind hundreds of other people when she heard about the reprieve. “I’m glad that they did that for the procrastinators like myself,” she said.

The uninsured woman said she’s eager to get health coverage because she suffers from high blood pressure and migraines.

The national rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been marked by a series of deadline extensions and abrupt policy changes, which have drawn intense criticism from the law’s opponents. Overall, public opinion nationally on the health law has remained deeply split and many Republicans continue to campaign for its repeal.

Americans who are without coverage for more than three months this year may be subject to a penalty on their 2014 taxes of $95 for a single adult or one percent of their adjusted gross income, whichever is larger.

The last-minute surge also overwhelmed the federal HealthCare.gov website, which crashed in the early-morning hours Monday. Technicians repaired it by midday, avoiding a repeat of the meltdown after the site’s Oct. 1 launch.

By 2 p.m. EDT Monday, more than 1.6 million visitors had come to HealthCare.gov; by 4 p.m., the call center had handled more than 840,000 calls.

The heavy traffic on the website triggered an automated message that alerted users that they would have to wait to set up an account or enroll in coverage. The automated queuing system, also deployed in December during a rush of consumers, enables users to enter their email address to be alerted when they can access services.

The federal website is the main portal for consumers in 36 states, including Florida, Illinois and Texas, to select health coverage on the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Fourteen states are running their own websites, with mixed results.

The surging enrollment prompted new attacks from Republican critics of Obamacare. Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said over the weekend that the administration was “cooking the books” on enrollment figures.

But national surveys and reports from insurance companies and state officials indicate that signs-ups for coverage had accelerated rapidly in recent weeks.

Los Angeles teaching assistant Brenda Caceres, 42, said she tried enrolling online at home three times but couldn’t get the Covered California website to work. She gave up and came to an enrollment event Monday seeking coverage for herself and her husband.

“I know a lot of people wait until the last minute,” Caceres said. “And I was one of them.”

In contrast to those in many other states, California’s exchange website had largely avoided major technical problems. But even it was hard hit Monday. To keep the state website functioning Monday, Covered California took the unusual step of logging off some online applicants so that other people could start the sign-up process. Shoppers who were kicked off were told they could return later and complete the application by April 15, officials said.

California’s exchange continued to lead those in all other states with more than 1.2 million enrollees in private health plans by early Monday. Over the weekend, 124,000 people had opened an account on the state website and started shopping for health coverage. An additional 1.5 million people have been deemed eligible for an expansion of Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.

The state said online traffic Monday at CoveredCa.com was four times as high as the previous record in late December, when applicants rushed in to get Jan. 1 coverage.

That heavy volume prompted considerable frustration for many of the state’s enrollment counselors and certified insurance agents who were trying to help people sign up.

John Anthony Costa, a state-certified insurance agent in Long Beach, said that he needed to enter insurance applications for 25 families Monday, and that he was able to get only four of them into the online system by late Monday afternoon. Meanwhile, wait times at the state’s call centers were exceeding 70 minutes in recent days.

“Every time I try to input the bare minimum, it keeps kicking me off the state website over and over,” Costa said. “This is insane.”

Sarah-Jane George, 36, arrived for an appointment midday Monday at an AltaMed enrollment center in Los Angeles. More than 300 people had shown up there by early afternoon.

An enrollment counselor went over her health plan options and she picked a Bronze plan for about $100 a month. But the state website was running so slow that she couldn’t finish signing up.

Los Angeles college student Mario Estala, 22, showed up at an enrollment event before 7 a.m. Monday and had better luck.

More than 50 people were ahead of him, and it took about three hours before he was seen by an enrollment counselor at the L.A. event sponsored by a labor union. Estala qualified for Medi-Cal and an enrollment worker rang a bell signaling another successful sign-up. Other workers cheered.

“I was relieved” to get coverage, Estala said. “I feel much more safe now.”

Will O’Neill via Flickr