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MISSION, KS--(Marketwire -03/22/12)- (Family Features) Investor optimism has steadily climbed since 2006, and more investors are managing their own investment portfolios, according to a recent study from investing firm Scottrade, Inc.

"Investors and traders are seeing the opportunities in the market, and they are able to take action," said Kim Wells, Scottrade's executive director of product development and chief marketing officer. "More resources and online trading tools are available to help them find openings to build their portfolios and reach financial success."

For the growing number of self-directed investors entering the market, here are three steps to take to manage a portfolio.

Gauge Accessibility NeedsThose who self-direct their investments tend to check their portfolio and log into their accounts more frequently. According to a survey commissioned by investing firm Scottrade, Inc., most investors (59 percent) check their investments at least once a week and a quarter of them log in on a monthly basis.

Every investor and trader has different needs, and it's important to identify how to interact with the investment company.

By prioritizing needs and comparing the various offerings at investment firms, self-directed investors will be better equipped to find the right firm with which to partner.

Research Your ResourcesExplore an investment firm's online resources. Whether pre- or post-log in, most online research tools, such as those at Scottrade, are available free of charge. More than one-third of investors say they taught themselves how to invest by using online investment education tools.

Set ExpectationsMany find investing fun with general optimism among investors reaching a three-year high, according to the Scottrade study. Self-directed investors' confidence has strengthened as the Internet has made information about the markets, rules and guidelines more accessible.

Yet while online trading saves investors and traders time and money, it does not take the homework out of making investment decisions. Before making a trade, investors need to understand the risks of each investment and the goals of their portfolios.

With the right tools at hand and by partnering with a reputable investment firm that meets individual needs, self-directed investors can take charge of their investments with confidence. To learn more about self-directed investing, visit http://www.scottrade.com and find more information on the Scottrade 2011 American Investor Study.

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Three Steps to Taking Control of Your Investments

Theres a big cloud gathering, just beyond the horizon. It started a few weeks ago over Sanford, Fla. Now its everywhere, darkening with anger and outrage. You might even call it a storm cloud.

Im referring to the burst of Tweeting, Facebooking, and other social networking to protest the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, captain of an informal neighborhood watch group, in Sanford on Feb. 26. Without the cloud, most of us wouldnt know that Martin was African American, and Zimmerman isnt. And far fewer people would be up in arms about it.

RELATED: Trevon Martin could have been my brother

But I also fear that it might be clouding the real arms issue that is, the problem of firearms. This tragedy is about race, of course, but its also about guns. And by focusing so heavily on the former, I fear, were blinding ourselves to the latter.

Yes, weve heard criticism of the Florida Stand Your Ground law, which allows citizens to use deadly force if they have reasonable fear of harm or death. And were sure to hear more debate over the next few weeks about whether Mr. Zimmerman, who says he acted in self defense, had any real reason to fear Trayvon Martin, who was carrying nothing more dangerous than iced tea and Skittles.

But if you look at the social-media protests about the event, almost none of them target Floridas gun law itself. Signed by nearly 1.5 million people, the most popular online petition simply calls for charges to be filed against George Zimmerman.

Ditto for the loud public demonstrations unleashed by the furor on the Net. In New York, a Million Hoodie March echoed the petitions demand for Zimmermans arrest. And in Florida, a protest urged state officials to withdraw his concealed weapons permit.

Got that? The problem isnt that Florida lets people carry concealed weapons, or that it allows them to kill on questionable pretexts. Instead, it just let the wrong guy have a gun.

But we need to ask whether any private citizen should be carrying a concealed weapon, and whether Stand Your Ground measures make people trigger-happy. And most of all, we need to think about the most common victims of our lax gun laws: African Americans.

EDITOR'S BLOG: Guns and freedom, the American paradox

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Where's the Trayvon Martin petition about gun control?

So youre sitting there playing the PC version of Skyrim, enjoying the game and its incredibly-active modding community, and all of a sudden, you notice a massive slowdown because of system resource allocation issues. What do you do? Well if you have an iPhone with the Power-Grid application installed, you can monitor and take control of your PC.

With an Apple product.

I know, I know. Whats next? In the words of Peter Venkman, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together mass hysteria? Considering were now living in a world where an Apple device can take control of a PC, mass hysteria may be the next logical step. Developed by Roccat, the Power-Grid appyes, its freeaccording to its description, allows users to do the following:

Power-Grid is a free app that lets you connect, monitor and control your games and PC without having to leave the action and all with your smartphone. It comes preloaded with four control displays or grids. Three feature essential gaming tools. The fourth is completely customizable.

One of the main aspects of control Power-Grid promises is in relation to social media. For instance, the application allows you to respond to Skype requests without leaving the comfort of the game youre playing. Granted, if you have the Skype application installed on your iPhone, or any other social media app for that matter, you wouldnt have to leave your PC game in the first place, but I digress.

Thankfully, the Power-Grid app is more than just a social media response tool, something the screenshot reveals quite clearly:

As clearly indicated, the Power-Grid app is currently available for the iPhone environment, and the site indicates the application is being developed for the both the Android and the Windows Phone operating systems. Until then, however, revel in the fact that your PC is being controlled by an Apple device. Hopefully, the cosmos wont reject such an idea.

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Control Your PC, While Gaming, With Your iPhone

San FranciscoAlthough many companies are increasing their use of social media as a marketing channel, too many are allowing untrained employees with few guidelines to represent their brands, according to Jeremiah Owyang, industry analyst partner at technology analyst company Altimeter Group, delivering the keynote address here at today's BtoB Digital Edge Live conference.

Because adoption of social media is still in an early phase74% of companies polled by Altimeter have had a social media program in place for three years or lessmuch of it is in disarray, Owyang said.

It's an uncontrollable mess, Owyang said, largely because customer communications has shifted to all parts of the corporation. He said the average number of official corporate-owned accounts is 178, augmented by employees' own ad hoc social outreach, which is largely uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

Marketers' scope of work is much larger than it has ever been, he said. In fact, it's bigger than marketing.

The solution, he said, is to first build a foundation of social objectives, company policies and employee education. Companies ideally should build dedicated social teams and centers of social excellence; attend and adjust to social ROI; and ultimately seek out real-time intelligence for future action.

The term "social' ultimately will go away; it will be integrated in the way we work every day, Owyang said. I call this the "sentient world.'

Owyang's analysis of social integration was echoed by a panel of CMOs, who recognized the challenges they face with the new social channel.

Life is becoming complicated, and the great challenge is how to bring all this together as an integrated outbound program to generate business, said Chris Boorman, senior VP-education and enablement and CMO at data technology company Informatica Corp.

He said Informatica, like many companies, has had to adjust to the cultural change from a severely restricted corporate communications method to one of openness via social networks. Traditional spokespersons and thought leaders don't always adjust well to being social participants, he said.

Further, social media itself may not always be the answer for all companies, said Janet Roberts, CMO of telecommunications technology company Syniverse Technologies.

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'BtoB' Digital Edge Live: Control the social mess before it controls you

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -03/21/12)- Casale Media Inc., a leading premium online media technology company, today announced "The Engagement Directive: A Tomorrow Throwdown," a worldwide competition in which creative minds will compete to craft the best interactive video-enabled rich media ad campaigns using Casale Media's video overlay solution, VOS. Casale Media partnered with the Tomorrow Awards/IHAVEANIDEA organization to develop the contest and all participants will have a chance to compete for $15,000 in prizes from the two companies.

Contest participants will choose from seven brands and one free-for-all brief to create ads for, including: Kellogg's Vector, Rocawear, McDonald's Europe, FOX Canada's Family Guy and Glee, EMI/Capitol records band Graffiti6, and Weekly World News. With briefs and assets in hand, competitors will be asked to design the most engaging, boundary-breaking video-enabled rich media overlay ad that best executes the brand's overall vision. The contest is open to all creative minds around the world and consists of three rounds beginning with the first round entry deadline on April 20th, 2012, and first round finalists to be announced on May 4th, 2012.

A panel of judges that includes representatives from Casale Media, the brands, IHAVEANIDEA/The Tomorrow Awards and creative minds will vote on the top eight ads that will run live on Casale Media's ad network, MediaNet, from May 28th, 2012 - June 25th, 2012. Online voting will be open to the public and will count toward the final panel decision. The eight finalists will have their ads assembled by Casale Media, executed and run in market according to the brand's brief, in addition to receiving a cash prize. The grand prize winner will be announced on July 2nd, 2012.

"This competition gives the best creative minds around the world an opportunity to showcase their innovative skills and talents by making these top brands' campaigns come to life in new ways," said Julia Casale-Amorim, CMO, Casale Media. "Our goal with the Casale Media VOS platform was to develop an easy-to-use technology that could truly showcase the power that video advertising has to evoke an emotional response from viewers. With this competition, we look forward to seeing truly innovative and creative campaigns that push the boundaries of online video advertising."

VOS is Casale Media's video overlay solution that powers IAB standard ad units with rich interactive functionality and video-ready capabilities. It enables easily scalable, targeted and fully customized video and rich media ads to be created and run in-market for the price of standard display. VOS removes the guesswork and complexity from interactive video and rich media by consolidating all technical assembly, hosting, delivery, and media required into a single, cost-efficient platform.

For more details about The Engagement Directive: A Tomorrow Throwdown, or to enter the competition, please visit http://engagementdirective.com/.

About Casale MediaSince 2003, Casale Media has been redefining the standard for online media quality, ad delivery management and media optimization technologies with premium services that generate measurable success for all stakeholders in media and marketing. CasaleX, the industry's first premium exchange with real-time bidding, is a highly controlled, brand-safe media marketplace that provides publishers with maximum control and advertisers with exclusively high quality inventory.

The company's full service advertising network, MediaNet, is used by eight of the top 10 U.S. online display advertisers and reaches nearly 70 percent of the U.S. online audience across more than 3,000 actively monitored properties. One of the leading independent digital media companies, Casale Media is guided by its dedication to needs-based development and quality-focused culture. More information is available at http://www.casalemedia.com.

About IHAVEANIDEA & The Tomorrow AwardsIHAVEANIDEA is the community for the international advertising industry, one of the oldest and longest running websites dedicated to advertising. Founded in 2001 by Ignacio Oreamuno, IHAVEANIDEA was conceived as an online resource for passionate advertising professionals to share their knowledge and experience, challenge the norms and collectively push each other, with the belief that such an exchange would benefit all within the advertising industry.

The Tomorrow Awards is the first international advertising award show dedicated to discovering, showcasing and awarding advertising creativity that pushes new technological boundaries. In contrast to other industry award shows, The Tomorrow Awards is uniquely category-neutral and seeks to educate the industry about new technologies and creative possibilities by including the entire industry in the judging process. Learn more at http://www.tomorrowawards.com.

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Casale Media Launches the Engagement Directive Global Creative Advertising Competition