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By 2025 it's expected that 70% of workers will be working remotely at least a few days a week. The pandemic has forced many people who have never worked from home to do so, while also forcing many employers who would have never considered remote work otherwise to choose between continuing to operate or shutting down completely. Sometimes it takes a catastrophic event to force change, and this change is turning out to be better than everyone expected. It turns out that remote work isn't all that bad and it's probably here to stay.

Why Remote Work Is So Popular Now

Economically, it doesn't make sense that so many companies have been hesitant to adopt remote work. After The Great Recession, some companies began to allow select workers to work from home occasionally in order to save money. Having fewer employees in an office can reduce the cost of office space, utilities, and even coffee for the break room. And it has been proven that remote workers are more engaged in their work and have a higher tendency to stick around instead of going to look for work elsewhere.

What's more, having a remote workforce opens up the talent pool for companies so they are no longer confined by geographic location to find the right talent for the job. There are so many positives for remote work arrangements that it is a wonder more companies haven't adopted these policies before now.

Remote work is also highly beneficial to the remote workers. Cutting even a 15 minute commute from your life gives you back half an hour of your day, and the decreased costs associated with gasoline and car maintenance can really add up to give workers an increased monetary benefit, as well. Being able to work from home means not having to take time off if kids have a snow day, and it even gives workers more time with their families. There's also the benefit of being able to work anywhere, so even if you have exhausted all your vacation time already you can take your work with you and still participate in family trips.

Also read: LinkedIn Sees A 28 Percent Increase In Remote Job Postings; What Should You Do?

The average monetary savings for full-time remote workers is $4000 a year in decreased work clothing and laundering costs, decreased transportation costs, and decreased coffee and meals out. Even those who work from home part time can expect to save upwards of $2000 a year.

99% of the workers working from home currently would like to continue to do so, at least part of the time. 95% say they would recommend it to others, and 55% of remote workers say they would look for another job if they were no longer allowed to work remotely.

Remote Jobs Are Available, Even Now

Even though the global economy is experiencing tough times, there are still remote job opportunities to be had. IT jobs, customer service jobs, education and training jobs, and more are out there waiting for remote workers to fill them.

Start by updating your resume and LinkedIn profile and make sure your social media presence doesn't contain anything that might turn off potential employers. Job interviews have shifted online, but the same rules apply when it comes to dressing professionally and being on time. It's also important to do a tech check to ensure everything is working properly before you have your interview.

The way we work is changing, and these changes are likely to stick around for decades to come. It took a catastrophic event for these change to take place, but once we all saw we were better off the changes didn't seem so bad after all. Learn more about the future of remote work and how to apply for remote jobs from the infographic below

Remote work is growing in popularity, and as companies find that workers are healthier and more productive at home more positions will stay remote as the pandemic passes. This infographic outlines the benefits of remote work for both workers and companies as well as how to begin a job search for a remote position.

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Instagram has finally decided to run video ads in IGTV videos and make it a source of ad revenue generation. However, there are media companies and agencies that have been waiting for two years to receive ad revenue from their IGTV videos. It seems that they will have to wait for another six months, until 2021.

Instagram also intends to share 55% of the resulting revenue with the creator of the IGTV video. But Facebook has recently informed media companies that the monetization program through ad videos in IGTV videos is still in the testing phase and is available for a selected number of video creators.

So, the money rolling is not expected until 2021 at least. They believe that many emerging video creators will also see the benefits of monetization in IGTV within this testing phase of the remaining year 2020. They even plan to test it with a greater number of accounts as they slowly and steadily roll it out.

In the beginning, Instagram will sell IGTV inventory for advertisers as a standalone option. But advertisers will pay for IGTV ads only when Instagram will be able to gather a large enough audience for them.

Although Instagram had not begun the monetization, yet some media companies and individual video creators kept making IGTV videos in hopes to get them monetized once Instagram turns the feature on by opening up a revenue-sharing program and for money through sponsored videos. They even managed to gather a fairly decent audience, with a steady and slightly increasing viewership also. But many other creators and media companies started turning towards other platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, which do share revenue.

So, it is natural for them to start losing their interest in Instagram ads in IGTV videos.

However, these media executives do believe that once Instagram starts placing ads in IGTV videos, the money will start rolling out for them eventually. It will be a late call, but it will be there.

Also read: The Instagram influencer market reached $5.24 billion in 2019

Instagram’s ad placing strategy is going to be quite effective. These ads will be inserted only after users watch an IGTV video preview in their Insta feed. The preview is going to be 15 seconds long, and once it ends, people will have to click to watch the rest of the IGTV video, and that is when a 15 second long or slightly shorter ad will be placed.

Now, there are chances that these mid-roll ads may bore the audience, but they are most likely going to sit through them, just like they do while watching shows on TV that have ad breaks in between.

To make people continue watching the video and sit through the ads, the ad creators and media companies will have to edit the IGTV videos in such a way that they can hook the audience so they continue watching the whole video.

Read next: Instagram Is Experimenting With A Multi-Stories Listing To Increase User Engagement

Takumi published new research stating that YouTube content creators are most-trusted by people, however, younger people prefer to purchase through TikTok. Takumi’s latest report acknowledges customer, marketer, and influencer points of view of platforms including YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok across Germany, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. It focuses on perceptions of trust, credibility, influence, and creativity.

The report shows that during the past six months, 27% of 16-44-year-olds were influenced to buy a service or product by YouTube influencers. While 24% were influenced by Instagram creators and 15% by TikTok creators. Younger consumers (16-24-year-olds) are more likely to buy a product or service as a result of TikTok influencers as 30% in the United Kingdom and 40% in Germany were influenced to purchase a product or service by TikTok influencers. In comparison, 37% of 33-44-year-olds were most influenced by TikTok influencers in the United States.

Meanwhile, 38% of 25-34-year-olds in the UK and 59% of 25-34-year-olds in Germany were influenced to purchase by YouTube and Instagram influencers, compared to the US where 57% of 35-44-year-olds were influenced by Instagram and YouTube content creators.

We can see an evident interrelation between higher trust and elevated purchasing when we look at creator-led-customer purchasing habits. The data provided by Takumi displays how trust is earned over time. The data shows that customers trust creators more on legacy platforms as compared to those on newer platforms. 28% of consumers trust influencers on YouTube while 22% and 15% trust influencers on Instagram and TikTok respectively.

Also read: The Instagram influencer market reached $5.24 billion in 2019

With that being said, YouTube influencers as well as TikTok influencers fared well as compared to more traditional celebrity brand advocacy. The report shows that 37% of 16-44-year-olds stated that they trust a YouTube creator more as compared to a celebrity or high-profile figure. 44% of consumers had no concerns about influencers on TikTok, while 48% of consumers had no concerns about YouTube creators which was 20% back in the year 2019.

Brands who are able to educate and entertain via influencers will capture consumers’ hearts as well as wallets as compared to traditional media. The trust of marketers in different channels differs with Instagram being ranked on top followed by YouTube and TikTok.

One of the top three concerns for marketers included a ‘lack of familiarity’ with TikTok, while 96% of marketers felt familiar with Google’s YouTube. With that being said, the ability of creators to demonstrate return on investment could enhance the trust of marketers. The report also states that customers recognized Instagram as more aspirational, informational, and easy to use as compared to TikTok. While consumers consider TikTok more engaging and creative as compared to Instagram.

The Realities of Influencer Marketing – TikTok and YouTube in Focus

Source: Takumi.

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Social media companies used to be quite single minded in their focus in that they were attempting to connect people and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that these social media companies were still quite new and the concept of this technology was too unique to begin experimenting since this had the potential to alienate certain sections of the new industry’s potential user base.

However, the fact of the matter is that now social media is far too widespread for this to ever be a concern again, and this has lead to social media companies experimenting with different kinds of services, services that they might not have been able to provide previously. Gaming is something that social media platforms are becoming more and more interested in, and this is something that we have been seeing across the board. Instagram is the latest social media platform to make a foray into the world of gaming, and it is doing this in a manner that is far more unique than you would have initially been able to realize.

Essentially, Instagram has rolled out a series of game filters. These are filters that would go on your face similar to many other filters that are out there especially those that are on Snapchat as well as other companies that were inspired by Snapchat including Instagram’s parent company Facebook. However, it is important to note that Instagram’s filters are a little different because of the fact that they can interface with various games, with one example being Cut Fruit which is reminiscent of Fruit Ninja except that in this case you would be using your face to cut the virtual fruit. This is just one of hundreds of games that Instagram is now offering to its users.

Incorporating gaming into face filters is a very unique concept, and it will surely spawn a great deal of engagement which is what Instagram wants of course. Another thing that users would be able to do would be record videos of themselves using these game filters and posting the videos to their stories, something that will further increase engagement and make it so that more people get to know about the games that are available to play on Instagram. This would also serve as an additional reason for people to use the social media platform in the first place.

One thing that a lot of people are talking about is whether or not this will result in a resurgence for augmented reality gaming. Ever since Pokemon Go when AR burst onto the scene with a real bang, the appeal of the tech seems to have waned perhaps due to the reason that it is tricky to implement and can limit options concerned with what games can be created and how these games would be played. However, from filters that put your face on a motorcycle helmet while you are riding one as well as turn you into a skateboarder and allow you to jump over obstacles if you blink. The games are not exactly going to win any awards but perhaps quantity over quality is the right way to go here.

Facebook has been adding a bunch of new features to the various apps that the company has to offer, and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that they are trying to maximize the user experience in every single way, and make it so that the average user has far more options available to them than might have been the case otherwise.

One of the latest updates has come to the Pages app, which is essentially an app that would allow you to manage various pages that you would have created through your Facebook account.

This new update, as first reported by Socialmediatoday (via Meg Coffey), will bring a feature that would make it so that you can look into sending customized marketing emails to people that have connected with you through your page. There is one caveat though, and this caveat is that your email address will have to be connected with the Facebook account that you are using to manage the page in question.

There is a definite benefit to Facebook because of the fact that it will help them mine more data since people who might not have connected their email addresses will now connect them.

If you think about it, this is the sort of thing that can really help small businesses as well because of the fact that they will now have an integrated resource from which they can manage pretty much all of their correspondence.

What’s more is that this is a service that a business might have had to pay quite a bit for in the past, but it is now being provided through something as accessible as your Facebook account which is the sort of thing that would definitely be quite beneficial and would make it so that pretty much anyone can look into this sort of thing and take advantage of it.

The primary reason behind why Facebook is doing this probably has something or the other to do with how many people end up downloading the Pages app, and Facebook will probably be adding a few new features to meet this end shortly.

It may be easy for us to assume that the global COVID-19 pandemic would make influencers seem a lot less concerning for us. However, the fact that a lot of individuals had plenty of time has proved to be a good thing in various ways. The latest study from Matter Communications indicates that around 63% of customers have actually spent time posting and viewing the stuff on social media platforms during the last two months. This has resulted in consumers to view more content from social media influencers.

The increase in engagement has also helped to increase the level of trust among these influencers from a brand itself, and along with suggestions from family members and friends. The research from Matter Communications also discovered that social media influencers have not been tone-deaf to ongoing coronavirus situations. The study found that only 19% of consumers think that the content from influencers has become unhelpful during the coronavirus pandemic.

The most surprising thing is that influencers were able to drive conversations related to brands even during the global coronavirus pandemic, and continued to drive sales from their respective social platforms. According to the study, influence has even affected the ‘buying journey’ of around 82% of the customers, particularly those who have an interest in personal technology, health & wellness, and food & beverage.

Mandy Mladenoff, President Matter Communications stated that brands of almost all sizes are dealing with how to boost or shift their public relations, marketing as well as social media strategies to readjust currently. One of the biggest challenges for brands is how to legitimately connect with their customers during the pandemic. Mladenoff also stated that the data shared by Matter Communications makes it clear that influencer marketing offers an exclusive and timely opportunity for brands to engage with a helpful approach.

Influence.co also conducted a study and found that 60% of consumers think that physical appearance is one of the most significant factors which can contribute to the success of any influencer. However, only 51% of influencers think the same way. According to the CEO of Influence.co, Neil Robertson, many people believe that social media influence is a viable career and 61% of social media influencers believe that social media influencing is a long-term career option for people. Robertson stated that social media influencers are positive about the future of social media influencing and they will continue to be successful as long as these influencers are willing to adjust according to the ongoing situation.

It is evident that the world is not going back to an entirely normal situation anytime in the near future and everything has become dramatically different for us. Influencers need to adapt and according to CEO and creative director at VALERIA INC, Valeria Lipovetsky, the coronavirus has put a spotlight on the value of influencer, content creators, and it has proved him that why influencers do, matters.

The effects of the coronavirus inspired Lipovetsky to think of ways how she can help people and bring some positivity for individuals through what she does. She explained that people want to feel connected and surrounded by expenders during these difficult times. Lipovetsky started educating people about various topics like mental health, women’s health, and fitness. She also warned that influencers should remain transparent and real, and discussed a couple of reasons which could result in disconnection with the audience.

People are bombarded with a massive amount of information daily and it may make them indifferent to it.

It is easy for content creators to get stuck on autopilot with content, and other creators are currently active on various social platforms.

Lipovetsky says that the pandemic gave her the opportunity to reevaluate and reconnect with her community. The pandemic gave her a chance to provide a lot of value to her audience and she may get their long-term engagement. To primary goal for any influencer is to keep a tight relationship with the people.

Photo: Getty

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Apple has come out with another iOS version 13.5.1 for all compatible devices. While Apple fans and community are regarding it as a surprising update with some minor additions being made, the reality is that this version includes a very big change that will make a massive difference in times to come.

Tim Cook and his team have gone for blocking the “unc0ver jailbreak tool” that will further make it more impossible for anyone to unlock an iPhone.

For those of you who are not aware about unc0ver, the tool is regarded as the most advanced jailbreak solution for all models of the iPhones that have version 13.5 running on them to date. Unc0ver is also one of the most tested jailbreak tools as many hopped onto trying it after the official launch.

However, now it seems like Apple is not very happy with its own jailbreak solution and that influenced the decision of blocking it with the latest iOS version.

Every iPhone that is already updated to this newer version won’t be able to run unc0ver on their phones and Apple is also planning for blocking the downgrades too till 13.5. So, unlocking an iPhone will remain impossible - at least till the time developers of unc0ver themselves don’t come up with a valid update.

Currently, Apple has patched the vulnerability and for the next update of unc0ver, the team will have to find another bug that can be abused with the purpose of unlocking any iPhone.

Furthermore, Apple has also mentioned in the security release notes of iOS 13.5.1 that a kernel update has been included to solve the memory consumption issues. There is also an application to implement arbitrary code with kernel - which is exactly how unc0ver first managed to jailbreak any iPhone 6s or later models as a start.

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t given any more options to users who still want the jailbreak option on their phones. If you love it so much, then don’t upgrade the phone to the newer iOS version just.

A picture on social media featuring a lake, a cloudy sunset, and greenery along the shoreline has been making rounds, but not because of its beautiful scenic imagery, it is becoming famous for all the wrong reasons.

It has been reported by Ice universe, that when this picture is being applied as a wallpaper, it is causing an error. It is a bug that crashes the handsets immediately, and when the phone tries to reboot, the screen would keep turning on and off continuously, making it difficult, almost impossible to perform any task. In some cases, restarting the phone in the Safe Mode also did not help.

While it is affecting different brands, Samsung and Google’s Pixel are especially getting more seriously affected by this bug.

Considering this, Samsung is going to roll out a maintenance update on the 11th of June 2020.

We don't not recommend trying it out, and it has tried to contact Google for more updates too.

A tweet by ‘Ice Universe’ issued clear warnings for people to never set a picture as wallpaper, especially for Samsung mobile phone users, because it crashes the device and even if someone sends this picture, one must ignore it at all costs! This tweet had thousands of re-tweets and likes, and many people reported that their phones had been affected too.

The tech journalist Bogdan Petrovan at Android Authority has noticed that the bug did not affect his Huawei 20 Pro, but his Google Pixel 2 did face the malfunction. Apparently, it is affecting some devices running on the latest version of Android, which is Android 10.

Android 11’s launch was expected this week, but now it has postponed too.

Ken Munro and Dave Lodge, from Pen Test Partner, a security firm, have provided insights about why this picture is most likely causing the phones to crash.

According to their theory, digital photographs have improved in quality, but there is an issue with the color space which needs to be checked by the phones to display the right colors in images properly. For example, it will make the phone know how to display the exact right shade of any particular color in a picture perfectly.

Also read: Mobile Gaming Is Going To Have A Blockbuster Year 2020, Beating PC And Console Gaming

Some color spaces have specialist uses in graphic design, so sometimes images are not displayed in the standard RGB format. Also, it is quite possible to deliberately create images that have excessive color information that becomes difficult for some phones to handle.

And this is probably what happened in the case of this picture that caused some phones to crash. The phones did not know how to deal with the picture correctly because of issues with its color spaces and it also happened because the software developers had not considered that this could happen.

This is a plausible explanation and it makes sense too. Let us see what other theories come concerning this issue.

Read next: Apple Release iOS Version 13.5.1 By Blocking The Most Advanced Jailbreak Tool

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread its wings, misinformation and theories about the virus also become more apparent on the social media network.

In fact, studies indicate that most of the internet users have believed in at least one false claim about the COVID-19, while there are many others who are openly sharing the same – enhancing the fear and anxiety amongst the global population.

And despite the urging by the World Health Organization and other authorities, people continue to believe any ‘info’ they receive regarding the health outbreak.

Unfortunately, in these trying times, it is becoming a challenge to differentiate between authentic and false news. Here, we share with you some tips that you can try to minimize your ‘belief’ on the misinformation circulating around the social media network.

Private message

One way to minimize the spread of misinformation is to send the OP a private message, instead of mentioning their incorrect information publicly. This often leads the poster to take down the content discreetly without feeling any kind of embarrassment on a public forum.

Be curious

Often the public mixes up the words of higher authorities and creates a new wave of information. If any content posted by your acquaintances seems dubious, you may want to ask them privately whether their information is checked for accuracy.

Relate to the information

Recently a video clip called ‘Plandemic’ became viral that started a flurry of discussion amongst the social media fanatics. Dr. Ashley Alker, who works in the emergency department created a Twitter thread in this regard where she dismantled many of the false claims made in the video and shared with her network.

Her tactic worked as she put together the pieces of evidence in a simplified material, making it easy for the general audience to understand and relate with.

Lessen the data load

Another health expert says that non-scientist individuals usually consume information via stories, rather than statistics, facts, and graphs. However, if you are aware of a specific news being irrelevant, it is highly suggested to reply to the same with a few authority-backed facts to limit the spread.

Show the facts

Similarly, recent viral news went across the social media where the controversial scientist Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai made false allegations regarding Dr. Anthony Fauci. However, a medical expert shared Ayyadurai’s lack of expertise in infectious disease and immunology – putting an end to the news.

Keep trying

The internet is full of information that tries to create a negative belief about many sensitive topics, especially coronavirus. Unfortunately, we cannot convince everyone regarding the authenticity of each information, while there are many who would continue to be the churner of misinformation, despite the efforts of others trying to flag their content.

In this case, it is best to mute or block the certain person instead of becoming overwhelmed regarding the situation. Social media networks also give the users ability to report such news for professional investigation.

In the end, we recommend that it is best to believe in the information and updates received by the WHO and other credible sources only. Stay safe and remain proactive regarding any news you come across!

This past week a lot of protests as well as a fair amount of violence has erupted in America, and a lot of this has to do with the fact that a black man named George Floyd was allegedly killed due to excessive force applied by police officers, with some going so far as to refer to this as police brutality.

This is a hot button issue, one that pretty much anyone with a fair amount of relevance is going to want to comment on. U.S. President Donald Trump, no stranger to courting controversy or making outrageous statements, weighed in with a series of tweets and a Facebook post that has some up in arms, calling it a statement that glorifies violence.

Twitter has seemed to take this seriously with the social media platform putting a disclaimer on the tweet echoing the sentiment that it glorified violence, but it seems that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided that the post does not need to be removed or censored in any way, shape or form, furthering his opinion that censorship is something that Facebook is not responsible for.

This has caused an uproar not just among the general public but among Facebook’s own employees as well, with many employees protesting through virtual walkouts during meetings and some going so far as to resign from the company.

This seems to indicate that a period of strife is bound to occur for Facebook and the social media platform might just struggle to find its footing since it is doing something that much of the public as well as its own employees don’t find acceptable. Zuckerberg has remained adamant that this is the way to go, and at this point we will have to wait and see whether an unstoppable force can overcome an immovable object.

Photo: Reuters

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Google Chrome has ended up becoming one of the best ways in which people can end up accessing PDF files. This is pretty amazing and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that previously the only way to view a PDF would have involved using some kind of proprietary technology that would’ve been quite difficult to make the most of and would have restricted access to PDFs for a lot of people all in all.

However, for all of the great benefits that Chrome can provide to you in terms of allow you to check out PDFs and the like, one major glaring fault was that editing PDFs often ended up becoming a real nightmare that you might have to deal with. While you can edit certain PDFs on the browser which allows you to fill forms or perhaps make certain annotations that you can keep in mind for later reference but a lot of people often find themselves enormously frustrated when they attempt to download the PDF in question due to the reason that any changes that they might have made would most likely not end up being in the file that gets downloaded in the first place.

Some people found a way to make things work by using the print screen button before making a download but it’s fair to say that this problem shouldn’t require a workaround in the first place. Hence, it would be good news for a lot of people to hear that Google Chrome is going to be fixing this issue at last. Soon users would be able to use Chrome browser as a proper PDF file communicator, one that would allow you to not just read the file in question but also make it so that you can edit it and save the file that has all the requisite edits.

We played with this feature in Google Chrome Canary's latest version by enabling two experimental flags chrome://flags/#pdf-form-save and chrome://flags/#pdf-viewer-update. In our test we were able to save edited version of PDF files but as the feature is still in development phase we found that Chrome is not showing "Edited document" or "Original" options when downloading the PDF, as Chrome directly downloads the edited version, plus, after downloading a file Chrome is somehow losing the PDF file format and converting the file into an unknown yet editable/viewable PDF format. We hope these bugs will be fixed before public release.

Sources: Chromium Gerrit / Chromium bug log.

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Since a lot of people have been on Facebook since they were very young, the social media platform has ended up seeing pretty much all of their highs and lows. The prevalence of social media has made a lot of people, especially young teenagers who tend to over share in general, regret the various posts that they have made down the line.

You might have some kind of an ex-lover who you made a lot of posts with or about, and now that the relationship is over and you are trying to move on these posts are making it difficult for you to truly end up moving on in the manner that would have genuinely been ideal for you all in all. You might also have made a few posts that would be embarrassing to you in the present as they represent aspects of your past self that you might want to end up forgetting. Previous posts that you have made on Facebook could also affect your employment status, something that a lot of young people are starting to realize now that they have begun entering the job market in earnest.

With all of that having been said and out of the way, it is important to note that Facebook is now going to make it very easy for you to delete old posts. There is a new function called “Manage Activity” that is going to be extremely useful in this regard. You would be able to delete individual posts but you might also be able to look into mass deleting posts in bulk which can be useful if you are trying to forget about a specific time period that you may have been involved in.

One really useful feature that you are going to get is that you can select all posts that mention a specific person and delete those. This will be particularly useful for a lot of people and is probably going to end up being used quite often. All in all this new feature will give people more control over their social media presence.

In a blog post Facebook team announced that Manage Activity is available on Facebook Lite app. While the feature will be rolled out on mobile soon, and it will rolled out for desktop users in the future.

Read next: Facebook Adds Interesting New Option to Pages App

To see the progress and success of an application, it is important to keep an eye on some stats that show whether that app is getting a sizable number of downloads or not? It is imperative to find out if there is an appropriate user engagement on the app or not?

So, to check the level of user engagement that every app gets to ensure desired profits, some methods are employed, which are as follows:

1. Push Notifications, which is a way to reach out to the inactive users while also preserving the old as well new users.

They can increase the app engagement by 88% because almost 52% of users are always looking for offers and proposals in these push notifications and 40% of users are quick to react to these notifications within one hour.

It has been noticed that when a Push Notification is enabled, two-thirds of app users start using the app within a month. So, this not only stimulates user engagement and improves retention, but it also increases the conversion rates by targeting the right users and enhancing brand consistency.

2. Through In-App notification Messages that appear on the screen when a user actively using the app.

They have a wider reach and seem very personalized; therefore, their response ratio is 8 times higher than Push Notifications. They have decreased new-user retention from 80% to 50%, but they work great when used for app-based events due to a 4 times better conversion rate than all other methods.

3. SMS can increase customer engagement and enhance the promotion of products and services. According to studies, 98% of text messages are acknowledged within the same day, while 74% of users claim to not have any unread SMS in their phones. Also, SMS service is 3 times more used over calling among women between 18 to 34 years of age.

32% of users react to promotional SMS from vendors and dealers.

The engagement rates through SMS are 6-8 times higher than emails.

4. The importance of Emails cannot be denied, because 71% of smartphone users prefer using the app for email purposes against surfing on various websites.

An open email rate on the app is 50%, and a non-responsive email can be deleted within 3 seconds, but responsive emails can increase the click rate by 15%.

So, these are some important methods to ensure mobile app engagement with the users. All these methods improve the chances of connectivity with the consumers, and that is always beneficial for marketing as well as engagement and promotion.

Infographic on Mobile App User Engagement

Source: Dotcominfoway.

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Different types of notifications and permission prompt appearing on various websites while you are using Google Chrome browser is nothing new. But seeing that how annoying these prompts and notifications get for the users; Google enabled a toggle in Chrome 80 which could quieten down these notification prompts.

With Chrome 84, Google further made some improvisations by automatically minimizing those annoying messages appearing on the screen, wasting the time of users, and making them agitated in the process too.

Now, Google is working on further upgrading as it is currently testing a feature that will make other requests apart from notifications and permission prompts less interfering and less annoying too.

Every user must have experienced at least once in their lifetime that while they try to visit a site or open an article, a window would pop-up demanding the user’s location or some other information when all it needs is probably something as simple and basic as a zip code.

Since Google itself allowed sites to show these prompts in the beginning, it is rather unlikely that it can undo this change. But it is working to mend and bring a few tweaks to make these prompts appear somewhere else on the interface rather than popping up in a small window and not vanishing until one option is chosen. So, this prompt is going to appear as a ‘chip’ in the address bar.

This ‘#permission-chip’ feature is currently being tested by Google Chrome, and it is accessible at chrome://flags#permission-chip.

This feature works on Chrome for macOS, Chrome OS, Linux, and Windows. This flag is present in Chrome 84.0.4140.1, and the permission chip functionality has been spotted to be working with Chrome 85.0.4159.0 in the Canary channel.

Above are 2 screenshots of new and improved permission prompts in Google Chrome browser. Below current permission requests popup screenshot.

Although Google has been taking steps to make the overall user experience smooth and productive, this particular step was actually necessary. Google must warn the sites that keep sending such unnecessary prompts just because Google had initially allowed them. It is like they are abusing their power and trying deliberately to make the users suffer as much as possible!

So, it is good to see that despite being a little slow, Google is taking some serious measures to reduce this pain and make the user experience as smooth and efficient as is possible.

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When it comes to smartphones people often tend to assume that this is the single most successfully category that is out there, and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that everyone seems to be using a smartphone these days. However, most people don’t realize that smartphone is a struggling product in the current market, and it seems like the recent pandemic that seems to be impacting every single walk of life has ended up seriously impacting smartphone sales as well thereby making it quite difficult for the industry to sustain itself in the near future.

A global research firm known as Gartner has released a report for the first quarter of 2020, and this report has confirmed what everyone else had been fearing for quite some time now, and this is that the smartphone category is in dire straits at this current point in time all in all. The overall drop has been for around 20.2%, but the difference varies based on the company. While the vast majority of smartphone manufacturers have seen a decrease in overall sales, the Chinese company Xiaomi is actually seeing small but significant increase in sales of 1.4%, an amount that isn’t big enough to make any waves but is pretty impressive given the current economic climate in the world.

Samsung has been one of the worst hit in the market right now, with the tech giant suffering from a 22.7% drop. Huawei saw the biggest drop overall of over 27% which should dispel any rumors that Chinese companies might be faring better than those outside of Japan. Apple seems to be doing alright though as the company has seen a drop of only 8% which is relatively small when compared to other manufacturers.

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Reddit’s current CEO Steve Huffman came under the line of fire from the former CEO, Ellen Pao. The reason was Huffman's open letter that he posted on Monday, addressing his employees that the company does not tolerate hate, racism, and violence in any form and that these values are clear. This letter was a reaction to the US protests against police brutality.

Ellen Pao, who served as an Interim CEO in 2014 had a lot of things to say to him in response, and for a good reason.

So, basically what happened was that in 2016, during the presidential elections, a pro-Trump subreddit which goes by the name The_Donald rose to fame due to their controversial posts that included conspiracy theories and racist, hateful content. Pao had already suffered due to her fights with Reddit users and the website’s management to curb down abuse and harassment on the platform while she was the acting CEO.

Huffman, who is the co-founder of Reddit, became the CEO of the site when Pao resigned within a year. The reason for her resignation was perhaps her dissatisfaction and disappointment in her failure to stop abuse and harassment on the platform.

Now when Huffman came in the power, he did try to protect free speech while keeping an eye on the moderation of abusive content. He also shut down a few abusive subreddits at that time. He even took fights with The_Donald to great lengths by editing some user’s comments to make fun of them. But it took him few years to actually quarantine The_Donald in 2019 because of their posts that incited violence, hate, and abuse.

But they only got quarantined, not completely shut down.

A community gets quarantined when it receives significant reports about violations of Reddit’s rules and policies regarding violence and some other facets of the Content policy.

When a community gets quarantined, it is only visible to the users if they make an extra tap to open their content. Also, these communities are only available for users with a verified email address. There are some other restrictions to view these communities.

So, basically, Pao is blaming Huffman that he should have taken a solid step to completely shun the abusing, violence instigating community, The_Donald, instead of putting them in quarantine, and that too, after such a long time. Pao also believes that Huffman is responsible for amplifying hate, racism, and violence because according to her, Reddit nurtures and monetizes racism against blacks and white supremacy and hate all the time.

Pao’s anger makes sense because Huffman’s recent open letter itself is contradicting with his comments in 2018 when he first said that racism is ‘not against the rules’ of the platform. He later clarified his stance by saying that what he meant was that racism is ‘not welcome here.’

In either case, his prior comments do suggest that he himself was not too much against racist, hateful, and violent posts on the site, as he is trying to portray in his open letter now.

Other social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook also keep updating their content policies to avoid harassing content on their platform. Reddit must clear their heads and improve their content policies in the favor of less hateful and abusive content too.

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Pinterest is a pretty interesting place, and one of the hallmarks of this content discover platform is the fact that you are probably going to see a lot of visual you like. We’re talking about lamps and tables and lots of other things as well, and for the most part up until this point in time the only real way in which you could end up truly being able to find something that you saw and liked on the platform was to ask the original poster where they got it from or where you could get one of your own.

This is all changing with a new Pinterest feature that is being referred to as “See it, Snap it, Buy it,” and the way it works is that while you are going through your Pinterest feed if you come upon something or the other that you might like to buy then it would now be possible for you to snap a picture of this by opening the camera tab or you can upload a picture of your own and then scroll the Shop section so that eventually you can find out where you can get the kind of products that you are clearly so interested in.

This is another push that Pinterest is making for eCommerce, and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that eCommerce is a big earner for a lot of companies and many if not most social media platforms are moving in on it. Pinterest is uniquely positioned because of the fact that this is more or less untapped territory and if the social media platform manages to get a win here then that means that it would be able to get a lot more dominance in the market than might have been possible otherwise.

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Recently, the Global Disinformation Index reviewed dozens of websites containing coronavirus misinformation and discovered that Google featured ads on 84% of those websites. Social media platforms as well as search platforms had to struggle while updating monetization and ad policies during the pandemic.

When you visit a site and view ads, it is symbiotic relation. The brand pays to feature their ads, the one who owns the website, generates money, and various platforms such as Google broker that relation.

If a website is part of Google’s approved advertiser network then in most cases it means, that particular website allows Google to supply advertisements from buyers automatically. However, during this age of fake-news, a question arises around Google’s ad networks’ responsibility on which websites and what sort of content it powers ads for.

For instance, a Veeam ad is being displayed on an article which claims that charities related to the coronavirus pandemic given by Bill Gates are part of a world domination plot.

Another article was also spotted which claims that Bill Gates attempted bribery on lawmakers from Nigeria for a coronavirus vaccine. Microsoft Teams ad was appearing in that article.

It was also discovered that O2 communications ad was appearing on an article which claimed links between 5G networks and coronavirus. Ads from Amazon, Oracle NetSuite, Vimeo, eBay, Deloitte, Nintendo Switch, PayPal and other big brand are also being featured along with inappropriate content. When the company was questioned about this, Google stated that the company monitor particular page content, and not a website at large. Google also informed media outlets that they are committed to bring quality content across its variety of products, plus the tech giant also emphasis on its efforts to protect its users from medical misinformation. Google's spokesperson Christa Muldoon says that, "Any time we find publishers [or websites] that violate our policies, we take immediate action."

However, if you are a brand owner using Google’s network, you can choose to create a blacklist of websites you do not want your advertisements on. Still, the question remains where the responsibility of this matter truly falls. This is not the first time the company is facing backlash for where Google runs ads. As Google is continuously expanding its monetization opportunities for people across YouTube as well as websites, a question arises that when Google bans a creator, how Google police the appearance of that particular creator at large.

For instance, Google banned a British conspiracy theorist named David Icke for spreading coronavirus misinformation. He had been running a channel on YouTube for more than 14 years, and now he is seen on other YouTube channels.

A spokesman from Google stated that content creators who have been blocked from YouTube can appear in videos owned by other YouTubers as long as the content does not go against Google’s policies. The debate (should people get a monetary reward for spreading misinformation?) will continue as more and more creators join various platforms each day.

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Microsoft has confirmed that it will soon be bringing in a 7x7 video calling experience for its users. It means that a gallery view for 49 persons will soon be enabled in Microsoft Teams, which is very close to what its rival app Zoom offers.

Microsoft has been trying very hard to catch up with Zoom’s technology which allows the hosting of 50 persons in a single screen during a call, at one time.

"To the 7x7 question, adding more video to Teams meetings is something we said we would also be working on and deliver later this year.", explained Ilya Bukshteyn a Microsoft employee in a Tech Community post, who also retweeted a post of CRN claiming that Microsoft Teams is working on to expanding the visible participants to 49.

Two weeks ago, the CVP of Microsoft Teams, Mr. Rish Tandon had announced a 3x3 video calling experience with a new hand feature.

The ‘raise hand feature’ is an innovative way to send a visual signal to anyone in the meeting if a user needs to say something or share an input.

To provide optimal work experience, users will be able to pop out meetings in Teams too, which will allow the users to multitask more efficiently. Also, calling into separate windows will make the workflow more productive and steadier.

3x3 video calling experience was the first step in the roadmap, but now Microsoft Teams will be increasing the number of people viewable during a video call, and that is going to be a really nice step.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, lockdown and social distancing measures had to be implemented all around the world. So, people had to resort to remote working, and for that, different collaborative tools like Zoom, Slack, G Suite, and some other apps came in handy. Facebook also announced to launch Messenger Rooms soon, which will host up to 50 members in a video conference call.

Microsoft Teams also has played a vital role in the lives of users who were looking for collaborations to carry on their work from home efficiently. But their 3x3 gallery view on a screen during a video call was a little limiting and inconvenient for larger meetings for bigger organizations. They still saw massive growth during these months of lockdown, with around 75 million daily active users, but their customer retention was still questionable, especially because of their competitor apps.

Therefore, Microsoft Teams needed to increase the number of viewable persons in a single screen during their calls.

Let us wait and see how all of this plays out. Microsoft has not announced yet about the arrival date of this new 7x7 video experience though.

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Google is introducing some new features to help users get better and more restful sleep. The updates are mostly related to the Digital Wellbeing tool found in Android devices and with technology use on a significant rise due to the coronavirus – the updates will be much appreciated as the world gets ready to reopen.

Here, let’s take a look at some of the details provided by Google.

Bedtime mode

Bedtime Mode or the Wind Down feature is a setting option in Google phones that encourage users to disconnect at night. The tools in this feature include Do Not Disturb – to limit notifications and a Grayscale mode to make the phone less appealing during the nighttime.

The Bedtime Mode can also be automatically enabled when you plug in your phone in the charging station at night. You can also choose a bedtime window for the feature so it does not ‘turn on’ if you keep the phone at charging during the daytime.

The Bedtime Mode will also get a Quick Setting toggle now so you can manage your changes more easily. It will also be made available on all devices with Digital Wellbeing and offer enhanced parental controls.

Also read: A New Website by Google will Educate People about Preventing Online Scams

Google Clock

The Google Clock app is also getting a bit of makeover by Google. We are all accustomed to waking up at the same time each day. But now the Clock app will get a new ‘Bedtime’ tab along with several other tools to ensure that you sleep on time and for the required number of hours.

It will also suggest calming music taken from third-party apps like Spotify, Calm, and YouTube to help you sleep better.

And when it’s time to wake up – the clock will have a ‘Sunrise Alarm’ complete with very bright colors. The alarm will play 15 minutes before your scheduled wakeup time.

The Bedtime tab will be made available on every device with Digital Wellbeing.

Family link

Lastly, Google is adding some bedtime features to the Family Link protocol. With this update, parents can create a bedtime schedule for their children and customize it according to the weekdays and weekends. Once bedtime rolls around, the child’s phone will automatically lock. However, the phone will be allowed to make emergency calls.

And although Google did not mention, we expect some reminders or notifications to appear on the child’s phone before the actual bedtime!

The Bedtime Mode features are being made available on Google Pixel phones now while the Clock update is anticipated later this summer on all Android devices.

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Google adds new features in Digital Wellbeing, Clock, and Family link

Bedtime mode

Google Clock

Family link