affiliate

For affiliates in the corporate world see affiliate (commerce)

In broadcasting, a network affiliate (or affiliated station) is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the programme line-up of a television or radio network but is owned by someone other than the owner of the network.

In most American commercial television networks, a few large stations in key markets are stations that are owned-and-operated (O&O) by the network itself, while smaller markets are served by affiliates. For instance, New York broadcasters WCBS-TV, WNBC, WABC-TV and WPBS-TV are not affiliates (they are network-owned, or in PBS’s case, a “PBS member station” as that network’s structure differs from the commercial O&O + affiliates model). In Canada, most television stations, regardless of market size, are now O&Os of their respective networks, with only a few true affiliates remaining. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation originally relied on a large number of privately-owned affiliates to disseminate its radio and television programming. However, since the 1960s, most of the CBC Television affiliates have been replaced by network owned and operated stations or retransmitters CBC Radio stations are now entirely O&O.

While network-owned stations will normally carry the full programming schedule of the originating network, an affiliate is independently-owned and typically under no obligation to do so. Affiliated stations often buy supplementary programming from another source, such as a syndicator or another television network which does not have coverage in the station’s broadcast area, in addition to the programming they carry from their primary network affiliation. In some smaller markets, a station may even be simultaneously listed as an affiliate of two networks.

In the United States, Federal Communications Commission regulations limit the number of network-owned stations as a percentage of total market size.

source:wikipedia

some market shop

The best CMS for ecommerce

what is the best cms for ecommerce?

I have been on the search for a non-piece-of-crap open source eCommerce package for literally years, and Magento is the most interesting looking one that I have seen so far. I’ve been out of the web design business for a year or two and have not had a chance to actually implement a store with Magento, but it looks like it has the cleanest code, right amount of features and a professional appearance of all the ones I’ve seen.

I’ve tried OSCommerce and Zen-cart on multiple sites, hacking together a site with PayPal and Expression Engine (love EE, just not PayPal), custom coding a site from scratch, 1ShoppingCart.com along with static HTML pages, etc.

OSCommerce and Zen-cart are bloated and coded absolutely horribly. It is an absolute nightmare trying to customize those two packages. There are dozens of features that your site does not need, and they are not easy to take out. The two systems have tried to become everything to everyone and they end up not working well for anyone. Expression Engine is a fantastic CMS, extremely easy to customize with custom entry fields, etc but it’s still a hack to get it to work with PayPal, and then you’re relying on PayPal for all of your transactions and sending your customers to another site to checkout. 1ShoppingCart is basically like PayPal and not a good option either.

Like I said I haven’t had an opportunity to try Magento on a live site yet, but if I were to make another eCommerce site Magento is what I would use or at least do some heavy research on. It seems to have the right mix of features that you can actually use, plus being easy to cutomize and having a slick default design.

Background of VisaCard

in 1976 ad promoting the change of name to VISA. Note the early VISA card shown in the ad, as well as the image of the BankAmericard that it replaced.
A 1976 ad promoting the change of name to VISA. Note the early VISA card shown in the ad, as well as the image of the BankAmericard that it replaced.

In 1958, Bank of America launched its pioneering BankAmericard credit card program in Fresno, California. The product idea was that of a bank branch manager, who stopped by a local store and observed clerks in a back room preparing customers’ monthly bills. It struck him as inefficient to spend so much time (and money) to prepare and collect bills that were often for paltry amounts, and he wondered if the process could be efficiently centralized, with his bank’s computer preparing the bills in off-hours. The original goal of the company was to offer the system across California; however in 1965 the bank began subscribing licensing agreements with a group of banks outside of California. Over the following 11 years, various banks licensed the card system from Bank of America, forming a network of banks backing the BankAmericard system across the United States. [1]

During this same time period, licences for the BankAmericard system also started to be implemented in other countries. For example:

* In Canada, an alliance of banks (including Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, Banque Canadienne Nationale and Bank of Nova Scotia) issued credit cards under the Chargex name from 1968 to 1977.
* In France, it was known as Carte Bleue (Blue Card). The logo still appears on many French-issued VISA cards today.
* In the UK, the only BankAmericard issuer for some years was Barclaycard.

In 1970, Bank of America gave up control of the BankAmericard program. The various BankAmericard issuer banks took control of the program, creating National BankAmericard Inc. (NBI), an independent non-stock corporation which would be in charge of managing, promoting and developing the BankAmericard system within the United States, although Bank of America continued to issue and support the international licenses themselves. By 1972, licenses had been granted in 15 countries. In 1974, IBANCO, a multinational member corporation, was founded in order to manage the international BankAmericard program.
Sample Barclaycard (left), as issued in the UK in the 1960s/70s. Co-branded cards were also issued by affiliates, such as the Co-operative Bank and Yorkshire Bank. The Chargex logo (right) used in Canada, along with the names of the 5 Canadian federal banks that issued Chargex cards.         Sample Barclaycard (left), as issued in the UK in the 1960s/70s. Co-branded cards were also issued by affiliates, such as the Co-operative Bank and Yorkshire Bank. The Chargex logo (right) used in Canada, along with the names of the 5 Canadian federal banks that issued Chargex cards.
Sample Barclaycard (left), as issued in the UK in the 1960s/70s. Co-branded cards were also issued by affiliates, such as the Co-operative Bank and Yorkshire Bank. The Chargex logo (right) used in Canada, along with the names of the 5 Canadian federal banks that issued Chargex cards.

In 1976, the directors of IBANCO determined that bringing the various international networks together into a single network with a single name internationally would be in the best interests of the corporation; however in many countries, there was still reluctance to issue a card associated with Bank of America, even though the association was entirely nominal in nature. For this reason, in 1977 BankAmericard, Chargex, Barclaycard, Carte Bleue, and all other licensees united under the new name, “Visa”, which retained the distinctive blue, white and gold flag. NBI became Visa U.S.A., and IBANCO became Visa International.

The term Visa was conceived by the company’s founder, Dee Hock. He believed that the word was instantly recognizable in many languages in many countries, and that it also denoted universal acceptance. Nowadays, the term VISA has become a recursive backronym for Visa International Service Association.

In October 2007, Bank of America announced it was resurrecting the BankAmericard brand name as the “BankAmericard Rewards Visa.

offical website of visa

What is ebay

eBay is the world’s online marketplace; a place for buyers and sellers to come together and trade almost anything!

Here’s how eBay works:

• A seller lists an item on eBay, most anything from antiques to cars, books to sporting goods. The seller chooses to accept only bids for the item (an auction-type listing) or to offer the Buy It Now option, which allows buyers to purchase the item right away at a fixed price.
• In an online auction, the bidding opens at a price the seller specifies and remains on eBay for a certain number of days. Buyers then place bids on the item. When the listing ends, the buyer with the highest bid wins.
• In a Buy It Now listing, the first buyer willing to pay the seller’s price gets the item.

Trading on eBay is easy and it’s fun! Best of all, you’ll never know what you can find!

The following Learning Center tours will show you the basics of trading on eBay and help you get started.

• How to Buy on eBay
• How to Sell on eBay