Having a professional role that both engages and challenges you is a cornerstone of job fit. Savvy managers are aware of this, and make team members’ professional development a priority. Glassdoor’s recent report “Why Workers Quit” implicates career stagnation as a leading cause of turnover. Morgan Smart, Glassdoor Data Scientist who authored the report, writes: […]
Interviewing for a new job and nailing that first impression is challenging enough, but when you’re trying to relocate, you’re required to ace the interview on the phone or through a video conference. You have to prove to the company that you’re the best candidate without ever stepping foot in the front door. Sound tough? […]
Hypothetical interview questions can be some of the most challenging to answer as they can vary widely, and unlike questions such as, “what is your greatest weakness,” it is difficult to prepare discrete answers in advance. However, these types of questions are important for companies that want to see how you think on your feet, […]
PASIEKA/Getty Images For six consecutive years NewVantage Partners has conducted an annual survey on how executives in large corporations view data. Each year the response rate increases, and the reported urgency of making effective use of data increases as well. This year the results are both more encouraging and more worrisome than in the past. […]
“Brush your teeth!” “Where are your socks?” “Don’t forget to bring a sweatshirt!” Advertisement X GGSC Event: The Science of Mindfulness & Self-Compassion Join Kristin Neff & Shauna Shapiro Feb. 23-24 | 10 CEs “Where’s the homework you finished last night?” Too often, weekday mornings can seem like a race against the clock. When your […]
“Brush your teeth!” “Where are your socks?” “Don’t forget to bring a sweatshirt!” Advertisement X GGSC Event: The Science of Mindfulness & Self-Compassion Join Kristin Neff & Shauna Shapiro Feb. 23-24 | 10 CEs “Where’s the homework you finished last night?” Too often, weekday mornings can seem like a race against the clock. When your […]
“OK, Google. Good morning.” My name is Amanda, and these are the words I use to start my day. And no later do I utter them, it seems, than a smart home speaker responds with, “Good morning, Amanda,” followed by a brief weather report, and tech news briefings from a handful of sources. For many […]
This past summer I managed the largest acquisition campaign in my company’s history. I work at HubSpot, a marketing software company that popularized lead-gen campaigns and the whole idea of “inbound marketing,” so this is no small feat (we’ve run massive campaigns over the years). The campaign, Four Days of Facebook, drove 10x the number […]
For a long time, keyword rankings were a staple part of any SEO campaign. In a lot of cases they were a primary metric used to judge performance. Go back five or six years and we had so much more information on the keywords that users were searching for to reach our web content. All […]
Scott DeRue, the dean of University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, says the old model of business school education is gone. It’s no longer good enough to sequester yourself on campus for two years before heading out into the world of commerce. DeRue discusses how the perceived value of an MBA education is changing […]
Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson show how it can improve resilience. from HBR.org http://ift.tt/2HdVJDU
It’s the conundrum of the digital age: almost as soon as your company has fully implemented a new digital initiative, it’s on the verge of becoming obsolete. Should you just move faster? Hire a more digitally savvy workforce and force them to move at lightning speed? Maybe. But the first step—and the most important—is […]
Hayon Thapaliya The percentage of U.S. GDP spent on health care continues to rise, reaching 17.9% in 2017. At the same time, health insurance premiums have increased as much as 60% in the individual market in some states. The federal and state insurance exchanges have failed to rein in costs. Now, with the rollback of […]
hbr staff/john swope/life/Getty Images Every now and then, firms make mistakes that leave their customers unsatisfied: a restaurant misplaces an order, a hotel’s air conditioning breaks down, or a dry cleaner damages a garment. With increasing frequency, disappointed customers share these negative experiences by writing online reviews, and many potential customers take these reviews into […]
It doesn’t matter how much experience, education, on-the-job training, or esteem you have as a writer. Clients will dislike the content you’ve composed for them. They will be outraged about it. And they will inform you of said outrage in less-than-diplomatic terms. This presents a tremendous challenge for most copywriters. You know why you wrote […]
GABRIEL BOUYS/Staff/Getty Images/Hayon Thapaliya Entrepreneurs often seek external capital to accelerate their growth. This is especially true in hotly contested markets where fast growth can be the difference between success or failure. And yet this outside funding may come with strings attached, which can (and perhaps should) give entrepreneurs pause. Founders will likely find their influence diluted, […]
If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to get in shape and another was to find a new job, why not combine the two?! There are plenty of professions that won’t leave you stuck behind a desk, but instead will keep you on your feet moving and feeling physically fit. Here are 13 jobs […]
They say only three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and making a mistake on your resume. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit with that last point, but you get what I mean. The point is, resume mistakes are hard to avoid — like super-duper hard. And when it comes to your resume, even […]
Design is — and always will be — a big part of marketing. But that doesn’t mean every single marketer needs to be an expert designer. After all, the skills needed to be an effective marketer cover a wide breadth of expertise areas. Taking a note from Rand Fishkin’s T-Shaped Marketer concept, marketers need to […]
When writing a song or a piece of prose, I often choose to let my mind wander, hoping the muse will strike. If it does, it not only moves my work along but feels great, too! That’s why I was troubled by studies that found an association between mind-wandering and problems like unhappiness and depression—and […]
Party games season is long gone (boo!) but there’s no reason for the fun to stop. Keep the spirit of ‘wasting time in a mildly productive manner’ going by testing your SEO skills in our new ‘Higher or Lower’ Keyword Game! We recently dove into Google and pulled out 4,000 up-to-date local business keywords and […]
Research shows that women are far more likely to achieve their professional ambitions if their partner supports them (or if they stay single). But even for women whose partner is committed to equality, it’s difficult to navigate the challenges of a dual-career life. To make sure both people are aligned on what they want and […]
Let’s talk a little about the state of content marketing as it stands today. 91% of content marketers are using content marketing. That’s higher than all previous years to date. Content creation is the #1 activity in content marketing that gets outsourced. 45% of content marketers are more successful than they were the previous year: And […]
While inbound marketing is an essential marketing strategy for many companies today, the term (and general marketing philosophy) didn’t actually appear until 2005. That was when HubSpot founder Brian Halligan, along with his partner, Dharmesh Shah, and advisor, David Meerman Scott, decided to found HubSpot and focus their efforts on a new, digitally driven marketing […]
While inbound marketing is an essential marketing strategy for many companies today, the term (and general marketing philosophy) didn’t actually appear until 2005. That was when HubSpot founder Brian Halligan, along with his partner, Dharmesh Shah, and advisor, David Meerman Scott, decided to found HubSpot and focus their efforts on a new, digitally driven marketing […]
While inbound marketing is an essential marketing strategy for many companies today, the term (and general marketing philosophy) didn’t actually appear until 2005. That was when HubSpot founder Brian Halligan, along with his partner, Dharmesh Shah, and advisor, David Meerman Scott, decided to found HubSpot and focus their efforts on a new, digitally driven marketing […]
Cachetejack/Getty Images It’s nice to have a friend at work who cares about you and looks out for your best interests. Research has even shown that it contributes to your engagement. The benefits of having a friend at work are clear, but what about the downsides? What happens when your friend starts to let things slip? […]
Ben Birchall/PA Images/Getty Images One of the most common questions I get asked by senior managers is “How can we find more innovative people?” I know the type they have in mind — someone energetic and dynamic, full of ideas and able to present them powerfully. It seems like everybody these days is looking for […]
Ben Birchall/PA Images/Getty Images One of the most common questions I get asked by senior managers is “How can we find more innovative people?” I know the type they have in mind — someone energetic and dynamic, full of ideas and able to present them powerfully. It seems like everybody these days is looking for […]
Martin Konopka/EyeEm/Getty Images Recently, I was flying home from the Conference for Women, where I had been invited to speak. I was carefully holding a copy of the conference program on my lap — my mom likes to save them, and I wanted to be a good son and bring her back an unwrinkled copy. The guy […]
Martin Konopka/EyeEm/Getty Images Recently, I was flying home from the Conference for Women, where I had been invited to speak. I was carefully holding a copy of the conference program on my lap — my mom likes to save them, and I wanted to be a good son and bring her back an unwrinkled copy. The guy […]
One of the lessons I’ve learned as a writer and editor is that everyone makes misteaks. (Ha ha, you saw what I did there.) Writers have egos. Editors are scrupulous. Both are prone to dropping a word, forgetting a punctuation mark, or even being a keyboard klutz. It happens. But I’m not here to talk […]
Link building for local businesses comes with its challenges, and proving its value can be difficult to time-poor business owners. We asked twenty of the biggest names in local SEO to share their thoughts on backlinks for local businesses for our new report, the ‘Expert Local Business Link Building Survey’ – out now! The report explores: […]
If you were to think about teaching both mindfulness and gratitude to students, photography might not be the first method that comes to mind. But mindfulness is, at its core, a state of open awareness and attention—and to feel gratitude, we first have to truly notice the good things in life. Looked at that way, […]
If you were to think about teaching both mindfulness and gratitude to students, photography might not be the first method that comes to mind. But mindfulness is, at its core, a state of open awareness and attention—and to feel gratitude, we first have to truly notice the good things in life. Looked at that way, […]
For the most part, Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project was about what its name implies: accelerating mobile pages. Unsurprisingly, that mostly meant quickly loading and rendering existing articles on news sites, recipes and other relatively text-heavy content. With that part of AMP being quite successful, Google is looking to take AMP beyond these basic stories. Read More
GM has launched its first major international city for its Maven car sharing product. The service is going live in Toronto, Canada’s largest city by population, with rates beginning at $9 per hour which include gas and insurance coverage. The launch follows a prior pilot in the Waterloo region nearby, but Toronto is the first launch at scale Maven has undertaken outside of the U.S.… Read More
Starling, the U.K. challenger bank that offers a mobile-only current account, continues to execute on its marketplace banking strategy. Following the required regulatory approval, the Starling Marketplace is adding a number of financial services integrations, spanning pensions, savings, travel insurance and mortgage brokerage. Read More
Despite the controversy surrounding YouTube celebrity Logan Paul (thanks to a string of videos exploiting an apparent suicide and tasering a rat), the young media personality hasn’t done anything to warrant being kicked off of the platform that made him a star. That’s according to chief executive Susan Wojcicki, who defended her company’s treatment of Paul’s video… Read More
When working on a global team, it’s easy to focus on the ways that you and your colleagues are different. But rather than thinking about what sets you apart, emphasize what you have in common. This will draw you closer to your colleagues and make you more receptive to — and less frustrated by — […]
Finnish fintech startup Zervant, which provides online invoicing software for small business and entrepreneurs across Europe, has raised €6 million in funding. The round was led by Tesi, with participation from Northzone, NFT Ventures, and Conor Venture Partners. Read More
YouTube Red will expand its subscription service to as many as 100 countries, according to YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki . Speaking at Recode’s Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, Calif., Wojcicki said that YouTube will be looking to expand its Red service “to many more countries”. The subscription service first launched in October 2015 as a $9.99 subscription… Read More
The fallout from the year’s biggest cryptocurrency hack to date continues. On Monday, Reuters reported that 10 traders who used the Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck are preparing to file a lawsuit with Tokyo’s District Court on Thursday. The plaintiffs will be represented by Hiromu Mochizuki, who has been tweeting some updates about the case. During the aftermath of its recent… Read More
Apple Music is expanding its subscription music service to 82 new markets — or nearly all of the countries where the service is available, according to people with knowledge of the company’s plans. 79 markets launched today and an additional three markets will go live February 26. Some countries where students memberships — verified by UNiDAYS — are now available… Read More
Facebook is going to create a new news section in its video streaming platform Facebook Watch to feature breaking news stories. The move, which Campbell Brown, the company’s year-old head of news partnerships, announced onstage at the Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, is part of a broader evolution of Facebook’s news strategy. Read More
Foxconn, AKA Hon Hai Precision Industry, AKA the company that made your iPhone, is working with digital cinema pioneer RED to create affordable 8K cameras, the company announced. Chairman Terry Gou told reporters in Taipei, the Nikkei’s among them, that the goal is to reduce both the price and the size of such camera systems by two thirds. Read More
Facebook will begin allowing news publishers to run paywalls inside Facebook’s iOS app starting March 1st. Facebook first started testing paywalls on Android in October, but at the time it couldn’t come to an agreement with Apple about how subscription revenue would be taxed. Today on stage at Code Media, Facebook’s head of news partnerships Campbell Brown said that… Read More
As Lydia Polgreen sees it, society is currently divided into media haves and have nots, and it’s important for HuffPost to remain mostly free for its readers so that it can serve a group that mostly consumes content for free. Read More
Overwatch wasn’t what you’d call a “surprise” hit — everyone knew it was going to wipe the floor with its immediate competition. But unlike a lot of games, it still costs money. If you’ve been meaning to give it a shot but don’t feel like shelling out the $40, this weekend the game is free to play on all platforms with no restrictions. Read More
Weekend Hashtag Project: #WHPwithlove Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes and hashtags. For a chance to be featured, follow @instagram and look for a post every week announcing the latest project. The goal of #WHPwithlove was to create photos and videos that show how love inspires you. Each week, we feature some of our favorite submissions from the project, but be sure to check out the rest here.
There is without a doubt no shortage of data for each action you take in your marketing campaigns, nor is there a lack of tools…
There is without a doubt no shortage of data for each action you take in your marketing campaigns, nor is there a lack of tools to help you measure them. The problem is, some metrics aren’t as important as they look. They stick out right in front of you as soon as you log into […]
Homebrew is announcing the close of its third fund. This time they’ve raised $90 million, an increase from $50 million in 2015 and $35 million for its debut fund in 2013. Led by Hunter Walk and Satya Patel, the seed stage venture firm has spent the past five years investing in U.S.-based startups at the onset. Several of its portfolio companies have gone on to raise significant… Read More
“He wouldn’t have to worry about sending a hookup a picture of his junk! And girls would be way more likely to send him racy photos if they disappeared.” That’s just a taste of juicy details found in “How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story,” a new book coming out tomorrow from former TechCrunch reporter Billy Gallagher. Read More
We knew this day would come sooner or later. Like the cloned velociraptors before it, Boston Dynamics’ newly redesigned Spot Mini has figured out how to open doors — with either its arm or face, depending on how you look at it. The team behind the Big Dog proves that it’s still the master of viral robotic marketing, even after switching teams from Google to Softbank.… Read More
Chalk one up to the power of media exposure. The team responsible for building Target’s online registry saw Honeyfund appear on “Shark Tank,” and thought it would be cool to integrate the honeymoon registry service into Target’s own. Today, that integration has gone live across Target’s website, mobile web and in the dedicated Target registry app. The retailer… Read More
Storytelling I was a wide-eyed, frizzy-haired 25-year-old when I first got the offer of a lifetime: to be in charge of content for a small tech company called Contently. When I asked my new boss for direction, he pointed to the freshly painted mural on the office wall. It read: “Those who tell the stories […]
Experience New York Fashion Week with Model Jasmine Sanders To see more from Jasmine, follow @golden_barbie on Instagram. These days, American model Jasmine Sanders (@golden_barbie) might feel like she lives on an airplane, but the constant hustle is worth it to be at New York Fashion Week. “I love coming to New York because it kicks off an amazing month of traveling the world with great people and seeing all the new, fun and creative designs in the upcoming season,” says Jasmine. Before she jets off for the next fashion show, you’ll find Jasmine enjoying a classic New York experience — pizza. “I have to get pizza every time I’m in the city!”
According to serial entrepreneur Jeff Cavins, more than 35 million people each year look to rent an RV — 38 percent of them so-called millennials. Yet they often walk away from the experience empty-handed. The reason, he says: there are fewer than 100,000 commercial owned vehicles available from traditional rental services. Cavins says that his San Francisco-based company, Outdoorsy,… Read More
Essential knew it had a hard road ahead of it. Andy Rubin and company acknowledged as much when they launched a handset aimed at taking on the likes of Apple and Samsung. Given that the company hasn’t issued anything in the way of official numbers thus far, a new batch of numbers from IDC are the best we have to go on at the moment — and things don’t look great. Read More
You know that feeling of awe and wonder you had when you were a kid and you saw something huge and amazing? My blackened heart hasn’t felt it in years. Turns out all it needed was going to see an historic rocket launch. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch last week was an exhilarating combination of suspense, bureaucracy, and childlike delight at seeing a giant fiery rocket make a big noise. Read More
Science fiction no more — In an article out today in Nature Biotechnology, scientists were able to show tiny autonomous bots have the potential to function as intelligent delivery vehicles to cure cancer in mice. These DNA nanorobots do so by seeking out and injecting cancerous tumors with drugs that can cut off their blood supply, shriveling them up and killing them. “Using… Read More
Over the weekend, a little piece of malware was hard at work mining cryptocurrency on government computers. Security researcher Scott Helme first noticed the malware, which he believes was running on more than 4,000 sites, including the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) and the website for the American court system (uscourts.gov). The malware leveraged the… Read More
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple is switching things up for this year’s major updates. Instead of meeting a tight deadline and ticking all the boxes on the checklist, development teams will be able to push back some features if they’re not polished enough. Axios and Bloomberg previously reported that Apple was focusing on stability with iOS 12. You can still expect… Read More
The Super Bowl is over and the stadiums across the country that once held thousands of fans on any given Sunday will be mostly empty in the off-season, but Tom Brady is still at work. The quarterback who will undeniably go down in NFL history as one of the greatest of all time, is already thinking about his next act. Alongside Michael Strahan (another football great who has made the… Read More
The Information has a report this morning that Amazon is working on building AI chips for the Echo, which would allow Alexa to more quickly parse information and get those answers. Getting those answers much more quickly to the user, even by a few seconds, might seem like a move that’s not wildly important. But for Amazon, a company that relies on capturing a user’s interest in… Read More
The increasing influence that Digital Marketers have across organizations is no freak occurrence. The rise is even more stark in B2B Marketing, where trends such as Account-based Marketing, Social Selling, and Analytics are demanding more from B2B Marketers. When it comes to Pardot Specialists, we’re kept hot on our toes with marketing KPIs, campaign optimization, […]
In a rare move for the online retail giant, Amazon is laying off hundreds of corporate workers in its Seattle headquarters and elsewhere, according to a Seattle Times report. The corporate cuts come after an eight-year hiring spree, taking the company from 5,000 in 2010 to 40,000 in its Seattle headquarters and gobbling up several retail businesses throughout the country. However, according to… Read More
The obscure Italian coin exchange BitGrail looks to be the latest cryptocurrency cautionary tale. On Friday, the site posted a notice to users informing them that hackers had made off with 17 million units of Nano (XRB), the coin formerly known as RaiBlocks. While Nano was worth as little as 20 cents in late November, prices hovered around $10 late last week, putting the BitGrail losses at… Read More
Onavo Protect, the VPN client from the data-security app maker acquired by Facebook back in 2013, has now popped up in the Facebook app itself, under the new banner “Protect” in the navigation menu. Clicking through on “Protect” will redirect Facebook users to the “Onavo Protect – VPN Security” app’s listing on the App Store. We’re… Read More
While a part of the fintech world remains abuzz with crypo-talk, a startup that’s built a business around the more traditional world of payments has raised a significant round of funding as it vies to take on the likes of PayPal, Stripe, Adyen and Dwolla. YapStone, which provides payment services to marketplace-style businesses — customers vary from the likes of HomeAway to… Read More
The Google Kubernetes Engine (previously known as the Google Container Engine and GKE) now allows all developers to attach Nvidia GPUs to their containers. GPUs on GKE (an acronym Google used to be quite fond of, but seems to be deemphasizing now) have been available in closed alpha for more than half a year. Now, however, this service is in beta and open to all developers who want to run… Read More
Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), the company’s custom chips for running machine learning workloads written for its TensorFlow framework, are now available to developers. The promise of these Google-designed chips is that they can run specific machine learning workflows significantly faster than the standard GPUs that most developers use today. For Google, one of the… Read More
The controversial subscription service for movie-goers, MoviePass, is still chasing new customers as it attempts to rapidly grow its user base before its funding runs out. After growing from 1.5 million to 2 million users in less than a month’s time, the company has now teamed up with streaming service Fandor to appeal to potential subscribers with a bundled offer. The two companies… Read More
Online service companies are faced with a unique dilemma. They need to find ways to connect with prospective clients without having a physical location to meet with them or attending local events to network. Some online service companies try to find clients the same way that local brick-and-mortar companies do, only to find that they […]
Click Here for Downloadable PDF Version Online service companies are faced with a unique dilemma. They need to find ways to connect with prospective clients…
CSA Images/ Color Printstock Collection/Hayon Thapaliya/Getty Images Contracting is a common activity, but it is one that few companies do efficiently or effectively. In fact, it has been estimated that inefficient contracting causes firms to lose between 5% to 40% of value on a given deal, depending on circumstances. But recent technological developments like artificial […]
Consumer goods giant Unilever, a maker of branded soaps, foodstuffs and personal care items and also one of the world’s biggest online advertisers, has fired a warning shot across the bows of social media giants by threatening to pull ads from digital platforms if they don’t do more to mitigate the spread of what it dubs “toxic” online content — be it fake news… Read More
Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason are a couple of seasoned billionaire investors, who know a bad deal when they see it, and they definitely don’t like the $6.1 billion deal announced last month to combine Fuji with Xerox. In a blog post published today, they are urging fellow shareholders to reject the offer. You may recall that it was Icahn and Deason, who together own a 15 percent stake in… Read More
Despite plenty of uncertainty swirling around Instacart and its complex relationship with Whole Foods — now owned by Amazon — investors still seem to not be too worried, and are pouring a fresh big round of financing into the startup that values it at $4.2 billion. Instacart said it raised $200 million in a new funding round this morning led by Coatue Management, as well… Read More
Stash, the micro-investing app that’s been a hit with first-time investors, announced today it has raised an additional $37.5 million in Series D funding in a round led by Union Square Ventures. Existing investors Breyer Capital, Coatue Management, Entree Capital, Goodwater Capital and Valar Ventures also participated. The company competes with a range of new investment apps –… Read More
SSL for Vanity Domains is now available for all our customers! You may have heard recently that a secure web is here to stay, and that more sites will get a “Not Secure” warning. The good news is that you can now use your own domain with https for your Pardot landing pages and forms. Not […]
Normally, I wouldn’t be writing about a car seat for TechCrunch but as I’ve been in the market for such an item lately (and have been hit up for all things baby tech as my due date nears) the high-tech Cybex Sirona M with SensorSafe 2.0 stood out. Cybex is manufactured in Germany and is a mostly European brand that’s gaining momentum in the U.S. market. Its newest carseat in… Read More
Every writer knows what it’s like to work with frustrating clients. These are the ones who make you pull your hair out while crossing your fingers that you’ll still get paid. However, every job represents an opportunity to learn, and bad clients are no exception to this rule. In fact, they’re a prime example. Don’t […]
Every writer knows what it’s like to work with frustrating clients. These are the ones who make you pull your hair out while crossing your…
Amazon acquired Blink late last year, a maker of affordable, easy to use security cameras powered by AA batteries. The acquisition was reportedly worth around $90 million to Amazon, according to a new report from Reuters, though the terms of the deal were not disclosed by Amazon and it hasn’t provided any comment on the specifics. The Blink acquisition is something that could help… Read More
XebiaLabs, the Boston-based software startup that helps companies automate DevOps functions, announced a healthy $100 million Series B investment led by Susquehanna Growth Equity and Accel. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $121.5 million. Derek Langone, Xebia’s CEO says they raised the money out of a desire to expand more rapidly. “You always want to raise money… Read More
Quitting smoking is one of the most difficult things a person can do. But despite the products out there to help, from nicotine patches and gum to ecigarettes to scary PSAs and government programs, few of these products actually get people to the point where they feel confident in their new nicotine-free life. That’s where a new YC-backed company, Quit Genius, comes in. Yusuf Sherwani… Read More
We know Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, created mostly to sell cards and flowers. But are we going to let that stop us from celebrating and understanding love? Not on your life. That’s because love is what makes the world go ‘round—not only in song and movies, but in science, too. According to psychologists […]
If you use Facebook, you’re likely no stranger to the widespread clamor for a “dislike” button.
nOCD, an app created to help people treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, will launch an Android version and add more features after raising a $1 million seed round from early-stage healthcare investment firm 7wire Ventures. Read More
Ryan McVay/Getty Images Jana Partners, the activist hedge fund, isn’t known as a tree-hugging hippie sort of firm. Yet, last month it joined with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to send a letter to Apple’s board warning about the effects of the company’s devices on children. The same month, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink sent […]
george silk/life/Getty Images The word crisis suggests something that happens infrequently. But these days, crises have become a regular state of affairs. Brands that you’d think would be fairly immune to scandal have found themselves embroiled in controversy. And those that deal with public relations challenges regularly have still been caught off guard by a […]
The “endless runner” genre of games seems inherently stress-generating to me, since it implies running, without end. But Alto’s Adventure, the 2015 game from Toronto developer Snowman, provided an endless runner that was actively and profoundly relaxing, thanks to a mellow, immersive soundtrack and graphics that seem drawn from some kind of new-age zen meditation video.… Read More
In 2011, WeWork ran an accelerator-type program called WeWork Labs. That program was a bit neglected as the company began to focus on other initiatives, such as international expansion, Powered By We, and acquisitions. But today, WeWork is relaunching WeWork Labs, with 27 spaces secured in 16 markets for 2018. WeWork Labs, which will be run by Chief Product Officer Roee Adler, wants to offer… Read More
Investors in Indonesia have started a new project aimed at digitizing the kiosk shops that adorn the street of capital city Jakarta. Warung Pintar — ‘smart kiosk store’ — helps street vendors revamp their store with a bright and colorful design, and a range of tech that includes a digital POS, free Wi-Fi, an LCD screen, power bank chargers and more. The venture was… Read More
In this episode of Technotopia I talk to Jeremy Ring, a former Florida state senator and author of We Were Yahoo!, a meditation on his career as one of the first employees at Yahoo. Ring has a lot to say about the search giant – including plenty of complaints about how things were run over the years – and some insights into technology and modern politics. His book is available now… Read More
Quietly, Apple has been bringing together a number of moving parts in its strategy around virtual and augmented reality hardware; and now one more element of that has come to light. eMagin, a maker of OLED miniature displays, says that Apple, along with LG, Valve, VR entertainment maker Immerex (which now appears to be operating publicly as Luci), and Stillwater Holdings, are collectively… Read More
Alibaba Group’s entertainment unit has signed a major licensing deal to show many of Disney’s animated series and movies on Youku, its streaming video service, and other platforms it selects. The agreement covers more than 1,000 episodes from Disney series, as well as many of its films, and means Alibaba is now the largest distributor of Disney animations in China. Read More
Last fall at Oracle OpenWorld, chairman Larry Ellison showed he was a man of the people by comparing the company’s new autonomous database service to auto-pilot on his private plane. Regardless, those autonomous capabilities were pretty advanced, providing customers with a self-provisioning, self-tuning and self-repairing database. Today, Oracle announced it was expanding that… Read More
The Snap Map is a feature that received a mixed response when it landed in the Snapchat app, since it basically let you see where all your friends on the platform were at any given time – provided they were okay with sharing that info. Now, there’s a version of Snap Map available for anyone to view on the web, but it’s less about checking out where your pals are at, and… Read More
If you work with SEO, you’ll need no convincing of the power of trust. It’s the backbone of better rankings, and in business as in life, reputation usually precedes you – meaning if you take the time to cultivate trust, authority, and credibility with Google, you’re much more likely to receive assistance from the search […]
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Monday. I need coffee. You need coffee. And we all could use a little refresher on what happened in tech last…
Uber has added a feature that will force a six-hour offline break whenever a driver on its platform reaches 12 hours of driving time. The feature is similar to one that Uber has in place in a few markets already around the U.S., which differs depending on local regulations, but this will apply across the U.S., and fully block use of the driver app for accepting trips during the six-hour… Read More
The event didn’t go off entirely without a hitch. While the itself is impressive — considering the Falcon Heavy’s high bandwidth for cargo (140,000 pounds, which is about 2X the capacity of any other functioning rocket in history) and high engine capacity (27 of them) — some things didn’t go as planned. First, the ship’s […]
An attacker injected a crypto mining script into a web plugin’s JavaScript library, and some 4,000 websites — a large number of them taxpayer funded — were co-opted into illegal crypto mining… oopsie… Read More
TechCrunch is bringing Disrupt back to Europe for the sixth time, and we’re delighted to announce that Berlin, the urban heartland of Europe’s startup scene, will once again be Disrupt’s host city in 2018. Save these Disrupt Berlin dates in your diary: 29-30 November 2018 If you ask, “Why Berlin?” the answer is simple. Not only is Berlin still Europe’s… Read More
Magic Leap is the gift that keeps on giving. The company has been working for years on augmented reality technologies and raised a gigantic pile of cash on the way. German media company Axel Springer is announcing today that it is investing an undisclosed amount in Magic Leap. The German company is taking a stake in Magic Leap through its Axel Springer Digital Ventures division. In its… Read More
Most people watch movies to escape the real world, especially as a way to unwind after work. But some of the best movies can actually…
Burrow, the U.K. startup founded by ex-VC Pradeep Raman and backed by Passion Capital, is shutting down its online mortgage brokerage service, TechCrunch has learned. The move is the result of a change in strategy as the nascent company pivots to a B2B model, offering software tools to lenders, mortgage networks and brokers. Read More
The Science of Happiness Learn research-tested strategies for a happier, more meaningful life, drawing on the science of compassion, gratitude, mindfulness, and awe. Hosted by GGSC Director Dacher Keltner. Co-produced by the GGSC and PRI. All Episodes
On the heels of LimeBike’s expansion into e-bikes, as well as competitor Spin’s expansion into Razor-like electric scooters, LimeBike is unveiling its own take on e-scooters. LimeBike is also officially deploying its e-bikes in Seattle. “This is an exciting and competitive landscape,” LimeBike CEO Toby Sun told TechCrunch. “What you are beginning to see is that… Read More
It’s frustrating to work with someone who doesn’t listen. Whether your colleague interrupts you, rambles on, or seems distracted, the impact is the same: You feel ignored, and the chances of misunderstandings increase. But you can encourage your colleague to listen better by emphasizing the importance of your message up front. Before starting a conversation, […]
Alibaba has furthered its physical retail footprint after it invested another billion dollars into projects to develop its so-called “new retail” strategy which combines online and offline. The Chinese firm, the dominant e-commerce player in its country, gobbled up a 15 percent stake in Beijing Easyhome Furnishing for RMB 5.45 billion, or around $867 million, and pumped $486… Read More
You probably know Chamillionaire from the song “Ridin,’” but did you know the Grammy Award winner is also a successful startup investor? He has had several favorable outcomes, including Cruise, which sold to General Motors and Maker Studios, which was bought by Disney. Now he’s trying his hand at a startup of his own. If you’re a Chamillionaire superfan, you may already… Read More
Most pre-roll ads on YouTube are something to be endured, muted, and skipped immediately after the mandatory five seconds have passed. It’s nothing personal –…
Most pre-roll ads on YouTube are something to be endured, muted, and skipped immediately after the mandatory five seconds have passed. It’s nothing personal — people just want to get to their video. So how can advertisers create branded videos that users actually want to watch? For an ad to be sought out and consumed […]
Instagram is testing a feature that will show users when someone else takes a screenshot of their story. Users included in the test are getting a warning that the next time they take a screenshot of a friend’s story the friend will be able to see it, as shown below: Good bye freedom to screenshot IG stories. Thank you, Instagram for the warning. pic.twitter.com/y0pEaVR0Jq —… Read More
This week’s episode is all about the future. Thanks to technology, the highest capacity rocket platform ever, the Falcon Heavy, blasted into space. Meanwhile, down here on Earth, Uber is working to make urban air travel a thing, and companies are developing products and conducting studies that can detect diabetes, just by wearing the Apple Watch. This is the world we live in. On this… Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Denis Pombriant, Doc Searls, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Saturday, February 10, 2018. G3: Promises Promises — Mary Hodder, Elisa Camehort Page, Lisa Padilla, and Tina Chase Gillmor. Recorded live Thursday, February 8, 2018. @stevegillmor, @dsearls, @kteare, @DenisPombriant, @fradice Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor… Read More
I watched the Falcon Heavy launch this week. Not as an accredited journalist, from an observation tower, but as one of the masses on Alan Shepard Beach twelve miles south. Watched it arc across the sky; watched the two boosters return safely to the landing pads like a video game; heard the sonic booms. And then, over the next few days, I watched the opprobrium rain down: the clearest sign… Read More
This past week, as we watched SpaceX launch its absolutely massive Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, many of us wondered if it would make it off the launch pad. So did Elon Musk. National Geographic just posted some incredible behind-the-scenes footage of the launch, capturing everything from about 15 seconds prior to takeoff to his moment of realization that the mission was a huge success. Read More
Robots are great at doing what they’re told. But sometimes inputting that information into a system is a far more complex process than the task we’re asking them to execute. A team of researchers at Brown University and MIT is working to develop a system in which robots can plan tasks by developing abstract concepts of real-world objects and ideas based on motor skills. Read More
Why sexting and a Stanford class led a group of former fraternity brothers to create Snapchat. Read More
Human resources has to be one of the greatest bait-and-switch professions one can join today. HR departments position themselves with a forward-facing fluffy image, whether improving the productivity of workers through training and development programs or perhaps righting the yawning inequality gap in America by encouraging diverse hiring standards. Unsurprisingly, the field often attracts… Read More
In the world of venture capital, the prospect of a successful “exit” looms large in the minds of investors. A VC’s business model is less about the money that goes into a startup than it is about what comes out. It’s true that most companies fail to exit gracefully, and of those that do, surprisingly few exit by going public. Read More
