editor, Author at Mediastreet

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Google Ads Rolls Out Performance Max Globally

November 17, 2021 No Comments

Google Ads today announced the rollout of an ad unit that it claims will help advertisers bolster their incremental reach.

Top line

Dubbed Performance Max, the new offering lets media buyers book inventory across a range of Google properties including YouTube, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps as part of a single campaign.

The Google Ads team is pitching it as a complementary service to keyword-based Search campaigns—still the bulk of its business—in a further bid to boost advertiser-spend.

Between the lines

Performance Max campaigns launched in beta last year with the Google Ads team reporting that advertisers that trialled the service saw a 13% increase in incremental conversions on average.

Brands including Allianz, Deezer, and MG used Performance Max since it was rolled out in beta with marketers reporting that it helped them increase conversion rates, find new customers and bolster their consumer insights.

Bottom line

The Google Ads team claimed it will introduce more features specifically geared towards marketers that want to attract consumers to their brick-and-mortar outlets, such as retailers, to Performance Max in the coming year.

“We know the holidays are a critical time of year for your business. You should continue using Smart Shopping and Local campaigns to reach more shoppers across online and in-store experiences this holiday season,” wrote Eduardo Indacochea, Google, senior director, product management, in a blog post.

“However, when the time is right for your business, you can start testing Performance Max campaigns before next year’s campaign upgrades.”

Feature Image Credit: Performance Max lets brands further boost their campaign reach of their keyword-based campaigns.Google

By Ronan Shields

Ronan Shields is Adweek’s programmatic editor.

Sourced from ADWEEK

In News

Disappear from the internet forever: 6 things you have to do

November 16, 2021 No Comments

By Eric Franklin

Getting off the grid isn’t as easy as it should be, but we’ll show you where to start.

If you’re reading this, it’s highly likely your personal information is available to the public. And by “public” I mean everyone everywhere. So, how can deleting yourself from the internet stop companies from getting hold of your info? Short answer: It can’t. Unfortunately, you can never completely remove yourself from the internet, but there are ways to minimize your digital footprint, which would lower the chances of your personal data being out there. Here are some ways to do that. We’ll update these tips periodically.

Be forewarned, however: Removing your information from the internet, as I’ve outlined below, could adversely affect your ability to communicate with potential employers.

1. Delete or deactivate your shopping, social media and web service accounts

Think about which networks you have social media profiles on. Aside from the big ones (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn), do you still have old accounts on sites like Tumblr? MySpace? What about your Reddit account? Which shopping sites have you registered on? Common ones might include information stored on Amazon, Gap.com, Macys.com and others.

screen-shot-2018-02-27-at-2-35-06-pm — Using a service like DeleteMe can make removing yourself from the internet less of a headache.

Screenshot by Eric Franklin/CNET

To get rid of these accounts, go to your account settings and look for an option to either deactivate, remove or close your account. Depending on the account, you may find it under Privacy or Security, or something similar.

If you’re having trouble with a particular online account, try searching online for “How to delete,” followed by the name of the account you wish to delete. You should be able to find some instructions on how to delete that particular account. (Here’s how to permanently delete your Facebook account without losing your photos.)

If for some reason there are any undeletable accounts, change the info in the account to something other than your actual info. Something fake or completely random.

2. Remove yourself from data collection sites

There are companies out there that collect your information. They’re called data brokers, and they have names like Spokeo, Whitepages.com and PeopleFinder, as well as plenty of others. They collect data from everything you do online and then sell that data to interested parties, mostly in order to more specifically advertise to you and sell stuff.

Now you could search for yourself on these sites and then deal with each site individually to get your name removed. Problem is, the procedure for opting out from each site is different and sometimes involves sending faxes and filling out actual physical paperwork. Physical. Paperwork. What year is this, again?

Anyway, an easier way to do it is to use a service like DeleteMe at joindeletme.com. For just $129 per year, the service will jump through all those monotonous hoops for you. It’ll even check back every few months to make sure your name hasn’t been re-added to these sites.

Be warned: If you remove yourself from these data broker sites, you’ll also mostly remove yourself from Google search results, therefore making it much harder for people to find you. DeleteMe also gives you a set of DIY guides on how to remove yourself from each individual data broker if you’d like to do the process yourself.

3. Remove your info directly from websites

First, check with your phone company or cell provider to make sure you aren’t listed online and have them remove your name if you are.

If you want to remove an old forum post or an old embarrassing blog you wrote back in the day, you’ll have to contact the webmaster of those sites individually. You can either look at the About us or Contacts section of the site to find the right person to contact or go to www.whois.com and search for the domain name you wish to contact. There you should find information on who exactly to contact.

Unfortunately, private website operators are under no obligation to remove your posts. So, when contacting these sites be polite and clearly state why you want the post removed. Hopefully they’ll actually follow through and remove it.

If they don’t, tip No. 4 is a less effective, but viable option.

4. Remove personal info from websites

If someone’s posted sensitive information of yours such as a Social Security number or a bank account number and the webmaster of the site where it was posted won’t remove it, you can send a legal removal request to Google to have it removed.

You may have to exercise Google’s legal powers to get your personal information removed from a stubborn site.

Screenshot by Eric Franklin/CNET

The removal process could take some time, and there’s no guarantee it’ll be successful, but it’s also your best recourse if you find yourself in this vulnerable situation.

5. Remove outdated search results

Google’s URL removal tool is handy for erasing evidence of past mistakes from the internet.

Screenshot by Eric Franklin/CNET

Let’s say there’s a webpage with information about you on it you’d like to get rid of — like your former employer’s staff page, months after you’ve changed jobs. You reach out to get them to update the page. They do, but when you Google your name, the page still shows up in your search results — even though your name isn’t anywhere to be found when you click the link. This means the old version of the page is cached on Google’s servers.

Here’s where this tool comes in. Submit the URL to Google in hopes it’ll update its servers, deleting the cached search result so you’re no longer associated with the page. There’s no guarantee Google will remove the cached info for reasons, but it’s worth a try to exorcise as much of your online presence as possible from the internet.

6. And finally, the last step you’ll want to take is to remove your email accounts

Depending on the type of email account you have, the number of steps this will take will vary.

You’ll have to sign into your account and find the option to delete or close the account. Some accounts will stay open for a certain amount of time if you want to reactivate them.

An email address is necessary to complete the previous steps, so make sure this one is your last.

One last thing…

Remember to be patient when going through this process, and don’t expect to complete it in one day. You may also have to accept that there are some things you won’t be able to permanently delete from the internet.

Feature Image Credit: Josh Miller/CNET

By Eric Franklin

Sourced form C/Net

In News

How to Design a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

November 16, 2021 No Comments

By Michael Stelzner

Do you need a better strategy? Wondering how to use data to gauge when to start, stop, or scale your marketing efforts?

In this article, you’ll discover why data is important, what data to look at, and how to use data to inform your strategy.

Why Data Is Crucial to Your Marketing Strategy

It’s important to understand that data is for everyone, whether you’re a new business owner or have been in business for a long time and already know your ideal customer very well. Without data, as you’re building your strategy, you’re flying blind with little more than a feeling and some hope that you’re right.

We tend to develop our strategies focusing on things we like, things we’ve been told, and ideas that we see others finding success in, and put blinders on to whether these things are actually working. Are your time, money, and effort being returned to you in the form of conversions moving toward your goal?

Data removes those blinders.

Additionally, data makes it easier to connect each of your efforts to dollars. Whether you’re a marketer or business owner running all of your own marketing, understanding exactly how each point within your marketing strategy connects to that revenue helps identify the value of that point in the big picture. This is one of the ways in which data becomes so powerful in the realm of social media marketing because it lets you see exactly where you’re leaking money.

Pro Tip: As a best practice, you should start collecting the data even before you need it. If you’re starting a brand-new business and you don’t need the data right away, track it anyway. Because once you need the data, you need the data. As with anything else, data takes a while to collect, and Google Analytics doesn’t work retroactively. So while you may not look at the data right away, having it collected as early in the business as possible will only help you in the long run.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article.

By Michael Stelzner

Sourced from Social Media Examiner

In News

This free web tool is a fast and easy way to remove objects from images

November 16, 2021 No Comments

By James Vincent

If your Photoshop skills aren’t sharp, try Cleanup.pictures

Ever needed to quickly edit something or someone out of an image?

Maybe it’s the stranger who wandered into your family photo, or the stand holding up your final artwork for school? Whatever the job, if you don’t have the time or Photoshop skills needed to edit the thing yourself, why not try Cleanup.pictures — a handy web tool that does exactly what it promises in the URL.

Just upload your picture, paint over the thing you want removed with the brush tool, and hey presto: new image. The results aren’t up to the standards of professionals, especially if the picture is particularly busy or complex, but they’re surprisingly good. The tool is also just quite fun to play around with. You can check out some examples in the gallery below:

Cleanup.pictures seems to be from the same team that made a fun augmented reality demo that lets you “copy and paste” the real world, and is open-source (you can find the underlying code here). Obviously, tools of this sort have long been available, dating back at least to the launch of Photoshop’s Clone Stamp tool, but the quality of these automated programs has increased considerably in recent years thanks to AI.

Machine learning systems are now not only better at the problem of segmentation (marking the divisions between an object and the background) but also inpainting, or filling in the new content. Just last week, Google launched its new Pixel 6 tools with an identical “Magic Eraser” feature, but Cleanup.pictures shows how this feature has become a commodity.

I think my favourite use of this tool, though, is this fantastic series of pictures removing the people from Edward Hopper paintings:

By James Vincent

Sourced from The Verge

In News

The 8 Best Platforms for Vlogging

November 15, 2021 No Comments

By Shreeya Deshpande

Not sure where to get started with vlogging? Check out these platforms.

Have you been looking to make it big in vlogging? There are many platforms where you can showcase your talent and build your identity. But with so many online platforms available today, it can be overwhelming to choose the right ones.

Here, we’ve rounded up the best vlogging platforms for you to become a successful vlogger. Let’s jump right in.

1. YouTube

When it comes to vlogging, YouTube has to be the number one platform to consider. In fact, vlogging has only really taken off since YouTube came into existence. This long-established platform has gained over 1 billion users and over 500 hours of videos are uploaded every minute.

You can create your own channel on YouTube and uploading your content is straightforward. Also, YouTube allows you to monetize your channel by putting ads in your videos. You can leverage your channel by promoting it too.

Keep in mind, with YouTube being the most popular vlogging platform, it’s highly competitive. But with some creativity and consistent posting, you have a shot at garnering an audience on the platform.

2. Instagram

With a large userbase of around a billion users and counting, Instagram has rapidly soared into popularity as a photo-sharing social media platform. However, with the introduction of Instagram Reels and Instagram Video, videos have made a home on the platform too.

With Instagram Video you get to share longer vlogs that can include your daily routine, travel vlogs, and more. As short videos are trending nowadays, you can use Instagram Reels to upload shorter clips of your vlog to grab your audience’s attention. Adding to that, Instagram Live and Stories will allow you to create a stronger bond with your followers.

You can make the most out of Instagram with the platform’s strong advertising options and use hashtags to get your vlogs discovered by the right audience.

3. Facebook

Facebook is not often considered when it comes to vlogging. However, the platform’s popularity and extensive user-base can prove highly useful for getting more exposure.

With Facebook, you can create pages, gain followers, and run paid ad campaigns to increase your visibility. Similar to YouTube and Instagram, this social media platform allows you to live-stream your videos with Facebook Live.

When you create a vlog and upload it to Facebook, it assures a guaranteed reach within your friends’ or followers’ list. And if they share it with their own friends, the reach of your vlog multiplies instantly.

Along with that, Facebook offers you the freedom to design your page layout as you like, save live videos to the video library, and interact with your audience in real-time.

4. TikTok

As short videos have become increasingly trendy, there are many benefits to uploading your shorter vlogs to TikTok. It’s a great platform for gaining popularity in a short amount of time. Since its inception in 2016, TikTok has proven to be the fastest-growing social media app with over 1 billion users.

With short videos ranging from 15 seconds to 3 minutes long, you can create quick and engaging vlogs on TikTok. You can play around with filters, add soundtracks, and use cool effects on your videos.

You can also create content on trending topics and do challenges to increase your reach. If you’re new to this platform, have a look at our tips for TikTok beginners.

5. Vimeo

If you’re a professional vlogger or aspiring to become one, Vimeo can be a fantastic place to showcase your creativity. On Vimeo, you won’t see any low-quality content as it’s known for its high-quality artistic videos. The platform even has tutorials that can help you make better videos.

As a vlogger or a content creator, you can track how your content performs using the analytics dashboard. You can get this feature and as well as more storage and advanced privacy control by upgrading to one of the premium subscription plans.

On top of that, there are no ads. And if your content is really good, your vlogs can get featured in a Staff Pick.

6. Dailymotion

Dailymotion is another platform that focuses on professional, high-quality video content. Similar to Vimeo, this might be a good platform if you already have some vlogging experience or use high-end vlogging equipment.

Dailymotion is YouTube’s oldest competitor. It has a similar intuitive user interface, therefore, uploading your vlogs to the site is straightforward.

Additionally, Dailymotion allows you to monetize your content. Just remember to take note of the restricted time duration and storage capacity of the videos you upload.

7. Twitch

With more than 15 million daily visits, Twitch is one of the most popular streaming platforms and a favourite among beginners. As a vlogger, there’s a lot to benefit from the platform’s dedication to live-streaming.

Twitch has always been a go-to platform for gamers to live-stream their lets-plays. With the introduction of the IRL category, we can see the platform opening the doors to other niches. IRL is short for “in real life” and, on Twitch, includes content beyond gaming streams such as art creation, reaction videos, and GRWM (get ready with me) streams.

You also get to interact with your audience in the live chat where you can do Q-and-A’s, thank them for donations, and welcome new subscribers.

8. DTube

DTube is the first video-sharing platform leveraging the power of blockchain technology. If you’re looking for a Youtube alternative, consider switching to DTube. This decentralized platform is secure, ad-free, has no hidden algorithms, and allows you to monetize your vlogs in cryptocurrency.

Another unique DTube feature is instead of displaying view counts, each video shows the amount it has earned. Note that you can only earn for seven days per video upload, and once you upload your vlog it cannot be edited or deleted.

As DTube has an active community, you can take advantage of it to collaborate with other creators and attract more audiences.

This platform might be the right choice if you like the idea of creating content around cryptocurrency.

By Shreeya Deshpande

Sourced from MUO

In News

Instagram To Make It Easier For Content Creators To Find Sponsors

November 15, 2021 No Comments

By Conner Flynn

One of the ways Instagram content creators make money through the app is by looking for sponsors who might pay them for their posts. But how do these creators find sponsors to begin with? There may be an easier way.

It turns out that’s what Instagram thinks too. The company has announced that they are working on tools that will make it easier for creators to be matched with brands who might be willing to sponsor them. These tools will let creators express an interest in the brands that they might be interested in working with, while brands can also use the tool to find creators who they think will match their needs.

Instagram is also working on a separate inbox for sponsors, which means that it will be easier for creators to identify messages sent to them from a potential sponsor instead of getting lost in their messages. These tools are still in the early stages of development and only a handful of brands and creators are taking part in a test, but we can likely expect that these tools will eventually expand to cover more brands and creators in the very near future. This will make things easier for creators.

Source Ubergizmo

By Conner Flynn

Sourced from Geeky Gadgets

In News

Metaverse is an online world that may be the next big thing: What is Facebook working towards?

November 15, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from TECH2

The metaverse is a world of endless, interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.

The term “metaverse” seems to be everywhere. Facebook is hiring thousands of engineers in Europe to work on it, while video-game companies are outlining their long-term visions for what some consider the next big thing online.

The metaverse, which could spring up again when Facebook releases earnings Monday, is the latest buzzword to capture the tech industry’s imagination.

It could be the future, or it could be the latest grandiose vision by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that doesn’t turn out as expected or isn’t widely adopted for years — if at all.

Plus, many have concerns about a new online world tied to a social media giant that could get access to even more personal data and is accused of failing to stop harmful content.

Here’s what this online world is all about:

What is the metaverse?

Think of it as the internet brought to life, or at least rendered in 3D. Zuckerberg has described it as a “virtual environment” you can go inside of — instead of just looking at on a screen. Essentially, it’s a world of endless, interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.

It also will incorporate other aspects of online life such as shopping and social media, according to Victoria Petrock, an analyst who follows emerging technologies.

“It’s the next evolution of connectivity where all of those things start to come together in a seamless, doppelganger universe, so you’re living your virtual life the same way you’re living your physical life,” she said.

But keep in mind that “it’s hard to define a label to something that hasn’t been created,” said Tuong Nguyen, an analyst who tracks immersive technologies for research firm Gartner.

Facebook warned it would take 10 to 15 years to develop responsible products for the metaverse, a term coined by writer Neal Stephenson for his 1992 science fiction novel “Snow Crash.”

What will I be able to do in the metaverse?

Things like go to a virtual concert, take a trip online, and buy and try on digital clothing.

The metaverse also could be a game-changer for the work-from-home shift amid the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of seeing co-workers on a video call grid, employees could see them virtually.

Facebook has launched meeting software for companies, called Horizon Workrooms, to use with its Oculus VR headsets, though early reviews have not been great. The headsets cost $300 or more, putting the metaverse’s most cutting-edge experiences out of reach for many.

For those who can afford it, users would be able, through their avatars, to flit between virtual worlds created by different companies.

“A lot of the metaverse experience is going to be around being able to teleport from one experience to another,” Zuckerberg says.

Tech companies still have to figure out how to connect their online platforms to each other. Making it work will require competing technology platforms to agree on a set of standards, so there aren’t “people in the Facebook metaverse and other people in the Microsoft metaverse,” Petrock said.

Is Facebook going all in on the metaverse?

Indeed, Zuckerberg is going big on what he sees as the next generation of the internet because he thinks it’s going to be a big part of the digital economy. He expects people to start seeing Facebook as a metaverse company in coming years rather than a social media company.

A report by tech news site The Verge said Zuckerberg is looking at using Facebook’s annual virtual reality conference this coming week to announce a corporate name change, putting legacy apps like Facebook and Instagram under a metaverse-focused parent company. Facebook hasn’t commented on the report.

Critics wonder if the potential pivot could be an effort to distract from the company’s crises, including antitrust crackdowns, testimony by whistleblowing former employees and concerns about its handling of misinformation.

Former employee Frances Haugen, who accused Facebook’s platforms of harming children and inciting political violence, plans to testify Monday before a United Kingdom parliamentary committee looking to pass online safety legislation.

Is the metaverse just a Facebook project?

No. Zuckerberg has acknowledged that “no one company” will build the metaverse by itself.

Just because Facebook is making a big deal about the metaverse doesn’t mean that it or another tech giant will dominate the space, Nguyen said.

“There are also a lot of start-ups that could be potential competitors,” he said. “There are new technologies and trends and applications that we’ve yet to discover.”

Video game companies also are taking a leading role. Epic Games, the company behind the popular Fortnite video game, has raised $1 billion from investors to help with its long-term plans for building the metaverse. Game platform Roblox is another big player, outlining its vision of the metaverse as a place where “people can come together within millions of 3D experiences to learn, work, play, create and socialize.”

Consumer brands are getting in on it, too. Italian fashion house Gucci collaborated in June with Roblox to sell a collection of digital-only accessories. Coca-Cola and Clinique have sold digital tokens pitched as a stepping stone to the metaverse.

Zuckerberg’s embrace of the metaverse in some ways contradicts a central tenet of its biggest enthusiasts. They envision the metaverse as online culture’s liberation from tech platforms like Facebook that assumed ownership of people’s accounts, photos, posts and playlists and traded off what they gleaned from that data.

“We want to be able to move around the internet with ease, but we also want to be able to move around the internet in a way we’re not tracked and monitored,” said venture capitalist Steve Jang, a managing partner at Kindred Ventures who focuses on cryptocurrency technology.

Will this be another way to get more of my data?

It seems clear that Facebook wants to carry its business model, which is based on using personal data to sell targeted advertising, into the metaverse.

“Ads are going to continue being an important part of the strategy across the social media parts of what we do, and it will probably be a meaningful part of the metaverse, too,” Zuckerberg said in the company’s most recent earnings call.

That raises fresh privacy concerns, Nguyen said, involving “all the issues that we have today, and then some we’ve yet to discover because we’re still figuring out what the metaverse will do.”

Petrock she said she’s concerned about Facebook trying to lead the way into a virtual world that could require even more personal data and offer greater potential for abuse and misinformation when it hasn’t fixed those problems in its current platforms.

“I don’t think they fully thought through all the pitfalls,” she said. “I worry they’re not necessarily thinking through all the privacy implications of the metaverse.”

Feature Image: Mark Zuckerberg has described the metaverse as a “virtual environment” you can go inside of — instead of just looking at on a screen.

Sourced from TECH2

In News

5 Hard and Soft Skills Every Project Manager Should Have

November 14, 2021 No Comments

By Tamal Das

Check out the list of must-have skills every project manager should develop to become successful.

A project manager is responsible for successful project delivery and needs to actively participate in all stages of a project. You need to diligently perform the vested duties in time to become an accomplished project manager.

And to do so, you need to develop some hard and soft skills. Ever wondered what those skills are? Read on to know about the skill you should have as a project manager.

Hard Skills of a Project Manager

Hard skills refer to the skills you can measure using metrics. Some essential hard skills for a project manager are:

1. Task Organization and Delegation

Every project involves numerous tasks and subtasks. As the project manager, you have to organize and distribute the tasks among the team members. You also need to delegate the pending works to the right person to avoid any project delay.

Of course, you can take help from project management tools for task assignment and delegation. Even for that, you should have a clear idea about how these processes work.

2. Required Technical Skills

There is no hard and fast rule about which tech skill you should develop to become a project manager. It’ll depend on your organization and the types of projects you usually handle.

Project managers have to be tech-savvy, especially if they are working for a tech company. For example, if you are a project manager in a learning management software company, you should know the basics of software development, if not the learning curriculum.

Also, organizations that work on various science and engineering streams will need to have project managers who can operate specialized software or equipment.

3. Budget Management

People managing project cost through budgeting

Budget plays a critical role in project completion. It’s not uncommon to find out about budget shortages in the middle of a project. It may cause project delay or resource unavailability.

Only a project manager capable of perfect budget management can help an organization skip such issues. It’s their responsibility to allocate the budget accurately where needed so that the project gets completed well under the estimated budget.

These days, a basic understanding of budget and manual allocation are not enough. A project manager should have solid expertise in spreadsheets, finances, and mathematics.

4. Project Planning

Project planning is the initial part of a project. The success of a project largely depends on well-thought planning. Therefore, a project manager should have expertise in planning any project.

The planning will involve large-scale tasks, like milestone selection, timeline creation, resource management, meeting schedule, task assignment, etc. It’ll also involve micro-level tasks like planning each day and delegating tasks if someone is sick.

While doing so, you need to keep in mind the constraints. Yet, you have to design the project in a way that can meet the objectives.

5. Analytical Skill

An image showing project managers creating analytic reports

As a project manager, you should have the analytical skill to excel in your work. Every industry has become data-dependent, especially the finance and technology sectors. If you’re good at data analytics, you can utilize your talent to guide the project in the right direction.

Some common data analysis tasks you can do for your team are data presentation, database management, resource management, issue diagnostics, reporting, and so on. Project managers with analytical skills can use data to make a decision or explore possibilities.

Soft Skills of a Project Manager

Many of your qualities are interpersonal and not measurable through tangible metrics. These skills are soft skills.

1. Adaptability

Every project you deal with will be different. Hence, teams need to adapt according to the project requirement and client to achieve what they want. Adaptability is the skill an organization needs from a project manager more than anyone else.

Moreover, things don’t always go as planned in a project. Whether it’s about budget, resources, or deadline, you need to be agile and flexible to save projects from going off track. If you can make necessary changes according to the situation, your teammates will get inspiration from you.

2. Motivation

If you are a project manager, you should have motivating qualities to inspire your teammates. Especially when people are working on a long and complicated project, it’s normal to feel demotivated at times.

The project manager can motivate a team better than anyone else to put in their best efforts. Timely doing your own work is the first step to motivating a team. Also, you can host regular group or one-on-one meetings to inspire them.

3. Conflict Management

Conflict among teammates is inevitable. The situation can get worse if people are contributing from remote locations. As a project manager, you should know how to manage and contain such conflicts.

No matter how difficult the moment is, implement the right conflict management strategies. Knowing about your teammates’ temper will help you address the issues.

Never try to avoid any conflict as it can put the organization in an embarrassing situation. Address them immediately to find a resolution. Thus, the team can focus on the project.

4. Communication and Negotiation

Poor communication can force a project to go astray. Hence, project managers should ensure that all communication regarding the project is clear and transparent.

Often, they are the link between all the project stakeholders. That’s why they should communicate openly about a project with their teammates, management, and clients.

The communication should be honest and straightforward. It should not leave any scope for confusion or misunderstanding. As a project manager, you should also know how to negotiate with clients or a colleague.

5. Team Building

A visual of motivated and bonded project team

Building a team is the responsibility of a project manager that involves numerous managerial processes. Hence, this is another soft skill you should have to become a project manager.

During team building for a project, managers should keep in mind that colleagues should trust each other and feel happy to work together to achieve a common goal. Also, they should ensure a perfect environment for teamwork.

Top Skills to Achieve Success

A project manager has a long list of responsibilities that they have to fulfil. If you are a project manager and want to handle both the project and its team, developing the above skills will help you go a long way.

You can also choose the right project management tool for your team.

By Tamal Das

Tamal is a freelance writer at MakeUseOf. After gaining substantial experience in technology, finance, and business processes in his previous job in an IT consulting company, he adopted writing as a full-time profession 3 years ago. While not writing about productivity and the latest tech news, he loves to play Splinter Cell and binge-watch Netflix/ Prime Video.

Sourced from MUO

In News

AAI Toolkit: Making Better Marketing Decisions with Paul Dervan

November 12, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from The Advertising Association of Ireland

The AAI are delighted to welcome Paul Dervan to take part in their next Toolkit session on Tuesday November 30th at 10:00AM.

Date: 30th November
Time: 10am
Location: Online
Registration: Here

In many ways, advertising is about trying to predict how our communications will influence future consumer behaviour. Predicting this successfully is very difficult. Paul will share insights on how to make better decisions in advertising – based on the mistakes he has made, the lessons learned and insights from the global experts he has tracked down and quizzed on effectiveness in marketing.

Paul is the author of ‘Run with Foxes – Make Better Marketing Decisions’ and also the CMO for Ireland’s National Lottery.

Over the past 20 years, Paul has held numerous leadership marketing positions in various companies. Previously he was the Global Brand Director at Indeed, the world’s largest and fastest growing job site, with over 250 million visitors every month.

He also started a Marketing Campaign Lab, where he created and tested hundreds of marketing experiments in America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Before that, Paul was with PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker brand, as Creative Director for their Full Tilt brand. Prior to that Paul was Head of Brand for O2 in Ireland and Brand Director for Telefonica Digital.

Register Here

Sourced from The Advertising Association of Ireland

In News

Google worked with Facebook to undermine Apple’s attempts to offer its users greater privacy protections, complaint alleges

November 12, 2021 No Comments

By Francis Agustin

Facebook and Google worked together to circumvent Apple’s privacy measures, 12 state attorneys general argued in an updated legal complaint from 2020.
Apple’s privacy tools have made it harder for other tech companies to pinpoint users for their ad auction model.
Regulators and other tech companies have targeted each other in a larger antitrust battle over user privacy, ad technology, and market dominance.

Google worked with Facebook to undermine Apple’s attempts to offer its users great privacy protections, 12 state attorneys general alleged in an update to an antitrust lawsuit against the search engine.

“The companies have been working together to improve Facebook’s ability to recognize users using browsers with blocked cookies, on Apple devices, and on Apple’s Safari Browser,” the amended complaint states. “Thereby circumventing one Big Tech company’s efforts to compete by offering users better privacy.”

The lawsuit was first filed by the attorneys general in December 2020, accusing Google of engaging in market collusion, and focused on claims that Facebook and Google had agreed to cooperate if their pact ever came under regulatory scrutiny.

The attorneys general also accused Facebook and Google of engaging in an illegal advertising deal, with the latter leveraging monopoly power over its adtech business by helping Facebook make better bids in ad auctions, which would make it easier for Facebook content to appear in more Google Ads.

“Facebook has long supported fair and transparent advertising auctions in which all bidders compete simultaneously, and the highest bidder wins,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Facebook’s non-exclusive bidding agreement with Google and the similar agreements we have with other bidding platforms, have helped to increase competition for ad placements.”

According to a discussion between Facebook employees in 2019, the complaint says, the company was having trouble matching users on Apple’s Safari browser. Google said Facebook’s user match rates were the same as other ad auction parties, but Facebook employees noted that the search company was willing to use Javascript to help Facebook better recognize those users.

The attorneys general claimed Facebook essentially baited Google into the deal, but Google denies the lawsuit’s claims.

A Google spokesperson told Insider: “Just because Attorney General Paxton asserts something doesn’t make it true. This lawsuit is riddled with inaccuracies. In reality, our advertising technologies help websites and apps fund their content, and enable small businesses to reach customers around the world. There is vigorous competition in online advertising, which has reduced ad tech fees, and expanded options for publishers and advertisers. We will strongly defend ourselves from his baseless claims in court.”

Apple in recent years has ramped up its user privacy efforts. In 2018, Apple installed privacy protection measures into its products, like Safari, which required websites to request tracking privileges from users and discard cookies if a site had not been visited in 30 days.

This summer, Apple rolled out its App Tracking Transparency tool, which prompts users to opt in or out of tracking on different applications — which largely impacted companies like Facebook. A Safari privacy report also detailed how websites track users.

The three companies have been at the center of several antitrust discussions, facing action from government regulators and each other. The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Facebook claiming the company had monopolized power in the social networking market, but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge in June. Facebook was also reportedly preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple in regards to its App Store rules, saying Apple was stifling third-party app developers.

Congress also introduced five tech regulation bills in June, specifically directed at the “Big Four” — Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon. The bills would equip regulators with more methods to check tech firms from holding too much market power.

(This story has been updated to reflect in the third paragraph that it was Facebook and Google who reportedly agreed to cooperate, not Apple).

Feature Image Credit: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Daniel Leal Olivas/WPA/AP, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, & Karl Mondon/Digital First Media/The Mercury News/Getty Images

By Francis Agustin

Sourced from Insider