Tech news outside the mainstream
Uncommon news and information with a technical twist and some topics that are a bit out there. Enjoy...
Andrew Hyde
Andrew Hyde
LinkedIn is a source of cutting edge tech news from fascinating people that make it. Get inspired.
LinkedIn has evolved from a job networking site to something much greater and I hope will continue to grow into more of a news and information platform. The traditional media outlets are dead they just don't know it yet. I get my weather from an app and I really only need to see the radar to know what's up. Waiting and wading through commercials and pop ups adverts is a waste and a desperate attempt to monetize a couple seconds of valid content. Investigative reporting is all but gone, journalism has become a joke, paid political influence and other content so watered down as not to offend, just lulls and pacifies. But, if your time is valuable and you're tired of misinformation and redirection from what's really going on, you've probably already found new sources of information.
For tech news and events there is probably no better place than LinkedIn. I follow groups and many fascinating people for their perspectives, bleeding new technologies and inspiration. And, although I hope to never have look to work for another organization again, I stay plugged in to events and people I would like to work with for any of the several projects I have at hand. For me, LinkedIn is a way to learn from the advice of accomplished professionals and shortcut some of the hard tuition you'd pay in real life.
LinkedIn has almost a billion users worldwide. Here are some other demographics from Kinsta.com about the user base. If you don't have an account, get one it's free and it's valuable, whether you're looking to work, grow or stay informed.
If your business doesn't have a strong online presence, plan on going out of business.
Companies often allocate substantial funds to marketing campaigns in order to promote their products or services. These campaigns encompass various expenses such as TV and radio commercials, print advertisements and social banners. The objective is to enhance brand visibility and reach a wider audience, which typically necessitates a significant investment. A 30-second TV spot during prime time can cost around $110,000, excluding the additional costs for production and management. It is crucial that the target demographic does not miss these advertisements by channel surfing. Print advertisements are also expensive, with production costs and yearly commitment terms averaging around $20,000. Consider how your customers will find you and most people are less frequently viewing these mediums, everyone is online and it is the first place anyone goes to find anything. Bottom line, traditional advertising is very expensive and no where near as effective as a domain name and won't be going forward.
Any businesses that wants to survive and prosper must develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that centers around a domain name and a robust digital marketing presence. Recognize the value of domain names and the exposure they provide, opting to add different domain names for various product segments and growth. Domain names are marketing assets and they persist in value though mergers and acquisitions.
Become digitally enlightened and gain significant advertising value, extended market reach, brand recognition and authority all with the power of a domain name. There's no excuse today for being as short sighted as this management team.
Is the "Birds Aren't Real" movement a growing conspiracy or is it an epic marketing strategy?
You'll have to decide for yourself. The founder and lead activist Peter McIndoe has been written about in The New York Times, The Gaurdian, The Hill and on hundreds of other sites since the movement hit mainstream in 2017, but it's roots really began decades before. I suspect more grass than roots.
Did you know the word bird, B.I.R.D. means Bionic Information Recording Drone. If not all birds are drones yet, they may soon be along with flying insects. Keep a close watch on dragonflies and carpenter bees.
The right to privacy is slipping away like a bird though the forest trees. Don't be fooled by the government smoke show. Have you ever seen a baby pidgeon? No. But, you do see birds sitting on power lines charging up their batteries everyday. Yes, and there's a lot more down this rabbit hole.
Visit BirdsArentReal.com buy a t-shirt, create awareness and stand up against the surveillance state.
Quality domain names are drying up, get the best domain names while you still can.
Domain names are the real estate of the internet, and they are becoming scarcer every day. With over 4.5 billion internet users and countless businesses vying for online attention, the demand for premium domain names has never been higher. If you are considering investing in a domain name, now is the time to act before they are gone.
A domain name is an essential part of any online business or brand, and it can have a significant impact on your online success. A strong domain name is memorable, brandable, and easy to find, which can help drive traffic and establish your online presence. It can also help you stand out from your competitors, build trust with your customers, and establish your brand as an authority in your industry.
However, as more and more businesses and individuals recognize the importance of domain names, the supply is dwindling. Many of the most valuable domain names have already been registered, and the ones that are still available are being snapped up quickly. Once a domain name is registered, it is not available for anyone else to use, meaning that if you don't act quickly, you could miss out on your ideal domain name.
Investing in a domain name is also a smart financial decision. Premium domain names have been known to sell for millions of dollars, and even less valuable domain names can appreciate in value over time. By investing in a domain name now, you could be setting yourself up for a significant return on investment in the future.
If you are interested in buying a domain name, it is important to act quickly. Do your research to find a domain name that aligns with your goals and brand. With the right domain, you can establish a strong online presence, build your brand, and set yourself up for long-term success. Don't wait, buy those domain names today before they are gone.
The speed of technology is taking off, try and hang on.
Technology is increasing at an exponential rate, with the pace of technological change accelerating rapidly in recent years. This is due to a variety of factors, including advancements in computer processing power, the increasing availability of data, and the development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum computing.
One measure of the pace of technological change is Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years. This law has held true for several decades and has been a driving force behind the rapid growth of computing power.
Additionally, the rate of technological change can be seen in the development and adoption of new technologies, such as smartphones, social media, and cloud computing, which have transformed the way we live and work.
The speed of technological change is also apparent in the rate at which new technologies are being developed and brought to market. For example, the time it takes for a new technology to reach 50 million users has been decreasing steadily, from 75 years for the telephone to just 13 days for the Pokemon Go app.
Internet usage will continue to grow over the next 20 years, especially as more people around the world gain access to the internet.
According to data from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the number of internet users worldwide reached 4.9 billion in 2021, up from 3.4 billion in 2016. This represents a growth rate of more than 7% per year. If this trend continues, we can expect the number of internet users to reach 7.5 billion by 2030 and 9.7 billion by 2040.
The growth in internet usage is being driven by a number of factors, including the increasing availability and affordability of internet access, the proliferation of smartphones and other mobile devices, and the growing importance of digital technologies in daily life.
In addition to the overall number of internet users, other trends to watch in the coming years include the continued growth of e-commerce and online services, the increasing use of artificial intelligence and automation, and the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) and other connected technologies.
The Value of Personal Interactions
It's possible that AI could make human interactions more valuable, but it depends on how it's used. For example, AI-powered customer service chatbots can handle routine inquiries and free up human representatives to handle more complex issues. This could lead to more efficient and satisfying interactions for customers.
AI can also be used to personalize interactions, such as recommending products or services based on a customer's previous interactions or browsing history. This can lead to more relevant and valuable interactions.
AI can also be used to improve communication in areas such as education and healthcare. For example, AI tutors can provide personalized feedback and instruction to students, while AI-powered virtual assistants can help doctors and nurses with tasks such as scheduling and record-keeping.
However, if AI is used to replace human interactions entirely, it could lead to a loss of emotional connection and empathy. Additionally, if AI is not designed to be transparent and accountable, it could lead to mistrust and dissatisfaction.
Overall, AI has the potential to make human interactions more valuable, but it's important to use it in a way that complements and enhances human capabilities, rather than replacing them.
Dive into AI with OpenAI.com and see what you can build while AI is in its infancy and share it with real people while you can still tell them apart from the robots that will be coming soon.
Domain name values are rising for several key reasons:
First, they provide unprecedented advertising abilities and can reach out to new clients and interact with them 24X7 where no other media can't even compete.
Secondly, absolute creditability. People judge your domain name, your url, your address, this is how they find you and get to know you. How well your site looks and works is also a factor, I hope that is obvious. Don't lose the fish at the dock. But, if your domain name is off center, or has extra words, hyphens, number, all these make it weaker and harder to do business with your organization. Look at how you view and surf, how fast are you gone and less likely to put a credit card up when these two key points are off? 77 percent are gone in less than half a second.
Domain names are like real estate, they're virtual real estate, but the difference is domain names rarely and infrequently come back on the market. Once sold, they are gone. If they do come up for sale, it's usually in the aftermath of a merger and for 100X what it last sold for. Like real estate, inventory is low and depleting. The pool of good names is drying up at an accelerating rate.
Get the .com extension or you'll be giving business to it. Maybe a .org depending on what your business is, and a .us maybe a good thing 10 years from now, but get the best .com names while you can. For the all the reasons above, and most prominently, domain names are the most powerful advertising mechanism in place for the next 20 years.
Prices are going up. Open to offers, take a look here.
The key method of developing your business is advertising. Call it integrated marketing with all the other forms of getting your message out, but it still boils down to advertising, which is making it public and memorable.
You may advertise in a trade magazine or on a billboard, but your website is the only form of advertising that's constantly available to your audience. Your domain name is the focal point for all of these marketing components, at the corner stone, and the foundation from where you build your brand upon.
Get a dot com name. Other extensions may gain popularity in 20 years, but for the foreseeable future your marketing efforts will end up in the junk folder. Even in tech where .io and .ai have some traction with start ups, it translates into they're in beta, not ready for primetime. As a decision maker can you back your choice of doing business with an organization that's not really established?
Read my last post about Branding for Authority and Affinity for more information. Here are some premium domain names that I have for sale.
There's a lot to branding your business in sync with your domain name and I'm just going to discuss a few key points that begin with the letter A.
Authority and Affinity
Being a brand authority now of days is having a powerful domain name. Powerful domain names are valuable because they are memorable and reflect your business as a leader in your industry. Like it or not we live in the age of information overload, and that's a good thing. As a kid I would ride my bike back and forth to the library trying to juggle a stack of books, knowledge and products from all over the world are now at anyone's finger tips from just about anywhere. How does a customer find, return to, or recommend your business in a sea of 1.7 billion websites all competing for the first page of Google? This is why your domain name matters.
Affinity is the sense of the natural path to your business, a relationship to or the path of the least resistance. If a customer has to remember your domain name or apply a silly extension, not only are they going to have a hard time getting back to you, it's even more difficult for them to refer your company to their contacts. Word of mouth is still a powerful tool in growing your business.
Here's a few great articles on the subject of branding and why your domain name matters: Spend Less on SEO, More on a Memorable Brand by Jamie Zoch and The True Cost of Your Domain Name by Chris Zuiker.
One point I would add to both of these articles is that not acquiring your matching domain name is leaving the door open for your competition to purchase it. Some companies have spent millions just to keep their competition from having them.
Many online businesses have been thriving throughout the pandemic, some have had an unprecedented 2nd quarter. How? The answer is simple, they have mastered the art of the UX (user experience). Evaluate your sites whole UX and ask these 10 questions about your site from Medium.com. I'd add credibility to that list and that begins with your domain name. The article is from 2018 and is every bit as relevant then as it is today.
For the DNN platform there's an upgrade for the developer's UX too with Vanjaro.com from Mandeeps.com. When you design all day, what you experience matters. The new UX is comparable to Wix, SquareSpace, and Weebly. Featuring a Drag & Drop Live Editor, Responsive Editing, Automatic Revision History, Workflow Management, and in context, user aware, centralized site administration and it's open source. Vanjaro.com is compatible with custom DNN Modules, (including XMod Pro) and hundreds of existing solutions on the DNN Store.
The experience is the journey. Make it better and make more sales.