Top 8 Native Advertising Platforms for Advertisers and Publishers
Top 8 Native Advertising Platforms for Advertisers and Publishers.
It seems that the increase of native ads in important publications, and on various niches, means that they are here to stay.
Here are eight native ad platforms that are creating a global buzz.
Allowing customers to both buy and sell traffic via a real-time bid system, the popularity of Redirect is surging big time.
For instance, if you avail an offer that currently accommodates only US traffic, then the traffic from other countries will be redirected to the link which geo-targets the foregone traffic to a page that allows you to monetize international traffic efficiently.
Outbrain has teamed with many leading niches, publishers, and markets to promote native ads.
The interesting thing about Native ads is their ability to leverage other native ad networks, which expands the reach of your campaign.
It makes an excellent choice for Asian traffic, as well, accounting for .01 -.03 cents per click opposed to .10 cents for US traffic.
Adsnative has gone big on startups and has been successful in displaying a support base for their prospering business.
Founded in 2013, Adsnative has come a long way and is still going strong.
See You at the Top: A Guide to Winning at Customer Service
Quality customer service is one of the major ingredients that make for the success of any business, regardless of its size.
That’s why your business needs to win at customer service.
The solution, according to this article on Recruiterbox, is to create a database about your customers, to help you remember vital things about them so you can relate with them on a personal level.
While answering a Quora question on why she thought Nordstrom has excellent customer service, Ambra Benjamin listed a couple of things the company does that endear customers.
The next thing after setting quality customer service as a goal of your business is to hire and train the right people.
Excellent customer service delivery requires constant training of these staff.
Customers want to encounter well-informed and professional customer-service representatives who have an effective system at their disposal to resolve their, the customers’, issues.
Create a feedback channel for your customers.
To make things easier and more efficient, use help-desk software.
Your business may not be as big, but by using the steps above, your company can excel at customer service, too.
3 Tricks to Marketing Unsexy Products: Tips from Industry leaders in SAAS
Understand the problem you are solving The first step in being able to convince consumers that you have created something important, is truly understanding why your product is important for different users.
Once you truly understand the problem you are solving, you can clearly express this to potential users in a language they understand.
Really understanding the market and customer pain points first, will then help development and also market placement.” This can be done by hiring researchers.
We then use these exact words when we describe our company and how we can help them.” By truly understanding the root problem you are solving for consumers, you can then use this information in all of your marketing and communication, speaking to them in real terms about real differences you can make to their lives.
Instead of focusing on the technology which enables you to solve a problem, focus on the problem being solved.
Explain to the user in simple terms which they understand the value which the product can bring to them.” If your target audience are small business owners, the chances are that they are already constantly having to learn new skills to manage a business in the modern digital age.
Mike McDerment CEO and founder of Freshbooks states: “It is important to explain value using units of measurements which really resonate with busy people.
Create a buzz around your whole company rather than just your product Just because your product itself might not have the “wow’ factor,” doesn’t mean that you cannot make your company interesting to the general public.
What will really be impactful and memorable is building a community and sharing quality stories about what your company is and has been doing on its journey.” When it comes to gaining media coverage, you have a much better chance of being covered in a leading publication sharing business advice, founder stories, interesting insights about company culture or tips for how to improve processes and workflow, than you do if you focus on your product.
Highlight who these people are and then sell your mission to them in a clear manner.” When it comes to marketing functional but not particularly exciting products, there is no point trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes with buzzwords and sparkle; the trick lies in truly grasping the root of the problem you solve for different users, and then explaining the value to them in language they understand.
5 Areas to Automate to Drastically Increase Your Business Productivity
But automating certain areas of my business has given me invaluable time to strategize and work on my business.
Asking these questions gave me an insight about my applicants that I otherwise would not have discovered using the traditional method.
At first, I was solely the one handling every one of my freelance client requests.
By outsourcing my clients’ requests to virtual assistants, I increased my income by more than 50 percent and decreased my work time by half.
Automating this area gave me more time to focus on SEO and advertising strategies to get more customers.
Infusionsoft is a tool that automates your business’s sales and marketing processes.
Infusionsoft offers a complete package that takes care of your entire business marketing by streamlining your customer relationship management, email marketing and lead-capture processes.
These activities are usually separate activities, but with automation software like Infusionsoft, these processes are streamlined and simplified, saving you time and effort.
Your internet time management One of life’s irreplaceable assets is time.
Your team communication As a location-independent entrepreneur, I have employees who work remotely for my business.
Snap Tumbles for First Time Since IPO After Analysts Say Sell
Snap Tumbles for First Time Since IPO After Analysts Say Sell.
After a euphoric public market debut, Snap Inc. shares dropped for the first time in three days after analysts began weighing in with their thoughts on the company’s true valuation.
The parent company of disappearing-photo app maker Snapchat priced shares in its initial public offering last Wednesday and they surged 44 percent on the first day of trading.
By Monday, five of the seven analysts who cover the company had a sell rating on it while two said hold.
No analyst recommends buying the stock, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Snap fell as much as 9 percent, to $24.61 and was trading at $25.41 at 11:47 a.m. in New York.
That values the company at about $29 billion.
Snap, which began as a phone app for sending vanishing photos, has been building out its advertising and media business, reminding investors of the early days of Facebook Inc. and Google’s YouTube.
But the company is still years away from profitability, with a net loss higher than its revenue.
User growth on the app slowed in the fourth quarter, leading to skepticism about how big the company’s advertising business could be.
Two IPOs headed for markets this week, eye Rs 2,300 crore
Radio City FM channel operator Music Broadcast Ltd and Avenue Supermarts that runs supermarket retail chain D-Mart will come out with their initial public offerings this week to raise about Rs 2,300 crore.
The bidding in the initial share sale offer of Music Broadcast will begin on March 6 and close on March 8 while Avenue Supermarts’ IPO will open for public subscription on March 8 and close on March 10.
The shares of the companies are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE.
Music Broadcast’s initial public offer (IPO) comprises fresh issue of shares of up to Rs 400 crore and an offer for sale of up to 26.59 lakh scrips.
It has fixed a price band of Rs 324-333 for its share offering.
Proceeds from the sale will be primarily used for redemption of listed non-convertible debentures.
Music Broadcast, a Jagran group entity, raised over Rs 146 crore from anchor investors on Friday.
Avenue Supermarts plans to raise Rs 1,870 crore through its IPO.
It has set the price band at Rs 295-299 for its public issue.
The funds from the IPO will be utilised towards construction and purchase of fit-outs for new stores and loan repayment.
IoT predictions for 2017 depend on helping developers
IoT predictions for 2017 depend on helping developers.
Smarter devices and troves of sensor data can improve existing business models and lead to the creation of entirely new ones.
There’s a network effect to smart devices.
Shared learning (as in the self-driving car algorithms at Tesla and Google) and shared real-time data (like the Ring doorbell Neighborhoods feature, or the Tile Community Network) can make the value of a device on a network far greater than it is by itself.
And again, this network effect leads to hardware and service lock-in.
The easiest way to get developers working on IoT applications would be to give them familiar tools that abstract away the physical and low-level complexity of IoT.
Containers will become important for the development of IoT systems as well.
It makes sense that they be treated as full-fledged, cloud-enabled network computing nodes.
The more powerful they are, the easier it will be for developers to take their familiarity with existing developmental methodologies (including containers) and apply those skills directly to these devices.
Getting the development part of IoT right is a good first step.
5G takes big leap forward at MWC 17, but next generation networks remain far over the horizon
“Our industry is driving standards, business models, and public policy,” he said.
So whatever goes in the ground, they want to make sure it can be adapted if necessary.
But more than that, many of these companies are still in the process of investing in 4G LTE, the current top speed.
After almost a decade, 4G LTE is still only available in about 34 percent of the world, according to GSMA, which is a sign of just how long such changes take.
Currently, about 23 percent of all mobile connections go over 4G, and the industry hopes that number will increase to more than 40 percent by 2020.
That is the year the industry believes carriers will really start to deploy 5G.
Still, who wouldn’t want a 1 Gbps wireless connection, right?
The idea is to make it as quick and easy as possible for carriers to launch trials.
AT&T will also launch 5G pilots this year.
And that’s another reason telecom companies are going to proceed with caution when it comes to 5G.
Improbable enables small developers to create giant online worlds
Improbable enables small developers to create giant online worlds.
Herman Narula, CEO of Improbable, told me in an interview that the company has launched its open beta for SpatialOS, an operating system and computation platform that allows developers of all sizes to create games that can tap the power of the cloud — or Internet-connected data centers.
GamesBeat: Are you an extension of Google?
GamesBeat: What have you announced here?
Image Credit: Ninpo Game Studio GamesBeat: Anything you’ve learned in particular from these launches?
A lot of the new things that we’re doing with Unreal integration and additional features have come from developer feedback.
People like Klang, the company making Seed, have a lot of people who’ve worked on really big MMOs.
We’ll see people realize that it’s not about building a game for 10 years and then launching it.
Somebody was saying that really good AI may signal the death of multiplayer.
Narula: More players connecting more easily.
Worker Safety Is an Entrepreneurial Imperative
Worker Safety Is an Entrepreneurial Imperative.
One reader posed the question, “how do you get leadership to move from philosophical support to actual support?” It’s a good question, and like most good questions doesn’t have any simple answer, at least not ethical ones.
In many cases, we’re to blame for people supporting safety philosophically but balking at taking any action that would expose the hypocrisy endemic to valuing something in the abstract but not really caring enough to DO something of substance about it.
I have volunteered to feed the homeless, but doing something once a year is hardly doing making a difference except for making me feel better.
Most MBA programs don’t cover the basics of safety and what little many executives know about safety was taught to them by one of us.
The best way to get buy-in is for the leader to have a significant emotional event.
This is safety-speak for something that happens to a person that really shakes them up.
He told me in all earnestness how profoundly it changed him and how he doesn’t think he could do what he does without having had that experience.
I didn’t know the man and yet I still can see that foot, and remember the look on the trooper’s face.
We may not be able to convince someone that safety is the right thing to do because people may die and we want to avoid adding to the net sum total of human misery in the world.
GDC 2017’s 9 biggest stories on augmented and virtual reality
With each passing year, the Game Developers Conference (GDC) becomes more and more important to the VR industry, and 2017’s iteration was no different.
If you’ve been living under a rock (or in a VR headset) for the past week then look no further!
Rift’s 2017 lineup Last year at GDC Oculus revealed much of its line-up for the imminent launch of the Rift.
With Google Daydream launching with motion controls last year, Samsung and Oculus’ Gear VR needs to play a bit of catch up.
We knew it was going to announce when its dev kits for its VR headsets for Windows Holographic would start shipping at the show, we just didn’t know what that kit would look like.
We went hands-on with the device and were quite fond of it.
Epic Games’ Rift-exclusive Oculus Touch showcase, Robo Recall, was always pegged for an early 2017 release, but people were starting to get a little anxious it might not make that window.
It looks like VR will be no different; Oculus this week announced that its Rift was dropping from $600 to $500, and Touch was dropping from $200 to $100.
That’s both Rift and Touch for slightly less than the original price of just the headset itself.
Game on This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com.
Snap Stock Soars, Then Retreats, Following Eye-Popping IPO
On the second day of trading following its eye-popping initial public offering, Snap (SNAP) soared in morning trades but eased back toward midday, still at a sky-high valuation despite warnings by analysts.
Shares in the owner of mobile messaging sensation Snapchat shot up as much as 20% on the stock market today, but they ended the session up 11%, at 27.07.
Snap shares rose 44% in their Thursday debut, to 24.48.
The company now has a market valuation near $31.15 billion.
The IPO has been heavily scrutinized, with analysts displaying skepticism and warnings that the company is overvalued.
In a note to employees, NBC Universal Chief Executive Steve Burke said in a note to clients that Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and his team “have done an outstanding job building Snap into an extremely innovative and relevant company.”
Following the IPO, some analysts were immediately skeptical on Snap’s prospects.
Pivotal Research Group’s Brian Wieser wasted no time, issuing the negative rating on Snap with a price target of 10 within hours of the company’s Thursday debut on the stock market. “Unfortunately, it is significantly overvalued given the likely scale of its long-term opportunity and the risks associated with executing against that opportunity,” Wieser wrote, adding that significant ongoing dilution from share-based compensation will likely represent an additional negative consideration for the stock.
On Thursday, Aegis Capital initiated coverage of Snap at hold with a price target of 22.
Federal Reserve official warns of digital currency’s risks
Federal Reserve official warns of digital currency’s risks.
Above: A Bitcoin logo is displayed at the Bitcoin Center New York City in New York’s financial district, U.S. on July 28, 2015.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo (Reuters) – A top U.S. Federal Reserve official on Friday raised caution about central banks issuing digital currencies as they are vulnerable to cyber attacks and criminal activities along with privacy issues that still need to be addressed.
“A digital currency issued by a central bank would be a global target for cyber attacks, cyber counterfeiting, and cyber theft,” Fed Governor Jerome Powell said in prepared remarks at a conference held at the Yale Law School on payment technology.
A digital currency such as bitcoin would be a “prime target” for global criminal activities including money laundering, Powell said.
He added central banks would need to keep track of digital currency issuance but could raise serious privacy concerns by users and might reduce its appeal.
“Again, there may be important trade-offs between payment and privacy,” he said.
(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Mars astronaut radiation shield set for moon mission trial
Mars astronaut radiation shield set for moon mission trial.
Above: A woman wearing a prototype of Stemrad’s new protective vest, Astrorad, sits inside Russian spacecraft, Excalibur-Almaz Space Capsule, during a demonstration for Reuters, at Madatech, National Museum of Science Technology and Space in Haifa, Israel February 23, 2017.
REUTERS/Amir Cohen (Reuters) – A vest designed to shield astronauts from deadly solar particles in deep space is set for trials on a lunar mission ready for deployment on any manned mission to Mars, its Israeli developers said.
The vest will protect vital human tissue, particularly stem cells, which could be devastated by solar radiation in deep space or on Mars, whose sparse atmosphere offers no protection, StemRad’s CEO Oren Milstein said.
U.S. space agency NASA has said it hopes to send astronauts to Mars in the mid-2030s.
The vest is made of layers that look like a contoured map and will be tailor-made for each astronaut.
Non-metallic protective materials will be positioned on each shield to cover the organs of each astronaut.
“This product will enable human deep space exploration.
Our breakthrough has come in creating the architecture of the multi-layered shield to accurately cover the most important organs,” Milstein said.
Another phantom will fly unprotected and the two will be analyzed after they return to Earth.
Music Broadcast, Avenue Supermarts to launch their IPOs this week to raise about Rs 2,300 crore
Music Broadcast, Avenue Supermarts to launch their IPOs this week to raise about Rs 2,300 crore.
NEW DELHI: Radio City FM channel operator Music Broadcast Ltd and Avenue Supermarts that runs supermarket retail chain D-Mart will come out with their initial public offerings this week to raise about Rs 2,300 crore.
The shares of the companies are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE.
Music Broadcast’s initial public offer (IPO) comprises fresh issue of shares of up to Rs 400 crore and an offer for sale of up to 26.59 lakh scrips.
Proceeds from the sale will be primarily used for redemption of listed non-convertible debentures.
Avenue Supermarts plans to raise Rs 1,870 crore through its IPO.
It has set the price band at Rs 295-299 for its public issue.
The funds from the IPO will be utilised towards construction and purchase of fit-outs for new stores and loan repayment.
So far this year, Asia’s oldest stock exchange BSE got listed on the rival NSE’s platform.
2016 saw hectic fund-raising activity in the IPO segment as a total of 26 firms collected over Rs 26,000 crore through this route — making it the best one for public offers since 2010.
Investors bet Trump-fueled tech rally far from over
Corporate tax cuts and reduced regulations planned by President Donald Trump will give companies reason to spend more on cloud computing, factory automation and smart connectivity that will directly benefit Silicon Valley, many on Wall Street believe.
“The tax cuts are going to promote business investment across all industries, and the business investment is largely going to be in technology,” said Doug Cote, chief market strategist at Voya Investment Management in New York.
In the past month, investors have poured $325 million into to the U.S.-listed Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund, according to ETF.com, which tracks fund flows.
“We may be due for a little bit of a pullback, but we’re still buyers on weakness because we like the longer-term outlook over the next two to three years,” said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.
Priciest of the pricey Improved employment and consumer confidence have also been behind investors’ optimism about tech, helping offset concerns about lofty valuations.
After an eight-year U.S. stock market rally, nearly all sectors are trading at earnings multiples above their long-term average, but none more so than technology, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.
The tech sector’s strong performance has left it trading at 17.9 times expected earnings, compared to its 10-year average of 14.5 times expected earnings.
The S&P tech sector’s price-to-earnings multiple has been above its own long-term average for about a year, and during that time the sector has surged about 28 percent.
Analysts on average expect 13.6 percent growth for the March quarter.
Micron Technology jumped 3.5 percent on Friday after raising its 2017 forecast the day before, helped by healthy demand for its memory chips.
The VR industry needs better content, turns to accelerators
The VR industry needs better content, turns to accelerators.
This is a time where, as it gains momentum, the industry needs to rally together and push its ecosystem to the next stage of market adoption.
The established hardware players like HTC, Oculus, Google, and Samsung have the most at stake and the most to lose, but it’s the startup community that’s driving market adoption by creating content that’s strong enough to attract users to adopt the necessary gear.
That, alongside the pool of funds that HTC, Colopl, IMAX, and The Venture Reality Fund have put into play, marks content as a particular priority.
Part of the reason why the ‘replayability’ factor is so low is because VR content creators aren’t investing enough time or using the right tools and resources to properly vet their ideas as they evolve into market-ready products.
That’s where accelerators and incubators come in, the first wave of which includes the likes of Boost VC, Tokyo VR Startups, Seoul VR Startups, UCCVR, and HTC’s ViveX.
There is more than ever the need to accelerate innovation and startups which are supporting those products and services,” Thomas Gere, cofounder and CEO at Realities Centre, told me.
A variety of completely new problems come into play when building immersive content.
Accelerator and incubator programs are designed with uncertainty as the working premise, and the structure of the curriculum is oriented with that in mind at every step.
Pooling brain power.
Red Bull Proving Grounds will find North America’s top Street Fighter V player
Red Bull Proving Grounds will find North America’s top Street Fighter V player.
Red Bull is announcing a Street Fighter V esports tournament that will find North America’s next top amateur esports athlete.
The Red Bull Proving Grounds 2017 will hold qualifying competitions in 11 cities.
With the growing popularity and success of last year’s Red Bull Proving Grounds, the tournament has expanded into two seasons and added 5 new Red Bull Proving Grounds qualifying stops.
Competitors angling for a shot at the pros will compete in Orlando, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Red Bull will also be hosting online tournaments for any competitor to join remotely.
Three winning contestants from each regional and online tournament will be flown to the Red Bull eSports Studio in Santa Monica to compete at Red Bull Proving Grounds Finals in June.
The Top 8 from the region will earn spots to compete at EVO 2017 in Las Vegas as the culmination of Spring Season.
For each Red Bull Proving Grounds Qualifying Stop, Red Bull will be partnering with regional tournaments, organized by esteemed members of the fighting game community, including: Jimmy Nguyen and Alex Valle of Level Up (Los Angeles) Larry S. Dixon Jr. of Final Round (Atlanta) Chris Anderson and Deniz Bengisoy of Game Clucks (Seattle) Noah Vandercook of Ignite Gaming (Chicago) Eric Small of bigE Gaming (Philadelphia) Javier Moreno of Texas Showdown (Houston) Andres Valesco Coll of CEO Gaming / EVO (Orlando) Carolyn Dao of Showdown / The Foundry (San Francisco) Clinton Bui of Vancouver SB (Vancouver) Pavel Szczypior of MTLSF (Montreal) Justin Baisden of Super 1 Up Games (Toronto)