Erik Qualman's Blog, page 543

9 Interesting Facts About the Internet You Didn’t Know and Should

1. 30,000 websites are hacked every day.

2. Internet users send 204 million emails per minute.

3. 15% of American adults do not use the internet.

4. Over 100,000 new dot com domains are registered on the web everyday.

5. The first webcam was created in Cambridge to check the status of a coffee pot.

6. 50% of Internet users will quit waiting for a video to load after 10 seconds.

7. There’s high speed internet on the way up to Mt. Everest.

8. The ”Fi” in “WiFi” doesn’t mean anything. The creators just called it that because it rhymed with “HiFi”.

9. In 2010, Finland became the first country in the world to make Internetaccess a legal right.

Facts from factslides.com

Images from factslides.com

 

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Don’t Let Social Media Age You

Like most men, you’re probably trying to avoid the thought of middle age.

Fortunately, there are ways you can feel younger and it all starts with social media.

With social fountains of youth in mind, here are a handful of ways men just like you can feel young again by using social media:

Social Media Is a Young Man’s Game….

By joining the social masses and staying attune to younger audiences, you’ll feel younger as a result.

Chances are most of your friends are already using social sites like Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis, so adopting a social mindset won’t be much of a challenge.

Social media is a great place to stay up to speed on what’s trending in men’s fashion and fitness. Likewise, if you consider technology as a window into youth, then social media has the tech bubble covered too.

There are new tech-inspired social sites popping up all the time that will keep you updated on the latest, greatest tech gadgets.

Now that you’re beginning to see social media as a tool to staying young at heart, how exactly can you use social media to your advantage when approaching your 50s?

Social Forums

There are a number of social forums dedicated to men approaching their 50s and beyond. These forums help answer all sorts of health, personal, and marriage related questions.

Among them:

What are some workout regimens middle-aged men should follow? Or take a look at the article “Should men with thinning hair worry about their marriages?” There is also the issue of how should older men dress?

All of these questions and more can be answered on judgment-free forums.

By visiting social forums, you can gather helpful advice and opinions from men your same age.

Tracking Down Health Sites

Part of embracing social media is using it as a research tool to enrich your life and improve your health.

For starters, you can use social media to research different men’s fitness sites.

Once you find one or two fitness sites you like, you can find and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

By doing so, you can stay up to date on men’s fitness trends and general health news.

Likewise, you can share men’s health related articles with your social friends and help each other stay forever young.

Social Tips and Pointers

Whether you want to improve your health or look years younger through diet and exercise, social media can help get you on the right track. By reaching out to your friends and family, you can gather pointers to become a healthier, younger-feeling you.

By finding out what others your age are doing to stay fit, you can become inspired to improve your health and regain that youthful spirit.

Likewise, you can also reach out to men’s health professionals on social media and ask questions about personal fitness, health, and wellbeing.

When you’re ready to feel years younger, let social media help you change your perspective on aging.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Affordable Loans Mean More Socialization

Loans – no one wants them, but many often need them.

It can be tricky, though, finding the best loan providers and the best terms.

Did you ever think to look towards social media to get your facts in order before seeking a loan? If not, you may want to consider it.

Different Kinds of Loans

People seek loans for a variety of reasons.

Some need a loan for a new house or a new car. College loans are quite common as are loans to start a small business.

You can also get different types of loans, such as unsecured and secured loans, which differ by secured loans need collateral while unsecured don’t.

Open ended and closed ended loans are other kinds of loans – open includes credit cards while closed ended loans include mortgage, car and student loans.

More People Taking out Loans

With our spending society, more and more people are taking out loans. It can get you in trouble if you let them pile up, as in credit card debt.

College costs are a big debate because students often come out owing huge amounts on loans.

As the following article notes, studies show more Americans taking out car loans than ever before.

Often, they get into trouble if they can’t pay the payments on time.

Do Your Research – Use Social Media

Loans aren’t always a bad thing.

Not everyone has the cash on hand to purchase a house, a car or pay for tuition upfront. If credit card bills are paid off every month, they won’t pile up, and loans let you pay as you go.

Finding the best loans out there, and even some tips on how to handle them is a time to turn to social media.

Here are some reasons why:

• Oddly enough, it’s been shown that those active on social media are more likely to pay loans on time. Kabbage, an Atlanta based online lender, uses an algorithm that looks at prospective clients social media (among other things) to evaluate them for a loan. They can see how customers rate businesses on Facebook and Twitter and how the business interacts with customers – which help evaluate success. So, even before you do your own research, your social media can help you out.

• When you are looking for a loan, for instance a good mortgage rate, check out some lender’s social media. Here, you can learn a lot about the process, and even get it started.

• Use social media to read testimonials on various lenders. See what their clients say about them and who seems affordable.

• For a car loan, while you’re looking up makes and models, check out loan information on the car dealer’s site as well. You can shop around a little, and also have your facts straight so you know what to expect.

• Check out the providers. A good one will provide strong social media, with relevant and timely posts.

Do your research so you know what you’re getting into with a loan.

Loans are a big commitment; you want to be well prepared and work with a trusted provider.

Let social media help you out.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Infographic: The Race For Gigabit Internet

Gigabit Internet service has arrived and may be coming your way in 2015, or is already available. AT&T, Google, Verizon, Cox, Century Link and many other companies are already offering this incredibly fast broadband speed to both homes and offices. If this service is not currently available, don’t worry as 2015 is set to be a big year for Gigabit Internet, and these providers are quickly expanding their service areas to ensure that almost every home or business has access.

This is an infrastructure build out as fiber optic cable is used to deliver this service as opposed to the regular broadband cable that we are typically used to. Using fiber optic cable enables this lightning fast speed of around 10 megabits per second.

Although Gigabit Internet is certainly not something everyone needs right now, there are already many solutions and services that will benefit from using it. Streaming video, entertainment, education and cloud solutions are just a few examples of use cases where the service typically performs much better when a super fast Internet connection is in use.

This infographic created by whichvoip.com outlines some of the most popular service providers and where they currently offer Gigabit Internet service. The maps also highlight some of the cities that are in the pipeline to be activated in 2015.

As geographic coverage increases and multiple providers start to offer service in the same cities, the cost of Gigabit Internet should come to down. Looking into the future and beyond 2015, services such as DSL, Cable, T1 and T3 may be things of the past and the majority of homes and businesses will be enjoying the luxury of super fast Gigabit Internet connectivity.

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With Instant Articles, Facebook Shows Us What Paper Was For

WIRED – Facebook Paper was a strange thing. After its release early last year, the extravagant news-reading smartphone app that unbundled the News Feed from the rest of Facebook quickly faded from view. But now it’s paying dividends—at least for Facebook.

On Wednesday, the company rolled out what it calls Instant Articles: stories from big-name news outlets that appear within Facebook’s iPhone app in their entirety rather than simply as a link to elsewhere on the web. In order words, you needn’t leave Facebook’s app in order to read the latest from The New York Times, The Atlantic, or The Guardian. The arrangement was long rumored, and it carries a fair share of controversy, with many worrying it will erode the power of publishers to control their content. But it makes good sense for Facebook. And, it turns out, the team behind the look and feel of Instant Articles was also the team behind Paper.

This was immediately obvious on Tuesday night, when the new-age media outlet Buzzfeed revealed that it was participating in the program, showing off one of its own “instant articles.” The mini-demo looked a lot like Paper, a distinctive—and impressive—piece of design and software engineering.

Indeed, TechCrunch reported that Michael Reckhow and Mike Matas, the project manager and lead designer behind Paper, helped oversee the creation of Instant Articles. “We’ve brought a bunch of the learnings [from Paper] into this product,” Reckhow told Techcrunch, including the way images and fonts are handled on these articles. More specifically, Paper engineer Ben Cunningham revealed on Twitter that Instant Articles makes use of a tool called AsyncDisplayKit that’s responsible for making Paper’s complex user interface so quick and responsive by tapping into the iPhone’s multi-core processors. Speed, after all, is one of the main aims meant to show that Instant Articles are preferable to reading in a web browser.

The upshot: Paper, which does not have ads, is feeding a new source of revenue for Facebook. When media outlets opt to show Facebook ads alongside their stories instead of their own, the company takes a 30 percent cut. And so a free app with no obvious way to make money for Facebook is revealed as the test bed for another way to generate ad dollars.

The Facebook Way

The Paper connection is a side note to the launch of Instant Articles, which could have sweeping repercussions for the online media industry in general. But the origin story offers a useful reminder of how Facebook operates—and how it has always operated. The technology comes first, and the purpose—including the revenue—often comes later. In this way, Facebook operates like so many Internet, except that unlike so many of its Silicon Valley competitors, Facebook actually finds its way to the money-making part of the process.

Matas and a small group of other designers and engineers dreamed up Paper after Facebook acquired his previous company, the digital book maker Push Pop. As Paper team member and ex-Apple engineer Scott Goodson told us last year, their ambition extended beyond a standalone news reading app. “The idea was to revisit Facebook as an experience on mobile devices—effectively from the ground up,” he said.

Because Paper was an app entirely separate from “the big blue Facebook app”—and because it didn’t have the immediate utility of a standalone app like Facebook Messenger—it didn’t capture a wide audience. But it was an enormous step forward in terms of design and engineering. This was true not only in how it looked and how quickly it operated, but in the dynamic way it let you explore photos. From the beginning, it was clear that the app would serve as a model for other apps. And it has, including how news is going to start to look in the big blue Facebook app. It isn’t far from its original goal.

Paper was the first app built under the aegis of what the company calls Facebook Creative Labs. This isn’t a physical lab. It’s not even a distinct team of people. It’s really just an idea. The aim is to explore new things that may or may not work. Paper didn’t work, at least in terms of a wider audience. Instant Articles may or may not work. But it’s a nice metaphor for the Facebook way.

Article by Cade Metz for Wired

Thumbnail from Facebook

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Team up the 1-2 Punch of SMS Marketing and Social Media

When it comes to marketing matches made in heaven, social media and SMS marketing prove quite a pair.

Whether you are pitching a new product or simply spreading the word about your business, using social media and SMS marketing can make a huge difference.

Here are just a few ways the SMS/social 1-2 punch can benefit your marketing campaigns:

Marketing Synergy

Are you trying to decide whether to pour all of your marketing energy into social media or SMS? Why not choose both?

Social media and SMS provide the marketing synergy that can take both campaign techniques to new heights.

For example, you can promote your social endeavors by texting customers to visit your social pages.

Likewise, you can ask your social followers to subscribe to your mobile marketing by posting the suggestion on your social pages.

This type of synergy not only helps with cross-promotions, it also increases your social presence and increases the number of mobile followers you have.

Besides, it’s never a bad idea to have multiple marketing channels at your disposal.

Cost-Effective Marketing

As the following article shows, another benefit of using SMS marketing in conjunction with social media is the fact both marketing practices are cost effective.

For starters, social media marketing is free. Sure, it takes time and energy to keep up with social media, but there are no upfront costs involved.

SMS marketing isn’t free, but it’s definitely one of least expensive forms of marketing around.

SMS texts are quick and easy to create and each campaign has the potential to reach millions.

As far as cost effective marketing goes, social media and SMS are as budget-friendly as it gets.

Sharing Links

When you’re able to share links within your marketing campaigns, it’s like killing two birds with stone. You can link to practically anything, including your website as well as the products and services you offer.

Fortunately, both social media and SMS are very linkable marketing channels.

You can share links within your social posts and directly in your text messages. This gives your business more value with each and every campaign you release.

Social Media is Mobile-Friendly

When your multi-channel marketing endeavors actually work in tandem with one another, it vastly improves your business’s outreach. Such is the case with social media and SMS.

Social media is very mobile, which means your business can send SMS texts that relate directly to your business’s mobile activities.

You can send a text campaign that asks recipients to engage with your business socially and they can do so directly from their mobile devices.

Easy Opt-Ins

Both social media and SMS marketing offer quick and easy opt-ins.

With Facebook and Twitter, all potential followers have to do is friend or follow your business.

As for SMS, you can encourage recipients to receive texts either through in-store advertisements or through email/social promotions. It’s that easy.

If you’re looking for a winning marketing team, remember the benefits of using social media and SMS.

Photo credit:  Image courtesy of nokhoog_buchachon at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Mobile Gaming Trends & the Focus of Social

The mobile gaming industry will have a record decade by 2020 and this can be attributed to rapid technological advancement in mobile devices, which congruently has also driven a focus on the importance of social as well. Currently, 171.1 million people in the world own a smartphone fully capable of running game and social media apps. There are a handful of trends to look out for over the next five years as gaming becomes a 102.9 billion dollar industry hugely in part due to the rise of mobile and social.

1. Video Advertising

A game’s got to eat right? Well at least a mobile game needs some sort of brand/advertiser revenue to back it up financially since most mobile game applications are free or cost little to nothing to the public. The popularity of YouTube has proven that sharing videos is a viral and socially connective activity, which is why the next business-minded step would be to mesh the very visually engaging platform of mobile gaming with the highly visual and often social outlet of video in one platform to an advertiser’s advantage. More video ads will begin popping up within mobile game apps and the outlook for consumer investment looks strong since the audience is already there for a visual form of entertainment.

2. Demographic Diversification

A gamer’s paradise is starting to include gamers of both amateur and seasoned status with the variety of games mobile developers have been producing. The gaming industry target is widening in range, from the classic gamer stereotype playing World of Warcraft to now moms playing Candy Crush Saga. Social games like Candy Crush Saga have really taken off and more and more games are starting to include a social component because not only do they satisfy the innate human desire for a sense of community and belonging, held within gaming principles as well, but also help spread the word about these applications, thus acting as a game producer’s fuel and support to continue production.

 3. Even More Targeting

All the social media apps and websites so many mobile device users are on provide valuable consumer data for game publishers to truly understand the player they are trying to entertain. Every move of a game’s participant will be increasingly tracked due to the capabilities of synced and connected technology across multiple devices and applications. This information will be used to promote relevant products or games to users so that they don’t feel like their experience is interrupted and they can continue to play on.

 4. Virtual Reality Gaming

Virtual reality gaming is going to take a new platform and that’s mobile. Tech innovations like graphics processors allow for super sharp visuals, crystal clear sound and extra smooth processing for a grand gaming adventure. In fact, Qualcomm Snapdragon’s latest mobile technology in their GPU chips help produce the most realistic 3D virtual experience on the market. And with mobile VR headsets beginning to emerge that simply call for a quick attachment of phablet/smartphone to headpiece, virtual reality is set to take off.

 5. Cloud Gaming

Since some of the best gadget hardware has already surfaced, the follow-up stride in gaming technology would be to try to lighten the load on physical devices with the ever-omnipresent cloud. Cloud gaming is foreseen in the upcoming years where gamers can play the most complex games with no hesitation about storage or speed affected by demanding game commands. Soon players will universally have the ability to stream games through the almighty internet and onto their mobile devices without wasting space.

The future of gaming is looking fully healthy. And it’s in large part because of how social connection via mobile device generates continual consumer demand for more. It is pushing technological development, and progress is keeping up. As long as momentum holds up, so too will gaming, for the win.

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#EdTech in Washington DC

If the entire Education Day from the 1776 Challenge Festival can be summed up in one tweet, it would be this:

 

That is the main takeaway from global incubator, 1776’s Washington DC conference. That in order for equity to be reached in the tech industry, disruption must be made.

Between panels featuring thought leaders in the EdTech field and entrepreneurs, and keynotes from government leaders and CEOs, every minute was filled with insight. Each conference section was broken down into trends that are changing the course of education as we know it.

The traditional career path model is shifting. With the disruption of technology in the education field, nontraditional learning programs like General Assembly and Roadtrip Nation are encouraging students to make careers out of passion, instead of becoming another cog in the wheel. While costs of higher education costs remain high, students now have options about their future. And the entrepreneurial spirit is more on the rise than ever.

Career paths for students aren’t the only thing that’s changing. Higher Education institutions are also partnering up with private companies like 2U and American Honors to make degrees more accessible. Even K-12 schools are engaging in change. Richard Culatta, of the US Department of Education, explained to event attendees that up to 70,000 schools are anticipating installment of high-speed internet within the next 2 years.

The opportunity that the intersection of entrepreneurship, education, and technology provides can arguably be the biggest shift in the educational system as we know it. With the release of the Ed Tech Developer’s Guide there can now be more focus on equity to close gaps in digital literacy, online access, and the bountiful resources that EdTech has to offer.

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Google Says Its Self-Driving Cars Drive Better Than You

TechCrunch – Google has been testing self-driving cars for years. Six years in fact, with a fleet of 20+ self-driving cars, which have self-driven almost a million miles over that period — and are now averaging around 10,000 self-driven miles per week.

Image from TechCrunch

So how many accidents have Google’s autonomous rides got into over that period? Eleven “minor accidents”, according to Google’s Chris Urmson, writing in a blog post on Medium yesterday. However Urmson lays the blame for all 11 fender-benders at the feet of the other human drivers — rather than the self-driving machines.

“Over the 6 years since we started the project, we’ve been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel, and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.”

Going into a little more detail, Urmson says Google’s driverless cars have been hit from behind seven times — “mainly at traffic lights but also on the freeway”. They’ve also been “side-swiped a couple of times and hit by a car rolling through a stop sign”. While the majority of the accidents apparently occurred on city streets, rather than freeways — with Google noting its vehicles were hit eight times “in many fewer miles of city driving”.

A lot of the discussion around the challenges posed by driverless cars has focused on concerns about safety — such as whether on-board computers would require programing to encourage taking evasion action that is designed to kill the least number of people, yet which might nonetheless result in a machine making deliberate choices to crash into a car with fewer occupants (and thus actively choosing to kill one set of humans to save another).

So Google flagging up the dangers of human drivers offers a counterweight to that — albeit, it’s in the company’s long-term interests to move humans from behind the wheel. After all, if your eyes are on the road they can’t (safely) be on an advert, which is of course how Mountain View fuels its business. So expect Google to keep emphasizing the fallibility of human drivers as it works to pave the way for a machine-driven future.

Urman even goes on to cite statistics about the number of U.S. drivers checking their mobile while driving — contrasting those fatally distracted humans with the lidless vigilance of Google’s four-wheeled machines…

“Lots of people aren’t paying attention to the road. In any given daylight moment in America, there are 660,000 people behind the wheel who are checking their devices instead of watching the road. Our safety drivers routinely see people weaving in and out of their lanes; we’ve spotted people reading books, and even one playing a trumpet. A self-driving car has people beat on this dimension of road safety. With 360 degree visibility and 100% attention out in all directions at all times; our newest sensors can keep track of other vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians out to a distance of nearly two football fields.”

He also notes that Google is amassing a wealth of driving data which he suggests could be used to identify dangerous situations before an accident happens — such as identifying “patterns of driver behavior (lane-drifting, red-light running) that are leading indicators of significant collisions”.

The next step, presumably, would be for Google’s driverless algorithms to take pre-emptive evasive action to steer clear of future collisions, based on big data mining of these warning signs of impending collisions.

Article by Natasha Lomas for TechCrunch

Thumbnail from Shutterstock

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Why Your eCommerce Site Needs Powerful Product Listing Ads

In this era of eCommerce, Product Listing Ads allow every online retailer to boost their e-commerce site and for this your site must contain an appealing product image with attractive title, product price and promotional content.

As online shopping has become a trend in the present day, users wants everything on the site instantly. Thus, through the various e-Commerce sites & search engines like Google or Bing, users can find available product data entry instantly on e-Commerce sites. These e-Commerce sites permit users to purchase various types of products from any location.

How Product Listing Ads Works:

When a visitor visits any shopping site to buy products, usually he compares the site first and then further searches the required product. On the other hand, an advertiser bids for his product to be shown in the search engine. Then, if the user clicks on your product or advertisement, you have to pay for that click. The click on that product redirects users to your official website.

Moreover, you can manage product listing ads in Adwords through shopping campaigns. Shopping campaigns provides you an easy retail centric management for bidding on your required product; thereby increase your product sales among other competitors. 

Benefits of Why You Should Use Product Listing Ads:

Increased Traffic:

Several e-Commerce platforms with their product listings and effective product uploading services have the benefit of higher click-through rates (CTR) as compared to text ads.

Better Qualified Leads:

As an e-Commerce retailer, you can have increased number of leads for your business by uploading your eCommerce product entry in an informative & in appealing way, thereby attracting your customers to your site to make purchase from your site.

Retail Centric Campaigning:

Through retail-centric campaign, you can add your product’s features in your product listing ads to display your product’s ads on the search engines.

Powerful Reporting:  

Through proper reporting you can know, in what way your products are featuring among the customers and other competitors.

By filtering the view of your products, you can find how many clicks you’ve got for your product listings.

Final Word:

The ‘Product Listing Ads’ is an effective advertisement tool for every eCommerce business and can produce high return on investment (ROI).

Moreover, display your product listings ads with new & updated product descriptions and headlines with appealing images to optimize the performance of your eCommerce business.

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