Buzz Feds

Dating is tough. There are so many different, harsh ways you can be dumped nowadays.

But you also have to be careful about who you date in the first place, because toxic, high conflict people have always been around.

The trouble is, these people are often hard to spot because at first they come across as someone charismatic, attractive, and affectionate.

In a blog post in Psychology Today, therapist Bill Eddy highlights three ways you can suss out whether the person you are dating is high conflict, and will likely cause you trouble later on. Eddy and his colleague Megan Hunter created a survey and asked people who ended up in relationships with high conflict people what red flags they missed in the early stages.

Here were the three warning signs they came up with:

1. Excessive charm
About 80% of the people who responded to the survey said they were swept up by their partner's charm while they were dating. They said there was an "immediate spark," but this evaporated once they had committed to the relationship.

"Charm doesn’t always mean that the person is an HCP, but it’s a surprising warning sign," Eddy wrote. "If the person seems too good to be true, you might look deeper."

2. Fake compatibility
Another way high conflict people seem too good to be true is how compatible they seem. On the surface it looks like they have a lot in common with their partners, when in reality they are probably just mirroring their victim's behaviour in order to reel them in.

Once the victim is committed to the relationship, the high conflict person starts to show their true colours.

3. Intense Sexuality
Nearly 50% of the respondents said their physical relationships developed very quickly and intensely. It is common for narcissists to be sex addicts, or at least claim to be. While they are interested in targeting you, you will be the object of their affection. But once you make it known you are committed, they will seek their thrills elsewhere.

It is important to remember that these are just warning signs, and are in no way conclusive indicators that someone is high conflict, a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath.

But it is a good idea to keep them in mind when you meet someone new, just because so many people fall for the same tricks and end up in abusive relationships.

"Ask friends and family what they think. Take your time and don’t believe that you can change him or her," Eddy wrote. "The partner you really want to find will let you be yourself, and let you take your time to get to know them."

The holiday party season is in full swing and is set to hit its annual crescendo on December 31. And that means that many of us will enjoy a hearty New Year's Eve celebration with cocktails and Champaign, then spend the first day of the new year hungover.

In Asia, partiers have been using hangover prevention remedies for years. Some of those remedies that use the same key ingredients have found their way to the U.S. and two Business Insider reporters, both of whom tend to easily get hangovers, bravely decided to put two of these remedies to the test.

We tried Morning Recovery, an herbal drink developed by Sisun Lee, a former Tesla engineer, in conjunction with Dr. Jing Liang, a USC scientist who is studying herbal hangover remedies. He discovered the drinks during a visit to South Korea but when he returned to the US, he couldn't find any that he thought worked as well. So he developed his own.

We also tested Flyby, which are herbal pills that were similarly patterned from the hangover drinks commonly used in Asia. The creation story of Flyby is similar to Morning Recovery. The company's founder Eddie Huai is 24, and a former mobile analyst for IAC. He discovered the remedy on a trip to Tokyo and worked for months to develop his own formula, working with a PhD to perfect it. He also has had nearly $1 million in sales in his first six months.

Herbs to combat alcohol
Both of these remedies use the same basic ingredient, an herbal compound called "Dihydromyricetin" (DHM) which is found in the oriental raisin tree and rattan tea. Herbs that contain DHM are used in Chinese medicine as an anti-inflammatory and used to treat a variety of ailments.

Hangovers occur when we drink alcohol at a faster rate than our bodies can detoxify. Researchers have been studying DHM's properties in helping the body cope with the toxic acid that builds up when too much alcohol is consumed.

Both of the remedies we tried also add a number of other herbs, vitamins and minerals that are supposed to be useful in combating hangovers such as prickly pear (said to boost metabolism), milk thistle (said to support healthy liver function), taurine (also supposed to be good for the liver), Vitamin B (often lost during drinking).

The key with DHM-based remedies is that they have to be taken while you are drinking. They aren't designed to work after-the-fact, if you wake up with a hangover.

Flyby recommends taking a dose of its pills before the drinking commences and another dose before you go to sleep. Morning Recovery recommends drinking a bottle when you are done drinking before you go to sleep.

Note that these remedies are not official, FDA-approved cures for hangovers at this point, although all of the individual ingredients are FDA approved. They market themselves as herbal supplements.

Feeling good, not sure why

But that's changing. The populist backlash against the tech giants this year bled into the halls of the Senate, culminating in one of the first significant efforts to regulate some of those companies — the introduction of the Honest Ads Act. That proposed law would have required people placing political ads on internet sites such as Facebook and Google to follow the same transparency rules that apply to television, radio, and print.

While that bill stalled, the push for regulation is only going to continue. And the proposed rules could cover a lot more than just political ads.

For example, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner has held meetings with experts looking into whether or not tech companies intentionally make products addictive, according to Axios. The meetings come as a growing number of such experts are warning that the dopamine hit you get whenever your Instagram post gets 100+ likes may not be incidental, but an intended result of the design of such features.

Expect to see additional inquiries along the lines of Warner's. And don't be surprised if you see more bills proposed that might target not only political ads and addiction, but privacy and the industry's arguably anticompetitive practices.

Of course, the chances of any new regulations being put in place by an antiregulatory Trump administration or any new legislation being passed by a Republican-controlled Congress — even in this political climate — is next to zero. But it is significant that more policymakers are keeping a closer eye on the tech industry.

Disney will become Netflix's biggest rival, and a war will begin
Netflix has room to worry in the coming year, because Disney is clearly gunning for it.

The Mouse House's bid to purchase much of 21st Century Fox is clearly aimed at Netflix. But even if the government blocks that deal, Disney is poised to become Netflix's biggest rival.

Next year, the Hollywood giant will launch its first standalone streaming service. That service will be packed full of the conglomerate's impressive collection of movies and television shows, which includes everything from Mickey Mouse to Luke Skywalker. Additionally, Disney-owned ESPN will finally launch its own streaming video service, which should be enticing to those cord cutters who are tired of missing their favorite sports.

But Disney could be in an even better position to challenge Netflix if the Fox deal does go through. In addition to gaining a majority stake in Netflix-rival Hulu, the Mouse House would get access to more live sports, an even broader assortment of valuable intellectual property, including the movie rights to Marvel's X-Men, and a great collection of television series from the FX network.

All of this comes in the wake of Disney announcing that it plans to pull its library from Netflix. That move alone is going to force Netflix to spend billions of dollars to develop new TV shows and movies to replace what it's losing from Disney. Those efforts could succeed — or they could be flops.

Disney, for its part, doesn't have to worry as much about flops. It already has every weapon it needs in its budding war against Netflix.

Tech companies will pour more money into Hollywood — but get little in return
Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook are all investing heavily in developing original movies, television shows, and other video content. Each is slated to pour in billions of dollars in the endeavor.

Their ambitions are understandable. For Apple, being able to offer some great TV series in Apple Music would help set the service apart from rivals such as Spotify and Pandora. It would also give Apple a way to squeeze more money out of customers after they buy one of its gadgets.

Meanwhile, Google and Facebook hope to grow their ad businesses by getting a piece of the lucrative television ad market. And Amazon hopes to drive subscriptions to its Prime service, because Prime customers tend to buy more things from it than other consumers.

But motivations and money aside, the tech giants' efforts aren't likely to produce many hits, if this past year is any indication.

Apple's first original shows, "Carpool Karaoke" and "Planet of the Apps," were not only critical duds, there's little evidence they found a significant audience. Google produced shows for YouTube featuring stars including Ellen DeGeneres and Kevin Hart, but viewership has been mediocre. And Facebook's new Watch video service has performed poorly.

While Amazon's had more success both critically and commercially, that success could be undermined by the recent sexual misconduct allegations against its former studio head and against Jeffrey Tambor, the star of one of its most high-profile shows.

Apple appears to have learned from some of its mistakes, hiring a pair of A-list producers to head up its video effort. But it's hard to see how Apple Music in particular can set itself apart from all the other video services with just a handful of shows. It's going to need to build up a much deeper library and is going to need to develop a blockbuster, must-watch show. Good luck.

For its part, Hollywood seems glad to take all the "dumb money" flowing in from the tech companies, as a connected source told New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo earlier this year. To date, the tech giants, aside from Netflix and Amazon, haven't shown that they know much about how to produce great content besides writing a fat check.

But the truth is that the tech companies' seemingly bottomless pits of money can't buy hits. You can hire the best talent in the world, but you also have to know how to get people to watch what they produce. And that's something the tech companies don't seem to have figured out yet. So, get ready for another year of flops funded by dumb tech money.

As 2017 rapidly comes to a close, many smartphone manufacturers are likely in hyper drive, putting the finishing touches on their 2018 devices. A recently leaked chart may give a better idea of when those devices will actually launch.

Assuming the leaked document, which was originally shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo and was later translated by Gizmo China, is accurate, you can expect Samsung's Galaxy S9 and S9+ and LG's G7 and G7+ in February, Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and LG V40 in September, and Google's Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL in October.

The leaked document is comprised of devices that are expected to run Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 845 processor, which is designed for high-end smartphones. Thus, the devices on the list are all flagship-tier products.

Expect a flurry of phones in the fall
Some of the dates on the list aren't much of a surprise. The release dates of many of the devices included on it have already been floating around in rumors. And some companies' release schedules are fairly predictable; both Samsung and LG, for example, typically announce new devices during Mobile World Congress (MWC) in late February.

But the list also offers an outlook on upcoming devices from some of the smaller phone manufacturers. Between April and August, consumers can expect to see launches of Xiaomi's Mi 7, HTC's U12, the OnePlus 6, Nubia's Z18, Sony's Xperia XZ Pro-A, and the Nokia 10. Some of those devices, however, may not land in the US.

Things should pick up in the fall. In addition to the Note 9 and the V40 in September, the list suggests we should expect to see Xiaomi's Mi Mix 3 launched internationally. In addition to the Pixel launches in October — which should follow the unveiling of Android P (whose official nickname, we're guessing, will be Pop-Tart) — other potential launches that month could include Nubia's Z18S, Sony's Xperia XZ2, and HTC's U12+.

Finally, the Moto Z (2019 edition) may be announced in November and the OnePlus 6T and Samsung's Galaxy W2019 in December.

While the list does fall in step with the typical launch cycles for most of the included companies, particularly Samsung, Google, and LG, none of these devices are confirmed at this time.

Bitcoin transaction fees have gone from around $2 a transaction in October to $37 in late December.

Bitcoin use in the real world may have started with the purchase of a pair of pizzas, but you'd be unlikely to see it used for such a minor exchange today.

That's because as bitcoin has soared in popularity it's become too expensive to use in small transactions.

The problem came to a head in early December, when Steam, the popular downloadable video game store, announced it would stop accepting bitcoin payments for games, citing the currency's volatility and high transaction fees. Steam relied on a bitcoin payment system called BitPay. Among BitPay's other customers are Microsoft, online retailer NewEgg, and APMEX, which sells precious metals online.

Business Insider checked in with BitPay communication manager James Walpole to find out why bitcoin transactions have become so costly. Here's what he had to say:

Don't blame BitPay for high bitcoin transaction costs

If your iPhone is getting on in age, you may have noticed it runs slower after the latest updates.

That's because Apple slows down iPhones with aging batteries, the company recently disclosed. According to Apple, software updates throttle older iPhones because their batteries are "less capable of delivering peak energy loads," according to an apology the company issued Thursday.

If you're wondering what slower performance means for your iPhone, Apple posted a help document outlining exactly what its "power management" does. Meanwhile, the company launched a $29 in-store battery replacement service on Saturday, allowing those looking to speed up their iPhone a cheaper way to swap out an aging battery.

If your phone has a really old battery, Apple says, your phone may take longer to launch apps and may display apps at lower frame rates — meaning you get a choppy user experience.

Here's the full list of reductions in performance your iPhone may see with an old battery:

Longer app launch times
Lower frame rates while scrolling
Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)
Lower speaker volume by up to -3 decibels
Gradual frame-rate reductions in some apps
During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI
Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch
Apple also provided a list of features it said would not be affected on older iPhones:

Cellular call quality and networking throughput performance
Captured photo and video quality
GPS performance
Location accuracy
Sensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer
Apple Pay

How to fix it

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The arrival of the new year in California brought with it broad legalization of marijuana, a much-anticipated change that comes two decades after the state was the first to allow pot for medical use.

The nation's most populous state joins a growing list of other states, and the nation's capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD.

Pot is now legal in California for adults 21 and older, and individuals can grow up to six plants and possess as much as an ounce of the drug.

But finding a retail outlet to buy non-medical pot in California won't be easy, at least initially. Only about 90 businesses received state licenses to open on New Year's Day. They are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.

Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the many cities where recreational pot will not be available right away because local regulations were not approved in time to start issuing city licenses needed to get state permits. Meanwhile, Fresno, Bakersfield and Riverside are among the communities that have adopted laws forbidding recreational marijuana sales.

For those who worked for this day, the shift offered joyful relief.

"We're thrilled," said Khalil Moutawakkil, founder of KindPeoples, which grows and sells weed in Santa Cruz. "We can talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of the specific regulations, but at the end of the day it's a giant step forward, and we'll have to work out the kinks as we go."

The state banned "loco-weed" in 1913, according to a history by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, the pot advocacy group known as NORML. The first attempt to undo that by voter initiative in 1972 failed, but three years later felony possession of less than an ounce was downgraded to a misdemeanor.

In 1996, over the objections of law enforcement, President Clinton's drug czar and three former presidents, California voters approved marijuana for medicinal purposes. Twenty years later, voters approved legal recreational use and gave the state a year to write regulations for a legal market that would open in 2018.

California joins a growing list of states to legalize recreational weed
Today, 29 states have adopted medical marijuana laws. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. Since then, five more states have passed recreational marijuana laws, including Massachusetts, where retail sales are scheduled to begin in July.

Even with other states as models, the next year is expected to be a bumpy one in California as more shops open and more stringent regulations take effect on the strains known as Sweet Skunk, Trainwreck and Russian Assassin.

The California Police Chiefs Association, which opposed the 2016 ballot measure, remains concerned about stoned drivers, the risk to young people and the cost of policing the new rules in addition to an existing black market.

"There's going to be a public-health cost and a public-safety cost enforcing these new laws and regulations," said Jonathan Feldman, a legislative advocate for the chiefs. "It remains to be seen if this can balance itself out."

At first, pot shops will be able to sell marijuana harvested without full regulatory controls. But eventually, the state will require extensive testing for potency, pesticides and other contaminants. A program to track all pot from seed to sale will be phased in, along with other protections such as childproof containers.

Jamie Garzot, founder of the 530 Cannabis shop in Northern California's Shasta Lake, said she's concerned that when the current crop dries up, there will be a shortage of marijuana that meets state regulations. Her outlet happens to be close to some of California's most productive marijuana-growing areas, but most of the surrounding counties will not allow cultivation that could supply her.

"Playing in the gray market is not an option," Garzot said. "California produces more cannabis than any state in the nation, but going forward, if it's not from a state-licensed source, I can't put it on my shelf. If I choose to do so, I run the risk of losing my license."

In 2016, the state produced an estimated 13.5 million pounds of pot, and 80 percent was illegally shipped out of state, according to a report prepared for the state by ERA Economics, an environmental and agricultural consulting firm. Of the remaining 20 percent, only a quarter was sold legally for medicinal purposes.

That robust black market is expected to continue to thrive, particularly as taxes and fees raise the cost of retail pot by as much as 70 percent.

More than twenty people have died after another bloody night of protests in Iran added nine people to the death toll.

State TV in Iran reported the nine additional fatalities on Tuesday morning, according to the Associated Press. They include an 11-year-old boy and a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Separately, an Iranian government official said that security services in the country have detained at least 450 people since protests began last week.

According to the state broadcast, a focus of violence was a police station in Qahdarijan in Isfahan province, which protesters allegedly tried to raid to steal guns.

The demonstrations, the largest to strike Iran since a disputed presidential election in 2009, have seen six days of unrest across the country and a death toll of at least 20.

The state TV report said an 11-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were killed in the town of Khomeinishahr, while a member of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was killed in the town of Najafabad. It says all three were shot by hunting rifles, which are common in the Iranian countryside.

The towns are all in Iran's central Isfahan province, some 215 miles south of Tehran, the capital.

Monday night saw 100 new arrests, according to Ali Asghar Naserbakht, deputy governor of Tehran province.

He was quoted by the semi-official ILNA news agency, which in turn was cited by Reuters.

The 100 arrests followed 150 on Sunday and 200 on Saturday, giving a total of 450 over the weekend.

The protests began Thursday in Mashhad over Iran's weak economy and a jump in food prices and have expanded to several cities, with some protesters chanting against the government and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hundreds of people have been arrested.

It wasn't clear whether the Revolutionary Guard member was the same fatality report late Monday night by Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency. Mehr had said an assailant using a hunting rifle killed a policeman and wounded three others in Najafabad.

Monday marked the first night to see a fatality among Iran's security forces.

President Hassan Rouhani has acknowledged the public's anger over the Islamic Republic's flagging economy, though he and others warned that the government wouldn't hesitate to crack down on those it considers lawbreakers.

That was echoed Monday by judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, who urged authorities to confront rioters, state TV reported.

"I demand all prosecutors across the country to get involved and the approach should be strong," he said.

NOW WATCH: Everything we know about Trump's unhealthy diet

President Donald Trump told The New York Times in an interview published Thursday that the investigation into potential collusion between his campaign team and Moscow had strengthened his base and prompted some "great congressmen" to begin "pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is."

Trump told The Times that he did not intend to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the investigation.

But while Trump said he expected Mueller would treat him "fairly," his remark about how the investigation had galvanized his supporters is perhaps a better indicator of why Trump may have taken firing Mueller off the table, for now, as it suggests he is aware of, and confident in, his allies' ongoing campaign to undermine and discredit the special counsel.

"Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion," Trump told the newspaper.

He continued:

"There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what's going on — and in fact, what it's done is, it's really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it's ever been. Great congressmen, in particular, some of the congressmen have been unbelievable in pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is. So, I think it's been proven that there is no collusion."

The most recent attacks on the FBI by Trump and his supporters began after news surfaced that the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General discovered text messages exchanged by two FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, during the campaign that expressed disdain for Trump and other political leaders.

Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent, was among those overseeing the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server last year. He and Page and were also members of Mueller's team, but Strzok was removed in late July after the texts were discovered, and Page left for unrelated reasons.

A senior Justice Department official and his wife, meanwhile, have come under fire for their reported ties to Fusion GPS — the opposition-research firm that funded the collection of memos known as "the dossier" outlining alleged Trump-Russia collusion. The official, Bruce Ohr, was recently reassigned.

There is no evidence so far that these revelations have affected the public's perception of Mueller or the Russia investigation. A CNN poll released earlier this week found that more Americans approved of how Mueller was handling the investigation than disapproved.

But the incidents have fueled GOP lawmakers' calls either for FBI Director Chris Wray to clean house or for Mueller to resign.

Republican Rep. Francis Rooney on Tuesday said he wanted to see the upper ranks of the FBI purged of politically motivated agents whom he believes were working for "the deep state."

Another Florida congressman, Rep. Matt Gaetz, has accused Mueller and his team of staging a "coup d'etat" against Trump. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio has called the FBI "corrupt" and claimed recently that the bureau was "putting together a plan" last year "to keep Donald Trump from becoming the next president of the United States."

Jordan said earlier this month that he'd been in touch with the White House about Mueller. Gaetz, the first lawmaker to openly demand Mueller's firing, discussed the special counsel's investigation with Trump aboard Air Force One earlier this month ahead of a rally in Florida.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, a House Judiciary Committee member who put forward a provision in August that would have severely limited the scope and funding of Mueller's investigation, was also on the flight with Gaetz and Trump.

GOP Rep. Andy Biggs recently slammed what he called Mueller's "unlimited reach" and "unvetted hires," accusing the special counsel of making "blatantly partisan hires that place the direction of his probe under a cloud of suspicion" and calling on him to "step aside."

Republican Sen. Rand Paul tweeted last week that it was "time to investigate high ranking Obama government officials who might have colluded to prevent the election of @realDonaldTrump! This could be WORSE than Watergate!"

Japan and South Korea recently agreed to build future-oriented relations and work together to protect both nations from North Korean threats. This comes on the heels of the 2015 resolution related to the Japanese use of South Korean comfort women between 1910 and 1945 when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule. Japan has sought to make amends for having Korean comfort women in brothels meet the needs of Japanese soldiers. The two countries are working together to heal the rifts caused by that chapter in their histories. In South Korea the comfort women testimonies brings back painful memories.

Moon Jae-In, South Korean new president, met with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, in Hamburg, Germany recently during the Group of 20 summit to discuss ways the two countries can work together to protect their citizens from North Korean aggression. While President Moon Jae-In knows most South Koreans aren’t happy with the 2015 comfort women settlement agreement signed by his predecessor, both South Korea and Japan are looking for the best way to move forward together and address the dangerous threat North Korea poses.

The two governments see a dual-track approach as the best way to heal the wounds exposed by the comfort women stories while dealing with the North Korea menace.

Newly elected President Moon Jae-In, a former human rights lawyer, had pledged during his presidential campaign that he would renegotiate the Korean comfort women agreement.

A recent polls showed that’s what 70% of South Koreans want. However, since taking office President Moon has said he wouldn’t let this one issue derail bilateral relations between his country and Japan.

South Korea, Japan and the U.S. are closely coordinating their activities to counter the nuclear and missile threat posed by North Korea. South Korea also faces economic retaliation from China over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system the U.S. has deployed there. China’s seeming unwillingness to hit North Korea with tough sanctions has prevented South Koreans from seeing the Chinese as being a reliable strategic partner.

In a meeting in Washington D.C. in late June, it was acknowledged the comfort women agreement’s implementation is vital for South Korea and Japan to work together. Experts say President Moon is working to find a solution that satisfies both his nation’s emotional and security needs by using the dual-track approach to resolving the issues related to the South Korean comfort women and protecting his people from North Korean aggression.

North Korea recently tested an ICBM experts say could reach Alaska. It’s a major step forward for their missile program compared to 10 years ago. Earlier this year, experts estimated North Korea had enough fissile material to produce between 10 and 20 nuclear warheads and the technology to build a ‘miniaturized’ warhead which could strike South Korea, Japan and U.S. military bases in Guam if mounted on short- and medium-range missiles. This makes resolving the comfort women issue and dealing with the North Korean threat more urgent.

In an attempt to calm South Korean public sentiment about the comfort women agreement, the foreign ministry of South Korea is creating a task force to look at the process that led to the agreement in which Japan gave ¥1 billion to the surviving women and a sincere apology for their suffering to “finally and irreversibly” settle the issue and in exchange North Korea agreed to remove a statue facing the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea symbolizing the comfort women.

Despite their differences, on June 3, South Korea and Japan agreed to keep the General Security of Military Information Agreement they signed last November.

Do me a favor; take a look at the video above:

What do you notice about it? I mean, sure, it’s an advertisement and they’re trying to sell a robust address book application. However, there is a point to be made here. The person the ad follows, what does he do? He is not really shown doing much of anything in a professional sense. There is one meeting, and you get no sense of what this guy does or can do. However, the one thing he does do well is make connections.

We see him laughing, talking, even boxing. While it is likely this person is very intelligent and very talented, the fact is he seems to get ahead primarily through knowing who his contacts know and making connections. In short, it wasn’t his talent or intelligence that got him to the top at the end, it was his ability to forge connections.

Most Jobs Are Found Through Connections
If you are a recent college graduate, you probably heard the same tired story I’ve heard: if you have your degree it will open so many doors. If you are like me, you are probably coming to the realization that that is simply untrue. You will probably find resume after resume being sent out without a response. If you are lucky, you will get a rejection notice and can at least know you should no longer hold out any hope.

If this is the first time you are hearing the tidbit “it is not what you know, it is who you know,” then you probably fall into this recent college graduate category. This old expression is not simply the cynical cry of those who cannot make the system work for them; it is a statement of fact.

Of all new positions, roughly 70 percent are filled either through internal hires or referrals. This means that if you are an outsider and have no connections, your odds of getting a certain job have already plummeted to 30 percent. When you combine this with the numerous other factors related to your job search it is clear that your best hope is to forge connections.

You Want Your Network Before the Job Goes Live
One of the mistakes that job seekers make is attempting to find recruiters and ask them about a job after it goes live. Now, this is acceptable and even laudable, however you should not be surprised if you fail to get a job. Regardless of when you make the contact, however, if you want to work for that company makes sure you maintain your network. Make friends, keep people talking and show genuine interest in working for that company.

However, do not stop at the recruiters or HR representatives – reach out to managers and other people who you hope to be working with. Build a network, get to know their hobbies, spend time with them… and yes, punch one in the face if that is what they are inclined to do in your free time. Networking is not just about forming professional connections and getting to know people, it is also about making friends. People are more inclined to hire you if they know they can work with you.

Get Ahead of the Curve
Modern technology makes it easier than ever to find the movers and shakers in a business. Usually, the names of the management staff in a business are just a Google search away. Failing that, other business and brands like LinkedIn and Covve help you find connections based on the people who are already in your network. Finding these links in the chain will help you grow from one person to another, to another, and to another.

Everything’s smarter now. Name a medium, add the word ‘smart’, and you have a device that our generation loves. The smarter web, smartphones, smart TV, and smartwatches. The web has evolved, it has a mind now, and it’s detecting your mood even. Audiograph certainly claims to be able to detect your mood and reflect that with appropriate colors on their website. Jazzy graphics, peppy animations – their days appear to have ended. Certainly, the minimalist school of thought did let us in on that secret long back. So, where’s web development headed? As we start preparing for the transition to a new year, we decided to explore what’s trending and what works.

Content Design is In

The web is all about users, and we have known it ever since. Designers have always been designing for the end-user and what does the user consume? Information, of course! And, well, since all websites provided information, the creative ones wanted to differentiate. You can’t get lost in the crowd, and you need to be unique. The differentiator grew to be methods that could capture the user’s attention. So, things were popped up, bells and whistles added and wireframes became important. The content was later fitted into the designed wireframe.

Transition to today and the user has convincingly rejected those differentiators. After all, what they want is just information and then again only the ones that are relevant. A static, non-living web doesn’t know each of their users. So, how does it serve relevant information? Well, talk to your user, and that’s how the conversational web is evolving. Think Alexa, think of Amazon Echo, or Google Home.

Traditional web designers are making the transition – designing for all forms of media. The relevant information needs to be delivered irrespective of the type of the media. The content, the data has become the driver of page design. With that, it is data visualization techniques that are becoming important, starting at the top with salient information and then allowing the user to choose the path to dig deeper. That’s why Virgin America revamped their web design to a consolidated, single-page view of the minimum information that a user would need to start off with.

Show me the information, quick!

Kill time waiting for pages to load? Never happened, the web user has always had a disdain for sites that made them wait. Google too wants to make it faster, loading elements in milliseconds. That’s where user patience is going to go. Companies are rethinking the utility of each piece of script that they need to have, building strategies around speed.

A report by the Aberdeen group shows that a one second delay in page load leads to as much as a sixteen percent decrease in customer satisfaction! That’s a split-second error potentially leading to millions in lost revenue. For example, Amazon reports that a performance improvement of a hundred milliseconds leads to an increased income by one percent. Such is the power of speed. Websites have, therefore, started leveraging technologies like Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to enhance performance.

As people expect information to be delivered fast, web developers have started using browser caching techniques that allow content to be stored on the visitor’s machine temporarily. Google’s open-source AMP project promises to make the web “blazing fast”. Their stated objective is to “enable the creation of websites and ads that are consistently fast, beautiful and high-performing across devices and distribution platforms.”

Making things clean and removing the clutter is where the hustle and bustle come as companies scamper to meet the user needs of faster delivery of content. Videos as backgrounds are being re-assessed to address the question of whether the video serves a purpose or it’s been put in place to look trendy. Are all the images on the website required or could a lesser number of images tell the same story? Instead of imagery, font design is being looked at to enhance aesthetics and enhance performance.

Micro-interactions

Interactions are the in-thing, conversations in the virtual world. Feedback, explanations, and entertainment, all in one place, at one moment. That’s the user experience that developers are creating. These interactions start small, instead of micro but could lead to conversations that engage. Engaging discussions mean increased chances of conversion and so everyone is lapping it up.

Micro-interactions are now an indisputable facet of the web. Facebook uses them, well you ‘like’ posts and Amazon and TripAdvisor uses these micro-interactions to prompt users to rate a service. It is now a fundamental part of website design, adding functional parts that make a user’s experience better. Designers are looking at user personas and creating visualizations that would be intuitive and responsive to the user. Each event in a user journey is now deconstructed to handle one task, and design interactivity around it. Any interaction triggers further processes and instructions lead the user to information discovery.

Dutch airlines company, KLM’s microsite ifly50 has drawn wide applause for its carefully thought through and well-executed micro-interaction design. A call-to-action is prompting the user through each micro-interaction that they execute on their site. Cleverly crafted and uniquely designed to capture the change of user states and preferences and deliver relevant content that gives them more reasons to travel.

The prognosis

Web design as classicists would consider it for example, where web designers created the framework and then put in the designs, is dead. However, web service is where the creatives are adding value, not by arranging things on a page but delivering content that a user needs. Siri and Android M are perhaps the future interfaces. Web development is moving towards designing web services to speak to each other through APIs, the way Google Now notifies whether it is time for you to depart to be at the meeting at the right time. The switch from web design to experience design is gaining ground. The user needs experiences delivered across different touchpoints, whether they be the smartphone, smart watches or even virtual reality platforms. Increasingly, web developers are scaling up to manage these integrated ecosystems and deliver content across channels.

Scientifically speaking, the sound is just waves of pressure transmitted through air, water or solid materials. And music is basically those same vibrations, only arranged in very specific patterns. Barking dogs, jackhammers and symphony orchestras are all really just vibrations. But I’ve never been overcome with emotion when listening to a jackhammer. So why does music make us feel so many feelings? From the words of Natalac, founder of Natalac Records, “Music has the ability to create a state of arousal, causing pupils to dilate, blood pressure to rise, and the brain to fire. Humans experience pleasure from music as much as they do with many stimulants such as food, sex, and drugs”. At the opposite, some people say that compared to stuff like language and vision, music could vanish from our species and the rest of our lifestyle would be virtually unchanged. But it hasn’t vanished... so why?

There must be some evolutionary advantage to having music, right? Pinker says no. Instead, he calls music “auditory cheesecake”. What he means is we didn’t evolve to love cheesecake, specifically. Instead, our hungry ancestors learned to go nuts for anything sweet, high calorie or high fat they could find. So cheesecake is nice, but it didn’t drive our evolution. Music, he says, is more like a side effect of things like language, and sensing our surroundings and responding to sounds like crying or growling. But not everyone agrees with the cheesecake idea. Music stimulates just about every region of our brain, even the reward pathways that crave things like drugs. Nobody has to teach crave things like drugs. Nobody has to teach babies to dance to a beat, they just do it. I bet nobody taught you what music sounds happy or sad. You just…know. Some neuroscientists now think that music shares the same fingerprints as a human movement. One way early humans gained evolutionary advantages over other species is because they were so good at being social.

From military marches to lullabies to One Direction concerts, the emotion in music can truly bind people together. But where do we get emotion from simple vibrations? Thalia Wheatley, a scientist from Dartmouth College, did a very cool experiment that suggests we may sense emotions in music the same way we sense emotions in human movement. She gave people simple controls that would create either melodies or animations of a bouncing ball. Half of them used the controls to create a melody. Other people got the very same controls, only instead of controlling music, they controlled the bouncing ball. The results were amazing! For each emotion they tested, the slider positions for the melody were the same as for the bouncing ball. Happy bouncing balls and happy music shared the very same controls. Same with sad, angry, peaceful. Emotion in music and movement seem to use the same patterns. I know what you’re thinking: This is just because of American pop-cultural norms that have been reinforced in our society for centuries, right? Well, they did the same experiment in a culturally isolated village in Cambodia, and they found out that the melodies and movements were almost exactly the same as the US!

Researchers have shown shows that motion and music go together beyond just dance moves, but may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to figuring out why music can create so many feelings. Just like we can sense sadness by watching someone walk, and we know a happy dancer when we see it, music seems to move us because we move. Our connection to music overlaps with movement because we’re running different programs using the same hardware, and those programs are part of what makes it so great to be human.

With tech dominating much of our day-to-day lives, “viral” is likely to be used for an internet video, rather than an actual infection. Psychologists and digital marketers from all around the world have analyzed what makes a music video so shareable that everyone is talking about it; they are looking for patterns in order to come up with some kind of formula.

By looking at the music videos that went viral in the last few years, get noticeable that some of them are “impressive”. That means videos that show something really unique, something that takes a huge amount of time and effort to make. Others had the “cute” element, usually by introducing kids to the video. Others still were just plain weird or wacky. But the most common element by far among the videos that went viral was “humor” - about fifty percent of them were comedic in some way. The average video length from my sample was 4 minutes and ten seconds, with the longer ones being much more recent, and only 12% didn’t clearly show humans or animals. However, because the music videos that go viral usually are of the highest quality, most of the time quality matters more than the story itself. The key is to have the quality that makes millions of people get to their friends and say “you definitely gotta to watch this!”. Virality is evident for electronic music videos, as they typically have the highest number of re-shares on YouTube. According to Anton Cullen, producer of the electronic dance track Breaking Through, “I believe electronic music get shared so often because it’s usually energetic, making an immediate emotional connection with the listener. The music matters most but the video accompanying it greatly enhances the listening experience. That makes the whole experience more likely to go viral.”

Now, if you’re making your own music video and you are hoping for it to go viral, let’s reverse engineer these ideas. So let’s say you have the first draft of your video. Ask yourself: Would that be funny? Would that be cute? And is it impressive? If the answers to these questions are “no,” I struggle to imagine lots of people watching a video like this and then rushing to their friends to tell them all about it. So what could we do to change that? The most obvious answer might be to introduce some mind-blowing, world-class tricks or some funny actions. That could go viral, but they would need to be impressive at the same time. In order to make a video go viral, you really need to think outside the box.

Jonah Berger, in his book Contagious, explains why YouTube videos go based on six key points. Those six points – what Berger calls STEPPS - are Social currency, Triggers, Ease of emotion, Public, Practical value and Stories. “The easiest place to start would be cats… There are definitely some cat things that become popular, but that really doesn’t tell us anything about why most things go viral. It’s like noticing that Bill Gates, Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton are all names that start with ‘Bill’ and deciding to name your child Bill because that will make them famous. It’s messing up correlation and causation.”

However, making a music video is often the result of a large effort, as it involves several production steps and tools. From coming up with the idea all the way through to adding the final touches in post-production might take a large amount of your time, and it might require lots of your resources. Desperately trying to find the formula for viral success may be overwhelming, and distract you from what should really be your focusing. That is doing the best that we can and put all our attention to a quality final product, rather than just desperately hoping that everyone else will help share our video and get it to work.

Modular atelier has become a commonly spoken term in the world’s globalized cities referring to the specs of the aesthetics of a module, in the 21st century.

The more we move into the future, the better we become at managing our day to day activities, moving towards an optimal lifestyle which is conscious of our needs and wants. It has now become a common creative practice to invest in oneself, or someone else, to promote the adoption of modular strategies which in turn increases efficiency and is expected to minimise time of stress of confusion.

As a simple demonstrative example, adopting a modular T-shirt which is plain in colour with up to say a trivial logo, facilitates the use of the T-shirt on a broad range of activities, when compared to adopting a T-shirt with a Superman logo, which will decrease the general suitability of the T-shirt for use with certain activities; generic is broader in every aspect. Certainly, with this example of a T-shirt, it is arguable that modularity may not be the most contemporary for use in every design aspect when demonstrated within clothing and textiles, it does sound true. Textiles are flexible materials by nature and therefore they are bound to be flexibly arranged to produce textile objects, and therefore we could argue that modularity may not be the most desired in every design industry, however it must exist at some scale in every design industry and many would agree that modularity is the right and the conscious way when working with productions of solid materials such as wood and steel as it is more efficient when we adopt a modular approach with solids, from every aspect,. Obviously, the advantages embedded within such a shift would include, but are not limited to, the extension of the lifetime of the production, improving the resilience of the production, reducing the time to maintain the production, and reducing the amount of energy required to produce the production, to name but a few.

The future lies in a green world, a man-made world integrated consciously and in harmony with nature and the environment. A new emerging generation of young entrepreneurs are coming up with different creative techniques which promote for modularity, for example, the invention of the spinner toy was a giant wave that introduced a new genre of products which are meant to keep creative practitioners stimulated.

Students from Leeds University in the UK are fascinated by concepts of the modular atelier and created a creative booth for their desk tools, they claim to use these tools to increase the efficiency of their minds whilst performing hectic desk work for long hours. An all-known example of such a tool is the spinner toy which came to rise in amidst the past year.

A charitable organisation named Atelier Modular played a role, in March 2017, bringing the spinner toy to all 7 continents of the world, however people are only attained to the spinner toy, unaware of its’ concept which underlines a new generation of products which we may consume finitely in fact, this type of products have only come to rise in recent years, and are meant to be an eccentric material which promotes for creativity, you may well find an awe-inspiration from every product built on the modular atelier approach.

The future is already here, it is only not everywhere yet and it holds existing and coming technological revolutions limited only by our imagination, which will ultimately transform our lifestyles. It is well absorbed that the future only lies in our commitment to change - The internet is here and it’s all on the internet.

Property management companies offer a wide range of services, but their primary task is to protect owner’s interests. As regards rental property management, general duties usually include property maintenance, keeping it occupied with tenants, rent collection, budget optimization and documentation. PM company targets to meet the proprietor’s commercial goals and maximise Return On Investment.

All functions can be grouped into four primary spheres of responsibility: administration, finance and marketing, tenant and occupancy, and facilities operations. Here is the list of the tasks property managers commonly perform for owners of the rental real estate. Proprietors may need only some of these property management services.

PM companies evaluate the property to set an appropriate rental rate and prepare the object for rent. This process includes preparation of documents describing interior and exterior in details. As the primary task of any PM is to provide high ROI, PMC may recommend some improvements to maximize monthly rent. PM also provides the preliminary analysis of local rental rates. Comparison with the local market is a necessary step for evaluating any real estate object. Sometimes PM also helps in formulating policies concerning having pets, allowing smoking, etc.

The next step is marketing. This includes such activities as developing a marketing strategy, carrying out promotion campaigns, creating and placing ads in various media sources – specialized Internet portals, newspapers, TV, etc. PM company’s task is to maximise occupancy and rental rates, so PMs contact with realtors and leasing agents and provide detailed information about the property to potential tenants. PM organizes meetings with prospective tenants to show the object, provides them with rental applications and collects them back.

Preliminary work with tenants includes their screening and selection. PM company performs a background check to verify their identity, income, credit and rental history, etc. Property manager estimates potential tenants according to specific criteria and informs tenants whether their candidacy was approved or rejected.

When tenants are ready to move in, PM draws up leasing agreement. Rent collection (including first month’s rent and security deposit) is another part of property management services. This involves such delicate issue as violators and late payments.

If an eviction is needed, PM completes relevant documents to initiate the process and represents the owner’s interests in court. Managers usually assist officers of the law to remove the tenant from the property unit. PM company also provides legal support including advice in case of a legal dispute or litigation.

Regular inside and outside inspections also belong to PM’s duties. These inspections aim to check if any repair is needed, settle possible hazards or violations, etc. PMs then send periodic reports on the condition of the property based on their findings to the owner.

Financial services are one of the most important and requested ones. They include accounting, making payments on behalf of the owner, maintaining historical records, making regular reports, documentation, etc.

PM company performs physical management of the property – its overall maintenance and repair, including outdoor areas. Facilities operations include mechanical, electrical and plumbing works, landscaping, roof and walls maintenance, and much more. The manager should supervise the contractors and control the quality of all repair and maintenance activities.

When the contract is over, and tenants move out, PM should inspect the unit and make a report on the property’s condition. A copy of this paper (with estimated damages, if any) should be provided to the tenant.

This is just a suggested list of property management services. The scope of PM companies may include some other activities or exclude something – all depends on the specific terms of a particular management contract.

I was at Georgetown Law pursuing my LLM in securities and financial regulation, and Amra was working as an economist on World Bank projects. One night over dinner, we were discussing just amongst friends how to make a face mask out of your kitchen ingredients. A friend suggested to put these recipes on a blog and that this sort of content was much more relatable to an everyday consumer than the advice from Cosmo or Vogue; let’s be frank, most people cannot afford to spend millions on cosmetic surgery or tens of thousands on skincare. After our guests left, Amra stayed up all night trying to figure our HTML, CSS and JavaScript and set-up our first blog on Blogger. Shortly afterwards (only 3 months later), our DIY posts were receiving over 100,000 unique monthly visitors. This was when brands began knocking on our door.

Gene: Please tell us what exactly your company does?

A&E is a leading New York-based digital marketing agency with a focus on social media, influencer marketing, business growth and photo/video production, i.e., making brands explode digitally. We work with Fortune 500 companies and growth stage brands to boost ROI through social media, spectacular content, innovative digital strategies and influencer marketing. Currently, we are focused on releasing our proprietry technology, A&E Influencer Analytics, for brands to be able to quickly find influencers who share their target demographic. Brands are able to search and analyze the influencers, anywhere from their engagement and reach to their growth rate.

Gene: How do you use your influence as a leader to give back?

We work with a variety of non-profits, like Rescue Dogs Rock NYC, WWF, and BCRF, to donate and raise awareness about their causes through our social influence. We have worked on everything from photo production for Rescue Dogs Rock NYC to promoting Earth Day and World Rhino Day across our social channels for WWF.

Gene: Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you founded your company?

In the beginning, I was flirting with the idea of raising capital (much to Amra’s opposition), thus we had gone to a sort of speed dating investor event. Investors would switch chairs while entrepreneurs presented their companies. One of the venture capitalists came over to our table and asked “so, how do you plan to scale this?” We both turned to each other and then back to the investor and asked “what do you mean by scaling?” Now, I can look back and laugh about how much we didn’t know but I suppose that is part of the journey - being open to learning and stepping outside of your comfort zone every single day.

Gene: What project are you working on that truly inspires you?

I believe we are all connected: humans, animals and the environment; as humans with this sort of a super brain and with our technology, we have an enormous responsibility to take care of our environment and of the animals we share this Earth with. Hence, we work with Rescue Dogs Rock NYC; they are a truly inspirational group of individuals because of their humility and selflessness and all in order to rescue and save abandoned and abused dogs and puppies. They are a diverse group of volunteers. A variety of people, from stay at home moms to truck drivers, who rescue, raise funds to treat and foster abandoned and abused dogs. Amra and I are huge advocates for animal rights and environmental conservation. Hence, Rescue Dogs Rock NYC and WWF really resonate with us.

Gene: What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

As a digital marketing agency with a focus on social media, I think Amra and I stand out because ultimately the proof is in the pudding: we have invested an enormous amount in our content, capturing images from some of the most desirable destinations around the world, have a following (about 2.3 million), and have worked with industry leaders like Johnson & Johnson, Uber, HTC, and Avon. Many agencies only recently started their digital divisions after working for decades on TV and magazine campaigns.

As a technology company, there are only a few influencer platforms that serve as directories to find influencers and analyze their following and engagement rates. Furthermore, these influencer platforms certainly do not have the background of working with brands as influencers and as a social media agency as Amra and I already do with A&E.

Gene: None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

This is one of my favorite questions because I do not believe in individuals as mentors; I believe in the market as a mentor. In other words, do not listen to individuals because if they knew, they would do it themselves. Listen to the market and what the data tells you. I have never been more wrong than when blindly listening to “mentors” because their experience is limited not only to their industry but to their time, that time when they succeeded in their craft. The market is a lot more objective.

Gene: What are your “5 things I wish I knew when I got started”

1. Create a product that the consumers actually need and can afford. With technology and the Internet, you are able to reach a wide consumer base for a fraction of a cost; hence, work on having a quality product that people need and can afford. This is your priority. In other words, there are options outside of taking VC (or angel) funding. Focus on generating a healthy revenue rather than over leveraging your company. Then use whatever revenue the product generates to support your operations. Be resourceful, like using influencer marketing, social media and e-commerce, to reach a wide consumer base. Lastly, one does not need a fancy office space and rockstar employees to get the ball rolling; hire contractors or part-time employees, and park into a humble office space. Focus on generating actual sales rather than supporting fancy operations.

2. You don’t need mentors. Listen to the market.

3. You don’t need rockstar employees to get your operations off the ground. Find individuals who are committed and consistent.

4. Don’t be afraid to bargain with your contractors and employees. Remember that salaries and hourly rates are whatever the market dictates them to be. Some people need jobs more than others; find those individuals and offer them positions.

5. Don’t take on an enormous amount of debt until you have a proof of concept that the market actually wants to buy your product. See point #1.

Gene: If you could spend one day with any person (alive or not), who would it be any why?

My day would probably be spent with Walt Disney because of his ability to imagine the unimaginable, persevere against all odds, and never take no for an answer.

Essay writing isn’t the easy job for few students, however, being not good at the essay, you can’t just let your grade go down. Well, there are a few tips that you may consider for writing a persuasive essay.

After these tips if you still thinking that you can’t do your essay by yourself, then let the expert service write me a paper handle it.

Sound smart with your essay:

Section of sounding smart in an essay isn’t replicating yourself; as you are writing, concentrate on using language efficiently to help construct an argument and generate an awareness of structure. To this end, avoid using the very same words each time; most people overuse the word “too,” for instance. Vary your speech, and use words like “moreover,” “also” and “nevertheless.” These words help create your argument and make the reader feel they’re being directed through the issues on a type of ‘travel’ to your own conclusion.

Elevator pitching your documents

Are you in a position to summaries your composition between flooring?

We have probably all had it hammered into us that we ought to write an essay plan before we begin writing, but once you even do this, you have to be aware of what the debate you are likely to create actually is. Only then can you begin writing the arrangement for a composition, which builds up, to a general conclusion. To condense what you are attempting to convey to a brief, snappy outline that you work from, consider making an ‘Elevator Pitch’ style overview of everything you plan to write and why readers should be considering it.

The salesperson is advised to imagine themselves at an elevator; at the time it requires this elevator to achieve the desirable floor, they need to have given a persuasive argument in favor of the item that would bring about the customer purchasing it, or at least wanting to find out more. Your Elevator Pitch to your essay needs to sell the notion of it to some reader, so leaving them needing to read the article in question. This can be quite a challenging exercise, since it forces you to be ruthlessly succinct on your thinking and selection of words; however, you may use this summary that will assist you write your debut, and it is going to help you attain clarity in what you are attempting to convey.

Tell the reader exactly what other Folks say:

Know about who the leading writers on a topic are, even in the event that you opt not to mention them.

As an instance, if you should write a background essay on ancient spiritual practices in Britain, you can quote first texts on this subject and also mention what a selection of contemporary scholars have to say regarding the subject. Contrasting views must be searched; it is unlikely that everybody agrees on the subject, so show you have looked at all the probable angles.

Web design has moved on pretty-darn quickly and back here in Atlanta, local agencies have made their mark designing excellent sites for businesses. With local companies having unique needs, be it in marketing or specialized design techniques, local firms are helping businesses reach their potential. Noted industry observers like Tech.co are also recognizing the value proposition that local web design agencies are bringing in. In a news article, they note, “there are many wonderful companies out there that are capable of helping small businesses reach their full potential.” Be they chatbots, prediction technologies, and smart devices, Atlanta web design agencies are helping local businesses make the transition to conversational user interfaces.

Visuals are good, but text engages

Today, web design is more about a conversation with the end-user and combining it with functional visuals. Check out Alexa, Telegram, or Messenger, and the focus has shifted to words. The trend is growing, and that is why the coming trends in website design would be focused on wordsmiths that can create scripts that the user would love conversing with. Web design firms are taking these discussions to local businesses, aiding them in seeing the value of interactivity. Being close to their customer, these agencies can better understand the local needs and support enterprises to with designs that would help them with better customer acquisition capabilities.

Designs with a purpose

Talking about conversations, it is customer insights that are most important when designing for the web or devices. The extra time to reflect on what the needs of the user are and what the company intends to achieve through the design is of utmost importance. Local web design agencies in Atlanta are making a big difference by offering clients effective strategies and consulting practices that lead to the efficient execution of their needs.

This perspective on web design implies that for any design to be set right, the purpose needs to be established first. As with any system design, transactional aspects of an interaction and user flows are taken into consideration. Rich experiences that incorporate the aspirations of local customers, their traditions and needs are becoming the norm. Human factors, especially psychology and their behavior online are contributing to how online presence is being designed. Users need to be able to achieve their objective, and local web design agencies are helping businesses build that convenience for their end-users.

Responsive design

Responsive designs are the buzzword. This involves designing customized user experiences and are not only about appearances. Traditionally, when one talks of responsive design, the typical responses that you will get will be how your screen elements should render well on different devices. While that was the initial approach to building responsive websites or using CSS to provide pages correctly on multiple devices or screen sizes, it is much more than that.

The process starts with putting together a strategy to achieve the goals and a structure that would help the target users navigate the website without confusion. A clear set of calls to action is required that would be important to create the customer conversions. As always, the visual design needs to be clutter-free, with easy information access and designed to enable optimal loading of the websites. In addition, all websites need to be consistent in design and branding. It is imperative to establish style guides and standards that could be followed across all areas of a website and thus help deliver a professional message to the user.

Local presence in Atlanta

In this day of a globalized world, this might seem a little out-of-place. After all, accessing a global pool of professionals gives you a greater choice. With the Internet and the setting up of appropriate governance and communication mechanisms, projects executed by a designer who is miles away from you can also succeed.

Working with a local designer, however, has multiple advantages. A neighbor tends to be more loyal to local businesses, and no one would want a neighbor who is unhappy. In addition, they would know your competition better as they are much more aware of the local business landscape than someone sitting miles away. A designer or a design company that is located far off will have no connection or feel of local needs, and you end up just being another customer. Your design needs will tend to be put into a theoretical framework. Also, it is easier to just pick up a phone or just visit your local designer when you need urgent help. It is also easier for them to send over support personnel to investigate an issue if you are nearby.

The barebones

Local designers are unanimous that web design has come a great way and CSS has made life much easier for the designer. A website can be created by literally anyone with products that offer almost everything as a drag and drop function. However, they note that the basics are still as important as they were always. Visual weight, navigation design, and directing the user around the screen are basics that should never be overlooked. Typography and layout, the positioning of screen elements and site usability determine user engagement too. While the basic structure can be designed quickly, you also need to be sure that when you launch your website, it has the appropriate quality regarding responsiveness and is also appropriately optimized for the search engines to crawl and index them.

Again, usability is subjective, but if you get down to the nitty-gritty, it is all about making a sensible website. For example, it should be easy to figure out the theme of a website by visiting the homepage itself. Simplicity has always been voted in by users, and multiple studies have shown that web design elements can still distract a user. An irritating pop-up, interruptions while reading, dull colors, and small font sizes can put off a reader, though the content might still be engaging.

Clutch, a B2B research, ratings, and reviews firm while announcing the best web design agencies for 2017 said, “the importance and value of strong UX have become more apparent in recent years, and these Atlanta agencies have proven their ability to deliver on this crucial aspect of design.”

Over the last 20 years, the music industry has shown a noticeable change in many ways. Not only by the means of the formats in which songs are being recorded on; from vinyls to 8-tracks, from cassettes to CDs, and now streaming and digital downloads. Gone are the days where music was fulfilling the entertainments and arts. Today, the music industry has been moved into the business & competition sector. The entertainment doubled in size for its audiences due to artists promoting themselves privately using digital platforms.

About two decades ago, music was being produced by a few major record labels; Sony, MCA, Universal, RCA and Warner Bros - granted with all rights to control the market and allowing them to decide how music would be promoted to their listeners. Forget the days where buying records from local music cassette stores was still considered a ‘thing’.

These days, audiences have been granted their independence, as their favorite artists perform for them via social media outlets. Listeners can easily stream their favorite music from their smartphones or watch music videos on YouTube. This trending practice has created stronger bonds between the artists and their fans, with the rise of social media allowing more contact to be made. Back in the days, labels spent millions of dollars for music videos to be played on live TV, but this has been replaced with musicians funding music videos at their own expenses, allowing them to collect a larger revenue.

In late 2005, musicians made use of the growing social media platforms and turned them into a free stage show, where no producers, managers, or campaigns were needed to perform. Nowadays, these platforms attract various listeners worldwide who generate income for artists through advertising. As a result of this, many independent musicians have been discovered on social media. Streaming platforms such as Soundcloud and Spotify give listeners the chance to discover new sound according to their taste - and it is no surprise that hits are being discovered everyday.

This year’s Grammy’s nominations have shown that Pop and R&B are performing at a sensational rate. This is due to the outstanding albums released throughout the year by Jay-Z, Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar and Bruno Mars - performing at the top of their game.

Once, social media served as a rising platform for these talented artists. Many more musicians are being spotlighted on the internet and reaching remarkable success. Henry Kassir, a Beirut based contemporary R&B artist previewed his upcoming album through Youtube. The 19 year old’s single release ‘Nightfall Interlude’ has been receiving an increase in streams and recognition on social media. Even though it is only a sneak-peak of the upcoming project, it successfully shares the image of passion and art Henry Kassir is trying to convey through his sound and images. These types of musicians inspire other artists and welcome them to share their own creations within the music industry.

Money creates a sense of security: it shows us a way to accomplish our dreams, and therefore most of us end up spending half of a lifetime chasing money to pay bills, make a living and meet our needs. Money not only helps us to accomplish our dreams - it’s also an instrument of destruction and is often associated with greed, lies and criminality. Money is the champion of good and bad, and, to many, it still remains a mystery. It’s a fact that regular currencies today are not backed up by anything but our own beliefs and central banks, globally, are holding our future in their hands with a tight grip. The financial crisis in 2008 almost brought down the world’s financial system. Central bankers and other regulators bear responsibility for mishandling the crisis. Many people and companies went bankrupt overnight, but, at the same time, great opportunities were also born. Out of the crisis of 2008, Cryptocurrency was born out of years of frustration and distrust with their banking and monetary system. As the Group CEO of Monspace Multinational Corp, Dato Sri Jessy Lai points out: “Digital currencies differed from electronic money on the whole by departing from a centrally issued and administered model, and in most cases by creating value based on utility, scarcity, security etc. rather than a fixed conversion rate against Fiat currency – as is the case for e-money”.

What is Cryptocurrency?

Bitcoin blockchain was written in 2008 and, despite criticism by financial regulators institutions governments and media, it increased in value tremendously. Between 2009 and 2013, the value of a single coin went from 0.1 US dollars to over 1,100 US dollars. People who had invested in Bitcoin became multimillionaires over a very short period of time, and it’s probably one of the most-discussed economic successes in financial history. One of those multimillionaires was a young Norwegian man who invested 26 US dollars only to forget all about it; a couple of years later, his modest investment of 26 US dollars had turned into over 850,000 US dollars. It was an expensive lesson for anyone who was introduced to Bitcoin at an early stage but turned it down.

What if new technology allows everyone in the world to be their own bank, free from taxes and fees? Cryptocurrency is built on math, technological computer software with a shared code that connects a global network through the Internet. But how do we know Cryptocurrency can be trusted? Traditionally, we are programmed to rely on trusted third parties like banks, credit card companies and remitted services as they keep track of the money being transferred from one to another, and we are heavily charged for this service. We are in the habit of paying lots of money for something that could be free of charge; and most people have blind trust in banks.

But what if there are ways to cut out these middlemen charging us huge amounts of money that are cheaper safer and faster? Today, you can easily copy and download music and movies online, and Cryptocurrency is digital, just like music and movies on the Internet. Now, can you trust that your digital money will not be downloaded as easily as your favorite songs? How can a digital currency retain its value and not be copied online? The interesting thing is that Cryptocurrency is not a file on the computer; it is an entry in the publicly-distributed database called blockchain. Let’s compare it to today’s banks: they keep ledgers of each transaction with a plus and a minus in databases. With Cryptocurrency, bank accounts are replaced by an e-wallet where you alone can control it; the ledger of a Cryptocurrency is the blockchain. The blockchain keeps a record of every coin and every transaction ever made. And it always balances, since the amount of coins is unchangeable and no coin will ever leave the system.

The future of payments

When one coin is sent somewhere, what is really being sent is the control of the database with a code that is a unique key for that specific transaction. As transactions are made, the ledger, the blockchain, is constantly synchronized across the globe. Each user on the entire network has an identical copy and since the blockchain is public, it cannot be controlled by any single person. There is no point of failure to hack the blockchain; hackers would have to target thousands of computers across multiple geographic locations all at the same time. Hacking may not be impossible, but it is made much more difficult and Cryptocurrency is more secure than the present banking system. The whole system has the potential to replace banks and bankers worldwide. Many people are happy with the system we have today simply because they don’t understand it or because they cannot grasp the amount of money we pay our current financial system in fees on a yearly basis. Cryptocurrency is the total opposite of the banking system today as it is completely transparent and no one can change either the amount of coins or the mathematical rules dictating the creation after the mining has started.

Bitcoin was a tremendous breakthrough and put Cryptocurrency on the map, but the pioneer soon showed that there was plenty of room for improvement. “We already know that people are using less physical cash and that this trend is only going to continue. The fact is that cashless card and smartphone payments are on the rise, especially throughout Europe. The level of investment being made to meet customers and their higher expectation level means we know what will happen” (souce). New cryptocurrencies were developed and awareness of the new economic system grew rapidly, opening doors for a much safer, more powerful and user-friendly Cryptocurrency.

The demand of Cryptocurrency today is very high, mainly because of the simplicity of the concept, but also because people are discovering all the benefits and the security one coin of Cryptocurrency can give them. Since the value of Cryptocurrency is based on supply and demand, it’s easy to understand that with a growing network, the value is increasing. This new way to remit payments is spreading around the globe, gaining ground of hundreds of thousands of miners, traders, and users rapidly adapting to this new market. The current monetary system we know today is going through tremendous changes globally and we are moving into a new era.