Just in case you were planning to visit.
Available for purchase here.
“Seriously, are we done with phrasing?”
FX / Monique Steele / BuzzFeed / Via cap-that.com
FX / Monique Steele / BuzzFeed / Via cap-that.com
FX / Moninque Steele / BuzzFeed / Via cap-that.com
FX / Monique Steele / BuzzFeed / Via askmen.com
Make sure you have a nightlight on hand.
imgur.com / Via reddit.com
imgur.com / Via reddit.com
imgur.com / Via reddit.com
Jump on in, the water's great!
imgur.com / Via reddit.com
The fried chicken chain’s U.S. business has been sliding for 10 years, even as it grew rapidly in Asia. But it has plans for a turnaround, including restaurant renovations and a new ad campaign.
KFC
KFC has had a pretty miserable decade in America. The chain, once the definitive leader in the fast food chicken business, has muddled through 10 years of decline at home, even as it rapidly expanded internationally. The food got worse, customers are complaining, the service is shabby, and many restaurants desperately need updating.
But now, KFC is on a mission to reclaim its fried chicken empire with a U.S. turnaround plan that will include store renovations, staff training, and a summer advertising campaign featuring SNL announcer and former cast member Darrell Hammond as Colonel Sanders, white suit, black tie, and all.
Parent company Yum Brands — which also owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell — will invest $185 million over the next three years to help restore the fried chicken chain. CFO Pat Grismer admitted during an earnings call in April that this was "a relatively modest investment" but "it is obviously quite significant to KFC U.S. and we're confident it will unlock significant value in the years to come."
In an exclusive interview with BuzzFeed News, KFC's Chief Marketing Officer for the U.S. Kevin Hochman discussed the need to reinvigorate the brand. "We've had quite a while where we have not grown," said Hochman. He reiterated what struggling restaurant chains often focus on when they need to get back on track: The need to remind consumers about the quality of their food, make sure the service is friendly, and differentiate the brand from competitors.
"Competition has grown and increased," said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of food service research and consulting firm Technomic. "KFC hasn't contemporized to be a better chicken brand." The downward spiral has led to reviews like these.
KFC was recently overtaken by Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A as the largest chicken chain in the U.S. by sales. And it has been steadily closing stores since 2005: By the end of 2014, there were 4,370 remaining locations in the U.S., down from 5,525 in 2004.
As KFC grew rapidly overseas, particularly in China, it lost customers back home to competitors that flaunted nicer restaurants, tastier chicken, and more persuasive marketing. Not to mention that ubiquitous fast food overlord McDonald's, and other burger chains, also sell a lot of crispy chicken sandwiches and nuggets. The average KFC store now makes just under $1 million in annual sales, roughly one-third what the average Chick-fil-A makes, according to QSR Magazine. Even as consumers demand healthier food, "there are a ton of fried chicken competitors, and they're all growing," said Hochman.
Karma, which emerges from private beta today, is using review data from Airbnb, FaceBook, and others to build a universal online reputation system.
Karma
Peer-to-peer marketplaces like Airbnb, eBay, and DogVacay.com work by establishing a bond of trust between strangers. Each has developed its own system to vet and verify users and hold them accountable for their transactions — a means of giving them a reputation. But as many newcomers to such marketplaces can attest, building trust can be difficult when reputation is based on transaction history. Karma, a new online reputation startup, hopes to make that easier by aggregating users' online reputations and scoring them based on the quality and quantity of reviews and transactions.
"A couple of years ago with the explosion of the sharing economy we noticed most of these platforms were built around reputation," co-founder and CEO Zach Schiff-Abrams told BuzzFeed News. "But all of these platforms have their own siloed reputation systems. There's no way to transition your reputation from one platform to another. We wanted to break down those traditional silos."
Karma — which leaves private beta today — gives its users a kind of pervasive online reputation compiled from their activity on various social media and community marketplace accounts. With its users' permission, Karma accesses their profiles on sites like eBay, Airbnb, and Facebook and creates a reputation score based on the quality and quantity of the reviews associated with them, as well as profile activity. Karma users can raise their scores by adding more social media accounts to their Karma profiles or by receiving a "vouch" or testimonial from another user — or giving one themselves.
BuzzFeed News
This is for all the cooks out there who cut off the most burned bits and serve it anyway.
FOX / Via giphy.com
Is it the past yet?
Juliet Smith said the experience has taught her how “beautiful” life can be.
After the service, Smith and her family went to eat at a nearby restaurant. When she was waiting for her dinner, Smith's water broke, three weeks earlier than expected.
A short time later, Milo was born.
That’s hot.
From Page Six:
Leo DiCaprio outbid Paris Hilton for a 10,000-euro Chanel bag at a Cannes charity gala.
Leo pledged more than Hilton, Yasiin Bey and Sony big Tom Bernard for the haute handbag worth $11,300 at the Heart Fund Gala in partnership with Nikki Beach at the Carlton Hotel.
Via pagesix.com
Frederic J. Brown / Getty Images
Sgp / SGP/FAMEFLYNET PICTURES
Bard? More like babe.
Toby Melville / Reuters
The portrait is in botanist John Gerard's The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, published in 1598. Botanist and historian Mark Griffiths discovered the purported portrait of Shakespeare on the title page of an original copy of the book.
As noted by Time, the "only images of Shakespeare were found in the First Folio of his works and his monument at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford." However, these portraits were posthumous.
As reported in the BBC News, Griffiths claimed "he had decoded decorative devices around the figures - such as heraldic motifs and emblematic flowers - to reveal their 'true identities.'" He believes that aside from William Shakespeare, the figures include the author Gerard, Rembert Dodoens, a fellow botanist, and Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Treasurer.
Toby Melville / Reuters
Amelia Earhart makes history.
When she landed, she said, "I don't care how it's spelled! From now on, call me 'Air-hart.'"
NA / Via wikipedia
Everything comes around again, but that doesn’t mean it should.
Evan Agostini / Getty Images
Lawrence Lucier / Getty Images
It turns out, Australia might not be in Europe.
RTE / Via dailyedge.ie
Australians look like this, and they're the worst.
Thinkstock
Avoid Portland, Orange County, Miami, and New York; go for Dallas and St. Louis instead. Roommates required.
Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images
With millions of recent college graduates about to flood the rental markets of big cities, some will be in a much better situation financially than others, at least when it comes to being able to pay the rent. It just depends on where they choose to live.
A new study using U.S. Census Bureau salary data from college graduates ages 22 to 25 and rental pricing analysis from Trulia shows that some rental markets are nearly unattainable for the typical recent grad making the city's median income, especially if they want to live alone.
Portland, Oregon, topped the list of least affordable cities for this age group making the city's median entry-level salary of $18,560, so it's probably lucky that Portland is where young people go to retire. It would take median earners 1.5 roommates to be able to afford the city's $1,245 median rent, and only 0.1% of rentals on the market are affordable to this cohort. In fact, the salary needed to afford Portland's median rent is $47,653, nearly three times the median income of recent college graduates there.
In Orange County, California, and Miami, the situation isn't much better. With median rents of $1,907 and $2,200, respectively, recent grads will need to earn much more than the cities' median income of $25,778 to live roommate-free.
In New York, where the median rent is a staggering $3,100, somebody earning the average recent grad salary of $32,995 per year would need 2.6 roommates to afford the rent. To live alone, a person would have to earn $121,584. In Los Angeles, median rent was nearly $1,000 cheaper, but the median income of the 22- to 25-year-old set is $7,000 less than in New York.
And while San Francisco had the highest median rent at $3,500 per month, recent grads also earned the most there ($41,244), and 3.9% of rentals were affordable to the city's median earners.
Trulia
Trulia
Thanks to a little dew and a little magic, this pup showed the world what ~energy~ looks like!
We should all aspire to be so vivacious in the mornings.
imgur.com / Via reddit.com
Susan and Mike forever.
Daario No. 1 was fine as fuck!
Because I most certainly do. ???
HBO / youtube.com
Vittorio Zunino Celotto / Getty Images
New Line Cinema / i.giphy.com
We love you just as much Michiel!
HBO
So that’s how they thawed that beefcake.
Marvel / Via travellyan.blogspot.com
Marvel / Via gifhunterress.tumblr.com
Make your voice heard!
The on-demand music streaming leader will transform into a multimedia platform, with content from partners including Vice News, Comedy Central, MTV, ESPN, Radiolab, and more.
Reggie Ugwu / BuzzFeed News
At a press conference in New York today, the Stockholm based company announced that it will bring video to Spotify setting it up to compete with other online video destinations like YouTube, Vevo, Vimeo, and Vessel. Additionally, Spotify will now feature podcasts from outlets like Radiolab and Slate. Launch partners for Spotify video include Vice News, Comedy Central, and the Nerdist network.
A redesigned version of the service with videos and podcasts will begin rolling out to users over the next month.
Spotify founder Daniel Ek began the conference with a litany of statistics boasting Spotify's rapid growth in recent years, including 25 billion hours of music streamed, and 2 billion "discoveries" per month, where a user is playing an artist for the first time. He called Spotify "a technology company by design, but a music company at heart."
Ek then announced a new version of the service designed to allow for a more seamless user experience around a variety of different forms of media, including video and podcasts.
The full list of video content partners includes ABC, ESPN, BBC, NBC, MTV, Fusion, Maker Studios, TED, and more.
To help announce the new initiative, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, creators of Comedy Central's Broad City, made a cameo with a clip from the show's most recent season. In an awkward presentation, Glazer expressed how excited she was to access Spotify's "juicy clientele."
Spotify also announced a new running mode called Spotify Running designed to automatically select music of appropriate BPMs for workouts. The company partnered with a variety of music producers, including the EDM star Tiesto, to create six original songs custom tailored for runs. Additionally, Spotify will be integrated into the popular running apps Nike+ and RunKeeper by this summer, Ek said.
Since it launched in the U.S. in 2011, Spotify has grown to become a dominant player in the music industry as streaming has become the fastest growing method of music consumption. Last year, music streams were up 54%, according to Nielsen Music, while album sales and digital track sales declined 11% and 12.5%, respectively. At the Music Business Conference in Nashville last Tuesday, Spotify's Director of Economics Willl Page claimed the company was responsible for fully 10% of the recorded music industry's revenue so far in 2015.
The push into video adds a new layer of value to the service's 60+ million users, who Spotify hopes will turn to it as a one-stop shop for on-demand entertainment both on desktop and mobile devices. It also helps Spotify to differentiate itself as the streaming field becomes more crowded.
Since March, Jay Z and other top stars have caused a stir in the press with Tidal, an artist-owned streaming service that has focused heavily on exclusive content (including, this week, a new music video from Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé for "Feeling Myself"). Next month, Apple is expected to alter the landscape even further with a relaunch of iTunes catalyzed by its acquisition of Beats Music last year.
