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Published: March. 29, 2012 at 2:00 PM

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar, March 29 (UPI) -- Officials say Myanmar's notoriously strict 50-year-old censorship laws may be a thing of the past with a pledge from the Ministry of Information to end to them.

Myanmar, which has some of the strictest censorship laws in the world, has not had a free press since 1962. While the censorship laws have recently loosened, censors still have the power to nix stories on sensitive subjects, such as the formation of labor unions.

Voice of America reported Ye Htut of the Ministry of Information said in a recent workshop on media freedom censorship laws would be scrapped by the end of the year, as the new government drafts media law to replace them.

"We want to maintain the stability and law and order in our country. In the previous government before 1962, there's a press freedom in our country," Htut said. "And instead of informing the general public, media themselves created a crisis."

While the end to censorship has created a buzz among journalists, they worry about the cutthroat competition that could ensue.

"It's going to be a bloodbath," said Ross Dunkley, publisher of the English language weekly, The Myanmar Times. "I mean, that's the absolute truth ... you get some [daily newspapers] up and running, then I figure you're going to see in the first year of the dailies at least 100 publications die."

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Myanmar pledges end to censorship laws

TAMPA, Fla. For the first time this spring, Yankees right-hander Ivan Nova displayed command of all four of his pitches.

Facing the Toronto Blue Jays in a Triple-A game today, Nova allowed three runs on seven hits in 7 innings, with all of the runs coming in his last two innings.

Today was the first time I saw all four pitches working, said Russell Martin, who caught Nova.

Martin said the only mistake of the day came on a home run he described as a wind-aided fly ball. But Nova commanded his fastball, curveball, slider and changeup.

Manager Joe Girardi said he pitched Nova in a minor-league game to avoid giving the Baltimore Orioles a look at the righty so soon before the start of the season. Nova is battling for a spot in the rotation.

Reliever Rafael Soriano also got his work in at the minor-league complex, pitching an inning in a Double-A game against the Blue Jays.

Right-hander Michael Pineda scheduled start Friday night against the Philadelphia Phillies could prove critical as the Yankees sort out their starting rotation.

I want to see how sharp he is and to get some distance from him, Girardi said of Pineda, whose fastball as consistently been a few ticks below his average of 94 mph last season.

Andy Pettitte will likely throw a simulated game this weekend, though the Yankees are still unsure of when hell be ready to rejoin the rotation. Girardi estimated a return date for sometime in May, though he wouldnt get specific.

Girardi said Pettittes timeline going forward will largely be dictated by how his body responds after making actual starts. But its unclear when Pettitte will be ready to pitch in games.

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Yankees' Ivan Nova takes control as he vies for rotation spot

29 March 2012 Last updated at 20:22 ET By Fiona Graham Technology of business reporter, BBC News

When movie rental service Netflix took the decision to split the company, forcing customers to sign up to two accounts if they wanted to both watch movies online and rent physical DVDs, it may have expected that some of its users would be a little ticked off.

What it hadn't anticipated was that those users would take to social networks like Twitter and Facebook in their thousands to complain about the move - forcing the company into a massive U-turn.

In a possibly more predictable faux pas, fast-food giant McDonald's launched a social media marketing campaign where it encouraged users to tweet happy tales about dining with the company.

Unfortunately, the #McDStories tag ended up being used to express many people's less than positive thoughts about the home of the Big Mac.

Tales of big business coming a cropper in the brave new world of social networking are becoming commonplace.

But if you're a small or medium sized business, do you need to worry about what your customers are saying about you online?

For Alex Bard of Desk.com, the customer support tool launched recently by customer relationship management specialists Salesforce.com, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

"The conversations are happening already. It's not in the control of small or even big business," he says.

Mr Bard quotes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: "If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the internet, they each tell 6,000 friends."

Excerpt from:
Keep the social media cowboys at bay

SAN DIEGO, March 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --The second annual survey on "Use of Social Media and Mobile by Healthcare Professionals" released today by AMN Healthcare, (NYSE: AHS - News) the nation's innovator in workforce solutions, shows significant increase from the prior year's results in use of social media by job-seeking healthcare professionals. According to the results of the 2011 survey, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and pharmacists are networking with colleagues, tracking down job leads and applying for new positions at a significantly higher rate year-over-year.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120329/LA79199)

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100111/LA35461LOGO)

The social and mobile media survey provides healthcare employers and leaders a snapshot of how clinicians have increased their use of social media and mobile devices for networking, job hunting and other career development activities.

As healthcare professionals continue to migrate to the larger social networking sites, opportunity exists for employers to move into social recruiting and sourcing of physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and pharmacists. Job candidates spent more time on social media sites and/or on mobile devices in 2011 and reported an increase in securing interviews, job offers and positions through the use of mobile job alerts.

Susan Salka, AMN's president and chief executive officer, said, "We are not surprised that healthcare professionals continue to adopt social media as a mainstream method for job searching. Our innovative social and mobile methods have been successful in connecting job seekers to opportunities. We plan to continue reporting on significant changes and new, innovative opportunities affecting healthcare professionals and their careers."

AMN Healthcare recently launched the NurseJobs iPhone mobile application, which provides access to thousands of permanent, per diem and travel nurse jobs for registered nurses, nurse practitioners and CRNAs. The NurseJobs application follows the launch of the MHA physician job iPhone application, which launched in mid-2011.

Key Social Media Survey Findings

Industry leaders should continue to monitor the effectiveness of various social media networks and related applications as they develop future plans for recruiting, advertising and general communications. To obtain your complimentary copy of the social media and mobile survey results, visit the AMN Healthcare Web site.

About AMN Healthcare

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New Social Media Study: Significant Increase in Use of Social Media for Job Searching, Networking by Healthcare ...

Sales of Procter & Gambles (PG) Pepto-Bismol had been flat or declining for several years when in 2010, P&G marketers noticed that social media chatter about the pink indigestion reliever was occurring on Saturday and Sunday morningspresumably after users had overindulged the night before. So P&G decided to try to lure potential customers before their eating and drinking binges by touting the product on Facebook with the upbeat slogan Celebrate Life. The result was an 11 percent market-share gain in the 12 months through fall 2011.

The company that for generations has meticulously observed customers in their homes as they mop floors, apply makeup, and diaper babies is now listening to their conversations online. And for good reason: The 25- to 54-year-old women who buy the bulk of P&Gs products spend more time on Facebook than typical users. For us, the real aha! was an incredible ability to listen to consumers much better, much faster, more broadly, says Alex Tosolini, P&Gs head of e-business. These days, social media is an integral part of brand building.Vergera: Jen Lowery/Splash News/Corbis; DeGeneres: Michael Rozman/Warner Bros/AP Photo

Thats creating new challenges for the worlds biggest advertiser. Even though P&Gs Tide, Crest, Cover Girl, and other brands are household names, theyre not what most people are talking about on Facebook or Twitter. I dont think too many people sit out there in conversation and talk about the deodorant they use, says Zain Raj, chief executive officer of marketing services company Hyper Marketing. Companies need to build bonds with customers so a brand becomes a choice, and then theyll go out of their way and pay more, he says.

P&G has created cheeky blogs, such as My Fire Hydrant, starring Tyler, an adopted bichon frise, to promote Iams pet food. Facebook pages of individual P&G brands use celebrities to tout products, including Ellen DeGeneres and Sofia Vergara for its Cover Girl makeup. And P&G creates online advocacy campaigns around topics that customers raise in focus groups.

Although P&G wont disclose how much of the $9.3 billion it spent last year on advertising went to social media, the company says its increasing the share of its marketing budget allocated to sites including Facebook, Twitter, and Googles (GOOG) YouTube, as well as sites prominent in overseas markets. All its major brands now have a social media marketing component. Women ages 25 to 54 with children at homethe key target audience for consumer products makerseach spent an average of 484 minutes on Facebook in February, 14 percent more time than the sites typical user, says Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at digital marketing firm ComScore (SCOR).

P&G first stepped into social media in 2005, with Tylers blog. The fluffy white rescue-shelter dog engaged readers with his story and links to a bichon frise rescue-group site. P&G also that year ran its first ads and promotions created to drive traffic to a company website, Crest Whitestrips Smile State Facebook page, for students at 20 colleges. The site offered prizes, concerts, and other giveaways to those who joined.

More recently, P&G has built social media campaigns around issues important to consumers it wants to reach. Facebook pages for Secret deodorant, aimed at teenage girls, address the issue of bullyingthe proverbial mean girls whom some of its customers faced. From those findings, P&G created its Mean Stinks issue campaign on Facebook, launched last February. It features Amber Riley of televisions Glee. The page lets participants send apologies to those they have bullied and view videos and comments others have posted. The Mean Stinks page now has 367,402 likes, indicating users recommend it, with half regularly posting, viewing, or recommending the site.

Visitor interaction at Secrets Facebook page soared 25-fold since the campaign began, P&G says. It now has 1.5million likes. The interest also fueled a 5percent market-share jump for the core brand in the 12 months after the campaign, and 16 percent for the premium Secret Clinical line featured on Mean Stinks.

The bottom line: P&G has launched social media campaigns for its big brands. The 25- to 54-year-old women it targets are above-average Facebook users.

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Social Networking Takes Center Stage at P&G