ICT Learning | ICT Education

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Raised Their Kids Tech-Free

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 05:06:00 +0000

Psychologists are quickly learning how dangerous smartphones can be for teenage brains.

Research has found that an eighth-grader's risk for depression jumps 27 percent when he or she frequently uses social media. Kids who use their phones for at least three hours a day are much more likely to be suicidal. And recent research has found the teen suicide rate in the U.S. now eclipses the homicide rate, with smartphones as the driving force.

But the writing about smartphone risk may have been on the wall for roughly a decade, according to educators Joe Clement and Matt Miles, co-authors of the recent book Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse is Making Our Kids Dumber.

It should be telling, Clement and Miles argue, that the two biggest tech figures in recent history -- Bill Gates and Steve Jobs -- seldom let their kids play with the very products they helped create.

"What is it these wealthy tech executives know about their own products that their consumers don't?" the authors wrote. The answer, according to a growing body of evidence, is the addictive power of digital technology.

"We limit how much technology our kids use at home."

In 2007, Gates, the former CEO of Microsoft, implemented a cap on screen time when his daughter started developing an unhealthy attachment to a video game. He also didn't let his kids get cell phones until they turned 14. (Today, the average age for a child getting their first phone is 10.)

Image credit: theverge

Bill Gates wouldn't allow his children to have cell phones until they turned 14, fearing the effects of too much screen time.

"It's interesting to think that in a modern public school, where kids are being required to use electronic devices like iPads," the authors wrote, "Steve Jobs's kids would be some of the only kids opted out."

Jobs's children have finished school, so it's impossible to know how the late Apple co-founder would have responded to education technology, or "edtech." But Clement and Miles suggest that if Jobs's kids had attended the average U.S. school today, they'd have used tech in the classroom far more than they did at home while growing up.

That's at the average school at least, according to the co-authors. A number of specialty Silicon Valley schools, such as the Waldorf School, are noticeably low-tech. They use chalkboards and No. 2 pencils. Instead of learning how to code, kids are taught the soft skills of cooperation and respect. At Brightworks School, kids learn creativity by building things and attending classes in treehouses.

Edtech won't be a "cure-all."

If there is any concession Gates has made on technology, it's in the benefits it offers students in certain educational settings. In the years since Gates implemented his household policy, the billionaire philanthropist has taken a keen interest in personalized education, an approach that uses electronic devices to help tailor lesson plans for each student.

In a recent blog post, Gates celebrated Summit Sierra, a Seattle-based school that takes students' personal goals -- like getting into a specific college -- and devises a path to get there. Teachers in personalized learning settings take on more of a coaching role, helping to nudge students back on track when they get stuck or distracted.

Technology in these cases is being used as specifically as possible -- and in ways Gates recognizes as useful for a student's development, not as entertainment.

"Personalized learning won't be a cure-all," he wrote. But Gates said he's "hopeful that this approach could help many more young people make the most of their talents."

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How Startups Can Automate Social Media Submission with OnlyWire

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Sat, 21 Oct 2017 20:25:00 +0000

Your website’s popularity is directly related to the number of visitors coming to your site.

So being an intelligent blogger or an e-entrepreneur you invariably want to drive scores of traffic to your website.

One of your top most priorities is to ensure that you are successful in driving visitors to your websites and thereby go onto increase your website’s visibility.

However, the important question remains that how you would be able to achieve this goal for your website or blog.

Well, you can readily achieve the goal of driving traffic to your websites by utilizing the prominent social networks and bookmarking sites as traffic generation points. It’s a well established fact that social bookmarking sites, as well as social networks, are useful resources for gaining prominence and popularity in the online world.

If utilized properly, the social networks can provide thousands of visitors to your website or blog. You simply have to ensure that your submissions reach social networks.

Having said this, the only problem you might face is the posting of links to social networks and bookmarking sites as there are so many of them. The numbers are simply overwhelming. There is Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumble Upon, Linked In, Pinterest, Digg, Delicious, and many, many other social networks and bookmarking sites. Well, posting to social networks and bookmarking sites is really a big problem. Doing it manually may consume hours of your precious time on a daily basis.

This demand a solution and what better solution you can have than using OnlyWire, which is an automated solution to the problem of posting on the social networks and bookmarking sites manually. The problem of bookmarking on various social networking sites vanishes once you start using OnlyWire Automation Tools.

OnlyWire Software makes the content submitting process on social networks fully automated and simple. So with minimum effort your content reaches out to various social networks and bookmarking sites when you start using OnlyWire Tool.

Understanding OnlyWire

OnlyWire is an Automated Tool that allows you to syndicate your website content to a number of high PR social websites. So if you want to make your content viral and want to gain scores of traffic from the social hemisphere then OnlyWire comes as a viable automated solution for bookmarking your blog posts on social network sites.

With OnlyWire’s automation tools, you can publish your content to 50 Social Networks with ease. With its automation and post-on-demand tools you can quickly and easily post your content to as much as 50 social networks. Using OnlyWire Automation Tools you can simplify and streamline your submissions on social networking and bookmarking sites. Moreover, OnlyWire Automation Suite includes WordPress Plugin, Developer API, and RSS Feeds. It regularly checks your WordPress Site or RSS Feeds for new content and submits to your chosen social communities or networks on your behalf automatically.

How to make it Happen with OnlyWire

The process of using OnlyWire for bookmarking your content on social networking sites is pretty straightforward and simple. You first need to sign up for an account on onlywire.com, Install the program, and finally have to set the account up for social networking sites where you want to get your content submitted. That’s all you have to do. The rest is handled by OnlyWire Automation Tools. You can install OnlyWire WordPress Plugin on your blog and watch it all happen with OnlyWire submitting your blog post to social networks as and when you happen to update your blog.

More about OnlyWire

OnlyWire basically provides four set of tools so as to maximize your submission efforts on social networks and bookmarking sites. They come under the categories of submission, automation, reporting and sharing.

Using OnlyWire Submission Tools you can plan future submissions. The tools allow you to pick a time and date for scheduling posting on social networking sites. The OnlyWire Automation Tools make it possible for you for automatic submission of your WordPress posts onto social networks.

With OnlyWire Reporting and Analytics you can have a complete overview of your submission history with respect to the amount of traffic and back-links you are generating from the submission of posts to social networking sites through OnlyWire.

Likewise, the Sharing Tools provide multi user function enabling you to create unlimited user accounts for different purposes. The package also includes share button option with which people are able to share your site’s content onto your selected chosen networks.

As far as pricing goes, apart from its free trial version, OnlyWire is available in two versions. The first is the Pro version, and the other one is the OnlyWire Enterprise version. The Pro Version is suited for bloggers. However, it lacks for the support of unlimited users function. The OnlyWire Pro Version lacks upgraded support as well as the ability for branding your submissions. Having said this, The Enterprise Version of OnlyWire includes everything the Pro Version lacks.

Final Words on OnlyWire

So if you are looking for high rankings on search engines and want to drive traffic to your websites then submitting your content on social networks and bookmarking sites provides a good option for you. With OnlyWire Automation Tools, you can easily and quickly automate the process of submitting posts on as much as 50 social networking sites at once. Having said this, with OnlyWire you save your time, effort, and money and go onto build your brand awareness across vast segment of visitors from various prominent social networks and bookmarking sites.

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Are You Worried about Social Media Addiction?

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 06:38:00 +0000

It's rare to find someone who isn't on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram – in fact, many of us are on more than one of these platforms.

Social media come with some big benefits attached: they can help you to stay in touch with friends, find like-minded people, organise events, and so on. However, some academics believe that these upsides are accompanied by a negative impact on mental health, including driving feelings of adequacy and anxiety.

The experts are not in agreement and it's a controversial question. But some argue that mental health issues around social media - in particular addiction - exist, and are becoming increasingly prevalent.
It's a theory the press has taken up with gusto. Most national newspapers reported on a survey earlier this year which found Instagram is the worst social media site in terms of the impact on young people's mental health.

A study by Nottingham Trent University as far back as 2011 found ‘it appears that from a clinical perspective, social networking sites addiction is a mental health problem that may require professional treatment'.

It added that ‘addiction criteria, such as neglect of personal life, mental preoccupation, escapism, mood modifying experiences, tolerance and concealing the addictive behaviour, appear to be present in some people who use [social networks] excessively'.

It has even been suggested that social media addiction should be added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a manual used by health professionals for diagnosis.

A study published in May this year by a university in Rome said ‘changes after cessation of internet use are similar to those seen in individuals who have ceased using sedative or opiate drugs'.

Despite some of the findings mentioned so far, social media addiction is not an officially recognised phenomenon and it is not listed in the DSM. That means that for all the fears for mental health that have swirled around social media networks since they first became popular, coining the phrase social media ‘addiction' may be an overreaction.

Who can judge the point at which checking social media goes from habit to addiction? What if you have to use social media as part of your job, or there is no other way to keep in touch with an old friend?

It's true that social media can have powerful effects on our psychology: it provides social validation, feeds our egos, and can fire up our brain chemistry in a way similar to addictive substances.

Rather than panicking about addiction, the answer might lie in encouraging people to keep a check on their social media use. There is no officially prescribed specific amount of time on social media that is healthy or unhealthy. But if it is starting to have a detrimental effect on other parts of your life – neglecting relationships or personal care - there's clearly an issue.

Perhaps in the end for most of us, we just need to ensure we aren't relying too heavily on social media alone for validation and happiness.

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Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak Launches Own Online Tech Education Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 06:49:00 +0000

Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs, is launching a new online tech education platform he’s calling Woz U, which is designed to promote technology jobs and the skills required to enter the industry. Over time, Wozniak hopes to expand the initiative to include as many as 30 physical locations around the world and courses on everything from software engineering and information technology to mobile app development and cybersecurity, among others. It’s unclear whether courses will be offered for free, or whether Woz U plans on charging for any element of the online education platform. The website does not say.

Woz U also offers access to tech companies interested in using the tools and resources provided to recruit and train employees. The platform will be available to students K-12 through partnerships with school districts too. Down the line, Woz U wants to offer one-on-one instruction to students and, later on, to offer its own accelerator program for prospective startup founders. The overall goal is to increase interest in what Woz U calls STEAM careers, or science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics, with the addition of arts presumably a nod to Wozniak’s role at Apple and fellow co-founder Steve Jobs’ lifelong mission to blend technology with the humanities.

“Our goal is to educate and train people in employable digital skills without putting them into years of debt,” Wozniak said in a statement. “People often are afraid to choose a technology-based career because they think they can’t do it. I know they can, and I want to show them how. My entire life I have worked to build, develop, and create a better world through technology and I have always respected education. Now is the time for Woz U, and we are only getting started.”

There are no pricing details on any of the existing or planned features. There is, however, already a mobile app out with some introductory courses, and you can also “enroll” in Woz U starting today, though it’s unclear what exactly that entails beyond submitting a few bits of personal contact information. The whole enterprise seems polished enough, although it should be noted though that Woz U’s initial partner is the for-profit Southern Careers Institute, based out of Austin, Texas. So don’t expect everything in Woz U to be free.

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How Technology Affects the Customer

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 06:12:00 +0000

It’s possible to split retailers into groups based on how well they understand their customers, from customer-naïve to customer-aware and, finally, customer-obsessed, according to research by Forrester.

How they use or ignore technology plays a large part in how they are categorised, and there are lessons to be learned from their approaches, good and bad.

Customer-naïve

Typically, businesses that are largely motivated by shifting product with no insight into whether what they do is right for the customer have little idea of who their customers are, what they want or how they shop – and they generally make no effort to find out. They stand out because they tend to go out of business.

A great example of a customer-naïve business is Blockbuster – built on what seemed to be solid retail principles at a time when videos and DVDs were the main form of home entertainment, then failed to act when technology and customer behaviour changed:

Revenue was based on renting outdated formats to customers, and fining them for late returns
Blockbuster ignored customers’ preference for on-demand content delivered straight to their laptop or mobile device – Netflix asked the Blockbuster board for a deal when it was starting out, and was told its model would never work
A short-lived attempt to offer on-demand content was too little, too late, and Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010
Netflix is now worth more than $8 billion in annual revenue

Lesson:

When you have built a strategy around a specific customer behaviour, you must adjust your approach when they start behaving in a different way.
Hearing what your customers say and taking notice of what they do is the only way to stay relevant – and in business. If they want the convenience of picking up or returning goods in-store in their own time, invest in a good click and collect service with built-in returns facilities. If they want to use mobile to shop in-store, make it easy for them with a personalised experience and they’re more likely to be loyal. It’s a great way to keep your customers happy and your bottom line healthy.

Customer-aware

These are retailers that have a superficial knowledge of their customers, but little understanding of what drives them to choose their store over a competitor. They aim to increase revenue with minimum outlay on keeping customers happy, and as a result they’re unlikely to deploy the latest technology because they don’t think their customers or sales colleagues will make the most of the investment. Customers only visit these stores when it’s a necessity and accept that it’s not always a pleasurable shopping experience.

Prime examples include some of the ever-increasing high-turnover, low cost retailers:

The in-store experience is driven entirely by price
Sales colleagues’ product knowledge is largely irrelevant because the price point is so low
The retailer’s investment in customer experience is likely to reflect the customer’s low level of investment in products – they won’t be interested in even the most basic mobile technology
As there’s no identifiable value attached to the customer, loyalty is likely to be non-existent. The same applies to sales colleagues – they’re really just there to replenish stock and process payments

Lesson:

Indifferent customer service leads to indifferent customers. They may not complain about your service because it isn’t terrible, but your competitive edge is limited to one factor only – price. You can lose this edge at any time, and an indifferent customer will simply shop somewhere else where they feel valued.

Retailers need to recognise that customers are more than their wallets, and sales colleagues are more than a salary bill. Treat them like VIPs – give sales colleagues access to everything they need to be the very best at their job, from online ordering in-store to in-depth product information. Give customers a connected, personalised experience across all channels and tailored to their needs.

Customer-obsessed

A growing number of businesses have truly succeeded in making the customer the heart of every development, activity or initiative. Motivated by customer needs rather than business wants, they actively work to introduce new technologies to make customers’ lives easier. Their commitment to excellent service inspires total dedication.

These businesses build their tech strategy around customers, taking their wants and needs into account to provide the best service they can. They’re motivated by keeping customers happy so that they keep coming back, and keeping sales colleagues happy so that they do an excellent job.

John Lewis is a customer-obsessed retailer – its reputation is built on service:

The business recognises the vital role technology plays in next-generation retail experiences. It set up a tech hub to incubate new ideas and encourage innovative thinking, runs JLab, an annual startup accelerator scheme, and has introduced a variety of initiatives, including a dedicated area in its Oxford Street flagship store demonstrating smart home connected devices
Sales colleagues are partners in the business – they have a personal stake in tech developments which improve service
Each initiative is run using agile processes – if a project doesn’t work for the customer, they retire it, learn any lessons and move on to the next innovation

Lesson:

This is the position every smart retailer needs to be in today – ready to use the latest technology to give their customers the best possible experience. They have a specific attitude – a willingness to try out new ideas, see what works and either develop them or try something else.

Ever-increasing choice and more and more powerful personal technology have seen shopper demands expand across all channels, and businesses will have to become customer-obsessed to succeed. Now that technology plays a part in almost every shopping experience from mobile browsing to online ordering in-store, it has to be central to every customer-obsessed retailer’s strategy.

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7 Best Browsers for iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 03:32:00 +0000

Finding a mobile browser that's fast, private and integrates social media can be a difficult task for any startup or entrepreneur. It's important to choose one that is fast, provides effective search features and is of course, secure.

To help you decide, we've taken a look at some alternatives to Safari.
Our top picks are:

Firefox
Chrome
Atomic
Opera

1. Firefox and Firefox Focus

Firefox can be downloaded from the app store and is available to iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users. Like the Android version, Firefox for iOS comes packed with useful features from private browsing pages to the full integration of bookmarks, browser history and passwords.
Last year, Firefox launched Firefox Focus, an iOS browser, its first 'privacy browser' which automatically blocks website trackers without any changes to settings needed.

2. Chrome

For a long time, Chrome has been one of the top desktop browsers out there. Many startups prefer Google's integrated approach to browsing as it provides a uniform approach that some other browsers find hard to match. The Chrome mobile browser provides an infinite amount of tabs while also gifting incognito tabs for cookie-conscious browsers. What's more, voice search is available adding to its breadth of functionality. Chrome's interface is extremely well known so is perfect for startups that don't want to stray too far from what they know.

3. Dolphin

This browser was built for social function so is ideal for startups! Dolphin can sync all social media accounts making cross-platform sharing a simple task, not to mention bookmark, password and history syncing being available for Chrome-like integration. What's more, Dolphin boasts private web pages and like Atomic, it contains a pop-up and ad blocker.

4. Safari

Ok, I guess we have to mention Safari. As Safari is the iPhone default browser, it launches automatically when links requiring a web browser are clicked so it's an extremely convenient browser. Safari also offers all the features of other browsers, from bookmark syncing to private browsing and voice search. It's very fast and provides iCloud that saves passwords, payment details and other phone content such as photos, phone numbers and account names; this saves time which is invaluable for some busy startups.

5. Opera Coast

In terms of user experience, Opera Coast definitely has an initial learning curve but once overcome boasts a fun and attractive interface. Within its quirky design you can't help but notice its lack of URL search-bar and while for some this may be a big drawback, for those looking for a unique browser experience, Coast's innovation can be applauded. With clear social sharing buttons, it is great for startups with a big social media presence.

6. Ghostery

Ghostery has privacy and anonymity at its core. No user data is collected unless you choose to provide it and Ghostery will warn you of any web pages using ad trackers. Ghostery's interface is not the prettiest, but for startups that require complete privacy it is an excellent choice.

7. Opera Mini

Opera Mini is a fast and responsive mobile browser. Due to its lightweight design, Opera Mini can run on limited bandwidth and compress data quickly. Sadly boasting lightweight capabilities does mean Opera users miss out on standard features found in rival browsers. Opera's interface is simple and provides larger than average icons making navigation very simple. If speed is key to your startup then Opera Mini could be an excellent choice, but it might be worth having a secondary browser to perform other tasks such as browsing in private.

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These 7 Online Business Ideas Can Make You Rich

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 01:23:00 +0000

If you're at all interested in starting your own online business, there's no time like the present. We live in a golden age of wealth. As much as the media tries to glorify the perils of our society, we actually live in a time that's ripe with opportunity and the potential for monumental business growth at a scale never before experienced. Thanks to the internet and smartphones, the amount of commerce being conducted online has experienced explosive growth.

If you're at all scarcity-minded, it's important to understand how much abundance exists today. Considering that virtually every brick-and-mortar store has made the transition to an online business, there's certainly no shortage of competition. But there's also plenty of so-called blue ocean. While most might make it out to seem like Amazon is the only company reaping the benefits of the ecommerce boom here, the growth is widespread and across every single sector in business.

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), it's been estimated that retail business will stay on par with a 3.7 percent to 4.2 percent growth rate. However, the NRF expects non-store sales to be anywhere from three to four times that rate of growth. However, even though brick-and-mortar sales still comprise the majority of consumer's spending, it's only expected to grow at roughly 2.8%. Clearly, what's driving much of our present ecommerce growth is the smartphone market.

However, this only further illuminates the exponential rise of online business today. Considering that the internet is still largely in its infancy, as the modern conveniences give way to near-instant delivery of products via drones, 3D printing and other means, and as virtual and augmented reality help to improve the online shopping experience, nearly all our commerce will eventually be conducted through online channels rather than offline channels.

The question then becomes, how can you take advantage of this massive surge of spending happening every second of every single day online? The truth? Whether you're looking to start a simple online business as a side hustle, or you're quite literally looking to get rich and make an exorbitant amount of money online, there are 7 businesses that simply can't be overlooked.

Starting a business online

Starting an online business takes some legwork. There are legal and financial hoops that you'll need to jump through. It's important that you consult with an attorney or your accountant before taking the plunge. But, once you're ready, starting a business online, even with little money, is not only a possibility, it's a stark reality.

The beauty of the internet is that you can quite literally launch a business and make money online with very little to no capital. If you understand the mechanics of online marketing, or if you're great at social media, you'll clearly find it easier. But you don't need to be a pro to start your business online.

Like anything else in this world, you'll either need a lot of time or a lot of money. If you have both, then clearly, you're ahead of the game. But most people have more of the former rather than the latter. But considering that time is finite and we only have a certain amount of it, using your time wisely and managing your time properly is crucial to ensure your success.

1. Chatbot business

The rise of the chatbot has been extraordinary to witness. Thanks to the ubiquity afforded to us by chat on platforms like Facebook, we've grown quite used to chatting with friends and family across all our social media networks. That's why AI-powered chatbots present a new digital frontier for businesses looking to automate and relinquish much of the man-power it takes to have a chat with its customers.

This is abundantly clear when it comes to customer service. However, it's potent value in commerce has become quite obvious as well, and businesses across all spectrums are now taking advantage of this. Platforms like Manychat, ChattyPeople and several others have sprung up to take much of the confusion and complexities out of building a chatbot.

There's quite literally a gold rush happening today, of people trying to launch chatbots for their businesses to help automate some of their sales and marketing efforts that are needed to properly grow and scale in today's market. However, similar to California's Gold Rush, those that will likely get rich are the ones that sell the picks and shovels. For that reason, why not launch your own chatbot business? Sure, there's some effort involved here, but this is definitely worth the steep learning curve.

2. Box subscription business

The box subscription business has exploded. While it's nothing new, and it's been around for ages now, the overwhelming rise of the internet has breathed newfound life into this online business idea.

What is a box subscription exactly? If you think back for a moment to one of the most viral box subscriptions businesses, you'll clearly recall the Dollar Shave Club.

Founded by Michael Dubin in 2011, the concept was ingenious in its use of a video that quickly went viral. The company was sold for a billion dollars, and when you look at it from a sales funnel perspective, what Dubin did was brilliant. Like other box subscription businesses, there's a basic level of items that you can order.

When you place your order, you're directed into a sales funnel with numerous up-sells in the form of add-ons. Dubin's understanding of the market forces and his ability to have fun and create a business that was properly poised for explosive growth have made him an icon.

However, you don't need to go viral to enjoy the growth in box subscription businesses. You'll even discover websites like CrateJoy, which was created primarily to help connect potential subscribers with box subscription businesses, giving you a platform where you can get the proverbial word out about your business.

Companies like Graze, Blue Apron, FabFitFun, LeTote and many others are on the rise. In 2016, it was estimated by Shorr Packaging that there were 21.3 million box subscription websites, up from just 700,000 in 2013, a roughly 3,000 percent increase. What's most interesting here are the consumer demographics. The typical visitor to a box subscription websites makes roughly $78,436 a year and is in their early forties.

3. Ad management business

In today's hotly-competitive marketplace, if you don't understand how to drive paid traffic and optimize your conversions, you need to turn to a company that does. The truth is that paid ads can get incredibly complex. Things like re-targeting and custom audience definitions, along with understanding the ebb and flow of everything with a sales funnel, is complex and confusing to most.

However, if you do understand the mechanics of paid advertising, then you could easily launch an ad management business. Considering that ads are fueling the growth of tech giants like Facebook, Instagram, Google and YouTube, today, with loads of others coming into the mix, understanding and navigating the murky waters of paid advertising could poise you to reap massive riches.

Why? Let's take a look at the numbers for a moment. Consider this for a moment. According to a report by eMarketer, online advertising will experience double-digit growth from $83 billion in 2017 to $129.23 billion in 2021. And in 2016, online advertising surpassed television advertising for the first time, with that gap widening by approximately $10 billion in 2017.

The sheer facts point to continued explosive growth of online ads. And we're still in the infancy of the internet. The earlier you capitalize on this industry, the quicker you can build it into a formidable online business. Study and learn all the intricacies of advertising on platforms like Facebook and Google. Find courses, or use the free material available from a multitude of platforms to become a seasoned pro.

4. SEO business

Search engine optimization is a topic that I've been writing about for years now. The truth is that, while paid ads are growing at an astounding rate, the ability to appear organically and relevantly on search engines like Google is not only becoming more competitive, but also more lucrative.

When it comes to organic search keywords, there is sheer value at the top. Considering that roughly 40 percent of people click on the first search results and that the first page accounts for some 91 percent of the search share, appear organically at the top of Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is something that is lusted and longed for by the world's foremost online marketers.

As the internet grows and expands, not only is SEO going to get more competitive, but it's also going to grow more lucrative. You could quite easily capitalize on this industry if you know what you're doing. This doesn't just go for doing work for clients, but also for yourself. You could launch any number of online businesses, niche websites, and blogs with the right amount of SEO skills.

5. Vacation rental business

The vacation rental business is booming. While the mere mention of it might make you think about billion-dollar titans like AirBnB or HomeAway, there are niche businesses like Michael Joseph's InvitedHome and Joe Poulin's Luxury Retreats and many others being carved out across a variety of markets. When it comes to vacation rental homes and vacation rental management, companies are earning anywhere between 10 percent and 40 percent on the gross rental rate depending on the location and the management level.

Launching and building a vacation rental business might require some sweat equity along with the right turnkey software solution to help you keep things organized as bookings ramp up, but if you have an acute attention to detail, then this is by far one of the best businesses you can start online. Of course, this does operate in the real world, but your web presence and marketing skills are really what define this business and helps it to succeed.

If you're at all interested in the hospitality industry, and you live in a tourist destination, this is a terrific business that can make money fast. Companies like Lodgix, Lodgify and 365 Villas offer terrific turnkey solutions for quickly building and managing your very own vacation rental management business.

6. Webinar business

I know what you're thinking. How do you start a webinar business? Well, webinars are quite possibly one of the best ways that you can sell anything online. The best part? You don't even need your own product. Webinar guru, Jason Fladlien, co-founder of Rapid Crush, has grossed well north of $100 million in sales via webinars, which goes to show you the sheer power of this medium for selling.

Webinar offer an engaged audience that are ready and willing to purchase whatever it is that you're offering. As a fervent student of this medium, I've found explosive results await within a properly structured webinar. People like Liz Benny, Neil Patel and Russ Ruffino have been absolutely crushing it with webinars.

The best way you can launch a webinar business is to find a product you can promote and get behind. Then, build an excellent webinar. The Perfect Webinar is a formula originally developed by Fladlien but later brought to the mass market by Russell Brunson. Brunson also created a software with Jim Edwards called Funnell Scripts, which is an incredible piece of software that helps you to build your entire webinar including copy for ads and swipes.

Either way you approach it -- whether you have an existing business or just want to sell as an affiliate -- some of the best webinar platforms that you could use in the world are GoToWebinar and Andy Jenkins' WebinarJam.

7. Business coaching

Business coaching is a lucrative online business that can tap into the massive market of entrepreneurs and business owners trying to find their way in the world of commerce. If you're an expert in business or have a deep understanding of the market forces of what drive purchases, then becoming a business coach could mean financial freedom.

People like Frank Kern and Anthony Robbins absolutely dominate the business coaching world, while several others are leading the charge as well. The best approach you can take in this industry is to offer an incredible amount of value upfront, and then have people pay you for execution.

Oliver Talamayan, another very successful business coach, uses this approach as his primary strategy for gaining clients and customers. First, you analyze the business and understand where it is today, then discover where they want to be down the road, and then figure out an approach to get them there.

The understanding and successful execution of an effective strategy is key here. You want to instill confidence in yourself, and to do that, you often need a good deal of social proof. For that reason, if you do want to launch a successful business coaching business, first, grab some customers and help them succeed. Then, get their powerful testimonials, and only then can you actually position yourself to charge high-ticket rates.

Brunson also talks about doing this before he started his Inner Circle. He helped Drew Canole successful launch Organifi into a global powerhouse by helping to consult, coach and deploy powerful strategies that helped Canole's company draw in tens of millions of dollars from one single funnel. After that, he was easily able to charge the big bucks.

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9 Ways Startups Can Increase ROI From Their Content Marketing Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 03:45:00 +0000

Content marketing still remains one of the most cost effective marketing techniques that is widely adopted by most of the businesses worldwide.

Nearly all -- 93 percent -- of B2B companies rely upon content marketing for demand generation and brand building. Startups already know the potential that content marketing holds for them. However, that power factor still remains missing that can bring in more customers and retain the existing ones.

Here are nine effective ways to boost your existing content marketing strategy.

1. Create content based on user persona

Persona is a fictional representation of your ideal audience. You need to answer the basic question of who you are writing for. That’s before you start preparing content. If you have an idea of your target audience then it becomes easier for you to prepare content.

Document your persona using elements like:

-- Age group.

-- Gender.

-- Likes/Dislikes.

--The pain points and how your content can solve the problem.

-- Is the target a decision maker?

-- Which device do they use to access information?

-- When do they prefer to read?

-- Are they active on social media?

-- Which social channels do they prefer and at what time?

-- Do they enjoy watching videos?

-- Which brands do they follow and why do they follow them?

-- What influences them to share content?

I will also recommend you to read the buying process map before you prepare the content calendar.

2. Identify the crucial micro moments.

As a business, you should remain aware of the micro moments that are bringing in and converting the people.

Recognizing the most critical micro moments for your brand is an art. It implies making sense of why individuals turn to mobile and when your brand can be generally useful.

Catch your audience’s attention follow the below-given suggestions:

-- Identify the Micro-Moments that Matter the Most to Your Business: Whether that is to draw customers’ attention to your website or to buy your product online, what are the micro-moments you have to prevail upon?

-- Convey on needs at the time: Streamline your content to fit these moments and also make sure that information is bite-sized, simple to consume and visually inspiring.

-- Measure Results: The key to any marketing activity is to evaluate the outcomes and choose whether the outcome was worth the time and cash.

3. Prepare a solid layout for the content using Gestalt principles

The use of Gestalt principles helps to create great designs. Designs need to be coherent, associated and bound together.

Here are prominent Gestalt principles that you should use for your content layout:

-- Proximity: Proximity can make your images stronger by gathering your subjects together with a goal. You should make use of proper spaces in order to hold the attention of the visitors and properly arrange the text into one group, appropriately spacing it from the CTA on your site page.

-- Similarity: Similarity occurs when shapes, colors, sizes or objects look enough similar to be perceived as a group or pattern in the viewer’s mind.

When you use all these components in your images it gives your viewers a feeling of rhythm and will mean harmony.

-- Continuation: You should make use of text and images to manipulate the direction in which the visitor will look.

This could be awesome for your landing pages. Having flow can grab your audience’s attention right to the call to action.

-- Closure: One of the approaches to keep the viewer associated with the images is to have them finish a picture, shape, or an idea.

By having the viewer work at filling in the missing pieces in an image, will turn them into an active applicant, and they will also stick for a long time taking a look at your site images.

-- Simplicity: This is also an important concept that you can follow in your design, as it's important to keep your website pages clutter free with a specific goal to streamline the procedures leading to transformation

-- Figure/ground: It basically refers to the relationship between an object and its environments. It's important that you should make a clear difference between the figure and the ground.

You need to take this principle into consideration in order to create beautiful graphics and if you want to come up with exclusive logos.

4. Don’t ignore aesthetics

Aesthetics simple means having visually appealing content. The attention span of readers comprises of a few seconds and you need to make an instant impact that persuades the reader to take an action.

An aesthetic design helps to attract more attention, improve design usability, enhance perceive credibility and influence the brand choice.

Here is how you can make your content visually more appealing:

-- Make your content easy to scan and use bullet points and numbering wherever needed.

-- Use responsive design and avoid grammatical mistakes.

-- Add relevant images and videos that explain your content well.

-- Use proper contextual links and similar posts feature in order to make it easier for the readers to click on the links. This will help to reduce the bounce rate and improve the overall time on page.

-- Adopt an easy navigation that is mobile friendly and use effective CTAs that match the main theme.

5. Leverage the power of content curation

Content curation will help you to save time and produce lots of content in order to generate indirect traffic and conversions.

Major benefits of content curation include:

-- Allows you to attract a huge amount of traffic.

-- You can create content really fast so this allows you to produce more content for increased social sharing.

-- Enhances your brand identity by strengthening and broadcasting your brand values.

-- Helps you compete effectively and efficiently, and also offer you with unique benefits critical in today’s market.

You can use tools like Scoop.it to curate content and reach the masses. It is easy to use and its premium subscription which starts at $11 a year comes with more features such as the ability to customize Scoop.it, make use of analytics as well as to distribute an email newsletter.

6. Adopt a storytelling approach

It is one of the most powerful ways of attracting audience’s attention. It has the power to form a personal relationship with your audience and also helps you in building an attractive and friendly platform for you and your brand.

Follow the below given points to improve storytelling while building your brand:

-- Know about your audience is the first step you need to consider when creating a story. You have five minutes to grab your audience’s attention while telling your story in the right place, time as well as in the right context.

-- Make use of various platforms and channels in telling stories to your readers, which will help you in making your brand messages more appropriate.

-- Be specific in telling a story and also support your videos with micro moments, as it will help your brand to connect at a much higher level with your audience.

-- Be authentic, as original is better. Don’t try to polish things in the hope that it will look pleasant to your audience, doing this can sometimes have the adverse result.

-- Make it more actionable as it will help your audience to take immediate action.

7. Use the right tools to save time and resources

Hard working content marketers do all the work themselves while smart ones make use of tools!

Outbrain

If your content is facing publishing and distribution related problems then you can use this tool. It will help you in achieving the awareness for your content and also your brand on authoritative sites as well.

HubSpot

This tool provides you with great customer support and it has many tools that you can use for monitoring and generating an effective blog posts and landing pages.

HubSpot has social media analytics and message-scheduling capabilities by which your content can flawlessly publish to social media platforms after you finish creating your content.

BuzzSumo

This tool will help you in telling the performance of your content and breaks down that performance by numerous metrics through domains, keywords etc. You can use it free for the first five searches and can find out how much it is helpful for your content marketing strategy.

By using this tool you can also find out which content is being shared the most.

8. Run PPC ads on selected platforms

PPC still remains one of the most popular and highly effective choices when it comes to lead generation. Especially for startups where it is necessary to raise up the revenue, you need immediate results. PPC is an ideal way to grab more clicks in no time and improve your ROI.

Writing attractive and persuasive PPC ad copy will also help you in grabbing the attention of your audience to click on your content.

Use platforms like Reddit, StumbleUpon and LinkedIn or any other platform whose demographics matches the demographics of your target audience.

Make use of orient’s model when designing image ads. If your ad contains images of people, place them toward your CTA and avoid positioning your models towards the viewer as those front-facing images will attract attention toward the model, rather than the essential parts of your ad.

In order to rank high in search and grab your customer's attention, ensure that your content should be of high quality,relevant as well as SEO-ready.

9. Take the help of micro influencers

Micro influencers are an ideal target community for startups because they can be reached easily. Micro influencers can be anyone from a blogger to a niche expert who have a loyal following of people. If you can convince such micro influencers to promote your brand then you have hit the jackpot!

Micro-influencers can help you in:

-- Increase engagement: Micro-influencer can bring your brands and products in front of the audience.

-- Attract higher quality leads: Working with micro-influencers also fosters higher-quality leads since they apply their impact in particular niches. Because of this specificity, the leads you produce from these micro-influencers will be more focused on. The outcome is a higher number of leads who are already interested in what you offer.

-- Cultivates trust: Micro-influencers can help your customers in developing a high level of trusts for your brand. You can find a list of top influencer marketing platforms here.

Follow the above given ways in order to drive high-quality traffic, increase conversions and to retain customers coming back for more.

Also, it’s important that you should calculate the ROI on a regular basis in order to identify whether your money and efforts are yielding the proper results or not.

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Google's Pixel 2 Better Than Apple's New iPhones In One Important Way

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 05:25:00 +0000

Google’s single-lensed Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL phones have shot straight to the top of DxOMark’s camera benchmark charts, beating the iPhone 8 Plus and the Galaxy Note 8, both of which feature dual cameras.

With an overall score of 98 points, the Google Pixel 2 stands a full four points clear of the iPhone 8 Plus and Galaxy Note 8, now tied for second place. We were always expecting strong camera performance from Google, especially given the stunning results from the original Pixel, but its results are especially impressive given that it manages to do with a single camera what competitors can only do with two.

Google

The Google Pixel 2 Camera

One of the standout features of the Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus was ‘portrait mode’ which enables softly blurred backgrounds which make the subject really pop from your images similar to results from a DSLR camera. This feature was refined and improved in the iPhone 8 Plus and it matched by a similar feature in the Galaxy Note 8.

All of these smartphones rely on comparing and merging the images from two discrete cameras in order to calculate a 3D depth map of the scene. What’s unique about the Pixel 2 is its ability to sense depth using only one camera.

This is achieved by using an image sensor with ‘split’ pixels which generate slightly different ‘left’ and ‘right’ views of the scene. It’s not enough of a difference to create a traditional stereoscopic image of the kind you might view with special 3D glasses, but it is plenty enough difference for Google’s image processing techniques to be able to calculate the depth of objects within the scene and work out where to apply a software-based blurring effect to the background.

Unfortunately for the Pixel 2, the portrait mode effect is only one of many advantages which can be gained from a dual camera setup - advantages which the Google flagship will therefore miss out on.

One key advantage the iPhone 8 Plus and especially the Galaxy Note 8 have over the Pixel 2 is in their ability to get closer into the scene with a separate telephoto lens. With a single lens system, all you can do is crop into the image, losing pixels and resolution along the way.

This is why the Pixel 2 scores only 32 points in DxOMark’s Zoom test, compared to 51 points for the iPhone 8 Plus and a stunning 66 points for the Galaxy Note 8. The Pixel 2 simply loses much more detail the more you zoom in.

The other key dual-camera benefit is huge: Photo quality in low light improves dramatically the more light you are able to capture and two cameras can potentially capture twice as much light as one. Google has fitted a brighter f/1.8 lens than the f/2.0 version found on the original Pixel, but this can’t compensate for the light gathering potential of two cameras working as a team.

However, using a single physical camera cuts costs on raw materials and allows more room for other internal components, such as a larger battery.

DxOMark

The Google Pixel 2 Tops The DxOMark Mobile Charts.

Thankfully, Google’s image processing is so good that the Pixel 2 still manages to dominate in the critical areas of exposure, contrast and colour, coming out well ahead of both the iPhone 8 Plus and the Galaxy Note 8 in these areas. Its autofocus performance, for both photo and video use, pulls ahead even further.

This highlights a huge advantage over the competition: Google still has the option of adding a second camera in future products, potentially extending its lead even further.

Ultimately, benchmark results are only part of the story and subjective human preference plays a huge role in deciding which photos look ‘best. It’s also important to mention certain unique features such as the iPhone’s superb slow-motion video capabilities which often trump any small measurable differences between one camera and another. Any benchmark results such as these need to be read in the context of a full phone review.

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10 Ways to Benefit from ICT Learning and Making Money While You Sleep

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 13:31:00 +0000

Now more than ever, people are looking for new ways to make money 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without the need to remain stationed at a desk. But, these new passive ways of earning money do require you to invest a small amount of time automating your work processes. Let me take you through the process.

There are thousands of ways you can make money on the side nowadays. As long as you have an internet connection and a computer or mobile device, your opportunities are endless. Examples of new jobs you could consider for your side hustle include:

Blogging
Teaching online
Creating ebooks
Building and flipping websites

While the opportunities for online work are endless, automating them can be more challenging. Although working online will allow you to work from anywhere, it would also be nice to have so spare time on your hands, am I right? If you have found work you enjoy but want to take it a step further by generating income while you sleep, check out my top 10 secrets.

1. Automate marketing, sales and customer care chatbots

While you may have already delegated some of your marketing, sales and customer care duties to team members, or even automated them with tools such as Hootsuite, there is an easier way to take the time and monetary load off your shoulders.

Chatbots have become extremely popular recently because the technology powering them has evolved dramatically. Today, creating an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot is a piece of cake, and thanks to chatbot-building platforms, you don't even need any coding knowledge.

You can create a chatbot that:

Can take orders and answer customer queries from Facebook Messenger, comments, and posts
Integrates with all the major payment platforms
Is available 24/7 to answer customers from across the world
Can push personalized promotions, offers, and deals, on demand

2. Promote yourself as a brand

Whether you have already found success or are still on the path to finding it, you should look at ways in which you can promote yourself as a brand. Of course, your chatbot will help with minor marketing tasks, but you need to promote yourself in a way that makes others aware that you are a trustworthy, reputable, and a reliable authority figure in your industry.

To achieve this, create informational products, such as books, videos, and online magazines for your audience. Once you've put in hours creating these pieces, the next step is simply to market them and watch the money roll in.

3. Simplify your outputs

You can't do everything, especially if you want to automate the operational aspects of your business. To get everything done to the best of your ability, you need to simplify your outputs. To do this, hone in on what you are offering.

Instead of offering a huge variety of products and services to your audience, focus on a maximum of five that you do perfectly and grow from there. Take Starbucks, for example. The brand offers coffee, sweets, and some fast food. The simplicity by which it operates is a key reason why it's able to expand its offerings on a global scale.

4. Sell at a flat rate

Selling your products and services at various rates is complicated and not efficient. Aside from the fact that you probably have clients big and small, from across the world, it can make your invoicing system messy. Create a company that offers specific services at a flat rate and allow customers to buy these subscriptions and packages directly from your website. You'll make more direct sales and your customers will automatically be more invested in you.

Create a company that offers specific services at a flat rate and allow customers to buy these subscriptions and packages directly from your website. You'll make more direct sales and your customers will automatically be more invested in you.

5. Create a product or service that never goes out of fashion

You need to create a business that either offers a product or service that many people need now or better yet, one that won't go out of fashion. When it comes to products, think of one that can be created cheaply and that requires refills to function.

With this, you'll not only make huge amounts of money selling the original product, but you will receive a steady stream of revenue from the individual refills. Think about a printer, for example; you can now buy one at a very reasonable price, but to use it, you will always need ink. Printers are the product and ink cartridges are the refills.

6. Become an affiliate

There are a number of ways you can make money without really doing much. For example, you could become an Amazon affiliate. If Amazon makes a sale that comes from the link on your website, you make a profit. Simple. If you have the right following, you could find affiliate marketing extremely profitable.

7. Teach others

By teaching others, I don't mean switching careers altogether to teach math in a primary school. I'm referring to taking an authoritative role in your field of work and teach entrepreneurs your methods. There are a number of ways you can teach others, some of which include:

Mentoring

Lecturing at a college or university

Writing a blog

Creating a book

Talking at events and conferences

8. Invest in other companies

An investment is, in simple terms, a way for your money to make more money. Although your lending needs to be calculated, you should invest some of your profits into other companies that fulfill other needs your customers may have. It's a good way for you to make more money while establishing yourself as a figure that helps others and understands your audience's desires.

9. Hire a team

As I mentioned before, you can't do everything on your own. Simplifying your outputs is great, but you need to have the right team to back you up. You need a team that is reliable and diverse. Every area of your company needs to be covered by an expert in that field. You will need a marketing, sales, customer care, finance, and human resources guru, among others.

10. Optimize your efforts

Once every aspect of your company is up and running, you must evaluate, re-evaluate, and optimize them to ensure they are performing to the best of their ability. You wouldn't write a blog post without proofreading and optimizing it; the same goes for the rest of your marketing, sales, finance, and other operations.

In Conclusion…

Automating your processes will help you organize yourself in a way that makes your operations efficient. By doing so, you will not only make money while you sleep, but you will also have more time to invest in other projects that can be automated in the same way, creating a money-making life-cycle that could eventually make you millions.

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5 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 21:36:00 +0000

When you're watching other people play Scrabble, it's easy to see ample opportunities to place tiles and score more points. But, when you're actually in the game yourself, it can be harder.

This is exactly what happens to new entrepreneurs. Often, they have many business ideas but lack the capacity to understand the risks, experience and time associated with startup success.

The big question is: What should new entrepreneur know before launching their businesses? There is no complete answer to this question, because some things will affect some businesses and not others. But, here are five questions you definitely should ask yourself when trying to start a business.

1. Why am I starting this business?

People start businesses for various reasons. Some do not want to take orders while others are tired of the 9 to 5 work day. Still others just want to join the bandwagon and make some money.

If you're starting your business for any of these reasons, you're probably going to fail.

Instead, you should have a purpose for starting a business. For instance, I set up a business research consultancy firm in 2014 because I felt people in my locality lacked practical knowledge of business plans and feasibility studies. I launched my business to meet a need, and I have profited from it.

It's crucial to thoroughly examine any initiative you wish to launch. This is because you could be faced with many business ideas. Just be careful not to lose focus. With each new idea, sit back and think through the pros and cons, then launch.

Noah Krinick, founder and partner of Solo Rugs, said, "Every entrepreneur should be able to answer the question, 'Why are you doing this?' It seems like a simple question, but there will inevitably be times when things go wrong, hope is dwindling and you need to remind yourself of why you're in it. As an entrepreneur, building and growth is a process that never fully ends. It is great practice to give yourself a mission statement to maintain focus on the project goals as well as personal ones."

2. What is my target market?

Knowing your target market is very important, since your sales and profits hinge on it. Remember: If you target everyone, you're targeting no one. You need to focus and identify your target audience by carrying out a market survey.

Reach out to your prospective customers by sending out questionnaires or directly speaking to them. By doing these, you can provide a product or service people really want. In an email interview, Sarah Brennan, fashion expert at Clothingric, said, "A business's focal point is the target market. If you don't have a well-defined target market, then, you scramble for everybody in the market. Just know that everybody can be nobody."

3. What is my digital strategy?

Nearly half of U.S. small businesses don't have a website. The contemporary business world cannot thrive without digital technology. In our contemporary world, clients and customers are going digital. The conventional methods of sales, marketing and delivering goods and services to clients and customers are phasing out. Clients and customers are now yearning for more efficient methods of buying products and services.

It is easy to manage business nowadays. By engaging in digital marketing, you can reach out to billions of prospective customers all over the world. You can also automate some of the business tasks using sophisticated software. You can start with Apptivo which can allow you to do everything you need in one cloud solution.

4. What goes into my business plan?

Some people believe writing a business plan is only necessary when you're seeking outside funding, but a good business plan actually indicates whether a business is feasible or not, breaking down its strengths and weaknesses.

Write out your business plan. Detail the financial, operational and marketing.

Venturing into a business is a choice. Our choice today determines our result in the foreseeable future. Thus, all planning should center on your business plan, so you can avoid surprises later.

5. What are my competitive advantages?

Customers will patronize your goods and services if you offer something better or different from your competitors. One important thing to do when you are launching your business is to deliver what your customer wants and not necessarily what you want.

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Amazon Echo Can Now Call Landlines and Mobile Phones for Free

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 20:46:00 +0000

Back in May, Amazon added a phone-call feature to its line of Echo smart speakers. Just one catch: You could call only other Echo owners.

Last week, along with the announcement of new Echo devices, Amazon quietly eliminated that limitation. Effective immediately, you can use any Echo speaker to call landlines and mobile phones. For free.

Try it! Just say the following: "Alexa, call 800-435-7669." That's the number for the American Red Cross, just in case you felt like making a donation today, but Amazon allows for calls to "most" numbers in the US, Canada and Mexico. However, you can't use an Echo to call 911 or any other emergency services unless you have an Echo Connect. See below for more details on the Connect.

You can also tell Alexa to call anybody in your phone's address book -- provided you allowed access to it when you installed the Alexa app.

Either way, Alexa will ask you to verify the number or contact you want to call. It's a somewhat annoying second step, but understandable given that there's no screen to verify the number being dialed (unless you're using an Echo Show ($229.99 at Amazon.com)).

Whoever you call will see your mobile phone number as the caller ID.

If you like the idea of using your Echo as a speakerphone, you might want to add an Echo Connect to the mix. This $35 box taps into your existing home-phone service, meaning that number becomes the Echo's caller ID. It also allows you to receive calls as well as place them and adds 911 support to the mix. The Connect is due to ship mid-December.

What do you think of the Echo's new calling capability? Now that there's landline and mobile support, is it a feature you'll use?

The Smartest Stuff: Innovators are thinking up new ways to make you -- and the world around you -- smarter.

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10-Step Guide To Building Your First Mobile App

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 04:41:00 +0000

Why do you want to build a mobile app? Do you want to ride the wave of other entrepreneurs, or did you come across a problem that you feel you can resolve? The answer to this question will determine whether your app will be successful or not.

Here is a guide to get you started, but note it may not work for everyone. This is drawn from my experience working for more than three years with entrepreneurs, helping them build and market their mobile apps. Take from it what suits your strategy best, or follow it to the hilt. The important part is to get started.

Step 1: Get an idea or a problem

If you already have an app idea, move onto step two. If not, read on. Want to build an app but don’t have an app idea? What you really need are problems, and they’re everywhere!

Successful entrepreneurs solve problems in a way that we could not have imagined. When you look around you, every product and service you use were all created to solve a problem. You wanted to get from one place to another faster, you got a car. You wanted to get from one country to another faster, you got planes.

So look for problems in your daily life and list each one of them. Once you have an exhaustive list, then start to think on how you can resolve them and shortlist the ones that make most sense.

Step 2: Identify the need

Validation will prove that a demand exists for your app. You can validate your idea by using the Google Keyword Planner tool to look for the number of people seeking out what you’re trying to do. You could also build a landing page that broadly highlights your app idea and seek user interest through an email signup.

Step 3: Lay out the flow and features

Validation of your app idea means that you’ve got something that people want to use. Now is the time to detail your product onto a document, or if you want to go the extra mile, use a wire-framing tool.

When putting your idea down on paper, remember to be as detailed as possible. Include the flow of how the user will navigate the app as well as all the features envisioned. This will help your developer to clearly understand your expectations.

Step 4: Remove non-core features

From the flow and features document you prepared, start looking closely at features that you can remove. Offer only the core value of your app idea. Do not build features in the first version that are "nice to have" and can always be added later as an update. This will help keep the initial costs of development down and also help you get to market quicker.

Step 5: Put design first

I have heard many entrepreneurs saying they want a very basic design and want to focus on just developing an app. They are so wrong! Design is not just about how your app looks, but it’s about how a user will experience the app. Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures best explains it: “Design is a way of making technology useful.” So look for a developer who puts design (user experience and graphics) first.

Check out resources for building your app here...

Step 6: Hire a designer/developer

Seek a development company that has great design talent and a solid development team. While hiring a developer, go online to check on their credibility and the apps that they have created. If you really liked an app they created from their portfolio, chances are, they could be the right one for your product.

Step 7: Create developer accounts

You must register for a developer account with the respective app stores to be able to sell your app through their platform. Google’s Android charges $25 a year and Apple charges $99 annually. You have the option of registering as an individual or as a company, if you already have one formed.

Step 8: Integrate analytics

Analytics help you track downloads, user engagement and retention for your mobile app. Make sure you use tools such as Flurry, which is available for free, and Localytics, that has a free and paid version.

Step 9: Get feedback quickly and improvise

Once your app goes live on the app store, the first set of customers' usage and behavior will give you insight into how to improve and enhance your app. Enhancements and changes are constant, so keep an eye on user feedback and keep building.

Step 10: Introduce features

You built version one with limited features and only the core offering. Now is the time to evaluate and introduce the remaining features that were left out in the initial version. You will know through analytics and feedback whether the features are relevant anymore.

These steps are not sacrosanct, but rather a guideline to building your app in the most effective manner based on my experience. Once you’re ready to start, you must also know that building a mobile app is the easiest part. Getting customers is where the challenge lies.

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5 Steps to Building Your Personal Brand From Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 03:45:00 +0000

What would you like people to say about you?

As Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) famously said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

Your personal brand is the sum total of what you do, how you do it and why you do it. It’s not something you can fake. It’s authentic and deep-seated.

If you get it right, your personal brand will make you stand out from the crowd, shine a spotlight on your expertise and enhance your value. You’ll have an energy and a buzz about you that people can’t help being drawn to.

For starters, don’t make the mistake of thinking your personal brand is all about you. It’s not. Your personal brand is not about your work experience or your personal accomplishments. Your personal brand should be about other people, specifically what you can do for other people.

Start by asking yourself a few questions: What needs can you address? What are the areas where you can offer the most value? What makes you different from the rest?

With a little thought and planning, you can build your personal brand from scratch. Just follow these five steps:

1. Discover your opportunity.

Passion is not enough. You might have a passion for rock climbing, or playing the ukulele. But having a passion does not automatically translate to recognition and success.

Instead of focusing on your passions, study the needs of the people in your circles. What are they trying to achieve? What are they struggling with? What are their frustrations?

Think about how you could best help these people.

Dig deep into who you are. Identify what you can bring to the table. Evaluate not just the skills and experience you’ve acquired but also the values that guide and inform you.

Study your competition. Can you serve a need that in an area that doesn’t have lots of competition?

If there’s lots of competition wherever you look, don’t be discouraged. Can you serve a need in a way that’s distinctive and noteworthy?

You’ve identified your opportunity when you’ve found a significant need that you can serve, in a way that sets you apart from the competition.

2. Know your audience.

Everything starts with your audience. Find out as much as you can about them. This includes standard demographic data such as what jobs they do, how much they earn and where they live.

Equally, if not more importantly, you need to know what their beliefs and values are, their hopes and dreams and the challenges they are facing.

Talk to your audience. Take them out for a coffee or set up a Skype call. Study them by reading what they’re saying on relevant social media, forums and review sites.

Is your audience more interested in quality or value? What’s more important to them, making a difference or making money? What public figures do they admire?

How much do your audience know about what you can offer them? Will you need to educate them for them to appreciate your value?

Identify who your core audience is. Don’t try to appeal to everyone. Identify which audience segments are most likely to become long-term customers and advocates. These are the people you should focus on.

3. Craft your message.

In Hollywood, budding filmmakers learn to prepare an “elevator pitch” to sell their movie ideas to busy studio executives. The key is to summarize their idea in a short, memorable phrase that could be pitched even if they had to do it in an elevator.

For example, the movie Alien was initially pitched as, “Jaws in space.”

You want to tell your audience about what you do, about what makes you different and exciting. But they probably won’t have time to listen to your life story.

Instead, you should create a short message that sums up what you’re about in a way which connects with your audience. Keep it simple and memorable. Think of it as your elevator pitch. Your message should reflect the people you serve, the values that you embody and the results you achieve.

If you have any testimonials, study them. What were the things about you that people valued the most? Observe the exact phrases people use when talking about you. Often, these are the precisely the phrases you should use when describing yourself.

Use your message to brand yourself on your professional profiles. Most importantly, embody it in everything you do.

4. Hone your uniqueness.

Maybe you can do something highly useful that very few people can do. Well, that’s your unique quality, and you should tell your audience about it.

But perhaps there are plenty of people who do what you do, and you’ll be competing for the same audience. Being able to demonstrate a point of uniqueness is your key to success in a competitive market.

The most obvious point of uniqueness is to be the best. There are many ways of being the best. Find out which way plays to your strengths. Are you the most experienced, most creative, most efficient? Do you excel at customer service?

If you can’t be the best in some way, becoming more specialized can make you unique. For example, instead of offering a marketing service to small business owners in general, you could offer a marketing service targeted at chiropractors.

And don’t be afraid to be controversial to stand out. If you hold different opinions from the others, don’t be afraid to voice them. Just stay away from topics that are likely to cause offense, like religion and politics.

5. Define your values.

Authenticity is the cornerstone of personal branding. Your authenticity is what allows your audience to trust you, to engage with you, to tell their friends about you. Being authentic is about having stated values and being true to them.

So what are your values? You should include business values, such as driving innovation or personal accountability. You might also add ethical values, such as care for the environment.

How you speak and write is also a reflection of your values. Are you serious or informal? Do you address the layman or expert? What are your cultural reference points?

Guard against inconsistency, such as saying one thing and doing another, as this will cast doubt on your values and undermine your brand.

Keep your values at the heart of everything you do, as you interact with people, network on social media, or publish blog posts. Wherever and whenever you engage, ensure you do so in a way that shines a light on your values.

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11 Tips to Create Facebook Videos to Market Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 12:13:00 +0000

Today, one of the best ways to engage customers is through video. Facebook videos can be a great, cost-effective way to do that. Creating a Facebook video campaign sounds daunting, but with a few easy tips and tricks, you'll be able to engage current customers and attract news ones.

Keep in mind that people won't sit through long videos on Facebook. After two minutes, viewers' engagement significantly drops. That's why it's important to keep it short and sweet. If you're not sure how to keep it short, then break your video up into segments, creating a series of videos, and release them over time.

It's also important to utilize what Facebook has to offer. Instead of using YouTube or another third party site, upload your videos directly to the social platform. On average, these videos receive twice as many views and three times as many shares compared to videos coming from other sites.

Not sure what should be in your video? People want to learn, so focus on making how-to videos and providing text explanations within the videos to really keep viewers' attention.

From creating your video to marketing it, check out Business Backer's guide to help you create successful video marketing campaigns on the platform

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Deals on Amazon Devices: the New Echo, Fire TV, and More

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 03:27:00 +0000

Earlier this week, Amazon surprised everyone with a press event that revealed a bunch of new Echo hardware. If you missed any of it, we have the biggest announcements right here. The retail giant is selling a few bundles, allowing you to save on the new hardware including the Fire TV and smaller version of the Echo.

There are also several deals ending tonight, so act fast if anything catches your attention!

LAST CALL

Samsung Gear S3: Save $50 on various models of the new smartwatch (was $350–$450, now $300–$400) until the end of today, September 30th.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S3: Until the end of today (September 30th) get $100 off the tablet, bringing the price down to $499.99.
HP Laptop and Desktop sale: Until end of today (11:59PM PST) save 20 percent on select consumer laptops and desktops priced at $799+ with code 20OFF799, and 25 percent off select laptops and desktops priced at $999+ with code 25OFF999.
Huckberry exclusive discount: Mentioned last month, the online men’s store that sells cool gear (which also has a small women’s shop) is offering Verge readers a 15 percent discount with code VERGE15 until the end of today. (Note: if you don’t already have an account you’ll need to sign up for a free one.) The code works site-wide with the exception of mainly high-end watches.

THIS WEEK’S BEST DEALS

All-New Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD + Echo Dot: Get it for $79.99 on Amazon for a limited time. The Fire TV is $69.99, so you’re essentially getting the Echo Dot for only $10.
All-New Echo three-pack: Pre-order three Echos (release date is October 31st) and save $50 with code ECHO3PACK (now $249).
Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote + Echo Dot: Get it for $59.99 on Amazon ($30 off). The TV stick costs $39.99, so you’re getting an Echo Dot for $20.
Echo Plus with built-in Hub + Philips Hue Bulb: Pre-order the new Echo Plus and get a free Philips Hue light bulb for $149.99, saving you about $15.
Amazon Music Unlimited + $10 credit: Sign up for a free trial of Amazon’s music service and get a $10 credit towards your next order with code MUSIC1.
Samsung UN55MU6300 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2017 Model): eBay has it for $599 (was $748).
JBL Pulse 2 Portable Splashproof Bluetooth Speaker: At an all-time low on Amazon, now $101.50.
Blue mic BOGO deal: The company is offering a buy one, get one free sale on select models (Hummingbird, enCORE 100i, enCORE 100 or enCORE 200) with savings of up to $299.
Samsung Gear Fit2: Verizon Wireless has it for 50 percent off (now $89.99, was $179.99).

Looking for more gaming deals? Check out Polygon’s gaming deals roundup here.

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New Feature From Facebook Helps Connect Blood Donors With Recipients

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 03:51:00 +0000

Facebook is rolling out a new feature to help connect blood donors with blood recipients in India. Ahead of the National Blood Donor Day on October 1st, this new feature on Facebook places a special post on the home page. Depending on the requirements, Facebook requests blood of certain group and in the required locations, and based on donor profiles, it sends out notifications to qualifying donors.

Leveraging its social connect for a good cause, Facebook is trying to make it easier for donors, recipients and organizations to achieve their respective goals. Taking note of the fact that there is a shortage of safe blood in the country, Facebook has teamed up with health industry experts and non-profit organizations to make sure that this new feature is safe for donors as well as recipients.

Facebook will start letting users sign up as blood donors starting from October 1st, on the National Blood Donor Day. Facebook will display a message in the news feed to encourage users to participate in this drive. The social network notes that all information in this regard will remain private and set to “Only me” by default. Users will be given the option to share their donor status on their timelines, which could lead to other users in the network to also sign up as donors.

Blood recipients and organizations can create a post when in need to blood, in which they can share their requirements, area, blood type etc. Once Facebook has this data, it will then compare it with qualifying blood donors based on the blood type, location, quantity etc. If a blood donor is okay with the request, they can respond through WhatsApp, a call or through Messenger. The blood donor’s information remains private even at this stage, helping privacy conscious users donate blood without worrying about divulging their information.

It’s worth noting that users have been trying to connect with each other for a variety of causes, blood donation being one of them. Several user-created pages are dedicated solely for this purpose on Facebook and even on Twitter, helping connect blood donors with recipients. With the kind of tools that Facebook has, this attempt to connect two parties for such an important aspect is a good move that can be a win-win for everyone involved.

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10 Social Media Tips for Startups

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 17:50:00 +0000

According to The Social Habit, 42 percent of consumers making a complaint via social media will expect a response within the hour.

This demand for instant attention has led to most business Twitter feeds pushing out "sorry about that" and "please Direct Me your details so I can resolve the issue" tweets almost every minute.

To help, we've compiled a list of useful tips to help your startup avoid these common pitfalls while also offering general tips on gaining followers and building brand awareness...

1. Assess your social media channels

Before beginning a social media campaign or reshuffle, it’s vital that you gather all current metrics of your social media channel in order to measure growth, and determine what works and more importantly, what doesn't (and could harm your brand).

Key metrics worth taking down are followers/likes, clicks on links, mentions/shares, impressions and profile visits.

A weekly and monthly log of changes in these channels is the best way to monitor changes.

2. Respond as quick as possible to negative comments

Understandably, with small teams it's difficult to respond to each comment or tweet as soon as they come in. However, for negative comments the faster the response, the less likely they are to be annoyed (obviously).

Acknowledging the negative comment within an hour is the best was to quickly defuse a potentially brand damaging situation.

3. Don't just promote your own products or services

Your followers don't just want to see shameless promotion, they want interesting discussion, retweets and an insight into 'office life'.

Posting a messages like 'Happy Friday' or asking a topical question could generate much more social attention than a plug for a product.

4. Use emojis

No one likes to feel like they're talking to a robot.

Social media marketers should show emotion in every tweet, whether it's excitement for a new product or a sincere apology for a glitch in service.

Emojis are a great way of doing that, although without stating the obvious, don't over do it!

5. Use Hashtag when necessary

As we know, hashtags can open up your tweets to a variety of different groups, people and further social promotion. But 'irresponsible' hash-tagging or hash-tagging every word - is not going to win you any fans; and probably won't make your content to be discovered by the right audience anyway.

6. Create a social media calendar

By creating a calendar of scheduled social posts, you'll be able to figure out which times of day provide the biggest return on your measured key metrics. What's more, a calendar should stop over-posting and posting the same content too many times.

7. Know when to post

As we know, you'll be able to determine the best times to post by using a social media calendar and measuring that against your key metrics. But it's also worth noting that for most business profiles, tweeting or posting on the hour will result in being hidden among the thousands of others that tweet on the hour every hour.

So opting to tweet at off peak times (for example, 6.03pm or 10.35am) could mean your post miss the rush and will be more visible to your audience.

8. Direct unhappy customers away from your social page

Without being heartless, you don't want your corporate Facebook or Twitter page full of threads trying to resolve issues. To make sure this doesn't happen, startups can create a dedicated social page designed to to deal with customer issues and 'gently' direct them to this page to discuss the issue further.

9. Create a house style

Finding a 'voice' that represents your startup's social presence is a great way of creating the perception of a reliable brand.

Publishing chatty informal tweets twinned with corporate lingo is confusing and won't result in a loyal following.

Instead create a best practice guide if there is multiple people tweeting from your accounts so all posts fit the overall message you're promoting.

10. Use paid advertising

Most social media channels will offer a paid advertising platform for businesses wanting to grow social reach. You should test the waters first, running small campaigns to see if this is something that will work for your brand and make sure they are specifically targeted for your target audience.

This could get the ball rolling, but might not be a long term solution for some brands wanting to grow in popularity.

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4 Marketing Tips For Small Businesses And Startups

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 02:58:00 +0000

Marketing is tough for startups because it’s usually very difficult to measure value from it, and it can seem like throwing money away.

It’s difficult for new companies to understand and master the nuances that go into sales and marketing. Here are some tips to help you understand some of those:

Sell the benefits of your product

Your business model might be surrounded by the quandary of cost and quality. You want to either beat the competitor in cost or quality or if you can do both, then even better.

However, how you sell is different than how you market. Marketing is about showing the benefit of your product, not a direct comparison to your competitors.

Test and Fail FAST

Marketing is all about testing. It’s hard to measure how effective a marketing campaign is without trying it. Even experts get it wrong sometimes. Make sure to measure results and set up ways to track conversions (promotional codes, online marketing tracking) and run multiple types in small batches.

Allow customers to provide feedback in multiple channels

Having a place for customers to provide feedback and talk to one another is best in the current state of the world, and in most cases unavoidable. Even if a customer comes mad, you have a great PR opportunity to make it right. Nowadays people are more willing to do research before spending their money, and sometimes no reviews are even worse than mediocre ones.

Plus, it allows you the opportunity to improve your product and experience.

Market your product even before it’s finished

Waiting for a product to be perfect is a flaw most businesses make because the product will never be perfect. Creating awareness that the product exists will create demand and help start sales as soon as your product is launched.

How to Send Sensitive Information Over Email

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:37:00 +0000

Supposing corporate needs your bank's routing and account numbers to get you set up for direct deposits. Or the IT department needs your password to upgrade or modify your account.

That's not the kind of information you typically want to share via email. Or instant message. Or even fax. Ideally, it's the kind of thing you'd write on a sticky note and hand directly to the person who needs it.

Of course, that's not always an option, meaning you need some kind of safe, electronic way to transmit sensitive information.

Enter OneShar.es, which lets you create a secure, self-destructing message for one recipient.

It works like this: You click the blue Create One Now button, then type or paste the information you want to share. You can choose to automatically "self-destruct" (i.e. delete) the message if it hasn't been viewed within a designated amount of time -- anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 days.

Next, click Create Link, then copy and paste that link into an email. When the recipient clicks it, he'll gain access to the private message -- an action that also self-destructs the link (meaning no one else can use it).

OneShar.es is free, easy to use, and incredibly handy. Nevertheless, is it secure? According to the OneShar.es About page, the service relies on SSL to encrypt the data between your browser and their servers, and keeps the data encrypted while it's stored. Once your message is viewed, it's deleted from the system.

Granted, there's still no guarantee your data will be kept private and secure, but the same is true of any information you share online. If you have misgivings about using OneShar.es, well, there's always the telephone. Personally, I think it looks like a much safer solution than email or IM.

By the way, if you're an iOS user, the 99-cent OneShar.es app lets you create self-destructing messages on the run.

Have you found a better way to share sensitive data? Tell me about it in the comments.

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Lenovo’s New ThinkSmart Hub Promises to Revolutionize Videoconferencing

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 09:45:00 +0000

Over at Microsoft’s big Ignite event in Orlando, Lenovo has announced a new all-in-one device for the company meeting room, designed to easily facilitate Skype for Business videoconferencing.

The Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500 is a Skype Room Systems device, which is simple to set up, and allows for easily conducting Skype meetings and sharing content with local and remote participants.

It does all this with a minimum of fuss, avoiding the time-wasting fiddling with laptops, cables and such which can often disrupt the start of a meeting session.

Lenovo built the Hub in conjunction with Microsoft, and it consists of a base unit with an 11.6-inch touchscreen which is mounted on a fully rotatable 360-degree stand.

It also benefits from an array of 360-degree microphones and Dolby Audio Premium sound, and is portable enough to be easily moved to any meeting room.
On the software front, the ThinkSmart Hub runs Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

The wrong tech

Christian Teismann, senior VP and general manager, Commercial Business Segment, Lenovo PCSD, commented: “One obvious need for change is in how meetings are conducted, including the ongoing issue of the wrong technology to get meetings started quickly. This wasted time can cost businesses millions in lost productivity, so we’re thrilled the ThinkSmart Hub 500 can help solve that issue.”

The ThinkSmart Hub 500 will go on sale in the first quarter of 2018 with pricing still to be confirmed. Ahead of that, some businesses will be invited to test the device in pilot programs later this year.

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4 Best Bitcoin Exchanges in 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 04:49:00 +0000

It’s all about reputation, currency support and transaction fees

A Bitcoin exchange is a digital marketplace for users to buy and sell Bitcoins using different currencies. The Bitcoin can be exchanged for either fiat money (legal tender) or other alternative cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum. The exchange serves as the middleman for traders of the cryptocurrency.

Being able to purchase Bitcoin is the initial step to trading in it. Just like trading a stock, Bitcoin exchanges charge transaction fees, which range from 0 to 1%. In order to trade Bitcoin on an exchange, the user needs to have an account, and go through a series of steps to be verified.

Remember that Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies are a completely digital currency, and there are no physical Bitcoins.

However, before plunging in with both feet, users should be aware of what to look for in choosing a Bitcoin exchange for their cryptocurrency transactions. This is analogous to the issues and potential pitfalls in making a choice of where to do your banking, or open an online brokerage account. Furthermore, bear in mind that unlike banks and stock trading, Bitcoin trading is largely unregulated by most countries, although this is changing as its popularity increases.

A good place to start is to look at the virtual coins which are supported by an exchange. With over 4,000 cryptocurrencies, and additional ones being added all the time, it is key to figure out which currencies you want to trade in, and then match the exchange that deals in those. For example, Ethereum mining has recently become more popular, but not all Bitcoin exchanges support this alternative cryptocurrency.

Language barriers

Next look at the country that is hosting the Bitcoin exchange. Some are in less regulated countries, and there may be additional problems if something goes awry. This can include time differences, international long distance costs, and language barriers. In general, it’s preferable to find an exchange that speaks your language.

Additionally, pay close attention to the fees levied. While all these exchanges charge transaction fees – after all, they are businesses looking to make a profit – as the user, it is obviously best to find one with the lowest costs in order to maximize your own profits.

Also look for a secure trading platform, and a Bitcoin exchange which has robust security measures. After all, you wouldn’t use a bank that didn’t have a vault, and stored its money on the counter…

Desirable security features include two-factor authentication, SMS or email alerts, encrypted emails, and wallet monitoring. A smartphone app can also be very useful in terms of accessing and monitoring funds – but equally, poorly implemented software can represent a security risk.

Finally, look for an exchange which is doing a good volume of trading – in other words, one with a high number of trading pairs, and high liquidity.
Now that we know the features to look for in the best Bitcoin exchanges, let’s move on to pick out our particular favorites.

1. Coinbase

This is a US-based exchange which was founded in 2012, and it supports over 32 countries. Coinbase exchanges Bitcoin and the alternative cryptocurrencies of Ethereum and Litecoin, and it’s the largest of the exchanges, claiming $20 billion (£15 billion) in currency exchanged. In 2014 Coinbase created GDAX, the Global Digital Asset Exchange which was developed for professionals with high volumes of trading.

The firm offers a mobile wallet, offline storage, and insurance protection for currency stored on its servers. Coinbase supports several fiat currencies: British Pounds, US Dollars, Euros, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars and Singapore Dollars.

The Coinbase exchange has a 1% flat fee for each purchase, while cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals are done without any fees. A streamlined user interface which is ideal for novice traders – and fast trades – makes Coinbase a popular exchange with traders.

2. Gemini Exchange

Gemini Exchange is another US-based outfit founded by the Winklevoss twins – the pair who sued Mark Zuckerberg over social networking, and were awarded $65 million (£48 million), which they put to use as venture capitalists. This exchange is based in New York, and is available in 45 US states, as well as the UK, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong.

Gemini’s only supported fiat currency is US dollars, and it only trades Bitcoin and Ethereum. Gemini does not charge deposit or withdrawal fees, and levies a low flat rate of 0.25% for trades, to both the buyer and the seller.

Another advantage of Gemini is that it’s a New York state limited liability trust company, and is regulated by New York’s Department of Financial Services. Close proximity to the Wall Street financial markets allows the company to easily provide a bridge from more traditional investments to newer cryptocurrency markets, for both individual and institutional investors.

Gemini is also notable in that it accepts ACH transfers for fast access to money for trades. A potential downside is that the interface is not particularly novice-friendly.

3. Changelly

Changelly is a cryptocurrency exchange with support for many more virtual currencies than most, including Monero, Dash, Bytecoin, and DigitalNote among others. If you are mining a less popular currency, chances are that Changelly can exchange it for you.

This exchange comes from the popular mining platform MinerGate which provides a merged mining pool across Windows, Mac, Linux and Android operating systems. While Changelly focuses on exchanges between different cryptocurrencies, users can also purchase cryptocurrency with US Dollars or Euros.

Note that this exchange has a shorter track record, as it only entered the market in 2016. Exchange fees are 0.5% on transactions.

4. Cryptopia

Cryptopia was founded in 2014, aiming to be a comprehensive exchange that focuses on the user experience, with integration of additional services including a marketplace and wallet. It is based in Christchurch, New Zealand. Cryptopia is notable in that the first level of verification happens very quickly, and only requires an email address for initial verification.

While Cryptopia does not support fiat money trading, it does support a ridiculously large number of cryptocurrencies: over 400 to date, with more being added all the time. The trading fee is also a low 0.20% per transaction, which compares favorably with many competitors. The website is quite large and sprawling, meaning that new users might find their first experiences with the site a little daunting.

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Review of 5 Best Photo Editing Software

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 00:08:00 +0000

Photos have been manipulated since the early days of photography in the 19^th century, when snappers would use ink, paint and scratches to alter their pictures. The emergence of digital photography transformed the editing possibilities.

The usability, features and prices of today's editing apps vary immensely. The best pick for you will depend on the type of images you take, the purpose of your editing and the time you want to spend doing it.

Advanced photo editing software can have a hefty price tag attached, but there are also more affordable options on the market with an impressive range of features.

Our top picks overall are:

1. Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop remains the dominant photo editing software in the market and CC is its flagship version. The app works across desktop and mobile devices and can create and edit photographs, videos, websites, banners, app designs and 3D artwork.

It includes a wide range of professional photography tools to retouch and combine images, advanced cropping tools and a variety of Adobe Stock templates. It's available for a selection of pricey monthly subscription fees. Adobe also produces a range of simpler and cheaper alternatives, including Photoshop Elements.

2. GIMP

The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is an excellent option for the thrifty photo editor. The free software offers advanced features for desktop users, who can customise the view and behaviour of their interface to suit their personal preferences.

GIMP comes with sophisticated tools for tasks such as image composition, authoring, retouching and restoring. It supports a wide range of file format which can be compressed to save disk space.

3. Corel PaintShop Pro

PaintShop Pro is an affordable alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Users can enhance their photos with professional editing tools, and create graphic designs using brushes, gradients, patterns, textures and a selection of colour palettes.

The product comes in two different versions: PaintShop Pro 2018, which costs £89.99, and a premium version called PaintShop Pro 2018 for £89.99.

4. CyberLink PhotoDirector

PhotoDirector packs a wealth of editing features into a user-friendly product. Users can identify and individuals in images and then sort them for easy browsing, automatically fix unwanted tints, blend layers from multiple photos, turn videos into images or create animated GIFs.

The standard version is the £49.99 Deluxe edition. PhotoDirector is also available in the £79.99 Ultra version, which adds storage space in the CyberLink Cloud Service and a range of features including editing for photos taken using 360-degree cameras. Both editions are available on a free trial.

5. Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo offers comprehensive editing for RAW images and all major camera files formats. Features include precise selection refinement, advanced adjustment layers and a vast range of filters, and a range of retouching tools for everything from quick corrections to detailed modifications.

The software was built for professional photographers and is regularly updated. It's available for £48.99 and as a free trial for both Mac and Windows.

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Understanding How Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies Work

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 19:10:00 +0000

Introduction and a Lesson in Scarcity

While once a curiosity of the internet, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are considered by some to be the money of the future. However, over the last several years, Bitcoin has certainly had its ups and downs – literally.

Bitcoin explained: what is Bitcoin?

Cryptocurrency is an attempt to replace money transactions with a digital medium of exchange using peer-to-peer networking. The first decentralized cryptocurrency, and still the most successful, was Bitcoin, which was created in 2009 by the mysterious developer Satoshi Nakamoto, who subsequently left the project in late 2010.

Virtual money, real impact

The idea is that you use cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money, rather than relying on central authorities.
Since the success of Bitcoin, there have been over 3,000 other virtual currencies introduced with varying degrees of success and popularity such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero and Dash. There have even been crowdfunded cryptocurrencies such as Lisk.

Many other cryptocurrencies have just died because of lack of interest, and the simple fact that no one used them. Non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies are collectively known as altcoins and they are more or less based on the same idea of a decentralized digital medium for exchange.

Their success depends on how much ‘cash’ (the total value of transactions) they have sloshing about the peer-to-peer network (i.e. the virtual economy). Since Bitcoin is open source, anyone can develop their own cryptocurrency using the same technology.

A short lesson in scarcity

Bitcoins derive their value partly through their scarcity, which is defined by a cryptographic lottery. You can buy Bitcoins on online cryptocurrency exchanges or you can earn them through a process known as ‘mining’.

Bitcoin mining programs compute an encryption function called a hash on a set of random numbers. Coins are awarded to whichever miner happens to compute a number below a certain threshold.
Originally, Bitcoin mining was handled by standard PCs with powerful graphics cards, but as the hash difficulty has increased, the preferred method to mine Bitcoins is to employ a Bitcoin ASIC, a chip that has been designed specifically for this task. However, with the higher value of cryptocurrency – in particular Ethereum – and recent advances in GPU processing power, miners have once again been turning to graphics cards for mining.

This lottery favors those with the biggest and fastest machines, and currently there are about 17 million Bitcoins in circulation. Note that the total number of Bitcoins in (virtual) circulation will never exceed 21 million because of the way the system was designed.

As the Bitcoin network gets bigger, the hash gets more complex, and miners get fewer Bitcoins for their trouble, hence they always need better hardware and higher Bitcoin prices to make it worthwhile.

As a currency, Bitcoin is still a niche market. However, multiple established retailers accept it as payment including Overstock, Expedia, Newegg and the Dish Network.

Since Bitcoins can be spent on the internet without the use of a bank account, they offer a convenient system for anonymous purchases, which also makes it possible to launder money and buy illegal products. Since there is no money stored anywhere, accounts can't be frozen by police or PayPal administrators.

Business Suitability and Bitcoin's Future

Ideal for small transactions?

Bitcoin was once regarded as an ideal system for small electronic payments – so-called micropayments – as it is difficult to transmit small amounts of currency efficiently with existing systems. Credit card fees, also known as swipe fees, can often exceed the value of the purchase, making this costly for retailers. However, Bitcoins increased transaction fees have proved to be a barrier preventing it making inroads into the world of micropayments.

Another problem with Bitcoin is the volatility of its value which exceeds the volatility of other currencies and gold, resulting in huge fluctuations in comparison to the US dollar. In 2013, the value of Bitcoin went from $10 to over $1,000! Because its supply is ultimately limited, prices will need to vary to accommodate shifts in demand, not the other way round. Unlike gold, Bitcoin has no intrinsic value from alternative uses that could anchor its price.

Not fit for business?

As a currency, Bitcoin is not stable enough for most businesses. The value of a Bitcoin fluctuates dramatically and because there are no controls there is nothing to stop money vanishing if the price tanks.

Bitcoin payment processors offer a way of getting around this problem, as they convert the transaction to hard currency almost instantaneously. Many companies want regulation to provide them with some security and protect them from potential big losses on the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin's future

There are some signs that governments are starting to look at regulations and this is clearly proving difficult.
All these factors are significant barriers which are diminishing Bitcoin’s chances of becoming a more widespread and popular currency. Bitcoin's market capitalization currently stands at about $74.5 billion (around £55 billion).

Previously, Goldman Sachs has said that it was more plausible that Bitcoin could have a significant impact in terms of its innovation on payments technology, "by forcing existing players to adapt to it or co-opt it."
However, the Goldman Sachs report also said that Bitcoin's ‘biggest hurdle’ will be maintaining its cost advantage in the face of greater regulation, higher operating costs, and competition from entrenched players.

Fitch Ratings came to a similar conclusion and found that Bitcoin stands to lose much of its appeal if Bitcoin companies are forced to deal with the added cost of regulation, rendering the near friction-less Bitcoin network much less cost-effective than it is today.

In 2017, Bitcoin has been on the rise again, with prices per coin hitting $4,500 (£3,300). This has been fuelled by Chinese buying of the cryptocurrency.

It seems that the sheer success of Bitcoin which has seen it leap from being a shadowy entity to an all-star affair overnight has also hurt its long-term viability. It remains to be seen if Bitcoin can move beyond its niche to gain wider acceptance, and for the time being the cryptocurrency remains quite volatile, and a gamble to investors that has been likened to the tech bubble of the 1990s.

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The World's Richest Woman: Billionaire L'Oreal heiress Bettencourt dies aged 94

noreply@blogger.com (Chidi Petercletus) — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 07:31:00 +0000

French businesswoman and billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, whose family founded L'Oreal and still owns the largest stake in the cosmetics giant, has died aged 94, her daughter said on Thursday.

Bettencourt, listed by Forbes as the world's richest woman, was the heiress to the beauty and comestics company her father founded just over a century ago as a maker of hair dye.

Her death opens a new phase for L'Oreal, France's fourth-largest listed company, altering the relationship it has with key shareholder Nestle, the Swiss food company.

Bettencourt and her family owned 33 percent of the company. Her daughter Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, who sits on L'Oreal's board along with her own son, said in a statement the family remained committed to the company and its management team.

"My mother left peacefully," Bettencourt-Meyers said, adding that she had died during Wednesday night at her home in Paris.

"I would like to reiterate, on behalf of our family, our entire commitment and loyalty to L'Oreal and to renew my confidence in its President Jean-Paul Agon and his teams worldwide."

In 2011 Agon was appointed chairman and chief executive of L'Oreal, owner of the Lancome and Maybelline beauty and make-up brands and of Garnier shampoos.

Nestle, which owns just over 23 percent of L'Oreal, had agreed with the founding family that the two parties could not increase their stakes during Liliane Bettencourt's lifetime and for at least six months after her death.

The Swiss company has been a major investor since 1974, when Bettencourt entrusted nearly half of her own stake in the firm to Nestle in exchange for a three percent holding in the Swiss company. She made the move out of fear that L'Oreal might be nationalized if the Socialists came to power in France.

Activist hedge fund Third Point recently urged Nestle - which brought in a new chief executive, Mark Schneider, earlier this year - to sell down its stake as part of efforts to improve its performance.

A Nestle spokeswoman on Thursday did not comment on the company's stake, only saying: "It's time to send our sincere condolences to Madame Bettencourt's family."

LEGAL BATTLES

Fascination with Bettencourt's wealth, complex family relations and scandal-tinged life often propelled her into society pages and headlines, though she remained private and rarely gave interviews.

Her net worth was estimated at $39.5 billion earlier this year by Forbes, making her the world's richest woman and among the 20 wealthiest people in the world.

In a testament to the influence L'Oreal came to have in France, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Thursday praised the stability Bettencourt had brought to the company through her ownership and said in a statement he hoped that the firm would maintain its close ties with its home market.

The marriage of the heiress to French politician Andre Bettencourt drew scrutiny when it emerged he had written anti-Semitic tracts at the start of World War Two. And Bettencourt was caught up in high-profile legal feuds almost until the last.

She had been under the guardianship of family members since a court fight, known as the "Bettencourt affair", ended with a ruling in 2011 that she was incapable of looking after her fortune because she suffered from dementia and had been exploited.

The case - brought by her daughter Françoise and which soured relations between the two - centered on Francois-Marie Banier, a celebrity photographer who befriended Bettencourt in the 1980s and received lavish gifts from her, including life insurance policies worth $400 million.

Another strand of the sprawling affair later led to allegations of illegal payments by Bettencourt to members of the French government associated with former president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010. Sarkozy was eventually cleared in the case.

Paris-born Bettencourt joined her father Eugene Schueller's firm as an apprentice at the age of 15, mixing cosmetics and labeling bottles of shampoo.

She inherited the family fortune when her father Eugene Schueller, a chemist, died in 1957, though she delegated the day-to-day management of the firm. A widow since 2007, Bettencourt ceased to sit on L'Oreal's board in 2012.

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