editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

The Art of Conducting A Successful Marketing Video Interview

March 6, 2020 No Comments

By Jennifer Broflowski.

A video interview seems like an exciting option only if people know how to conduct a successful
one. To start with the video interview it is necessary to complete the preparation and understand
human communication so that one can develop testimonials, outreach videos or some
informational series.

Before Videotaping a few Things Should be Considered

Interviewers should share a few tips with the interviewee before starting the actual process.
Make them at ease.
Offer coffee.
Tell them to relax.
Tell them to forget about the camera and talk one on one like pals or colleagues.
Feel free to ramble. (you need to make your points clear, don’t hold anything back)
If you get confused, start over again (at the end most of the part will be edited, so you can go for numerous takes.)
Speak what you believe in, and passion should be felt throughout.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-a-man-sitting-in-front-of-a-camera-2531552/

To create a successful marketing video interview, there are few things to be considered so that the person being interviewed feels comfortable and a perfect video can be achieved.

Get Your Subject Talking

It is significant to make the subject comfortable and break the ice to contribute to the atmosphere which will be enjoyed. Once the environment seems relaxing, the person on the other side opens up easily. Play the game smoothly in the beginning which will transition gradually. Start with introducing yourself and build the conversation in an engaging manner. Continue talking in the way that the interviewee feels more connected and shares the details.

Ask Questions

Keep on building up the conversation without unnecessary pauses. Ask for follow-up questions and design conversation in such a way that one thing should lead to another one in a smooth way. Be extremely smart while preparing questions, they should be much more spontaneous one. If you proceed with overly prepared questions then you should expect overly prepared answers too. The best way to get genuine answers is to come up with off-the-cuff inquiries. Questions are an integral part of every interview. You should work around them and have a plan to come up with them effortlessly. It is better to make pointers or note them somewhere, so you get ideas from time to time how you are going to have your precious time and would not waste time thinking at the run time.

Keep it Simple

The main purpose of doing this video interview is to get content you were aiming for. You are there to ask questions, direct the conversation to achieve your results and most importantly to listen to what other people have to say. Whenever you feel that conversation is becoming boring or it is not serving the purpose, then try to restate the question for which you were looking for answers. Try to get as much content as possible so that you have enough material to edit in the next phase.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-woman-chatting-1311518/

Be a Good Interview Partner

To get the desirable results from the interview being conducted, you have to play a very important role too. You should know what topics should be discussed in that interview and what should be highlighted. You are not only there for asking questions but to create a congenial environment that can make the other person at ease.

Connect With Your Content

The main purpose of these marketing interview videos is that the audience and interviewee can connect with them easily. People should relate with it and the content shown in it looks natural rather than something forced or scripted. Things that come naturally have a strong impact rather than a scene that is created forcefully. For instance if your outreach video is based on a series then separate all the interviews but build a link between them. Plan every interview separately while working around the subject matter. The objective behind every interview can be the same but the questions asked should not look repetitive. Stay persistent and design your questions in an intelligent way that you can derive pretty much everything from it which you were looking for.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/camera-event-live-settings-66134/

Listen Carefully

Now as you know what points you need to consider getting a successful interview of your choice, there is one thing which should not be ignored and that is you should play an active role and act as a good listener. You should learn to understand what the interviewee is trying to say and also read between the lines so that you can build up your conversation easily. Do not miss any point which might add value to the whole conversation. Don’t interrupt repeatedly and if the other person is sharing good feedback then let them complete it without any hassle. Pay attention and show respect towards other people. Confirm your journalistic professionalism and use the answers of the interviewee to produce fruitful questions that can make the interview more interesting.

In the end that you have covered everything needed for that interview. If there is any ambiguity left, clear it then and there rather than thinking about it later. If you are not sure about your questions regarding a person or the company you can have a quick pep talk with the interviewee and make sure about the things. Conducting the interview may seem an easy task while seeing as a viewer but the people going through this process surely knows that what it takes to come up with something worthy and impactful. Just follow the basic principles of journalism and lead successful interviews.

By Jennifer Broflowski

Jennifer Broflowski is working as an author at edureviewer.com and has been creating top-notch pieces for the people to assist them with their job process. She knows how important it is to create well-written resume cover letters and what employers usually look in the resume while considering calling an employee.

In News

What happens to our online lives after we die?

March 6, 2020 No Comments

By Eva Frederick.

SEATTLE—Over the course of the next few decades, there will be more and more dead people on Facebook. In fact, according to some estimates, as early as 2060 the number of deceased user accounts will exceed the number of accounts with a living person behind them.

But people’s “digital afterlives” extend far beyond Facebook. When a 21st-century citizen dies, they often leave behind a trove of posts, private messages, and personal information on everything from Twitter to online bank records. Who owns this data, and whose responsibility is it to protect the privacy of the deceased? Faheem Hussain, a social scientist at Arizona State University, Tempe, has spent the past few years peering into the murky waters of how people, platforms, and governments manage the digital lives we leave behind.

Hussain gave a presentation on our digital legacies today at the annual meeting of AAAS, which publishes Science. We caught up with Hussain to talk about why online platforms should encourage people to plan ahead for death, whether you have a right to privacy after you die, and the strange new culture of digital mourning.

Q: What does a typical 21st century digital legacy look like?

A: When we die, we leave our social media behind: our pictures, memories, messages, whatever you use that for. This is just not about Facebook. This is about any services that are using our data. There’s Google, there is LinkedIn, there is Twitter. Our Google accounts are huge in terms of our likes and dislikes, what we do, what we say, what we search. When you go beyond the first world, there’s a huge issue with online banking in different parts of the world where there are emerging economies. There’s a lot of personal data there, and people are willingly giving it out without realizing what happens to that data down the road.

Q: Why should people take this seriously?

A: Hardly anybody is talking about what happens to these data after we die. It affects everybody, but there have been no guidelines. Whatever companies or individuals are doing, they’re doing in their own ways. If we don’t have standards, there is no legal safety net and it’s a wild west.

(A story told during the session provides an example: University student and social activist Nahian Al Muktadir had cancer. During his treatment, with fundraising efforts going on, Nahian actively shared his daily experience on Facebook. After he died, his family and friends wanted to publish all of his Facebook statuses in a book but were unable to, as Facebook memorialized his account and all of his statuses became inaccessible to others. Nahian’s family tried to convince Facebook to allow them with access without any success. So, in essence, the family had to fight over Nahian’s digital legacy.)

Q: Do deceased people still have a right to privacy?

A: I personally believe so. I am skeptical when it comes to legal enforcement. I am a big proponent of letting the market decide on the standards rather than the law. But I think the conversation needs to be there.

Q: Google has an opt-in setting that allows you to have your data deleted once you pass away. What do you suggest people do to set their digital accounts in order before they die?

A: First of all, be aware of social media policies, always. When you think about the privacy setting your social media providers give you, you have to know the end of the day they will have your data anyway. We need to be responsible when it comes to use of digital platforms when it comes to sharing data. I only share the things that I’m comfortable sharing. Because of that, I don’t care about whether people have access to it after I die.

Q: How should we interact with the dead on social media?

A: We need to talk about culture, in terms of how we’re dealing with death online, and what kind of service companies are providing, and how whether or not it helps. In Japan and Korea, they have these digital tombstones. If you go to some cemeteries in Japan, there are QR codes there where you can listen to the deceased person’s favorite song and see their favorite movies or quotations and whatnot. That’s something very interesting to look into. It can be therapeutic, right? But at the same time, it can be exploitive, it can possibly make things worse (some forms of digital mourning, such as having a family member keep the account active, could cause trauma to others and prevent them from being able to move on from the death, Hussain said earlier in the conversation.) We absolutely have no idea how things can be impacted.

Feature Image Credit: Digital Legacy Association

By Eva Frederick

Sourced from Science

In News

Why The Information’s paywall strategy is so successful

March 6, 2020 No Comments

By Simon Owens.

If you survey the field of publisher subscription models, you’ll basically find that the vast majority of media outlets utilize one of two kinds of paywalls.

The first is the metered paywall, the kind that was pioneered by The New York Times and later adopted by hundreds of other companies. Publishers love this model because of how it monetizes a publication’s loyal audience without alienating more casual readers who want to sample the website’s content. When done well, a metered paywall allows publishers to generate reader revenue without forcing the outlet to take a negative hit to its web traffic. That way it can continue to monetize with ads.

The second kind of paywall, utilized by publishers like Business Insider, employs a “freemium” model in which the vast majority of the site’s content is made available for free, while a smaller subset of articles are placed behind a hard paywall. This approach allows far fewer freeloaders to get around the paywall, but requires a high rate of content production so you can service both your paying and non-paying audience.

There’s a third model that’s used by a much smaller group of publishers: the hard paywall. The upside to this approach is it requires every user to be logged in, so readers can’t use various browser tricks to get around a meter. And when done well, the hard paywall can squeeze out more revenue per reader, which means you don’t need to reach massive audience scale before you start generating real revenue.

Of course, there’s a reason why most publishers don’t pursue the hard paywall model. Without allowing readers to sample content for free, it’s much more difficult to convince them to open up their wallets and hand over their credit card information. This also limits word-of-mouth marketing, given that the publisher’s content can’t be as easily spread over social media and other distribution channels.

That’s what makes The Information’s paywall success so impressive. Most other news organizations that utilize hard paywalls — like The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times — have existed for decades and therefore could leverage their longstanding brands to drive digital subscriptions. But The Information was only founded in 2013 and was virtually unknown at the moment it started asking readers to pay for its content.

Despite these barriers, the site achieved profitability in three years and has driven up to 20,000 subscribers who are paying $399 a year for access to its content. Its coverage is widely discussed within Silicon Valley and it regularly scoops its biggest competitors on some of the important stories in tech.

So what are the secrets to its success? There are five components to The Information’s strategy that I want to call attention to.

Hire experienced reporters

With only two dozen reporters and editors at its disposal, The Information has to maximize the editorial impact of every journalist in its employ, which is why it relies on hiring some of the most experienced writers in the industry. That includes its founder, Jessica Lessen, who started working at The Wall Street Journal in 2005 and, by the time she left, was considered a one-woman scoop factory who was able to greet some of the most powerful tech CEOs on a first name basis.

Lessen lured many of the people on her staff — including her former boss at the WSJ — away from top tier outlets by offering them as much as $180,000 a year. Peruse the bylines on the site’s homepages and you’ll find alums from Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and TechCrunch, among other venerable outlets.

Having A-list journalists on staff is vital to The Information’s paywall success. Veteran reporters are better sourced and have a higher likelihood of landing pay worthy scoops. And established journalists boast already-existing social media followings that they can leverage to promote their content. That following plays an important role in spreading word of mouth for content that isn’t shared easily outside of the site’s paywall.

Steer clear of commodity news

Listen to or read any interview with Lessen, and at some point during the conversation she’ll boast that The Information only publishes a handful of articles per day. On the day that I’m writing this, The Information has only published four new stories to its homepage. Compare that to TechCrunch, which published 43 articles today and counting.

Because The Information doesn’t monetize with ads and charges so much for a subscription (more on both of those points in a moment), it can’t get away with churning out commodity news that can be found on every other website. “You can’t put a paywall on a pig,” Lessen explained at a media bootcamp. If a story isn’t truly original, The Information doesn’t consider it worth publishing.

And it isn’t merely settling for small scoops. It aims for impact, the kind that results in executive firings or moves a company’s stock price. Its extensive reporting on sexual harassment allegations at a prominent venture capital firm, for instance, led to a partner’s resignation. It broke the news that eBay would spin Paypal off into its separate company.

Stories with that kind of impact directly drive subscriptions. According to a recent New York Times profile of the company, a 2014 article about the mistakes made by an executive at Google’s Nest division “converted over 600 new subscribers in the first day.” “We don’t have a sales person. The subscription business sells itself if you create a great product,” Lessen told Digiday. In another interview she expanded on this point. “I always say, you really need to go for the 10x and focus on the things that are 10 times better or different than what other people are doing.”

Price appropriately

Many articles about The Information fixate on its price point, and for good reason. At $399, it’s priced higher than most general interest publishers like The New York Times and Washington Post.

That’s because it’s a niche product that has a potential audience that only numbers in the hundreds of thousands. If it cut its price in half, it wouldn’t necessarily be able to double its subscription numbers, and given that it targets its content to tech executives and Wall Street, its user base is relatively price insensitive. I wouldn’t be surprised if a substantial portion of its readers also pay north of $20,000 for an annual Bloomberg terminal subscription. “The lifetime value of our subscribers is way north of $1,000,” Lessen said. “ … Churn isn’t an issue for us. More than half our subscribers pay us annually, and the churn is negligible.”

And by setting your price so high, it gives you the freedom to offer discounts and also introduce lower-priced products. In 2019, it launched a $30-a-year app that offers a more consumer-focused version of its content without the inside-baseball minutiae that’s important to the tech elite. Not only does this allow The Information to generate additional revenue, but the app serves as a lead generator that can convert the app’s readers into subscribers for the more robust, $399-a-year product.

Leverage your community

I’ve written in the past about how publishers that closed down their website comments sections made a big mistake by doing so, but subscriber comments are especially important to The Information’s success.

Getting to comment on Information articles means you can essentially have a conversation with some of the most important and influential people in tech. Because the price of admission is set so high, fewer trolls can slip through, and the general quality of the discussion is higher than what you’ll find on a free news site. “It’s become one of the most powerful parts of the site,” Lessen told Digiday.

Information subscribers aren’t just limited to commenting on articles. They have access to a private Slack channel where they can engage on an unlimited number of topics. They also can attend a number of live, in-person events The Information puts on each year. Rather than trying to squeeze additional money out of subscribers, the publisher grants them free admission as part of their subscription.

Make your product ad-free

This one might raise hackles for some. I have nothing against companies that diversify their revenue by monetizing with both ads and subscriptions, but going ad-free like The Information did can strengthen a publisher’s value proposition in four ways.

First is the psychological appeal. A lot of news consumers justify using Chrome’s incognito mode to skirt around a metered paywall by telling themselves that the publisher is able to monetize their visit through advertising. Going ad-free removes this justification.

Then there’s the better user experience. While the rate of ad blocker installations has leveled off, there’s still widespread consumer disdain for website ad tech, both from a privacy standpoint and also for its ability to slow the browser to a crawl. The Information is just one of many news outlets that offers an ad-free version as a subscriber perk.

Going ad-free gives your publication a legitimate claim to independence. While most media companies tout the Chinese firewall between editorial and ad sales, there’s always a tension between the two departments, especially when you’re operating a smaller publication that can be hurt by the departure of a single large sponsor. Given the insularity of Silicon Valley, Lessen can plausibly claim that she isn’t subjected to pressure from The Information’s sponsors.

Finally, forgoing ads removes any remaining incentives to engage in clickbait journalism. The moment you introduce advertising into the mix, then there’s monetary pressure to expose the ad to the widest audience possible. An outlet without ads can devote the entirety of its focus to one goal: keeping subscribers happy.

Of course, Lessen would probably point to several other strategies that are vital to The Information’s growth, including extreme discounts for new enrollees, free trials for those willing to give up their email addresses, and promoted tweets targeted to those who work in the tech industry.

While all these certainly play an important role in The Information’s success, I think Lessen would agree that without the outlet’s unwavering focus on providing its subscribers with the best possible content, The Information wouldn’t be regularly hailed as one of the few bright spots in a struggling industry. As Lessen put it in a podcast interview back in 2018, “You become a successful subscription business not when you put a paywall up; you become a successful subscription business when you have content that’s worth paying for.”

By Simon Owens

Simon Owens is a tech and media journalist living in Washington, DC. His weekly newsletter provides deep analysis on the media industry. You can find it over here. Email him at [email protected].

Sourced from What’s New In Publishing

In News

Busted: Huge malware operation targeted Google Chrome extensions

March 6, 2020 No Comments

By Andy Meek.

While she was performing some routine tasks one day that relate to her job of constantly hunting for digital threats online, security researcher Jamila Kaya stumbled across the first in a series of malicious Google Chrome extensions that would spark a two-month investigation and lead to the removal of more than 500 extensions by Google from its web store. Unfortunately, more than 1.7 million Chrome users had already installed that first batch of extensions she found, which gave some urgency to this investigation — the results of which have been unveiled in a newly published report into what turned out to be a huge malware operation active for at least two years.

After her initial discovery, Kaya reached out to the Duo security team at Cisco, according to the report. She contacted them about a variety of Chrome extensions she found that infected browsers and would “exfiltrate data as part of a larger campaign.”

“These extensions were commonly presented as offering advertising as a service,” the report notes. “Jamila discovered they were part of a network of copycat plugins sharing nearly identical functionality. Through collaboration, we were able to take the few dozen extensions and utilize CRXcavator.io to identify 70 matching their patterns across 1.7 million users and escalate concerns to Google.”

The Duo team goes on to explain that bad actors are increasingly using legitimate internet activity to obscure their malicious actions, one of the most popular channels being the use of advertising cookies and the redirects within them. It’s a technique called “malvertising” that is surprisingly hard to detect. “Malvertising often occurs within other programs, acting as a vehicle for multiple forms of fraudulent activity, including ad-fraud, data exfiltration, phishing, and monitoring and exploitation,” the report continues. “Alternatively, it also emerges in multipart malicious campaigns that involve advertising collection and defraudment.”

The code within these malicious extensions would sometimes redirect users to an affiliate link on sites like Best Buy’s or Macy’s. Other times, the destination might be a download site for malware. The researchers said Google was responsive when they escalated the matter up to them, and a Google spokesman said that it always takes action when the research community alerts it to issues that violate the company’s policies. Moreover, Google said it performs “regular sweeps to find extensions” similar to these that use comparable techniques, code, and behaviors.

Feature Image Credit: Valentin Wolf/imageBROKER/Shutterstock

By Andy Meek

Andy is a reporter in Memphis who also contributes to outlets like Fast Company and The Guardian. When he’s not writing about technology, he can be found hunched protectively over his burgeoning collection of vinyl, as well as nursing his Whovianism and bingeing on a variety of TV shows you probably don’t like. @aemeek

Sourced from BGR

In News

Mind the Digital Skills Gap

March 5, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from iab.uk.

IAB UK and Middlesex University join forces to explore the digital skills gap in the ad industry and provide advice on how to recruit and retain the best talent

Building a sustainable future for digital advertising is a key priority for IAB UK and one that can only be achieved if both new recruits and those that already work in the industry are equipped with the right skills to keep up with the pace of change as technology and automation evolve.

By teaming up with Middlesex University, our aim is to highlight where the gaps in knowledge and training are most prominent and provide advice to help the industry educate, train and attract people with the right skills to match demand – both now and in the future. The results are based on a survey of 78 IAB UK members across October and November 2019. Of these, 67% are from advertisers, agencies or media owners and 70% are at senior/Director level or above.

Key findings include:

88% claim that finding qualified individuals with up-to-date digital skills is a challenge for their business
The most prominent skill gaps are in areas with rapid market adoption. Data and advanced analytics are key skills cited as being increasingly important, but also difficult to find
While having AI/AR/VR skills is currently not a big priority for the majority of businesses, the pool of experts is relatively small – leading to high demand
The skills shortage is most pronounced at junior and intermediary levels, with 46% believing that most new graduates are not equipped to take up careers in the digital marketing sector
Retaining highly skilled digital staff is also a challenge – 78% find it difficult to retain staff with sought after digital skills

What can be done to bridge the gap?

The digital advertising industry needs to work more closely with schools, universities and training providers to communicate which skills will be in demand in the future
As an industry, we need to work on attracting new recruits by showcasing the breadth of opportunities available. Practical education and modernised recruitment strategies can help to widen the pool of suitable candidates available
When it comes to retention, businesses should focus on providing long-term career progression opportunities, as well as creating an inclusive working culture that offers opportunities to staff to expand their digital skills and develop within the business

Commenting on the research, IAB UK’s CEO Jon Mew said: “At the IAB, our mission is to create a sustainable future for digital advertising. A key part of that is ensuring that both new starters and those with more experience are equipped with the skills they need to get the most out of our fast-evolving, innovative and complex industry. By shining a light on where work is needed to bridge the digital skills gap, industry, businesses and individuals all stand to benefit.”

Professor T C Melewar PhD HFAM, Professor of Marketing and Strategy at Middlesex University, added: “This survey shows how important it is to nurture the ties between the universities and the digital marketing industry. Our relationship at Middlesex with the IAB and employers in the digital marketing sector ensures that we are delivering the right skills to the industry, and equips our students to make the most of the great potential there is to flourish and build successful careers in this field.”

Download the full report below, including views from industry figures including Natalie Bell, MD of Manning Gottlieb OMD and Rachel McDonald, MD of Dentsu Aegis North.

For more advice on how to get into the digital ad industry, take a look at our Get into Digital hub.

In News

Finally, There’s a Social Network Without Any People

March 5, 2020 No Comments

By Gita Jackson

Botnet is a social media app without people. Perfect.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Ever wanted to post something to social media just for the cheap, dopamine-fueled thrill of seeing a stream of favs and comments, but not risk interacting with a real human being? Botnet, a social media simulation for iOS where you’re the only human in a sea of bots, might be just what you need.

When you download the app, you enter a fantasy world where you’re the most popular user—and only non-bot—on a social network. It feels like a blend of the big three apps: the overall layout of Facebook, the commenting system of Instagram, and the anarchy of Twitter. While it feels real enough when you’re posting about your cat or the weather, Botnet’s views on politics are baffling, though not moreso than a particularly obsessed Twitter rando.

According to the makers of the app, when you post, all the comments are made by bots trained on thousands of “real conversations.” For a dollar each, you can buy bots that will troll you or make dad jokes. It’s deeply refreshing in some ways. All the minutiae that I post about is treated like the most fascinating and mind blowing content to this army of bots. I love being popular.

Posting about my cat or my boyfriend yielded an eerily accurate facsimile of what happens when I post something stupid on social media. Bots in the replies to both pictures said “great pic!” or posted the “100” emoji. In general, Botnet’s use of emojis is stellar. Just like on Instagram or Twitter, the first replies I get to any post are the same emojis people use to get in their first reply—stars, crying laughing faces, and hearts.

Some of the replies were so convincing, I reached out to Billy Chasen, artist and creator of Botnet, to ask if there were any real users on the app other than myself. The company told Motherboard that it uses GPT-2, an algorithm created by OpenAI, and trained it on “millions of internet comments.”

“Everything they write is original and based on training,” Chasen said.

When I posted about politics on Botnet, things got weirder.

Botnet functions basically like a diary. While the bots give you the impression of there being interaction, you’re actually just writing down your thoughts in a closed system that no one but yourself will see. What I do in my real life diary is try to decompress and untangle my stresses, and on Tuesday, February 11, one of my greatest stresses is the New Hampshire primary election. I wrote in Botnet, “Bernie Sanders will be victorious in New Hampshire.” Instead of hearts and smiley faces, one of the first replies I got was “The Democratic Party will not abandon Marianne Williamson.” The bots, it seems, have some pretty wild political opinions.

From there, I started to test more general political opinions. By this point I had paid a buck to get some troll bots, which have red hued icons. When I mentioned socialism, they all insisted I’d be better off volunteering.

A picture of the Botnet feed with comments like

When I said that socialism is the only path to an ethical society, one of my bots attributed the quote, hilariously, to JFK.

A picture of the Botnet feed, where a bot attributes the quote

The friendly bots didn’t really understand what I meant when I wrote, “workers of the world unite,” but the troll bots were right on cue with telling me that queer people should go fuck themselves.

It’s incredible not just how deranged these bots are, but how much like real social media these replies are. I’ve had exchanges like these with real human beings on Twitter, confusing anger and Marianne Williamson stanning included. That said, Botnet did generate a comment leagues funnier than anything I’ve seen on Twitter when I’ve tried to talk politics:

New Hampee, indeed.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Gita Jackson

Sourced from Vice

In News

Programmatic Advertising Is Driving Rapid Growth in Mobile Video

March 5, 2020 No Comments

By Yoram Wurmser

As more people watch video content on their mobile devices, the nature of mobile video monetization is changing. This is particularly the case for programmatic advertising, which we define as an automated, technology-driven method of buying, selling or fulfilling digital display ad placements. Overall, mobile video ads sold programmatically generated $19.93 billion in revenues in 2019 in the US and will generate $24.87 billion in 2020.

Premium OTT channels, and even many mobile-first video publishers, have traditionally sold much of their mobile inventory via direct buys. This remains broadly true, but increasingly, those direct sales are using programmatic elements. Typically, these deals are programmatic guarantees for inventory on premium OTT services.

“Even if the seller and the buyer know each other, they are using programmatic pipes for executing a transaction and for serving a campaign,” said Kevin Schaum, vice president of advanced solutions group at SpotX, an ad-serving and supply-side platform (SSP) for video publishers. “That shift has been one of the main things that we’ve seen.”

With programmatic buying now widespread, ad buyers have more opportunities to place their content by device type. Although a few advertisers create versions of their advertising for different segments of users, for the most part, the targeting is using general data, including metropolitan statistical area.

As competition for advertisers grows fiercer, many of the small to medium-sized publishers have established partnerships that let them sell ads via programmatic direct. They can tout the brand safety advantages of buying through a known publisher but also the scale across sites that advertisers want. Group Nine Media, Insider Inc. and BuzzFeed have formed one such partnership.

“Rather than having our advertisers come to us individually and only buying YouTube or in-feed [ads] on our owned and operated [O&O], we’re trying to package that up for them and give them the scale they’re looking for,” said Ken Blom, senior vice president of strategy and operations at BuzzFeed.

“If you choose to buy all your media programmatically and not talk to publishers, you’ll miss out on the fact that we have ad formats that aren’t programmatically offered, or there’s some audiences that you might be missing if you understood how we’re making more affiliate content,” he said.

By Yoram Wurmser

Sourced from eMarketer

In News

Confront your fears … and four other ways to stop procrastinating

March 4, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from The Guardian.

Address your perfectionism, make a small starting step and break the cycle that is holding you back.

Figure out the underlying cause

Clare Evans, a productivity coach and author of Time Management For Dummies, says the main reasons for procrastinating are fear, perfectionism and not knowing where to start, or feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated. If it is fear, whether unfounded or founded, Evans says to confront the worst-case scenario: “It may not be as bad as we think.” Figure out what knowledge or skills you are lacking, and delegate if you can. If you’re paralysed by the need to get it right, Evans suggests honestly confronting whether “‘perfect’ is really what’s needed” – or if it is more important just to get it done. “Sometimes we procrastinate over tasks that aren’t really that important.”

Start with one small step

Tim Pychyl, founder of the Procrastination Research Group and associate professor of psychology at Carleton University, Ottawa, says procrastination boils down to an “emotion-focused coping response”: by putting off the task, we get rid of the bad feeling. Start by simply identifying the first step: “Ask yourself, ‘What is the next action I would take on this task, if I was going to do it?’” And make it really tiny. The idea is to move your focus away from how you’re feeling, and towards what Pychyl calls a “low-threshold entry to action”: “We can’t deny our feelings, but we can pay less attention to them … and our research has shown that getting started is key.” Evans suggests working on the task for 10 to 15 minutes and no more, just so as to have made a start.

Picture your future self

“Giving yourself a hard time only makes it worse,” says productivity expert Moyra Scott. “In order to beat procrastination you have to realise that it is very common. We are human. We procrastinate.” It can help to clarify or visualise what “done” looks like, she says: “What is the finish line you are aiming at?” Hal E Hershfield, an associate professor of marketing and behavioural decision making at UCLA Anderson School of Management, pictures himself having to do a task today that he actually completed yesterday.“ That’s most likely how I’ll feel tomorrow if I push off something that I’m meant to do today. The idea is to try to connect with the person I’ll be in the future and the emotions that I will eventually feel.”

Break the cycle

Judson A Brewer, a neuroscientist and director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Centre at Brown University, says procrastination has its origins in reward-based learning: a trigger (think about a deadline), a behaviour (scroll social media), then a reward (distract from the unpleasant thought). Willpower alone is often not enough to overcome such a powerful impulse, evolved to help us remember where to find food. But by making ourselves aware of our habit loops, says Brewer, we give ourselves the opportunity to break them. “Curiosity is like a superpower that can help us notice these urges simply as thoughts, emotions and body sensations, and then move on to the task at hand.” The reward can be reframed as the feeling of accomplishment, instead of the relief (tempered by guilt and building anxiety) of a momentary distraction. “Reflecting on the rewarding properties of not procrastinating builds healthy habits that become stronger than procrastination itself – hacking our brain in the process.”

Stop trying to fight the monkey

Productivity coach Grace Marshall says one common misconception about productivity is that it is “just about nailing yourself to the seat, and getting it done”. While that is sometimes effective (and, if a deadline is looming, necessary), it can be a stressful approach, she says – “and as willpower is a depleting resource, it’s not sustainable”. Her suggestion is to stop trying to overpower or ignore the primitive part of our brain driving procrastination, and instead try to distract it. Tell yourself: “I’m not really going to work on this right now, I’m just going to open the file and make some notes.” Play – turning the task into a game or an experiment – can also be an effective diversion. As Marshall writes: “Fighting the monkey is exhausting, and it doesn’t work very well.”

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Sourced from The Guardian.

In News

iOS 13 Battery Drain: 15+ Tips to Make Your Battery Last Longer

March 4, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from MacRumors

With every new operating system update, there are complaints about battery life and rapid battery drain, and iOS 13 is no exception. Since iOS 13 was released, we’ve seen reports of issues with battery life, which have waxed and waned with various iOS 13 updates.

iOS 13 battery life problems caused by bugs can’t be helped until Apple provides updates to address the issues, but there are steps you can take to maximize your battery life and cut down on hidden sources that might be causing excess drainage.

1. Limit When and How Often Apps Access Your Location

It’s a good idea to check your location settings to limit apps accessing your location for privacy reasons, but it can also be beneficial to your battery life. Here’s how to get to your Location Services settings:

Open up the Settings app.
Choose Privacy.
Tap Location Services.
Review the list and edit settings by tapping on the name of each app in the list.

You have four possible choices for location settings for each app thanks to some updates introduced in iOS 13, though not all four choices will always be available for every app depending on what it does. You can select the following: Never, Ask Next Time, While Using the App, and Always.

Never will prevent an app from ever accessing your location, and unless there’s a specific need for an app to know where you are, such as a mapping app, setting location access to Never is the best choice.

Ask Next Time will prompt an app to ask you with a popup the next time that it wants your location, so you can temporarily approve it. With this setting, location access is off until expressly allowed via the popup.

While Using the App, as the name suggests, allows the app to detect your location only when the app is open and being actively used. If you close the app or switch over to another app, location access ends.

Always allows an app to have access to your location at all times, regardless of whether it’s open or closed. This will result in the most battery drain and should be limited to only the apps that you need the most.

A lot of apps will ask for location information that don’t really need it to function (for example, a banking app might want location access to show nearby ATMs, which is also available through entering a zip code), so clearing the cruft here will ensure no apps are accessing your location without express permission.

You can also turn off Location Services all together, but most people probably aren’t going to want to do so because it can interfere with apps like Maps.

2. Limit Apps Using Bluetooth

iOS 13 introduced a feature that lets you know when apps have requested Bluetooth access, and there are a surprising number of apps that want to use Bluetooth for things like location tracking with Bluetooth beacons or scanning for Chromecast devices.

This is a good list to review to make sure you don’t have a sneaky app in the background connecting to Bluetooth sources without your permission as that can drain battery. It’s totally fine to allow Bluetooth access to apps that need it for Bluetooth-enabled accessories, but nixing access for retail stores is probably a good idea. Here’s how to access Bluetooth settings:

Open the Settings app.
Tap Privacy.
Tap Bluetooth.

From this list, toggle off any app that doesn’t need a Bluetooth connection to function. It’s best to be liberal with the toggling off — if you disable access and then a feature within an app stops functioning properly, you can just turn Bluetooth back on.

Bluetooth can also be turned off entirely, which can perhaps save a bit of battery life, but it’s not a great idea for most people because Bluetooth is used for AirPods, Apple Watches, and other accessories.

3. Turn on Low Power Mode

Low Power Mode has been around for a few years now, and it’s the number one best setting to enable if you’re concerned about battery life. It cuts down on background activity like behind the scenes downloads and it lowers the brightness of your display after inactivity more quickly.

A popup to enable Low Power Mode will come up when battery life on the iPhone is at 20 percent, but you can enable it at any time through Control Center by tapping on the battery icon or ask Siri to turn it on. Alternatively, it’s available in the Settings app:

Open Settings.
Scroll down and tap Battery.
Tap the Low Power Mode toggle.

With Low Power Mode turned on, your battery icon at the top of your iPhone will be yellow, which lets you know when it’s active. Some people like to keep Low Power Mode on at all times, but know that it does need to be enabled regularly because it automatically turns off when the iPhone is charged.

4. Use WiFi Whenever Possible

WiFi uses less power than a cellular connection, so to maximize battery life, Apple recommends connecting to WiFi whenever possible. At home or work, for example, WiFi should be activated, saving cellular data and battery life.

5. Activate Airplane Mode in Low Signal Areas

When you’re in an area with no cellular coverage or a low signal, your iPhone is draining battery looking for a signal or trying to connect. If you’re experiencing poor cellular coverage, it’s best to activate Airplane Mode since you probably can’t do much with low signal anyway.

Airplane Mode will prevent your iPhone from endlessly searching for a signal, saving the battery until you can get to a place with a better connection.

6. Make Sure Your Battery is Healthy

Battery drain can be due to a battery that’s old and no longer functioning in optimal condition. You can check the health of your battery by following these steps:

Open the Settings app.
Scroll down and tap Battery.
Tap on Battery Health.

In the Battery Health section, there’s a listing for “Maximum Capacity,” which is a measurement of battery capacity relative to when it was new.

If the capacity is under 80 percent, it may be worth seeking out a battery replacement. Apple will replace a battery that is below 80 percent capacity under the one-year warranty plan or under AppleCare+ for free.

Otherwise, replacing the battery will cost between $49 and $69 depending on which iPhone you have.

To make sure your iPhone battery stays healthy longer, you might want to turn on Optimized Battery Charging under the Battery Health section in the Settings app. Optimized Battery Charging allows the iPhone to learn your charging schedule so it can wait until you need it to charge past 80 percent.

For example, if you put your phone on the charger at night, the Optimized Battery Charging setting might hold the iPhone at an 80 percent charge, filling it up close to when you wake up to reduce battery aging.

Apple also recommends avoiding extreme temperatures to prevent permanent battery damage due to heat or cold, as well as removing certain cases when charging. If your iPhone gets warm while charging, it’s best to take off the case to keep your battery healthy for a longer period of time.

7. Manage Apps That Are Draining Battery

The iPhone tells you which apps are eating up the most battery so you can make sure nothing is secretly draining your battery without your knowledge. You can check your battery usage statistics by opening up the Settings app and tapping on the Battery section.

There are charts here that let you see your battery level over the course of the last 24 hours or the last 10 days, as well as the apps that have used the most battery life. If there’s any app that you don’t need that seems to be draining an excessive amount of battery, you can delete it.

For apps you do need, you can moderate how often you’re using the app to cut down on battery drain.

This section will also tell you how much time apps spend using Background App Refresh.

8. Limit Background Activity

Apps, both first and third-party, use background app refreshing features to update even when they’re not open to do things like load mail messages and download updates so they’re ready to use at all times.

Background App Refresh can impact battery life, so turning it off can help make your battery last longer. You can turn off Background App Refresh all together or choose which apps can refresh in the background.

Open the Settings app.
Select General.
Choose Background App Refresh.

From here, you can tap the Background App Refresh option again to turn Background App Refresh off all together or choose to have it activate only when connected to WiFi, which doesn’t drain battery as much as downloading over cellular.

You can also choose to turn Background App Refresh on just for your most used apps by tapping on the toggle next to each app in the list.

9. Adjust Mail Fetch Settings

In addition to turning off Background Refresh, adjusting when and how often the Mail app checks for new emails can save some battery life.

Open up the Settings app.
Choose Password & Accounts.
Tap “Fetch New Data” at the bottom.

From here, you can turn off Push (which lets you know right away when a new email message is available) and adjust Fetch settings on a per account basis for accounts that don’t support Push (like Gmail accounts).

Adjusting the Fetch settings to have longer intervals before checking for new messages can help save battery life, as can turning off Fetch all together in favor of manual checks that will download new messages only when the Mail app is opened.

You can choose the following settings: Automatically, Manually, Hourly, Every 30 Minutes, and Every 15 Minutes.

10. Limit Notifications

Cutting down on the number of notifications that apps are sending is a good way to save a little bit of battery life. If you have apps inundating you with notifications, it’s going to drain battery every time your screen lights up and your phone makes a connection, plus a glut of notifications is just plain annoying.

Adjust your notification settings in the Settings app by following these instructions:

Open the Settings app.
Tap Notifications.
Go through each app and adjust whether or not an app can send you notifications by tapping on the toggle.

If you do allow notifications, you can choose to allow apps to show on the Lock screen, in the Notification Center, as banners, or all three.

Apple also has this handy feature that lets you modify your notification settings right from the notification itself on the Lock screen. Just long press on a notification and then tap the three dots (…) to get to options that include Deliver Quietly or Turn Off.

Deliver Quietly allows notifications to appear in Notification Center but not the Lock screen, while Turn Off lets you turn off notifications for that app entirely.

11. Disable Automatic Downloads and App Updates

If you’re often low on battery, you may not want your iPhone doing things that you’re not explicitly initiating, such as automatically downloading apps downloaded on other devices and downloading software and app updates.

Apple has a feature that is designed to sync apps between all of your devices by downloading apps that were downloaded on one device on the other devices as well. So if you download an app on an iPad, for example, Automatic Download will also download the app on your iPhone.

If that’s a feature you want, leave that enabled, but if it’s not, you can turn it off by following these steps:

Open the Settings app.
Tap on your profile picture.
Tap on iTunes & App Store.
Toggle off Music, Apps, and Books & Audiobooks.

If you also don’t want apps to update on their own, make sure to toggle off App Updates as well. Leaving this on allows iPhone apps to update automatically when new updates are released in the App Store.

You can also turn off automatic iOS updates if desired by following these steps:

Open the Settings app.
Tap General.
Tap Software Update.
Tap Automatic Updates.
Tap the toggle to turn updates off.

12. Activate Dark Mode

Apple in iOS 13 implemented a long awaited Dark Mode feature, which is available across the operating system, including Apple’s built-in apps and third-party apps as most have implemented support.

On devices with an OLED display like the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max, Dark Mode can save a bit of battery life, so it’s worth enabling. Here’s how:

Open the Settings app.
Choose Display & Brightness.
Tap the “Dark” option.

If you tap on the toggle for “Automatic,” Dark Mode will turn on or off with the sunset and the sunrise each day, allowing you to toggle between dark and light mode.

Dark Mode can be toggled on through the Control Center too, which is a convenient way to activate it if your device isn’t in automatic mode.

13. Turn Down Device Brightness

If you’re in a bright room or direct sun, you probably can’t help but have screen brightness turned all the way up, but if you don’t need a super bright display, dimming it down can save battery life.

Brightness can be controlled through the Control Center on the iPhone using the brightness toggle or through the Display & Brightness section of the Settings app. It’s a good idea to turn on the auto-brightness setting to make sure your screen isn’t overly bright in darker rooms by default, but some manual adjustment may be necessary in brighter rooms and in the sun.

14. Adjust Auto-Lock and Turn Off Raise to Wake

It’s a good idea to set the Auto-Lock on the display as low as you can tolerate, which will cause the iPhone’s display to turn off after a short period of inactivity.

You can choose ranges from 30 seconds to never, but the lower end of the spectrum will help preserve battery life by cutting the display when it’s not needed.

If you really want to save battery, turning off Raise to Wake can help, though it may make features like Face ID less convenient. Raise to Wake is a rather convenient option, so this should be a last resort.

15. Make Sure Everything’s Up to Date

If you’re running iOS 13, make sure you have the latest version installed because Apple has been making improvements and refinements to the operating system since it was released. Here’s how to check:

Open Settings.
Tap General.
Tap Software Update.

From here, the iPhone will let you know if your software is up to date or if there’s a new version available.

You should also make sure all of your apps are up to date, which you can do in the App Store.

Open up the App Store.
Tap on your profile in the upper right.
Swipe downwards to refresh everything.
Tap on Update All.

The update section of the App Store is also a great way to cull apps. If you see an update for an app you don’t use often, swipe to the left on it and you can delete it right then and there.

16. Don’t Close Apps

Many battery life guides will suggest manually closing apps by using the App Switcher to prevent them from running in the background, but this doesn’t save battery life and can in fact drain more battery.

Apps in the background are paused when not in active use and aren’t using battery life. Closing out an app purges it from the iPhone’s RAM, requiring a reload when it reopens, which can have a bigger impact on battery.

17. Restart

Sometimes an app can act up or a background process can go wonky, and the best solution is to simply restart your iPhone. If you have an iPhone 8 or later, follow these steps:

Press and release the Volume Up button.
Press and release the Volume Down button.
Press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears, and then release the Side button.

If you have an iPhone 7 or earlier, follow these steps to restart:

Hold down the Volume Down button and the Sleep/Wake button at the same time.
Keep holding until until the screen goes dark and the Apple logo appears on the display.
Release the button.

After the Apple logo appears, it will take a minute or so for the iPhone to start back up.

18. Restore as New

If you’re at your wits’ end and nothing is helping to improve significant battery drain, you can try restoring your iPhone and setting it up as new to eliminate any potential behind-the-scenes problems. This should be a last resort, as starting from scratch can be a hassle.

First and foremost, make sure you have an iCloud backup.

On a Mac with Catalina, open Finder. On a Mac with Mojave or earlier, open iTunes. On a Windows machine, open iTunes.
Plug your iPhone into your computer.
If you’re prompted to enter a device passcode or to click a Trust This Computer prompt, do so.
Select your device from the side bar in Finder or the side bar in iTunes.
Click on the Restore open. If you’re signed into Find My, you’ll be prompted to sign out.
Click Restore again to confirm.

After restoring, you can set your device up as if it was a new device. You can restore from the iCloud backup that you created prior to the restore, but you might want to try starting fresh to prevent any possible problems.

Other Tips

There are a lot of battery saving tips and guides on the internet, and there were some other questionable tips that people recommended that may or may not save much battery life. It’s difficult to tell, but it’s not terrible idea to consider some of these options if they’re features you don’t use.

These tips should be employed judiciously and after the tips above because turning off every feature on the iPhone may not be the most desirable way to save battery.

Disable “Hey Siri” so the iPhone isn’t listening for the wake word.
Turn off Siri entirely.
Turn off Screen Time.
Turn off Siri Suggestions.
Turn off motion effects.
Turn off AirDrop.
Turn off vibrate.
Use Safari content blockers.
Don’t use Live or Dynamic wallpapers.
Turn down volume.
Turn down the brightness level of the Flashlight feature in Control Center.

Sourced from MacRumors

In News

How Much Will Google Pay For Publisher Content?

March 4, 2020 No Comments

By Rob Williams.

Google is taking a friendlier approach to publishers with its discussions about possibly paying them a licensing fee for content, as The Wall Street Journal reportedlast week. The talks are said to be in the early stages, but they may help publishers create another source of revenue as they cope with declining ad sales.

The value of publisher content to Google has been hotly debated since last year. The News Media Alliance, a nonprofit that represents more than 2,000 newspapers in North America, argued that Google makes at least $4.7 billion a year from “crawling and scraping” their content. Google refuted the claim, which also was questioned by media analysts, executives and columnists.

It’s hard to imagine that publishers have much bargaining power with Google, given that it’s the most popular search engine in the world outside of China. Even if antitrust authorities manage to compel Google to undo its acquisitions of DoubleClick, YouTube and Android, the company will still dominate internet search.

It’s also important to understand the difference between Google Search and Google News, the two main avenues to publisher content from the search company.

Google Search is valuable to publishers, helping them to connect with online audiences. The key debate is whether Google helps or hurts traffic with search results. Google has said it drives 10 billion clicks to publishers’ websites and is providing an invaluable service.

Some publishers, especially in France, have argued the search results show too much copyrighted content from their websites. Instead of urging people to click through, Google gives readers just enough information to stay on its site, the argument goes.

In addition, Google News gathers headlines from publishers in one place, helping readers to find the latest headlines. Google doesn’t have advertising in Google News, which means there isn’t any revenue to share with publishers.<

However, as other companies like Apple, Facebook, News Corp and AT&T develop news aggregation services, the search giant has more competitors for user attention.

Facebook last year announced plans to share revenue with publishers, while Apple has a paid digital newsstand that also provides additional income. Google’s willingness to pay for publisher content is a welcomed development.

By Rob Williams

Sourced from MediaPost