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Google search algorithm will consider ‘page experience’ as a ranking factor from next year

May 30, 2020, 2:00 pm
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Google is planning to tweak its algorithm next year and rank pages according to the ‘experience’ of the user. This means that if a website has a ‘poor page experience,’ it will show up lower on the Google search results.

Page experience is a broad term. Up till now, Google was using a set of metrics to check the page loading speed, which qualified as a measurement for the experience. However, there were many aspects that were not captured by the search engines including delays, pop-ups, content jumping around the page, and other annoyances that triggered the user’s patience.

Although Google may not be able to accurately measure them all – but it is making an attempt to measure some of the features that make up a user’s – positive and negative reaction to a webpage.

The search engine giant unveiled this project last month and titled it ‘Web Vitals’. According to Sowmya Subramanian‎, Director of Engineering for Search Ecosystem, the company would be tracking the three main web annoyances including:

· Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – This would analyze how quickly the contents of the main page loads.

· First Input Delay (FID)– This feature would measure the ‘reaction’ speed of the page when the user first clicks on something.

· Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)– The CLS would measure when various content jumps around the page – for example, ads coming in the way of the text the user is reading.

Google is planning to add more metrics to the list over time. It has also announced changes in its ‘Top Stories’ feature and enable every news article that meets the page experience criteria to be published on the main page. Here, it should be noted that prior to the update, Google only allowed stories supporting AMP format to be permitted there.


Do these changes matter?

The changes in Google’s algorithm will matter. Especially for the publishers and website managers who are looking to put their news stories on the front page of Google.

When it comes to web developers, their main concern will be to make sure their site measures up to Google’s expectations. Google already offers some tools to ensure the site is on par with its requirements and is expected to add some more in the future.

Moreover, the team at Google assures the web developers and publishers that changes will not be implemented overnight and will take at least six months for the rollout to begin. This means that there is no rush to make the changes and web developers can transition according to the updated algorithms gradually.

The delay in the rollout is only to give developers sufficient time to adjust after the pandemic is over.

The precise outcome of the changes will only be transparent after the algorithm changes. Meanwhile, we can only hope that the changes will become another reason to clean up some of the mess on the World Wide Web.

Read next: Google Is Testing A Full Card-Based Layout For Web Searches
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YouTube Puts Up A Filter To Let Android Users Watch All They May Have Missed From Their Favorite Channels With Ease

May 30, 2020, 6:30 pm
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At the start of 2020, YouTube had its focus set on putting up a rather useful filter in the Subscription tab of its iOS app that could help users watch what they might have been missing from their favorite channels. That filter is now ready to roll out on Android as well.

Previously, such filters were first placed on YouTube's home page and in Up Next queue, however, those were being limited to topic-based. The Subscription one is relatively new and more practical in the following ways:
  • All Videos: Shows videos from all of your subscriptions - newest to oldest
  • Today: Videos that were released in the past 24 hours
  • Continue Watching: Videos you started watching but couldn’t finish
  • Unwatched Videos: The one you may have missed watching
  • Live: Channels offering live streaming
  • Posts: No videos, posts coming from community
Users will also have the liberty to choose within Settings whether they want to see both videos and posts or they would like their YouTube Subscription feed to have videos only.

The filters can be found right underneath the recently added channel selectors of the Subscription tab, but it can disappear if you pick a channel to watch. If we were to put out input then filters should have stayed within channels too so that users coil easily catch up on unwatched videos from specific channels too.

While YouTube deserves the appreciation for drilling down the content within the app, still a lot of improvements can be made in the navigation part. In YouTube Music, users see all liked artists as subscriptions which then further creates the point that if someone likes a musician’s video, it doesn’t mean they would like all of what they pot on YouTube as well.
Besides that YouTube should also allow creating channel collections for when someone wants to only binge-watch sports channels, tech videos, or laugh at dogs doing cute things. Scrolling between channels becomes annoying considering the effort involved and therefore a channel collection would be the ideal solution.

We never know YouTube may just fullfill such recommendations soon!



Read next: Facebook Announced That It Will Now Require The Accounts With High Reach To Prove Their Identities
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Facebook launches its second-screen companion app and it seems quite a competition for Twitter

May 30, 2020, 11:00 pm
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Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team has designed a new app, called ‘Venue.’

This is a second screen companion app, which will help engage fans from all over the world around live events.

Now, this kind of functionality is offered by many other second screen apps too. And Twitter also keeps the second screen companionship experience alive through specified hashtags that fans use for different Live events or monumental things happening on the TV, like a live-streamed political event, or the premiere of a highly anticipated movie or show. Fans can do live commentaries around these latest happenings on Twitter, following those hashtags.

Twitter’s in-house curation team also makes special highlights and quick summaries, featuring notable tweets regarding that event, short video clips, comments, photos, and any other important thing related to that event or story.

While Twitter allows commentaries from everyone, the Venue is going to be quite specific and more ‘expert-centric’ in this regard. For example, if it is sports event, only expert athletes, analysts, and sportspeople will be able to ‘host’ that event.

Similarly, in case of a political event, well-known journalists, current affairs analysts, and some other related people will be able to host the event on Venue, by giving their personal views, reactions, and analysis around that particular story.

They will also post interactive polls and questions for the people who are watching that event. They may even chat with the viewers around specific moments in the event, but the overall theme of the app does not primarily focus on the comments or reactions of the audience as such. Even the viewers do not have to stick to the event throughout. When there is a particular moment that might spike interest, the app itself will send prompts like short digital opportunities for the fans around it and they may start participating then.
So, this is going to be like a ‘Live broadcast,’ where there is a large concurrent viewership, and yet the overall viewing experience is personal and solo! In Twitter, everyone can comment, and all comments have an equal footing, while in Venue, it is the host that leads the discussions and curates comments.

On May 31st, 2020, Venue is going to provide the second screen companionship experience to NASCAR’s ‘The Supermarket Heroes 500 race’, which will be hosted by the prominent social media personality, ‘nascarcasm.’

Future NASCAR races on Venue will be hosted by nascarcasm, FOX Sports NASCAR reporter Alan Cavanna and Landon Cassil, a NASCAR driver.

These events will hopefully bring a great and innovative way for users to engage and have an exciting and unique experience with Venue in the future also.



Read next: You Might Soon Be Able to Put People in Photos Using Facebook’s AI
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Instant Messaging Users Will Jump To 4.3 Billion This Year, SMS Business Messaging Traffic To Hit 3.5 Trillion Messages In 2020

May 31, 2020, 2:00 am
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According to a forecast by Juniper Research, users of instant messaging services will grow 9 percent and reach 4.3 billion this year, as more people turn to mobile communication during the COVID-19 crisis.

The study also suggests expanding the capabilities of messaging channels via different protocols – such as digital payments. Juniper’s study advises companies such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to develop e-commerce channels that will make use of digital payments and boost the use of messaging protocols – even after the pandemic is over.

For instance, WeChat – a very popular messaging service in China shows how a messaging platform can also offer other services such as food delivery, travel booking, and shopping via digital payments. WeChat allows marketers to create mini-programs within their app, which ultimately helps expand the services' capabilities beyond messages.

In another recent press release JuniperResearch predicts that the total number of app-to-person SMS will reach 3.5 Trillion this year, rising from 3.2 trillion in 2019.

Prediction: SMS Business Messaging Traffic Will Reach 3.5 Trillion Messages This Year
Juniper also highlights the upcoming Rich Communication Services (RCS) by Google. A replica of iOS iMessage, the RCS would be supplementary to the traditional SMS service and would allow users to send rich text messages over Wi-Fi.

In fact, Juniper tells the marketers not to wait for Google to launch RCS and develop a marketing strategy that would allow them to continue their dominance in the market even if the latest addition in the messaging sector becomes more popular.

"The report forecast that the number of RCS-enabled smartphones will grow by 45 percent from 2019 to 2020, with over 740 million smartphones using RCS services by the end of 2020."

The report forecast that the number of RCS-enabled smartphones will grow to 744 million

Read next: eMarketer Forecasts That Instagram And Snapchat Will Experience Higher Engagement Growth During This Year Compared To Facebook
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Google Chrome 84 Will Come Out With Anti Abusive Notification Update & SameSite Cookie Fixtures

May 31, 2020, 4:00 am
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Earlier this year, Google revealed quite notifications UI to Chrome that was aimed at putting control on more intrusive notifications appearing on desktop and mobile devices. As users continue to feel the need of it more than ever, the company is now expanding the feature to put breaks on abusive notifications as well.

Google is planning to launch the anti-abusive notification system on July 14th, along with the release of Chrome 84 which will further ensure that the leading search engine’s own browser is soon going to be able to list websites automatically that may have abusive permission notifications right in the quite notifications section. This will eventually help users in getting to know if the website has misleading information.

Moreover, while explaining the notifications in detail, PJ McLachlan, Web Platform Product Manager for Chrome further said that permission requests are primarily designed to trick users into making them allow notifications A great example of such a site can be the one that ask user to click on agree to get notifications in order to gain access to the content available on the site or the ones that show misleading pre-prompts.

These notification issues can result into something more worst if it includes phishing attacks or links to malicious software.

The new tool can only work on upcoming abusive notifications and it won’t be able to provide protection to users who may have already given permission to sites with abusive notifications. However, Google says that they are also currently working on offering protection to the ones who are already struggling with abusive notifications.

The owners of websites that currently have abusive notifications will get an email at least 30 days before the implementation of this system to make sure that they fix the user experience of their site for visitors. There is also an official guide by Google on how to fix the abusive notifications and then submit your site for another review.

Google is also planning to bring back the SameSite cookie update in Chrome 84 with the intention to let users also manage the cookies according to their choices.

Currently, Chrome accept cookies by default, but with SameSite in place Chrome might just be able to block cookies from functioning which might have third-party links (with exceptions for the ones that have specific labels). All this is getting done to limit how cookies and websites are collecting user data.



Read next: Google Confirms That More Than Two-Thirds of Vulnerabilities In Chrome Browser Are Due To Memory Unsafety
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Essential Social Media Management Skills According to Experts (infographic)

May 31, 2020, 6:30 am
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Social media management has now become a serious profession all in all, and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that there are so many brands and corporations out there that use their social media presence as a form of PR, marketing as well as customer support. Hence, if you want to go into this field you are going to have to be very good at the craft, and the people over at Socialinsider have released an ebook guide curated by experts that might just have the secret sauce required in order to be a success in the world of social media management.

Some of the things that are covered by Socialinsider include the importance of being a team player. At the end of the day, it is highly unlikely that you would be able to make the most of the kind of social media management you want to do if you are working completely alone. After all, this is a mammoth task that you are undertaking and working with a team can make it much easier to manage.

The guide also highlights the dualistic nature of social media management. In many ways, social media management is like a two sided coin. One aspect of this process is creative and the other is analytical. You often have people that specialize in one or the other, and argue the importance of their approach and how it is superior to any other approach that you might be thinking of looking into. However, the fact of the matter is that both of these approaches are essential and it is only when you combine creativity and analysis that you would be able to get anywhere in this field.

Socialinsider also touches on some essential tips that are not technical in nature but instead have a more general feel to them. For example, the importance of staying organized is exemplified time and time again. Having a process that you work with can ensure that everything works in your favor, but lacking organization could mean that you would end up missing deadlines as well as just generally not being able to do your job.

All of these are things that can help you out quite a bit which is why you should think about making the most of these kinds of resources and learning as much as you can about the subject.

Take a look at the infographic below "Life of a Social Media Manager" for more insights.

Powerful Tips a Social Media Manager Should Know [Infographic]

Read next: Facebook shares new set of tips to make social media posts accessible and easy to read by everyone
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How Psychology Can Impact Your Color Decisions for Web Design (infographic)

May 31, 2020, 11:00 am
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Web design involves a lot of decisions, none of which you can take lightly if you want the end result to be truly successful in every single way, shape or form. People use all kinds of techniques to help themselves make the right decisions when it comes to web design elements, and one tactic that designers sometimes use, a tactic that should definitely become a lot more widespread, has to do with psychology.

The human mind is impacted in lots of ways by the things that we see, and colors in particular can end up being quite effective at sparking a particular emotion among people all in all. A big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that colors ignite certain receptors in our brain, so if you think about what colors you want to add from a psychological standpoint then there could actually be a lot that you could do in order to make things easier for you in a wide variety of ways.

There are stats to back this up as well. Nearly 85% of consumers that responded to a survey stated that color was one of the main reasons that lead to them buying a certain product, and you can imagine just how important it is for things like this to be taken into account.

The decision to buy a product happens in about 90%, and how that product looks is perhaps the single biggest deciding factor in a lot of ways. If you want to learn about what colors to use where, you should start by checking out primary colors.

Red can evoke emotions as well as hunger, it can also be quite symbolic since it is used to display love. Yellow is often seen as a cheerful color. It can stimulate conversation as well as the nervous system but it can also strain the eyes so you should use it sparingly. Blue is a very peaceful color, one that men seem to prefer. It can curb appetite though, so don’t use it if you are making a website for a food company.

The infographic below from Webfx, illustrates the psychology of color and highlights some common associations of different colors.



Read next: Dissecting the 404 Error: Things That Could Happen if Your Website's Pages are Broken (infographic)
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Google Makes It Easier For You To Quickly Remove Unwanted URL Suggestions In Chrome

May 31, 2020, 2:00 pm
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Google Chrome rolled out its latest v83 update, which comes with various new features as well as tweaks. Users have a lot of security concerns while using an internet browser. Google Chrome has been introducing various tools and functions to provide people extra control over security privacy. One of the new options introduced by Google Chrome is the mouse-powered security tool which makes it convenient for you to remove unwanted URL (Uniform Resource Locator) suggestions.

You may have noticed that when you start typing in the Google Chrome’s search bar, the browser displays you a list of suggestions. These suggestions are the links to sites that you have previously visited and it can give away a lot about how you have been using your device. The feature is visible to anyone who uses their PC (both on incognito and normal browsing). Now, the new option will make it easier for you to remove these suggestions.

The option was first spotted by TechDows, and now there is a ‘x’ button which will pop up alongside a URL suggestion. When users hover over this cross button, an option appears that says ‘remove suggestion.’ Click this option to delete any unwanted URL suggestions. Previously, windows users had to press Shift+ Delete to remove them while on Mac, users would press Fn+ Shift+ Delete.

However, there is one big caution for this feature. If you see an arrow in the blank space, the ‘x’ button to remove a URL suggestion will not appear. However, you can always use the keyboard shortcut to remove any unwanted URL suggestion from Google Chrome, but the mouse-powered version of the function will not work in this case.

Still, the new functionality is a welcome change as users had to look up for tutorials to see ways for deleting URL suggestions. Now, Google has made it convenient and intuitive to remove unwanted URL suggestions on Chrome.


Read next: Google search algorithm will consider ‘page experience’ as a ranking factor from next year
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LinkedIn Sees A 28 Percent Increase In Remote Job Postings; What Should You Do?

May 31, 2020, 6:30 pm
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Almost 40% of the Americans have lost their job since the beginning of COVID-19 quarantine. The April jobless rate has been 14.7% and there are multiple corporate bankruptcies being reported such as the ones of Hertz, JC Penney, Neiman Marcus, and others. But amongst all this economic trouble, that may become worst in times to come, LinkedIn is enjoying a surge of 28% in a key category - the remote job postings.

Everyone is looking out for opportunities on the platform that includes working from home. So, as there has been an influx in remote work postings, the company has also seen a 43% increase in search terms like “remote” and “work from home”.

Which Companies Are Catering To Remote Workers?

Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has recently announced that their company is all ready to allow work from home, along with the cost-cutting measure that includes how wages will be distributed according to the cost-living expenses in the region.

But with unemployment numbers booming, getting the job under such circumstances is the real deal. Hence, if you want to level up your remote office game, then you need to take care of three important things below.

1. Make Sure You Look Professional

Starting things off with an old proverb that states “eyes are windows to the soul”. This can certainly be the case when working from home as your laptop camera should be in line with your eye level. You can elevate your laptop with a shoebox or book but it is important that you don’t take up any official call while sitting on the couch or while being curled up in a blanket.

The way you show up on calls is considered as a reflection of your professionalism, dedication, and communication skills. And eyes can be your best tool to connect with someone across the screen.

2. Good Video Means Good Audio

Back in 1971, Mehrabian, the author of Silent Messages redefined personal communication by stating 93% of communication is non-verbal and a person’s body language makes up to 55% of that number. The other 38% can be maintained by putting up a set of good headphones.

3. Fix Your Background

Receiving a call in your bed with piles of clothes behind you is a big no - especially now when the pandemic is no longer a new thing. If you have made mistakes in your past, now is the time to set up a space in your house where you can attend calls or group meetings with a relatively professional and clean background.

The job market has shrunk and if you want to make your bet the best in work from home culture, make sure that the environment you are working in works in the best interest of you.



Read next: Study Reveals Working from Home Affects Productivity by only 1 Percent
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A New Website by Google will Educate People about Preventing Online Scams

May 31, 2020, 11:00 pm
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Hackers have been a little more active during the coronavirus pandemic than the usual, considering which Google has launched a new website to help people identify and prevent online scams.

Scamspotter is a website that would let people know how to spot bogus stimulus checks, false vaccine offers, or other fake information. The common patterns used by scammers are also identified on the website like romance scammers ask to buy them a gift card or send money.

The new website is a collaboration between Google and Cybercrime Support Network, a nonprofit a company that helps the victims of online fraud. Quizzes related to common scam scenario are also available on the web to further help people identify scams, like receiving a message about a trip to Switzerland even if a user has not taken part in any contest.

According to Google, the scammers have taken advantage of the pandemic at an alarming rate. Federal Trade Commission revealed that during the coronavirus pandemic, Americans have lost around $40 million to various online coronavirus scams.

It further predicted that in 2020, above $2 billion will be looted through coronavirus scams or other online scams.

FTC also informed people in the beginning of May about the contact tracing scam through text message, a method used to track the spread of virus. Scammers ask personal information including security number, bank account or at times credit card number.

On the other side, Google and Apple have their own tools for contact tracing which are supported through apps built by public health agencies.

The purpose of the website is to educate and aware the elders who are more prone to scams and lose more money as compared to younger citizens, says Google. It also asks the young people to spread the information available on the website so the senior people around them can be benefitted.

Vint Cerf, Google vice president said it is essential for all of us to learn to identify the scams for which effort from all generations is required.

He further added that the internet should be a secure place for seniors as it has been invented by seniors.



Read next: Google search algorithm will consider ‘page experience’ as a ranking factor from next year
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Mobile Gaming Is Going To Have A Blockbuster Year 2020, Beating PC And Console Gaming

June 1, 2020, 2:00 am
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According to the recent report by mobile insights firm App Annie and market researcher IDC, if the COVID-19 pandemic is here to stay for the current year then 2020 is about to become the best year in history for mobile games and apps.

The report starts off by shedding light on the already well-established theme in the gaming industry - mobile as the primary driver of growth in the digital gaming world. Furthermore, it states that the pandemic is just reinforcing the lead of mobile in gaming.

Throughout the period of COVID-19, weekly mobile downloads in the first quarter (that ended on April 11) reached a new record of 1.2 billion downloads. Going into further depth, worldwide users downloaded 35% more mobile games every week in March than as compared to the downloads in January. On the other hand, players also kept downloading 30% more mobile games per week in April. Moreover, just when this all doesn’t sound overwhelming, the forecasters are predicting more record levels of app downloads and consumers spending time on the app store.

In 2020, Sony and Microsoft are expected to come out with their new consoles and boost the console business. But again to compete with those giants, mobile game spending will also go up by 2.8 times as compared to PC gaming and 3.1 times more than consoles.

In fact, App Annie and IDC have already shown us that games turned out to be the reason for nearly 70% of the worldwide consumer spend for iOS and Android in the first quarter of 2020 along with the digits of 40% dominance in downloads.

However, besides all the good news of North America and the rest of the world experiencing increment in-game spending, Asia Pacific regions are struggling because of strict game rules in countries like China.
Another analysis in the report showed that consumers are loving the portable games more that have real-time multiplayer and co-op game modes. Also, games with live player-versus-player multiplayer modes resulted into better finances. The most successful subgenres in the peak week of Q1 included simulation, trivia, board games, casual, adventure and action games.

Apps like Twitch and Discord are also experiencing growth in countries like France, Germany, United States of America, and United Kingdom that may in the future turn in more favor of mobile gaming too. The acceptance of video ads is another positive to look out for as well!



Read next: The Coronavirus Pandemic Leads To 52% Surge In Data Used For Downloading Mobile Apps, Globally
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Microsoft News and MSN Employees Laid Off as Companies Shift to AI Based Operations

June 1, 2020, 4:46 am
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The question of whether or not machines would end up replacing human beings thereby rendering them unemployed is one that has been floated for quite some time now, ever since the industrial revolution wherein mechanization began to become a great deal more common than it might have seemed otherwise. However, up until this time automation had not really resulted in major job losses because of the fact that machines needed to be maintained and monitored and so people just changed their jobs rather than becoming unemployed.

This might change in the modern era, and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that the automation that is currently occurring is quite different in a lot of ways particularly when you take into consideration how independently they are able to operate at any given point in time. This difference between modern automation and any other kind of automation is that nowadays automation with AI is resulting in a lot of job losses, and it turns out that even a major tech company is going to be actively participating in these job losses.

As first reported by BI, Microsoft News and MSN have both laid off dozens of employees and are replacing these employees with AI that would be able to do the job a lot more efficiently and would end up costing a lot less money in the process as well. While this is something that makes sense for a lot of people, it’s fair to say that this would make quite a few people nervous because of the fact that they would be wondering whether or not they would be able to get the job done in any way, shape or form before an AI would end up replacing them and leaving them with no job and no prospects.


Read next: Microsoft Has Updated its Chromium-based Edge Browser With A New Game You Can Play When You Are Offline
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TikTok working on ‘location tagging’ for videos

June 1, 2020, 6:30 am
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Matt Navarra, a social media industry commentator and consultant has recently revealed that TikTok is working on a feature that would enable users to tag the location of their videos. The news regarding the under development feature was tweeted from Navarra’s official Twitter account.

According to the screenshot he shared, the location tagging option would be available prior to posting the video on the platform. However, it is still unclear whether the option would be applicable to the location where the video is posted or the location where the video is shot.

Another Twitterati also shared the same insight and said that the feature would affect the already localized algorithm greatly.

TikTok is a short video-sharing app that allows users to shoot, edit, and share 15-second videos with their fellow TikTokers. It is one of the fastest-growing apps with 800 million active users worldwide. It is available on both – Android and iOS and comes with several filters and features that make it very appealing to its user base.

And the company keeps coming with new features frequently!

As always, we are not sure when the ‘location tagging’ feature would be available for the TikTokers as there is no official announcement from the company.

Stay tuned with us for more updates!



Read next: Another TikTok-clone app is on its way, and this time it is by Facebook
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Apple takes care of a zero-day vulnerability in ‘Sign in with Apple’ and awards a big bounty to the security researcher who disclosed it

June 1, 2020, 8:30 am
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Recently, Bhavuk Jain, a security-focused developer found a zero-day vulnerability in ‘Sign in with Apple’ account authentication and he reported it promptly to higher-ups. Luckily, the vulnerability had not caused any harm to any user and Apple quickly took care of it and fixed it.

A zero-day vulnerability is a small glitch, or a vulnerability in computer software/services, which is not known or goes unaddressed by the developers of that software. If this vulnerability is not fixed in time, cybercriminals can use it to take control of a user’s account on a third-party application and exploit it adversely. These hackers can get possession of personal data and information and can exploit it in any way they want.

Cybercriminals are always looking out for such vulnerabilities to get their claws into a computer system or network and have their way about it.

When Bhavuk Jain found out about this vulnerability in signing in with Apple, he instantly reported because this glitch could have allowed an attacker to gain access and take complete control of a user’s account on a third-party application. He would even have been able to bring a change in control of that application’s user account, even if the user had a valid Apple ID or not.

‘Sign in with Apple’ was launched last year, as a more private alternative method of logging in apps and websites.

Facebook and Google power the other famous log-in systems. When a person creates an account on both Facebook and Google, they require quite a lot of information for authentication and account creation.

Apple launched this new log-in system to minimize the amount of user’s data and information for authentication and account creation purposes. Plus, they designed it to be a lot more private in comparison to Facebook and Google log-in systems because it also minimizes the amount of tracking performed on users.

Now, as Apple includes Sign in with Apple in all apps along with these other log-in systems, a vulnerability attack would have had a huge impact and a very broad base of apps that it would have been able to target. So, the magnitude of this would have been huge, but luckily, no harm was done due to Jain’s quick report against it.

Sign in with Apple relies on one of the two things; a JSON Web Token (JWT) or a special code that is generated by Apple’s servers. If the JWT is not there, then this special code is used to generate the JWT.

For authorization of an account, Apple gives the users a choice whether to share their Apple Email ID with the third-party app or Hide it. If a user chooses to hide it, then Apple provides a user-specific relay email ID to complete the process of authorization.

Once authorization is done, Apple provides a JSON Web Token (JWT), containing the email ID that can be used by the user to log-in on a third-party application.
Jain found out a month ago that this JWT could be requested for any email ID, and once Apple’s public key verifies the signature of the token, it would have all appeared completely valid. This meant that any cybercriminal could create a JWT through this entire process and would have easily gained access to a user’s account!

This would have turned into a very harmful situation if Jain had not disclosed it and Apple had not taken quick control of the situation.

Due to Jain’s diligence, he has been awarded an award from Apple’s bug bounty program, which worth a good $100,000, and it is completely well-deserved.

Apple has patched up the vulnerability now. It is not known however that how they did it. But all is well that ends well.



Read next: A New Report Compares The Global Popularity Of iPhone And Android Smartphones
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Instagram Is Experimenting With A Multi-Stories Listing To Increase User Engagement

June 1, 2020, 11:00 am
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Most of the people love Stories, and soon users will be able to access Instagram Stories more quickly and conveniently. Ed Maughan, an Instagram user provided a screenshot shared by a social media expert, Matt Navarra, in which we can clearly see that the company is trying a new double-story Instagram Stories Feed for some people.

It has been reported by several other users that Instagram is displaying them a new Stories display. They started seeing the updated format this week.

However, it is still not clear how wide Instagram is testing the new option, and we also don’t know the specific regions or countries where users can access the new option. But Instagram is indeed testing the new layout, and it may also become the new normal for Instagram Stories if the company sees a positive response from Instagram users.

Jane Manchun Wong, a reverse engineering expert spotted the feature back in April which shows that the company has been working to add extra Stories bubbles for the past few months. Jane Manchun Wong also spotted another Instagram Stories test, which would make it convenient for you to switch between Instagram Stories.

These new options indicate the upcoming significant shift for the social network. As more users are using Instagram Stories, it is expected that the company will switch the main focus of the Instagram app from the regular user feed to an Instagram Stories feed on the launch. With that being said, it is expected that the Instagram app will eventually display you the first frame of the first Instagram Story, then it will allow the users to skip through Stories.

Facebook has also stated that Stories are on track to replace the regular news feed as the fundamental surface for social engagement. This significant shift makes sense when we consider that younger users are becoming more aligned with the Instagram Stories format. If the double-story Stories feed becomes popular among users, it will be a signal for the company that more Stories are better.



Read next: New Augmented Reality filters have rolled out for Instagram and they are simply amazing
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What to Do With Android Apps That Bombard You With Advertising

June 1, 2020, 2:00 pm
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Some of the things that you might encounter with modern technology can definitely be a little bit scary all in all, but that’s only because of the fact that it could potentially harm you by taking private or personal information away from you. The fact of the matter is that not all types of malicious software is going to be quite so threatening, some of it would simply be annoying but this in and of itself might just be enough to make you want to throw your phone away.

Unfortunately, Android apps are some of the biggest culprits when it comes to this sort of thing. There are a number of Android apps out there that use adware, which is basically software that is going to make it so that your phone would become unusable and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that you would have to click away from so many ads that would be popping up some of which might just make it so that you can’t access any of your other apps at all.

In the past three months, 3 separate apps have been discovered by Kaspersky on the PlayStore that were guilty of using adware. All of these apps have been downloaded tens of millions of times, and one of them shows you ads even if the app itself is not open. It does this by using a delay between the time in which you downloaded the app and the arrival of the first ad. This is done in order to trick prevention measures that Google has ended up putting in place.

If you have accidentally downloaded one of these apps, or indeed any kind of app at all that has a tendency to show you too many ads using adware, then you might want to try and uninstall the app. You should also make sure that you check what permissions are being granted to an app when you are installing it, ensuring that no unnecessary permissions are given which might make the app a bit too difficult for you to use all in all.


Read next: Instant Messaging Users Will Jump To 4.3 Billion This Year, SMS Business Messaging Traffic To Hit 3.5 Trillion Messages In 2020
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The Instagram influencer market reached $5.24 billion in 2019

June 1, 2020, 6:30 pm
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In it's recent report, HypeAuditor wrote that the Instagram Influencer market reached $ 5.24 billion in 2019.

Let's figure out what is Influencer Marketing and what $5 billion is going for.

What is Influencer marketing?

If simplified, Influencer Marketing is the broadcast of your message through the influencers and creators (accounts with a large number of followers).

If a brand buys ads directly from the platform, then brand only receives views of its ads, which can be blocked by ad blockers.

If a brand buys placements from an influencer, then in addition to viewing its message, it also gets more engagement with the audience due to the influence of the creator.

It is believed that if the brand selects the right influencer, which has not only followers, but also a real influence on its subscribers (the community around the influencer) and if the values of this community resonate with the brand values, the brand will strengthen its message and will get at least $6.5 in Earned media value for each $1 spent.

Moreover, in the future, the brand will be able to take the content produced with the help of an influencer and use it in further advertising companies, including as social proof of its solvency.

Instagram is the main platform for influencer marketing

Historically, Instagram has become the main platform for Influencer Marketing.

The main advertising tools for influencers are Posts and Stories.

The market turned out to be very democratic. With a lot of players.

Over 380 new influencer marketing-focused agencies and platforms established in 2019.

$5.24 billion are shared by hundreds of Influencer Marketing Platforms, Public Relations firms, Influencer Marketing agencies and millions of Instagram Creators.

Influencers themselves, in addition to dividing into personal accounts and brands, can be virtual influencers, pet influencers, beauty and travel bloggers, nano, micro, mega(in terms of the number of followers). They can post about their lifestyle and conduct Instagram with TikTok t and YouTube in parallel, or they can be part of meme public networks and distill subscribers from one public to another.

Pricing is individual for each influencer. It may happen that a blogger with 10,000 subscribers will ask for $ 500 for the post just because he wants to, and an account with 1,000,000 subscribers will sell ads for $100, because 95% of the subscribers are bots.

But by default, influencers charge on average $15 for post per 1000 subscribers.

Some influencers can work with Brands on a barter basis (a stop at the hotel, a new pair of sneakers). Newer brands love sampling among influencers..

The main characteristics of influencers that are available to everyone are the number of followers and the Engagement Rate. (Percent of the audience who like or comment the posts).

Major Influencer Marketing Players

The goal of an influencer is to grow to such a size as to collaborate with brands and sell their products.

The brand's goal is to find an influencer with an authentic community that fits the portlet of the brand's target audience, who unconditionally believe the influencer who will post the brand message for minimal money.

The goal of PR managers is to sell the brand of influencers.

The purpose of the platform is to give the influencer to sell himself and make a commission.

Direct brand advertising through influencers is quite difficult.

It is necessary either to form a department for working with influencers in house or to turn to platforms or specialized influencing marketing agencies or public relation companies.

If the brand has small budgets, then platforms are quite suitable, though there are a lot of commercial accounts that are created for the purpose of monetization through advertising and there is no community behind them.

PR companies and Influencer marketing agencies, as a rule, have a pool of their bloggers, which they sell, but if necessary they are ready to sign any blogger to you (with their commission, of course)

To survive and get a piece of $5 billion pie, firms use strategies proven in other businesses: they niche and gain a competitive advantage through technology.

It's easier to niche than to master technology, so there are many small agencies on the market that specialize in pet influencers, virtual influencers, cannabis influencers, etc.

As for technology, companies can either develop their technology or buy someone else's (for example HypeAuditor's technology) Influence marketing takes place on a digital platform,and most of its main processes can be digitized.

$5.24 billion is a lot or a little?

In 2019, Instagram earned $20 billion on advertising.

It turns out that business officially paid Instagram $20 billion for official ads placement and spent about $5.24 billion on influencers through platforms, public relations agencies and directly.

25% of Instagram's annual revenue revolves on its platform, but pass by it and are not controlled by Instagram.

Let's try to understand why and what Instagram can do with it.

$5.24 billion may seem like a lot of money, but if you figure out what it consists of, then it will cease to be so impressive.

About 80% of this amount of money is remuneration of influencers and 20% commission of platforms, PR managers and other intermediaries.

$4 billion are divided among millions of creators and $1 billion is shared among hundreds of relations firms and platforms.

What Instagram is doing with Influencer Marketing?

Instagram took the first steps to get a piece of that cake

1. Instagram introduced a collaboration with advertising posts so brands can turn influencer's posts into ads and promote them.

2. Instagram started to test it's own Influencer Discovery tool.

But we need to understand that in many respects, Influencer Marketing is not only technology but to a greater extent communication with influencers, inventing creativity, control and analysis. This is the human expertise that it is not yet possible to fully digitize, namely, it takes most of the remaining billion.

Instagram will try to launch a platform where the brand will be able to find an influencer and agree with him on the placement. Perhaps this will be a useful tool and part of small advertisers and brands with their in-house departments will go to it.

But Instagram will definitely not show the number of fraud audiences, and this is essential when choosing an influencer and negotiating a price.

And Instagram cannot be specialized as niche agencies do.

Instagram will become just one of the players, one of the platforms, but will not greatly change the situation on the market.

It is not profitable for him to put obstacles in the wheels of influencers.

After all, it is they who create the best and most demanded connection on the platform for the sake of which millions of people come there every day.

$5.24 billion is not enough. The market must and will grow.



Read next: Facebook To Finally Start Featuring Ads On Instagram IGTV, Plans To Share Revenue With Content Creators
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How various brands spending on influencer marketing especially on YouTube this year

June 1, 2020, 11:00 pm
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The influencer-marketing industry was already flourishing, but the coronavirus pandemic gave it a full bloom as many brands had to cut their advertisement production costs and resort to influencer-marketing strategies via channels like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

However, recently Influencer Marketing Hub published a report which analyzed the state of the influencer marketing industry and the Influencer Media Value (IMV) in the recent months of the pandemic. To analyze the brands that are spending the most on influencer marketing on YouTube, they collected data from more than 20 million YouTube videos in the US and Canada. They made some comparative analysis between YouTube videos which are sponsored by some brands and ads placed by Google programmatically in the ad breaks.

A sponsored YouTube video is one in which the creator promotes a brand within the video and gives appropriate links for the brand or product in their video too. This kind of influencer-marketing has become very famous as it allows the creators to earn exceptionally well.

Sadly, due to the pandemic, it has been observed that many brands have started cutting on their influencer-marketing budgets also. Some industries kept doing well in the first quarter of 2020 but traveling and tourism-related industries started seeing the biggest downfall since January 2020, when their viewership started declining tremendously, with less than 1 million views on YouTube. This was probably a side-effect of sponsoring only fifteen videos during the 1st quarter, and by March 2020, even that came down to zero.

Surprisingly, the Food and Drink related industry also started seeing a decline between January and February. Later on, March onwards, all other industries also started seeing a decline in viewership.

However, brands that kept spending money on influencer-marketing saw impressive results too. Some greatest spenders on influencer-marketing through YouTube in the first quarter of 2020 include ‘Epic Games,’ the famous video game software developer, and publishers who are behind games like Fortnite. They are the highest spending brand on YouTube! They have spent a whopping $10 million on sponsored videos, and this has resulted in the Gaming industry seeing a great bloom amid these challenging times.

Gaming alone makes up to 42% of Influencer media value amongst the 6 most flourishing industries, and 30% of the total influencer media value for all the other top-spending industries.

The second most spending brand is ‘Bang Energy,’ the energy drink company, which has spent around $8 million for more than 141 sponsored videos on YouTube.
Skillshare has spent around $3 million, ExpressVPN has spent around $2.5 million, NordVPN and Amazon spent $1.8 million, Squarespace has spent around $1.4 million, while DLive, GFuel, and Blue Chew have spent around $1 million on YouTube sponsorship videos from January till April 2020.

So, these are the industries that makeup around 70% of the overall $90 M influencer media value.



It is not surprising that the industries with the highest IMV also saw better returns in investments from their influencer marketing campaigns, especially Gaming, Tech, Beauty, Fashion, and Food, and Drink industries. The high performance of these industries has set a framework for successful influencer marketing in the remaining months of 2020. But with the ever-changing situation due to the pandemic, nothing can be predicted with absolute certainty.

The decline in viewership for many industries was noted during March 2020, and it is still possible that the industries that have shown some growth due to their relatively uninterrupted viewership until now may also see a decline in the following months of the second quarter of 2020.

Read next: Mobile Gaming Is Going To Have A Blockbuster Year 2020, Beating PC And Console Gaming
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YouTube Sheds Light on New “Satisfaction” Metric With Videos

June 2, 2020, 2:00 am
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For quite a long time, the marker that defined whether or not a video on YouTube was truly successful was how many views it had gotten. This might seem like an overly simplified way to go about things these days but back then it was considered pretty valid and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that YouTube was still a new service that people were getting used to, and users as well as the people that worked at YouTube were not all too familiar with the various tricks that would be employed in order to boost view counts and make a certain video appear to be far more popular than it actually was.

After view counts started to become suspect in terms of determining how successful a video was, view times also started to be taken into account. This is because of the fact that the amount of time that people watch videos matters quite a bit. If you only watch the first 30 seconds of a view before navigating away, this means that you probably didn’t enjoy the video very much. Hence, if a video has lots of views but most of those views involve people navigating away before they watch a significant portion of it, this would affect how successful YouTube would deem the video.

The reason behind why this matters is because of the fact that it impacts the YouTube algorithm. YouTube initially recommended widely watched videos, then started taking into account view times. However, even now there is a long way to go before the videos that you are recommended would actually be high in quality every single time, and this is basically why YouTube has started to look into Satisfaction, a term they are using to refer to a metric that gauges how much a video is genuinely enjoyed.

There are a number of factors that impact this metric. There is of course the amount of time that a viewer watched a video as well as whether or not they actually finished it. More importantly whether or not a user gave a video a Like is also taken into account because of the fact that watching a video all the way through does not mean that you necessarily enjoyed it, a like or a share is going to indicate that you genuinely thought that it did what you were hoping it would do.

Apart from this, according to Creator Insider, YouTube is also conducting surveys in order to directly ask users what their experience was like. This is important because of the fact that it can help YouTube genuinely ascertain the kind of enjoyment people are receiving from videos rather than relying on metrics that might be the result of other factors that are not directly tied to enjoyment in general.

All of these new metrics are going to contribute to the YouTube algorithm becoming a lot better in the long run. This is important because of the fact that it plays quite an important role in the kind of videos that you would end up seeing while you are checking out what YouTube has to offer.



Read next: YouTube Is Testing To Integrate Google Search Results With Video Search In Its Mobile App
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How Has COVID-19 Changed College? (infographic)

June 2, 2020, 6:30 am
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Ordinarily high school students across the world would be taking this time to prepare for college to begin. College students would be figuring out which classes they need to take next year. The pandemic has derailed traditional college education for many, forcing current students to complete their work online while simultaneously forcing prospective students to choose between starting college online or putting it off indefinitely. Students have a lot of tough choices to make, and it could end up reshaping higher education forever.

The Pandemic Has Hit Universities And Colleges Hard

Currently, one in six students who would have started college in the fall have decided to postpone the start of their higher education careers. This coupled with having to send students home early has led to major financial losses for institutions of higher learning, which still have staff and facilities to pay for whether students are there or not.

Some institutions, such as Liberty University, opted to keep students in classes to avoid refunding tuition and other fees, even as students became sick. Now there are lawsuits alleging this move was not in students' best interest.

In the United States, Congress provided $350 million in funding for institutions that were hit hardest by pandemic closures. Just 20 institutions received the majority of funds, and the combined enrollment for those 20 institutions was just 3000 students. While that seems like the opposite of intended purposes for those funds, larger institutions often have endowments and significant funding streams that can offset difficult times, whereas smaller institutions can't survive as long without funding.

Adding to the magnitude of the problem, international students are not going to be able to return to school next year, and a loss of a quarter of international students could mean a loss of $48 billion for colleges and universities.

Students Are Impacted Most Of All

Imagine trying to start your career and your adult life right now. It's already hard enough to get started, but now jobs are going away and many students don't qualify for unemployment because they don't have a work history. To top it off, many companies are rescinding offers for internships, often how students get their foot in the door of a career track.
The stress of this pandemic is adding to students' woes. Many are feeling stress levels that could lead to PTSD or depression once this is all over. What's more, not having in-person classes is a great loss for things like the nuance that comes from in-person interactions, networking opportunities that could help build careers later, and even many of the "normal" college experiences like meeting new friends you will have for life.

Students are having to make decisions about whether to continue to get credits online, whether to postpone going to school, and whether to take online courses at a less expensive community college that will transfer to a regular school once in-person classes resume.

No matter what decision students make, this pandemic will have a lasting impact on the trajectories of their future careers. Graduating into a difficult job market is one thing, but graduating into a full-on depression where you can't get hands-on experience for most jobs is going to deal a serious blow to these students.

Even though college is unrecognizable right now, in many cases the cost hasn't changed. This is leading students to question whether these sacrifices are worth the high price tag that comes along with them.

Students have a long road ahead of them. Learn more about the unique challenges of college in the age of the corona virus from the infographic below.

Students are scrambling to figure out what higher education will look like in the fall, and 1 in 6 high school seniors are changing plans to start college then. This infographic outlines the challenges to higher education, both from the student side and from the university side.

Read next: Making Online Learning Better (infographic)
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