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Stop Funding Fake News in talks with media agencies to demonetise misinformation sites

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By John McCarthy

Stop Funding Fake News, the social movement pressuring brands to boycott newsbrands that it believes routinely spread misinformation, is turning its attention to media agencies.

Anonymous officials from the activist group told The Drum that for it to achieve its goals of demonetising fake news sources, it has realised it must court the middlemen between brands and publishers.

Inspired by Sleeping Giants in the US and Stop Funding Hate in the UK, the group operates anonymously, claiming activists could be at risk if their identities were known.

Adobe, Chelsea FC, Harry’s, Experion, eBay, Moonpig and Manchester United are among the 40 brands and charities that the group has convinced to block out a number of sites off the back off a campaign it launched March 2019.

Now, it’s looking to advertising and media agencies to engage in a dialogue about the news industry. A spokesperson said agencies have approached the group, keen to grasp what sites should be considered for blacklist.

This is particularly beneficial for Stop Funding Fake News’ cause as agencies handling multiple clients ought to be able to widely blacklist offending sites – a step-up from the brand-by-brand approach the group previously took.

It said it is now expanding its network to help “persuade” ad agencies that it is “bad for their clients to be associated with the lies and racism found on these sites, so it’s in the interest of ad agencies to ensure they don’t put them there.”

It urges agency figures to get in touch at [email protected] for discussion.

Misinformation has been linked with deaths around the world, not to mention that fact that generating clickbait lies can be a lucrative trade. Earlier this year, The Drum explored the harms fake news causes globally, talking to misinformation experts, Wikimedia, and BBC News about how to curtail the issue.

As a largely ad-funded media, greater scrutiny is being placed upon the brands that are enabling these stories.

By John McCarthy

Sourced from The Drum

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Streamline your creativity with this design assets bundle

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Get your hands on premium design assets for life.

Is your creative project taking longer than you anticipated? If so, check out EpicPxls. This design package will streamline your productivity by providing you with premium curated fonts, graphics, templates, mobile app designs and much more.

Whether you’re a graphic designer, web developer or a blogger, there’s plenty to enjoy with this EpicPxls deal. You’ll be able to download 20 premium items per month for life, all for the reduced price of $99. That’s a massive 95 per cent saving on the regular price of $2,400.

With no recurring payments, you can sign up today safe in the knowledge that you’re not going to get stung by charges further down the line. Supercharge your creativity and your productivity today by getting your EpicPxls deal for $99.

Feature Image Credit: EpicPxls

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Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

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3 HUGE Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs Make that Diminish Their Brand & Cost Them Leads and Sales

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By Marisa Murgatroyd

I’m sure you’ve heard the famous phrase, you don’t get a second chance to make a great first impression.

It’s true about life… and it’s definitely true about business.

A well-crafted personal brand speaks FOR you even before you say a word. It helps you attract ideal customers and clients who are inspired and motivated by who you are and how you show up in the world.

And it demonstrates to your clients and customers that you can do what you say you can do and that they can rely on you to deliver on the promises…

And when that happens, you’ll easily make an awesome first impression in any situation.

From working the room at networking events, to connecting with random website visitors and people watching your FB Lives and reading your blog posts, a powerful personal brand will do pretty much all the hard work of grabbing attention in all the right ways.

But there’s more to a successful personal brand than creating a great first impression.

Personal branding is also about consistency.

It’s about making an awesome “first impression” again and again and again.

I’ve helped countless clients and students build out powerful brands using my Personal Brand Power Framework (I share exactly how to do this in my Ultimate Guide to a Powerful Personal Brand).

And not to be overly dramatic, but a personal brand is a sink or swim kind of deal.

Create a great brand that works for you and it quickly leads to lucrative business connections, steady growth, lots of sales and happy customers.

But get it wrong and you could damage your reputation and demolish your bottom line.

And so many gifted entrepreneurs get it wrong (and don’t even know it).

So,  I’m sharing hidden traps to avoid if you want to create a personal brand that powerfully and consistently establishes your reputation and your expertise.

Brand Trap #1: Being a Jack of All Trades

When you want to build a personal brand that seals your reputation, grows your client base and your income, it’s about lasering in on who you are and what you want to be known for.

But that’s not what most entrepreneurs do.

They try to be all things to all people and this mindset often shows up in their title or designation.

I’ve seen it happen and you probably have too…

I’m talking about people who call themselves a “speaker-coach-author-designer” or something to that effect!

Then there are those who focus on a bunch of different niches and areas of expertise…

I’ve seen super talented designers offering copywriting services and business coaches selling crystals.

They do this thinking that it’s a great idea to get  their “name out there” or they just want to make a quick buck any way possible.

But the result is a confused, uncertain audience and a damaged reputation and credibility because nobody is going to believe that one person can be truly great at so many different things!

When it comes to your personal brand you don’t want to be a “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

You want to laser in on one or two products or services that will establish your expertise so you can get to the top of the charts in specific industry or niche… especially if you’re a new entrepreneur. 

For instance, 2 of the most successful online entrepreneurs around — Jeff Walker and Ryan Levesque — did exactly that…

They focused on a single area of expertise from day one and they’ve stuck to that one thing for years.

Jeff is known as the “launch expert” and he’s built his entire business around the Product Launch Formula while Ryan is known for his wildly successful marketing funnel methodology and software called the Ask Method.

So trying to be an “expert” in a whole bunch of niches right out of the gate — this is one of the biggest personal branding traps entrepreneurs fall into.

Brand Trap #2: Drowning Your Audience 

If you want a powerful personal brand start by focusing on just one thing… your reputation.

A powerful personal brand is built on a rock-solid reputation but it’s where lots of entrepreneurs go wrong…

They think a great reputation is about “overdelivering.”

They want customers and clients to feel like they received a TON of value and got their money’s worth… and then some.

So, they go out there and build massive A to Z, 12-week courses or programs in their area of expertise… maybe for you that’s web design or internet marketing or copywriting or whatever it happens to be.

BAD IDEA.

When you teach people everything you know — when you overshare or “overdeliver”  — what you’re really doing is creating anxiety, overwhelm and confusion for your clients and customers… hit ‘em with everything you’ve got and they won’t know what hit ‘em!

Instead, you need to hone in on one specific thing inside your zone of genius that helps people complete a project or achieve a goal.

If you’re a designer, for example, you could teach your customers how to create a gorgeous logo for their business.

If you’re a copywriter you could show them how to write an effective sales page.

If you’re an internet marketer or business mentor, you could teach them how to create kicka$$ courses that sell (that’s exactly what we did with Experience Product Masterclass and it’s one of our most popular courses of all time!).

And if you’re a transformational life coach, you could teach them how to laser in on and overcome their limiting beliefs around achieving success in business or finding true love.

Whatever you do, don’t drown your customers in value.

The trick is to keep things simple so that they get the results they’re looking for — this is the path to building trust, creating transformation, establishing that awesome reputation and  building a powerful personal brand that works for you.

Brand Trap #3: Focusing on the What 

Most entrepreneurs believe customers and clients want to work with them and buy from them based on what they know

But the most successful personal brands in the world — think Michelle Obama or Oprah or Gary Vaynerchuk — are built on how they make people feel.

The internet changed the world and how it works. Knowledge is SO cheap right now, it’s literally free.

Anything and everything you want to know is at your fingertips and available to you faster than you can say “Google.”

But your energy, your essence, your values and how you share and teach that’s unique because YOU’RE unique.

And that’s what people want…

They want what they can’t find on the internet and that’s who you are and how you make them feel NOT what you know.

So, give yourself permission to be yourself… focus on being vulnerable, authentic and real.

At different touch points in your business — your content, your website, your products and services — ask yourself…

How do you make them feel? 

That’s the #1 thing to think about in personal branding and we’ve helped clients and students build multi-million dollar brands starting with that one question.

So, powerful personal branding starts with focusing on becoming a hit-maker versus throwing a bunch of products and services at your audience to see what sticks…

It’s about creating results over drowning them in value…

It’s about becoming more YOU and how you want people to feel when they connect with you and your business.

That’s how you build a  personal brand that works for you and your business, a brand that projects who you are and how you want to show up in the world, a brand that matters, and creates the income and impact you want.

Feature Image Credit: pixabay

By Marisa Murgatroyd

Sourced from live your message

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The Best Websites You Probably Don’t Know About

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By Nick Douglas

“What is a website that everyone should know about but few people actually know about?” asks redditor tj007s13. This is a common question on Reddit, but every time it gets new answers. Here are some of our favourite answers from the thread.

Real Life Resources

Music and Media Browsing

In-Browser Software

Shopping

Downloads

Assorted

  • The Electric Typewriter: Collection of long-form journalism and essays, curated according to topic and author.
  • WebOas.is: Tiny portal centred around multi-site search (kind of like those pre-Google search aggregators). Also has pages for cryptocurrency prices, tech news, and other “stocks! weather! sports scores!”-style content.
  • Airport wifi: User-made Google map of Wi-Fi passwords at airport lounges around the world. (Previously on Lifehacker.)
  • Privacy Tools: Compare VPNs to protect yourself while on airport Wi-Fi.
  • The Cutting Room Floor: Wiki of “unused and cut content from video games”.
  • Lightning Map: Real-time map of lightning strikes.

Check out hundreds more in the thread.

What is a website that everyone should know about but few people actually know about? | AskReddit

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Nick Douglas

Sourced from lifehacker

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Why you should start using SVG to boost your website speed

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By Hector Herradura

Graphics are an important field of your visual identity, but also can make your web to load slowly. In this post I will show you how using SVG graphics you can optimize and improve overall customer’s experience and your site load time.

If you know what is a vector graphic and it’s differences between a bitmap image you can skip the introduction and jump to How to improve your server speed with SVG icons section where I talk about how to increase the speed of your site.

Introduction: what is SVG hence a vector

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is a format standardized by W3C on 1999 that aims to port the advantages of vector images to the web.

To understand what is a vector first we must know how images store their info. There are two ways to define an image: to store which primary colour of the additive model (Red Green and Blue) is inside a pixel grid, or to use maths to define a geometric form and store it’s info with numbers and text.

  • Bitmap photos and videos formats use the grid approach.
  • Vector graphics use maths to calculate the final render.

Let’s say we have two images of a box, one is bitmap and the other one a vector. Focus your attention at the bitmap box (we will rotate it slightly to see the effect) and we will make zoom on it. It’s dimensions are 100×100 pixels and 72 PPI ( how many pixels are contained in an inch, Pixel Per Inch).

Example of a bitmap image against a vector image.

As you can see our bitmap box is pixelated, while the vector image is not. This happens because bitmap images are defined in the space and limited by attributes such as resolution (how big is an image, heigh and width) or PPI. The grey pixels are a result from interpolation. So now you know one vector’s advantage, quality is mantained when you make zoom on them because they are being defined by maths and are scalating their dimensions.

Well, you maybe encounter yourself thinking if there could be a photograph represented by vectors, the answer is yes, but that’s not what vectors are for. For photos and videos, bitmap format is the right choice because it has another advantages such a better realistic look, a more affordable way of processing and modifying data and a very good relationship representing complex forms with subtle colour transitions such as clouds or skin tones.

Vectors on the other side were made to describe simple and complex geometric images where there is normally not many transition of colours and than can be scalable to big sizes.

So what is SVG?

SVG is a format / way of writing vector images using markdown language just like html is made for layering text. A box in SVG format will result in something like this:

<svg height=”100" width=”100">
<rect width=”100" height=”100" style=”fill:rgb(0,0,255);stroke-width:3;stroke:rgb(0,0,0)”></rect>
</svg>

which result in this :

Let’s get dirty, for example this time we will use my logo which has a clearly difficult path and we will convert it to SVG. You will see it doesn’t matter how difficult the shape it is, it can be always be defined by maths. My logo in SVG result in this:

Example of a complicated icon path converted to svg

How to use SVG on the web

Is very easy to use SVG on the web the only thing you have to know is the SVG code of your icon. All kind of vector drawable software like Adobe Illustrator or Inskcape have an option to export your work as an SVG. Then, you only have to paste it onto your html and you are done.

Of course you will need to add some code to your taste (exmaple; a SVG inside a div to position it on the right of the page). If you become competent with SVG you can make changes directly at the code, no need to use Illustrator to make little changes anymore.

When to use SVG

SVG is specially good for icons. You should try to use it every time you can. There is an png icon on your web? change it and convert it to SVG.

How to improve your server speed with SVG icons

Think, when you enter a webpage and your browser has to download images from the server, these occur via HTTP GET request. While making request, the server can be slowly due to some reasons or you computer can have a slow internet connection resulting in a slow load time. When you use SVG you are reducing the number of petitions to the server.

Imagine that you have 10 PNG icons on your page, that results in 10 request more to the server, an increment of 0,300ms. You can get rid of that 0,300ms and make your web load faster using SVG icons. Now because your icons are part of the code and are sent to you via the html file, you are downloading only one archive and making only one petition to the server.

Here you have an example: this site, which I created for this case, is using 10 .png icons, downloaded from mdi-icons page, and it’s hosted on GitHub. When we use the inspector tool ( Ctrl + Shift + C) from our browser and go to network tab, we get the site’s loading speed in ms. You can see that there are a total of 12 request which result in a load time of 655ms.

Site created for this case
Notice the 12 request made to the server and how they affected the site’s load speed.

Now if we visit the same site with svg icons notice what happened to all the request, they are gone and the load time is faster.

Notice the total request reduction from 12 to 2 resulting in a faster speed

Well, we have gotten a really good result, we have gone from 655 miliseconds to 343 miliseconds! but also pay atention to the other parameters, all except DOMContentLoaded are faster. SVG let’s you icrease your site speed while increasing your icons quality, it is a win-win situation.

In the next section I will explain some others advantages of SVG.

Others advantages of SVG:

Quality and size

  • Your will improve the quality of your site when the user makes zoom in the page icon the quality will be the same.
  • You will forget about colour profiles (ICC profiles) since the colour is read directly from the code and profile is defined by the browser.
  • SVG is made of text, text always means less consumption of resources and the lesser weight of all of kind data types. You will gain some free space on your server and remember text can be compressed to the maximum (if you server have some kind of compression) bitmap images can’t be compressed to maximum, just a tinny fraction.

SVG will Increase your workflow

  • As we have talked before you can make direct changes to the code, no need to open your favourite vector software to retouch it, save and upload the img to a server again.
  • You can share your vectors easily via e-mail with your teammates or you just can copy it directly from the source code of the page in case you don’t have access to the archive.

You can animate SVG with CSS

  • Yep, you can animate SVG with CSS, say goodbye to GIFs embrace the code. For example you can change the colour of some path from your SVG when hovering the mouse. This opens you to a world of new possibilities the limit it’s on the code side.

SVG animation

You can use text inside SVG

  • You can put text in it and modify it as you desire. It’s selectable and also you can make curved text.
SVG curved text

You empower you brand against illicit use of your logo by commons folks

  • SVG are a double-edged sword, the common folks are not going to be able to download any image from your site, it will be almost impossible to them figure it out how to print and modify your logo; but people with techie knowledge can use it instantly instead of having to recreate it again from an image.

Conclusion

You should always try to use SVG in web development. They are fast, they have the most quality of all img formats and they are easy to implement, and you server will have less request to attend.

 

By Hector Herradura

Sourced from UX Collective

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Why You Should Spend More On Advertising Than Any Of Your Competitors Or Die A Slow Death

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Sourced from B&T Magazine

In this opinion piece, founder and head of growth at digital marketing agency King Kong, Sabri Suby, speaks on why you need to be spending more on advertising than your competitors are, or face a slow death.

In the past decade, there’s been a huge migration of businesses moving online, in search of better clients and fewer overheads. Every man and his dog is jumping on the online advertising bandwagon, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.

But if you think online marketing is a free ticket to an endless supply of leads that will cost you next to nothing, then you’re in for a rude awakening. If there’s one thing your business should never, ever cut corners on, it’s digital ad spend and acquiring new customers into your business.

Supply and demand

Digital advertising has now out surpassed TV as the number one advertising channel. Meaning the number of advertisers is increasing and the quality of the competition is rising – but the inventory available isn’t increasing at the same rate.

There are only so many humans on the planet, and they only spend so much time per day scrolling through Facebook or Instagram. The basic laws of economics will tell you what happens next: the cost per click across all channels is driven up, and up, and up.

Increased demand and higher cost of entry has sharpened the competition and kicked the chancers to the kerb. Small businesses want their ads showing up in potential customers’ newsfeeds – but so do McDonald’s and Uber Eats and Coca-Cola. In this supposedly level playing field, we’re all competing for the same people, but the big guys can spend a lot more to acquire a customer than a regular small business.

This doesn’t mean there’s no hope for the little guys; but it does mean that they need to step up, get smart and start learning how to spend their hard-earned money wisely.

The digital marketing sea is turning red with businesses that can’t survive the rising costs, leaving their skeletons dotted along the shoreline. These dying businesses are typically filled with lazy marketers who still think they’re back in the good old days, where the competition was weak and winning was easy.

They spend the majority of their time plotting out how they can spend less, get the cheapest clicks, and reduce their costs. They reminisce about the times when all they had to do was put their ads in the Yellow Pages, sit back, and wait for the phone to ring.

Anyone who continues to think like this is going to get eaten alive by those who truly understand the cost of acquiring good customers. The business that can afford to spend the most to acquire a customer will always win, every single time. If you stop thinking of advertising as a cost, and start realising that it’s an investment, the leads and clients will begin to flow.

This shift in mindset will allow you to justify spending more than any of your competitors, putting you one step ahead of the rest. You will be able to go out and market more aggressively than any of your competitors, allowing you to get all the customers and win.

Stop panicking and start learning

So, what if you want to start winning, but you’re scared to make the jump? Here’s the secret: stop spending all your time worrying about costs, and start educating yourself. In order to justify the increased spending, you’re going to need to know your numbers inside out.

Force yourself to understand the technology. Learn about CRMs. Discover how automation can help your business. Once all the pieces start to fall into place, increasing your ad spend won’t feel like such a risk – it will simply make sense.

And when you start to get your digital marketing right, you’ll be making so much money from your customers, that the rising costs of acquiring those customers won’t matter anymore. For every dollar you spend, you’ll get three, five or ten back.

When the results are that good, you’ll want to be putting in as many dollars as you can afford. And if you’re still too scared, don’t come crying to me about how your $10 boosted post didn’t generate you any leads.

Sourced from B&T Magazine

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How to choose the best Digital Marketing channel for your Business?

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Sourced from Chainlink Marketing

A Digital Marketing Agency can help you best to grow your business with all needed digital marketing campaign from inbound marketing (such as Web Design, Search Engine Marketing, Website Optimization, Social Media Marketing, SEO and Hyperlocal Marketing) to outbound marketing (such as Traditional Marketing, Email marketing and Search).

In today’s world, online marketing is the best strategy to reach your targeted audience. Traditional media has the power to reach mass audiences, but digital marketing allows you to practice hyperlocal marketing by micro-targeting the exact customer profile for your particular type of product or service. As it reaches few targeted people than mass media, it targets the accurate customers which can mean a smaller overall expense and less waste in your viral marketing. But before hiring a digital marketing agency to help your business to grow more you must keep a few things in mind such as:

  1. Know your budgets
  2. Define your goal
  3. Think thoroughly about how you want to work
  4. Check the online presence of the digital marketing company you are going to hire
  5. Assess the company’s culture and approach
  6. Ask who will work on your account and what experiences they have
  7. Check the credentials
  8. Understand their work strategy
  9. Establish reporting and communication
  10. Demand transparency in everything

In recent times, Online Marketing or Digital Marketing has become very popular and also useful than other Media marketing policies. Perhaps what matters most is to prepare a strategy to establish the brand on a long runway. Finding the right digital marketing agency is not a very tough task. A perfect full-service digital agency will focus on finding the best solutions to market your business and develop specific strategies to provide the best return on your investment based on the criteria of your business.

Chainlink Digital Marketing Agency:

Chainlink is very helpful for digital work and promoting things with excellence and positive attitude with deep insight advertisement. Their work is highly appreciated by most of their users as the quality of work is very high with unique designs and creative ideas. Now Chainlink is becoming one of the top listed digital marketing agencies New York. It is a matter of the huge amount of money for creating your brand value and putting adds on Newspaper, Hoardings, TV ads and Radio ads. In the era of Internet and Digitalization, Chainlink is here for you to assist you through the Digital Marketing channel to create a brand value and promote to your targeted customers in a very short period of time.

Being the best digital marketing agency New York Chainlink implements the most advanced tools available in the marketplace to track every campaign’s results as they believe in marketing attribution and ROI. They provide the service which fits within their customer’s budget. Let’s have a glance over their Digital Marketing Services and Solutions:

  1. Search Engine Optimization – growing the inbound traffic and of website and lead generation
  2. Content Marketing – developing brand-appropriate content that attracts prospects and customers
  3. Email Marketing – dynamic email marketing at scale with advanced automation
  4. PPC (Pay per click) and display ads-AdWords – accelerate your digital advertising with targeted efforts
  5. Social Media Marketing – managing and advertising on social media
  6. Developing Websites
  7. Event Marketing
  8. Integrated Print marketing with a cohesive Digital strategy
  9. Promotion

Marketing Strategy:

Firstly, Chainlink takes a full business evaluation to allow for proper discovery and to identify their customer’s digital marketing objectives and goals. They collaborate with their customers to develop a strategic and precise digital marketing plan to promote your company and accomplish your customers’ needs. Chainlink relies mostly on Analytics and data to plan, execute, optimize and report for assured progress of your digital marketing campaigns.

Return-Focused Marketing:

Chainlink Relationship Marketing has strong and long-term experience for working with clients across industry verticals, B2C & B2B, and various business sizes. In every campaign, one thing is consistent, which is their unwavering focus on maximizing the ROI (Return on Investment) on your digital marketing efforts and advertising spend. Chainlink identifies the most relevant KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to conduct a proper benchmarking, monitoring, and optimizations for every digital marketing campaign. Regardless of your budget, objectives Chainlink helps in implementation of digital marketing efforts that provide consistent and interactive touch points across channels to ensure that every dollar and minute spent on digital marketing and advertising is being deployed as efficiently as possible.

Sourced from Chainlink Marketing

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FREELANCE LIVE EVENT & PROJECT MANAGERS

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Headcase Marketing

Headcase are expanding our live events team & are looking for experienced event & project managers to join us for upcoming projects, events & buzz..

A great opportunity to upskill & work in a creative & fun space – and alongside a closeknit, passionate, sound team!

Get in touch if the below sounds like you:

  • Passionate about Live Events
  • Hardworking with A Positive Attitude
  • A Minimum of 1 years Experience in Events Industry management
  • Great Communication Skills
  • Leadership experience
  • Confident in dealing with clients and consumers in front facing brand Roles
  • Strong Operational & Logistical Understanding
  • Full, Clean Driver’s License
  • Van Driving,  Van Loading & Event SetUp Experience
  • Ideally 25+,  but younger candidates considered subject to experience.
  • Available to work flexible/Event hours
  • Sound & a Cultural Fit with Headcase.ie

Check Some of our Work – http://www.headcase.ie/

PLEASE NOTE –  All Applicants must complete & sumbit the form below to be considered for the role; 

Go to this link to complete your application – https://forms.gle/x9AyHUw9xqEiRok87

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Brand Ambassador – Ecocab Rider

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Headcase Marketing

Homebird Studios, 18 Newmarket Square

The Ecocabs service is eleven years old this year – and rocking better than ever! We are looking for new Ecocab riders to join our crew in 2019.

Cycling Experience required.

 

About The Role:

This position is one of the most fun and sociable jobs in Dublin.

Join a crew of sound heads in an exciting part-time or full time job – which provides a great way to get outdoors, meet people, get fit and develop skills and experience in marketing, brand promotions and events.

This job is completely unique, fun and develops many skills, as well as creates other opportunities within Headcase.

We are looking for candidates who are active and have an interest in sports or outdoor activities.

Having a background or interest in cycling is a huge plus but not essential. When applying, please explain in detail why you feel you are the right fit to be an Ecocabs Rider.

Some Of Our Work….

The Ideal Candidate:

  • Excellent Communication Skills.
  • Well Presented and Confident.
  • An Interest in sport or outdoor activities. (Cycling Experience a distinct advantage)
  • Experienced in brand promotions or the events industry a plus.
  • Strong Punctuality.
  • Reliable and Trustworthy.

Click HERE to apply for this job.

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Firefox will begin blocking trackers by default

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By Jacob Kastrenakes

Firefox will now block thousands of web trackers by default, protecting users from many websites, analytics companies, and advertisers that want to follow their paths across the web. The change should speed up the browser and keep users’ web habits more private, while nudging advertisers toward less invasive practices.

The changes are a big deal for privacy, but Mozilla doesn’t push the envelope quite as far as Apple did when it added a similar feature to Safari a couple years ago. Apple’s browser blocks nearly all third-party trackers by default, rather than just known trackers collected on a blacklist. Apple also limits tracker from being used by third parties at all if you haven’t interacted with the website they originate from in a full day.

Apple’s approach goes further to preserve privacy, but it may also mean more headaches for users. Many pieces of the web rely on cookies, a key tracking tool, to keep people logged in or serve them relevant information. By aggressively blocking cookies, Apple risks disrupting the experience on some websites, albeit with the benefit of severely limiting how much information about a user each website is able to access.

Mozilla is trying to strike a middle ground, by only blocking known trackers and not all cookies in general. A spokesperson says the company found that blocking all cookies “leads to scenarios where some websites may not function properly,” and so it chose this partial approach to prevent “potential usability issues.” Anyone who wants more protection can go into Firefox’s settings and change the tracking blocking settings from “standard” — the default setting — to “strict.”

Tracker blocking will be on by default for all new Firefox users starting today, and it’ll become the default for everyone already using Firefox in “the coming months.” If you already use Firefox and want to take advantage of the feature, which has been built-in since October, you can go into settings and enable it before Mozilla flips the switch for everyone.

While Firefox isn’t leading the pack when it comes to blocking trackers, it’s still leaps and bounds ahead of Google’s Chrome browser, which is just starting to dabble in features that can limit tracking. Google has a vested interest in keeping some amount of web tracking alive — the company survives off of ads, which are often targeted — whereas Mozilla and Apple don’t, so Chrome is likely to continue lagging behind.

Feature Image Credit: Mozilla

By Jacob Kastrenakes

Sourced from The Verge

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