Archive | May, 2018

So you slaved over your latest blogpost – and nobody tweeted it or shared it on Facebook? Or perhaps you wrote a dozen new articles – and all you hear are the sounds of tumbleweeds drifting across your screen?

It’s harder and harder these days to capture attention – namely because attention spans are getting shorter as people are deluged with more and more things to watch/read/do.

Here are some fast tips to make your writing – shall we say – more readable.

Forget your honors English class and write like people speak. Not sure if you are? Try reading your writing out loud. If it’s awkward or stilted, work on it.

Break it up. Seriously. Ever get an email that’s a one page paragraph? Could you read it? DID you read it?

Hit the enter key like this.

Often.

Use subheads. People like to scan what they’re reading, and if something captures their attention they dig deeper. That’s why you want to add subheads to your blog posts and articles.

Not Sure What A Subhead Is?

It’s like a mini headline inside your article or blog post. See the line above.

Bold your important points. If you make your key concepts bold, the scanning eye will see them and often stop to read the complete sentence.

Use photos. Photos catch the eye like nothing else. Better yet, use photos that have at least one face in them. Studies show the eyes will linger longer on a photo of a face.

Caption your photos. The second most read copy on a page is the photo caption, so make it count. Don’t just write one or two words – think of it as a headline to generate interest. If you need two or three lines, go for it.

Use bullets and numbered lists. What’s typically the third most read part of a sales letter? The bullets. (No surprise – headline and photo captions are the first 2.)

Use links. Link to relevant info on your own website and to your research on external websites. Internal links keep your readers on your website longer, while external links show that you’ve done your research and know what you’re talking about.

Implement these simple tips and you’ll get more people paying attention to your content. With a little bit of practice, you might even give late night television a run for their money.

The Google Assistant is a virtual assistant developed by Google that is primarily available on mobile and smart home devices. Unlike Google Now, the Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations.
Assistant initially debuted in May 2016 as part of Google’s messaging app Allo, and its voice-activated speaker Google Home. After a period of exclusivity on the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, it began to be deployed on other Android devices in February 2017, including third-party smartphones and Android Wear, and was released as a standalone app on the iOS operating system in May. Alongside the announcement of a software development kit in April 2017, the Assistant has been, and is being, further extended to support a large variety of devices, including cars and smart home appliances. The functionality of the Assistant can also be enhanced by third-party developers.
Users primarily interact with the Google Assistant through natural voice, though keyboard input is also supported. In the same nature and manner as Google Now, the Assistant is able to search the Internet, schedule events and alarms, adjust hardware settings on the user’s device, and show information from the user’s Google account. Google has also announced that the Assistant will be able to identify objects and gather visual information through the device’s camera, and support purchasing products and sending money, as well as identifying songs.
At CES 2018, the first Assistant-powered smart displays (smart speakers with video screens) were announced, with a planned release for mid-2018.

see more at wikipedia

The CW Television Network (commonly referred to as just The CW) is an American English-language broadcast television network that is operated by The CW Network, LLC, a limited liability joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network (UPN), and Warner Bros. Entertainment, a division of Time Warner, former majority owner of The WB. The network’s name is an abbreviation derived from the first letters of the names of its two parent corporations (CBS and Warner Bros.).
The CW Television Network made its debut on September 18, 2006, after its two predecessors, UPN and The WB, respectively ceased independent operations on September 15 and 17 of that year. The CW’s first two nights of programming – on September 18 and 19, 2006 – consisted of reruns and launch-related specials. The CW marked its formal launch date on September 20, 2006, with the two-hour premiere of the seventh cycle of America’s Next Top Model. Originally, the network’s programming lineup was intended to appeal mainly to women between the ages of 18 and 34, although starting in 2011 the network increased in programming that appeals to men. As of August 2017, the CW’s audience is 50% male and 50% female. The network currently runs programming six days a week: airing Monday through Fridays in the afternoon and in prime time, along with a Saturday morning live-action educational programming block produced by Litton Entertainment called One Magnificent Morning.
It is also available in Canada on cable, satellite and IPTV providers through stations owned-and-operated by CBS Corporation and affiliates that are located within proximity to the Canada–United States border (whose broadcasts of CW shows are subject to simultaneous substitution laws imposed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, if a Canadian network holds the broadcast rights); it is also available through two affiliates owned by Tribune Media that are classified in the United States as superstations – New York City affiliate WPIX and Los Angeles affiliate KTLA.
Additionally, The CW is available in Mexico through affiliates located near the Mexico–U.S. border (such as KFMB-DT2/San Diego-Tijuana, KECY-DT3 in El Centro, California, KVIA-DT2 in El Paso, and KCWT-CD with simulcasters KFXV-LD2 and KNVO-DT4 in McAllen–Brownsville, Texas) on pay television providers. In both Canada and Mexico, some CW affiliate signals originating from the U.S. are receivable over-the-air in border areas depending on the station’s signal coverage.

see more at wikipedia

Facebook can be an American online communal media and sociable networking company located in Menlo Playground, California. Its website premiered on Feb 4, 2004, by Make Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard University students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
The founders in the beginning limited the website’s regular membership to Harvard students. Later they widened it to raised education companies in the Boston area, the Ivy Category academic institutions, and Stanford College or university. Facebook slowly but surely added support for students at many other universities, and finally to students. Since 2006, anyone who says to be at least 13 yrs . old has been permitted to turn into a registered user of Facebook, though variations exist in this requirement, depending on local laws. The name originates from the face e book directories often directed at American college or university students. Facebook performed its initial general public offering (IPO) in Feb 2012, and started out retailing stock to the general public 90 days later, reaching a genuine top market capitalization of $104 billion, a fresh record. Facebook makes almost all of its earnings from adverts that seem onscreen.
Facebook can be reached from a huge selection of devices with Internet connection, such as desktop pcs, notebooks and tablet personal computers, and smartphones. After registering, users can create a custom-made account indicating their name, profession, schools attended and so forth. Users can truly add other users as “friends”, exchange text messages, post status changes, share images, videos and links, use various applications (“apps”), and receive notifications of other users’ activity. On top of that, users may become a member of common-interest user teams organized by office, school, interests or other issues, and categorize their friends into lists such as “FOLKS FROM Work” or “GOOD FRIENDS”. On top of that, users can article or block annoying people.
Facebook has more than 2.2 billion regular monthly active users by January 2018. Its attractiveness has resulted in prominent press coverage for the business, including significant scrutiny over privateness and the internal effects it is wearing users. Lately, the business has faced strong pressure over the quantity of fake information, hate conversation and depictions of assault prevalent on its services, which it is wanting to counteract.
ON, MAY 1, 2018, Facebook released its strategies to launch a fresh dating service. Corresponding to Tag Zuckerberg: “You can find 200 million people on Facebook that list themselves as one, so evidently there’s something to do here”. Within the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data mining scandal, the service has been developed with level of privacy features, and friends will struggle to view one’s seeing profile.

see more at wikipedia

Google frequently inserts jokes and hoaxes into its products on April Fools’ Day, which takes place on April 1.

see more at wikipedia

The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involves the collection of personally identifiable information of up to 87 million Facebook users and almost certainly a much greater number that Cambridge Analytica began collecting in 2014. The data was allegedly used to attempt to influence voter opinion on behalf of politicians who hired them. Following the discovery, Facebook apologized amid public outcry and fallen stock prices. The way that Cambridge Analytica collected the data was called “inappropriate”.
In December 2015, The Guardian reported that United States Senator Ted Cruz was using data from this scandal and that the subjects of the data were unaware that companies were selling and politicians were buying their personal information. In March 2018, The New York Times, The Guardian and Channel 4 News made more detailed reports on the data scandal with new information from former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who provided clearer information about the size of the data collection, the nature of the personal information stolen, and communication among Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and political representatives who hired Cambridge Analytica to use the data to influence voter opinion.
The scandal was significant for inciting public discussion on ethical standards for social media companies, political consulting organizations, and politicians. Consumer advocates called for greater consumer protection in online media and right to privacy as well as curbs on misinformation and propaganda.
Cambridge Analytica released an unverified statement saying that the data obtained from Kogan was not used in the 2016 presidential campaigns of Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz.

see more at wikipedia

Gmail is a free of charge, advertising-supported email service produced by Yahoo. Users can gain access to Gmail online and using third-party programs that synchronize email content through POP or IMAP protocols. Gmail began as a restricted beta release on Apr 1, 2004, and concluded its testing period on July 7, 2009.
At start, Gmail had a short storage space capacity offer of 1 gigabyte per end user, a significantly higher amount than opponents offered at enough time. Today, the service includes 15 gigabytes of storage area. Users can acquire messages up to 50 megabytes in proportions, including parts, while they can send e-mail up to 25 megabytes. To be able to send larger data files, users can put files from Yahoo Drive in to the meaning. Gmail has a search-oriented program and a “chat view” a lot like an Internet message board. The service is noteworthy among website coders for its early on adoption of Ajax.
Google’s mail machines automatically scan e-mail for multiple purposes, including to filtering spam and malware, also to add context-sensitive advertising next to email messages. This advertising practice has been significantly criticized by level of privacy advocates scheduled to concerns over infinite data retention, simple monitoring by third gatherings, users of other email providers devoid of decided to the policy after sending e-mails to Gmail addresses, and the prospect of Google to improve its policies to help expand decrease level of privacy by merging information with other Google data use. The business has been the main topic of lawsuits regarding the issues. Yahoo has explained that email users must “necessarily expect” their e-mail to be at the mercy of automated handling, and cases that the service refrains from showing advertising next to possibly sensitive text messages, such as those talking about race, religion, intimate orientation, health, or financial claims. In June 2017, Yahoo announced the future end to the utilization of contextual Gmail content to promote purposes, relying instead on data compiled from use of its other services.
By July 2017, Gmail has 1.2 billion productive users worldwide, and was the first software on the Yahoo Play Store going to one billion installations on Google android devices. Matching to a 2014 estimation, 60% of mid-sized US companies, and 92% of startups, were utilizing Gmail.

see more at wikipedia

Easy Money (Swedish: Snabba cash) is a Swedish thriller film directed by Daniel Espinosa that was released on 15 January 2010. It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Jens Lapidus. Joel Kinnaman stars in the lead role of Johan “JW” Westlund, a rather poor man living a double life in the upper class areas of Stockholm. After meeting a wealthy girl, he is enticed into the world of organized crime and begins to sell cocaine to afford his expensive lifestyle. Easy Money was well received by critics and was a hit at the box office.
Two sequels to the film have been filmed – the first (Snabba Cash II) was released in 2012, while the third premiered in Swedish cinemas October 2013. Warner Bros. holds the rights to an American remake of Easy Money, which is set to star Zac Efron.

see more at wikipedia

Facebook is a social networking service launched on February 4, 2004. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommate and fellow Harvard University student Eduardo Saverin. The website’s membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada, corporations, and by September 2006, to everyone with a valid email address along with an age requirement of being 13 and older.

see more at wikipedia

Google LLC can be an American multinational technology company that is experienced in Internet-related products, which include internet marketing technologies, internet search engine, cloud processing, software, and hardware. Yahoo was founded in 1998 by Larry Site and Sergey Brin while these were Ph.D. students at Stanford College or university, California. Alongside one another, they own about 14 percent of its stocks and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting electric power through supervoting stock. They included Yahoo as a privately organised company on Sept 4, 1998. A short open public offering (IPO) occurred on August 19, 2004, and Yahoo changed to its new head office in Pile View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Yahoo announced ideas to reorganize its various passions as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Yahoo, Alphabet’s leading subsidiary, will still be the umbrella company for Alphabet’s Internet hobbies. Upon conclusion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Yahoo, replacing Larry Web page, who became the CEO of Alphabet.
The company’s swift progress since incorporation has induced a string of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond Google’s core internet search engine (Google Search). It includes services suitable for work and production (Yahoo Docs, Bed sheets, and Slides), email (Gmail/Inbox), arranging and time management (Yahoo Calendar), cloud storage area (Google Drive), sociable networking (Yahoo+), instant messaging and training video talk (Google Allo/Duo/Hangouts), terminology translation (Google Translate), mapping and turn-by-turn navigation (Yahoo Maps/Waze/Globe/Street View), video tutorial writing (YouTube), note-taking (Yahoo Keep), and photography organizing and enhancing (Google Images). The business leads the introduction of the Android os mobile operating-system, the Google Stainless browser, and Chrome Operating-system, a lightweight operating-system predicated on the Chrome internet browser. Google has migrated progressively more into hardware; from 2010 to 2015, it partnered with major consumer electronics manufacturers in the creation of its Nexus devices, and in Oct 2016, it released multiple hardware products (like the Yahoo Pixel smartphone, Home smart loudspeaker, Wifi mesh cellular router, and Daydream View electronic reality headset). The brand new hardware main, Rick Osterloh, explained: “most of the innovation that people wish to accomplish now eventually ends up requiring handling the end-to-end customer experience”. Google in addition has attempted becoming a web carrier. In Feb 2010, it declared Google Fiber content, a fiber-optic facilities that was installed in Kansas City; in Apr 2015, it launched Job Fi in america, incorporating Wi-Fi and mobile systems from different providers; and in 2016, it released the Google Train station effort to make general public Wi-Fi available across the world, with first deployment in India.
Alexa, a firm that screens commercial website traffic, lists Yahoo.com as the utmost visited website on the planet. Other Google services also shape in the very best 100 most frequented websites, including YouTube and Blogger. Yahoo is the most effective brand on the globe by 2017, but has received significant criticism affecting issues such as level of privacy concerns, taxes avoidance, antitrust, censorship, and search neutrality. Google’s quest affirmation, from the outset, was “to arrange the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, and its own unofficial slogan was “You shouldn’t be bad”. In Oct 2015, the motto was substituted in the Alphabet corporate and business code of do by the word “Do the right thing”, as the original one was maintained in the code of do of Google.

see more at wikipedia