Day: April 8, 2025

Trump cancels $325M in disaster prevention funds for New York

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Projects that would protect vulnerable New York City neighborhoods from flooding and intense storms are at risk after President Donald Trump’s administration announced plans to cut federal funding. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) canceled more than $325 million in grants to New York State that would go toward critical infrastructure and community resilience projects, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul. A majority of the projects impacted are designed to help New York City prepare for weather disasters like flooding and extreme rainfall. On Friday, FEMA announced the end of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program and canceled all BRIC applications for 2020-2023. The program, which began during Trump’s first term and was expanded under President Joe Biden, allocated funding for “eligible activities that reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from future disasters.” Under Biden, FEMA’s priorities for the program included incentivizing natural disaster risk reduction that mitigates threats to public infrastructure and disadvantaged communities, using designs to reduce carbon emissions, and enhancing climate resilience. According to the New York Times, BRIC has distributed more than $5 billion in grants to states since 2020. Nearly $1 billion in funding awarded but not distributed will be returned to the Treasury Department, according to the agency. “The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” a spokesperson for FEMA said in a statement. “It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters. Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need.” The Trump administration revoked $325.5 million in funding for projects that have not yet begun construction; according to the governor, there is an additional $56 million worth of projects where work has started that could also be at risk. In a press release, Hochul listed the projects impacted by the federal cuts, which include the following in New York City: Other projects that will lose funding include a stream restoration in Westchester and flood mitigation in Saratoga County. “In the last few years, New Yorkers have faced hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires and even an earthquake–and FEMA assistance has been critical to help us rebuild. Cutting funding for communities across New York is short-sighted and a massive risk to public safety,” Hochul said in a statement. “Without support for resilience projects now, our communities will be far more vulnerable when disaster strikes next. As I’ve said all along: no state in the nation can backfill the massive cuts being proposed in Washington, and it’s critical New Yorkers stand united to call out the damage this will cause.” On Tuesday, FEMA also ordered New York City to turn over $106 million in already awarded grants related to migrant care, adding to the $80 million the agency took back in February. According to the New York Times, Mayor Eric Adams said the city would take legal action to recover the funds. The mayor’s lawsuit to get the $80 million back remains ongoing. For months, Trump has said he’s thinking about getting rid of FEMA. Last month, he signed an executive order directing state and local governments to “play a more active and significant role” in preparing for disasters. A coalition of 23 attorneys general, including New York Attorney General Letitita James, sued the government for freezing funds to states from FEMA. An earlier injunction blocked the Trump administration from unlawfully freezing federal funds. Last week, a federal judge ruled that Trump violated the order to halt sweeping freezes to federal funding by withholding FEMA funds to at least 19 states, Courthouse News Service reported.

Greatmail Launches Mail Records Lookup Tool for Easy DNS and Email Security Checks

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Greatmail LLC has launched Mail Records Lookup, a free online tool that helps businesses, IT professionals, and domain owners quickly verify essential email DNS records, including MX, SPF, DMARC, and DKIM. By providing instant insights into email security and deliverability, Mail Records Lookup simplifies troubleshooting and ensures proper domain authentication. Future updates will introduce monitoring and alerts for proactive email security management. Greatmail, a leading provider of business email hosting solutions, has launched Mail Records Lookup, a powerful online tool that enables users to quickly check essential email DNS records, including MX, SPF, DMARC, and DKIM. This free tool is designed to help businesses, IT professionals, and domain owners verify their email configurations and ensure optimal email security and deliverability. Mail Records Lookup simplifies the process of checking critical email DNS records. By entering a domain name, users can instantly retrieve detailed information about: Email authentication and DNS record accuracy are essential for businesses to prevent email fraud, phishing attacks, and delivery issues. Mail Records Lookup provides a fast and user-friendly way to diagnose potential email security problems, misconfigurations, or missing records that could impact email deliverability. Ryan Hess, founder of Greatmail, explained that the tool was created to address the need for a straightforward lookup solution focused on email security authentication. Greatmail aimed to provide a simple yet effective auditing tool for its email hosting customers to verify their email-related DNS settings. Greatmail plans to expand Mail Records Lookup with monitoring and alerting features in future updates. These enhancements will allow users to receive notifications if critical email DNS records change or are misconfigured, providing proactive email security management. Mail Records Lookup is available as a free service. Whether you’re a business owner, IT administrator, or email security expert, this tool simplifies email DNS troubleshooting and helps ensure your email setup is secure and reliable.

Everflow Partners with Skimlinks to Unlock New Revenue Opportunities for Leading Brands

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Everflow, a premier partner marketing platform, has announced a strategic partnership with Skimlinks, the world’s largest commerce content monetization platform. This collaboration integrates Everflow’s advanced tracking capabilities and curated Marketplace with Skimlinks’ extensive network of premium editorial content publishers, creating new revenue opportunities for advertisers and publishers alike. Expanding Revenue Potential Through Strategic Collaboration The partnership between Everflow and Skimlinks combines expertise in commerce content monetization, transparent performance analytics, and curated partner matching. By bringing these elements together, the collaboration aims to scale revenue growth for both advertisers and publishers, enabling more effective and profitable partnerships. Through this integration, Everflow clients now have direct access to Skimlinks’ global network of top-tier publishers via the Everflow Marketplace. This hub for trusted growth connections helps brands identify scalable revenue streams, foster vertical-aligned partnerships, and enhance existing monetization strategies from other marketplaces. “We are delighted to partner with Everflow. Our partnership will bring new and innovative opportunities for Everflow’s advertisers to collaborate with our extensive network of publishers. We look forward to the long-term success this will help drive,” said Gaurav Arora, Global Partnerships Director at Skimlinks. Unparalleled Access to High-Quality Publishers With Skimlinks’ network of over 60,000 publishers—including major media brands like Condé Nast, Hearst, Yahoo!, Huffington Post, Trinity Mirror, and MailOnline—Everflow clients gain exposure to a wider pool of authoritative publishers. This expanded reach enhances the potential for increased engagement, visibility, and revenue. Data-Driven Decision Making with Full Transparency A key benefit of this integration is complete transparency in performance tracking. Everflow clients can access in-depth analytics on traffic sources, sales conversions, and key performance metrics such as clicks, conversion rates, and average order values. This granular level of insight empowers brands to refine their affiliate marketing strategies with data-driven precision. “We believe this strategic partnership will have an immediate and meaningful impact by helping every merchant in the Everflow Marketplace unlock new revenue streams and rich partner diversification opportunities,” said Ed Ceballos, Vice President of the Partner Ecosystem at Everflow. Strengthening Relationships for Optimized Campaign Performance As part of this collaboration, Everflow clients will benefit from closer relationships with the Skimlinks team, ensuring better-aligned connections with key editorial partners. This direct engagement enables brands to optimize their affiliate campaigns with expert guidance, leading to stronger performance outcomes. This partnership marks a significant step in the evolution of commerce content monetization, helping brands and publishers maximize their earning potential while fostering more effective and transparent collaborations.

SurveyMonkey launches Connect, a library of no-code quick actions to connect survey data with popular business apps

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SAN MATEO, Calif.–SurveyMonkey, the world’s most popular platform for surveys and forms, announced Connect, a new library of no-code quick actions to connect survey data with popular business apps. With Connect, users can let their data flow right to their favorite business apps to get even more power from SurveyMonkey even without investing in a separate integration. Connect is available for new and existing SurveyMonkey users across all plans. Connect makes it easy for teams to create powerful workflows that save time, enhance collaboration, and drive faster results—all without a single line of code. For example, an HR manager can feed employee feedback directly into her team’s Slack channel for fast follow-up, a marketer can ensure every post-webinar survey response is automatically updated in Excel for ongoing analysis, and CX teams can collaborate on real-time customer requests and complaints via notifications in Microsoft Teams. With Connect, users are enabled to: “Connect provides a seamless bridge between our survey and form creation process and people’s favorite workplace tools, without the hassle of a complicated setup,” said Eric Johnson, CEO at SurveyMonkey. “We believe that unlocking the full potential of data means enabling it to flow freely to the systems of action—where our users need it most—rather than keeping it siloed in a system of record. That’s how we continue to maximize the power of the SurveyMonkey platform around the world.” About SurveyMonkey SurveyMonkey is the world’s most popular platform for surveys and forms, built for business and loved by users. We combine powerful capabilities with intuitive design, effectively serving every use case, from customer experience to employee engagement, market research to payment and registration forms. With built-in research expertise and AI-powered technology, it’s like having a team of expert researchers right at your fingertips. Trusted by millions—from startups to Fortune 500 companies—SurveyMonkey helps teams gather insights and information that inspire better decisions, create experiences people love, and drive business growth. Discover how at surveymonkey.com. Source -(BUSINESS WIRE)-

67% of businesses can boost revenue by addressing website performance, finds new Liquid Web study

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ATLANTA, April 3, 2025 – Liquid Web, a leader in VPS, dedicated servers, WordPress, GPU, and cloud hosting, today released a new study analyzing the financial and operational impact of poor website performance. The report, The Impact of Downtime on Businesses, reveals how website reliability affects customer trust, brand reputation, and ultimately, revenue. A new report from hosting provider Liquid Web underscores the significant financial and reputational risks businesses face due to unreliable website performance. The study, titled ‘The Impact of Downtime on Businesses’, draws attention to the consequences of slow load times, outages, and subpar hosting infrastructure in an increasingly digital-first economy. The findings show that 67% of surveyed companies reported direct revenue loss as a result of poor website performance. In an era where websites are critical tools for lead generation, customer engagement, and sales, even brief disruptions can have immediate and lasting consequences. A quarter of respondents said they believed website issues had made their businesses less competitive, while 12% admitted to losing money on a monthly basis due to performance problems. Among the specific challenges reported, 26% of business owners noted bounce rates exceeding 30%, suggesting that slow-loading pages were driving potential customers away. Additionally, a third of respondents expressed concern that ongoing performance issues could harm their brand reputation, indicating that the impact of downtime stretches beyond short-term revenue and into long-term consumer trust. High-Performance Hosting Website downtime remains a persistent threat. Seventeen percent of participants in Liquid Web’s study had experienced an outage, often caused by server failures, cyberattacks, or inadequate hosting solutions. These outages are not only frequent but also increasingly expensive. A 2024 study from the Uptime Institute reported that 16% of downtime incidents cost businesses over $1 million, while a separate report from Acronis found that 60% of outage events now exceed $100,000 in losses – a 39% increase since 2019. The research makes a compelling case for prioritizing high-performance hosting as a strategic investment. “Our research highlights a powerful opportunity: businesses that invest in high-performance hosting are better positioned to win,” said Sachin Puri, Chief Growth Officer at Liquid Web. “Speed, dependability, and smooth user experiences are critical factors that influence consumer trust and revenue growth in the modern digital economy. Hosting is no longer just a backend decision – it’s a core element of business strategy.” Additional insights from the Liquid Web study emphasize the broader business implications of downtime. Forty percent of companies stated that outages directly impacted their ability to attract new customers, leading to longer-term revenue challenges. The report also stresses the importance of aligning infrastructure decisions with customer experience goals, noting that poor website performance can diminish trust, lower conversion rates, and ultimately damage brand equity. Liquid Web’s research offers a data-backed view into the real-world costs of downtime, urging businesses to proactively address infrastructure vulnerabilities. In an environment where digital presence is central to operations, the case for reliable, high-performance hosting has never been stronger. Source /PRNewswire/ –

TradeCentric Welcomes New Head of Marketing to Accelerate Strategic Growth and Market Expansion

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.,  TradeCentric, the leading provider of B2B Connected Commerce solutions powering integration and automation between eCommerce and eProcurement systems, announces that Katie Meeker has joined the company as Vice President of Marketing. Meeker will lead the company’s global marketing strategy, focusing on advancing brand leadership, deepening customer relationships, and accelerating market expansion. With more than 15 years of experience in B2B technology marketing, Meeker has a proven track record of leading organizations through significant growth and transformation. As TradeCentric continues to execute its aggressive global growth strategy, Meeker’s leadership will play a pivotal role in expanding into new markets and fostering stronger connections with customers, partners, and industry stakeholders. “Katie’s strategic vision and deep marketing expertise will be invaluable to TradeCentric as we continue to strengthen our brand, engage our customers, and drive our growth objectives forward,” said Elizabeth Segovia, CEO of TradeCentric. “I’m confident she will elevate our marketing efforts to new heights as we continue to shape the future of B2B Connected Commerce.” Prior to joining TradeCentric, Katie held senior leadership positions at iCIMS and Visual Lease, where she successfully developed and executed marketing strategies that supported organizational goals. “TradeCentric’s innovative solutions have solidified its position as the industry leader,” said Katie Meeker, VP of Marketing. “I am eager to build on this momentum and drive growth by delivering meaningful programs that extend our reach and provide greater value for our customers and partners.” Meeker rounds out TradeCentric’s leadership team, and underscores the company’s commitment to enhancing its operations and driving innovation in the B2B commerce space. About TradeCentricTradeCentric, formerly PunchOut2Go, transforms the way businesses transact by enabling PunchOut, Purchase Order and Invoice Automation solutions for thousands of companies around the world. Uniquely positioned at the intersection of eCommerce and eProcurement, TradeCentric helps B2B buyers and suppliers connect, automate and scale their digital trading capabilities via a cloud-based integration platform that is fully managed and purpose-built to simplify the complexities of B2B connected commerce. Learn more at TradeCentric.com. Source PRNewswire

Cloudinary Unveils New Video Innovations, Empowering Brands and Tech Teams to Manage and Deliver Video Experiences With Ease

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ShareSAN JOSE, Calif.—-Cloudinary today announced that Cloudinary Video is now available as a standalone API-first video offering with several new video innovations developed to help brands meet critical accessibility standards, such as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 AA, and more easily deliver localized and live streaming video experiences at scale. Cloudinary also unveiled significant enhancements designed to allow technical teams to seamlessly embed Video as a Service (VaaS) within their software products and apps. For more information, read today’s blog. Recently named in the Gartner® Market Guide for Video Platform Services, Cloudinary powers more than one billion videos for thousands of customers. Leading retailers, media publishers and marketplaces including Adidas, Bleacher Report, Doximity, Fiverr, Hydrow, Simpleview and Vorwerk trust Cloudinary to manage a variety of business-critical use cases – from conversion-boosting micro-videos on product and landing pages and automating partner or user-generated video workflows, to embedding video in web and mobile applications. With its flexible APIs, composable architecture and AI-powered automation capabilities, Cloudinary Video offers a faster, more cost-efficient solution for any web or mobile app developer looking to embed high-performing video experiences into their platform versus building from scratch. According to Andrés Bastidas, Group Product Manager, Simpleview, a leading provider of CRM, CMS, website design, and digital marketing solutions, “Our partnership with Cloudinary goes beyond tech integration, critical as that is. With Cloudinary we manage two billion images and videos every month across more than 1,300 customers, while leveraging Cloudinary’s reputation as a brand leader in visual media management and digital experience excellence. It’s a win-win for us and our customers.” “Ensuring content is localized and fully accessible is not just the right thing to do, doing so also delivers enormous business benefits,” said Kim Matenchuk, Managing Director of Video, Cloudinary. “Companies doing business in the European Union must comply with the European Accessibility Act (EAA) by late June, so tools that help automate the creation of video captions and transcripts are critical. An added benefit is that these will also ultimately help reduce post-production costs. With our new AI capabilities brands can not only transcribe video content, but also translate it for use in different geographies – and so much more.” New features make delivering video-rich experiences easy: Make video more accessible Customize videos faster Boost engagement for explainer or on-demand video Power live streams Accessibility Act. Gartner, Market Guide for Video Platform Services, By Amol Nerlekar, Peter Kjeldsen, Forest Conner, 19 March 2025. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. About Cloudinary Cloudinary is the image and video platform that enables the world’s most engaging brands to deliver transformative visual experiences at a global scale. More than two million users and 10,000 customers, including Adidas, Bleacher Report, Etsy, Fiverr, Grubhub, Minted and Paul Smith rely on Cloudinary to bring their campaigns, apps and sites to life. Backed by an ecosystem of more than 300 partners, integrations and plug-ins, Cloudinary’s AI-powered image and video solutions offer a single source of truth for brands to manage, transform, optimize, and deliver engaging visual content to anyone, anywhere. As a result, brands across all industries are seeing up to a 203% ROI with benefits including faster time to market, higher user satisfaction and increased engagement and conversions. For more information, visit www.cloudinary.com. Source BUSINESS WIRE

Tealium achieves MCP integration to fuel agentic AI initiatives

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San Diego, April 08, 2025 — Tealium, the leading intelligent real-time data  streaming platform, today announced its seamless integration capability via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to its Moments API to send consented, real-time data directly to AI models and autonomous agents.  This milestone empowers users to accelerate AI initiatives and engage customers with intelligent, real-time experiences in the moments that matter.   “Integrating Tealium via MCP is a game-changer for AI applications,” said Mike Anderson, Founder and CTO of Tealium. “Our platform is founded upon flexible and intelligent data streaming. With this integration, businesses can unleash their data’s full potential to power more efficient and targeted AI models. This also ensures companies are providing the most relevant and contextualized experiences to their customers, while adhering to the highest standards of data privacy and integrity.” MCP is an industry-standard framework that boosts AI comprehension by seamlessly blending real-time data and user context. This capability combined with Tealium’s sub-second response times allow for more proactive engagements across every customer touchpoint.  By leveraging the Tealium Moments API via MCP protocol, users will experience the following benefits:  “This latest development underscores Tealium’s commitment to advancing how organizations can get closer to their customers through their AI initiatives, while prioritizing data privacy and compliance,” said Michael Kravec, Chief Strategy Officer at BlueYeti, a Tealium technology partner. “They have made a commitment to creating total interoperability with AI systems to ensure customers can easily build solutions with Tealium and AI. We value the partnership and look forward to continued innovation from Tealium.” About TealiumTealium helps companies collect, govern, and enrich their customer data in real-time to power AI initiatives and delight customers in the moments that matter. Tealium’s turnkey integration ecosystem supports more than 1,300 built-in connections from the world’s most prominent technology experts. Tealium’s solutions include a real-time customer data platform (CDP) with intelligent AI data streaming, tag management, and an API hub. Tealium’s data collection, management, and activation capabilities enable enterprises to accelerate operating performance, enhance customer experiences, drive better outcomes, and support global data compliance. More than 850 leading businesses globally trust Tealium to power their customer data strategies. For more information, visit www.tealium.com.  Source. Globenewswire

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