Like many things, the entire existence of the gift card is a little bizarre when you think about it. It’s an entire cottage industry that revolves around consumers paying a store money for the possibility of getting a product at a later date from the same store and worth the same amount. Stores Love Gift Cards It’s certainly a no-brainer for a store to offer a gift card program. As far as bright ideas go, gift cards have been a godsend for retailers the world over....

Blockchain is a relatively new technology that exists thanks to the advent of Bitcoin. But today, it’s no longer just the digital currency’s alter ego, merely existing in its shadow. It’s a technology that powers a great variety of applications, making the future of secure, trusted and transparent relationships closer than we might think. As an Internet-based innovation, blockchain is often mistakenly considered a technology that was designed by IT geeks, exclusively for IT geeks, but not for average people with real-world problems and challenges....

Today the WiFi Map team announced that they have officially hit the 7 million user milestone. Additionally, users have crowdsourced over 2 million WiFi hotspots on the platform with over 140,000 uploads every month; it’s a booming community that has helped extend the reach of WiFi access to countless individuals. By crowdsourcing public WiFi networks, WiFi Map is able to help users stop going over their mobile service providers data limit and help travelers avoid expensive data roaming fees while traveling outside of their coverage zones....

Online privacy has become an increasingly important topic in the tech world. Between frequent security breaches and shady data mining practices, the everyday user is constantly inundated with privacy concerns, no matter where they are on the web. Now, with Facebook-owned WhatsApp forcing a new privacy policy down everyone’s throat under penalty of an ineffective app, the question remains: Will these new changes drive users away? However, some serious backlash has forced the company to temporarily reconsider....

Xiaomi, the Chinese electronics company headquartered in Beijing, is on the verge of launching their newest smartphone. As the company’s first Android One device, the Xiaomi Mi A1 will run stock Android software without the need for modification. While it won’t be available in the US, you can find the smartphone in 40 different international markets, including Mexico, India, Singapore, and many others. Marketing a new device, particularly one that could be this popular, can be pretty stressful....

If that sounds familiar, it should: This is the sixth time this year that Chrome has issued a major security update to stop a zero-day vulnerability in its tracks. Still, staying secure online doesn’t become less important just because we’re constantly updating. The good news here? You’ll likely just have to close and re-open Chrome in order to automatically update, so there’s no tech know-how required. Chrome’s New Security Tweak This time, we don’t know much about the exploit except that it’s termed CVE-2022-3075....

What a lot of people don’t know is that there’s nothing wrong with failure. In fact, a lot of entrepreneurs have made themselves precisely because they failed. This guide is going to show you what startup failure can do for entrepreneurs. You’re Not Invincible First-time entrepreneurs often feel like they’re invincible and they can take on the world. This is good for getting started, but you don’t want it to turn into arrogance....

Forty years ago, women like Diana were almost non-existent in STEM. Today, she is one of many pioneering women of color who are challenging stereotypes. Witnessing the under representation of women of color in STEM, Diana recently set up the Yielding Accomplished African Women (Yaa W.) project to help African women succeed in business and technology related career fields. According to the National Science Foundation, women of color made up less than 10% of the STEM workforce in the USA in 2015....

If you or someone you know got a drone for Christmas, here are some anecdotes from Twitter on how to play nice with your new toy. And if you get the sneaking suspicion that the sky is falling, don’t panic, it’s probably just pieces of your neighbor’s drone raining down after colliding with that tree that clearly came out of nowhere. Do not use your droid to settle family disputes....

The business world – both domestically and internationally – is constantly changing. It is a dynamic and exciting environment to work in, which is why so many people are attracted to business as they pursue their higher education. If you currently work in business or are looking to enter a new segment and advance your career, consider these 10 MBA specialties. They can give your career the edge it needs while providing you with skills to stand out among the fierce competition for top business positions at leading employers....

That’s why the below highlights 11 examples of original startup schwag – creative items that have helped startups stand out from the pack – to serve as inspiration for you to do the same. 1) Chapstick Startup: Suitey Story: “Everyone in our office loves chapstick and we were sitting around trying to decide what Suitey giveaway we wanted to make when my co-founder Phil realized that 2 of the 4 people he was talking to were putting on chapstick as they were brainstorming....

That’s progress, but it’s not good enough. At Galvanize, it’s our mission to make quality tech education accessible to anyone with the aptitude and drive to succeed as a data scientist, software engineer or entrepreneur. We strive to make our campuses – and the tech industry at large – more inclusive of women and other underrepresented communities. In tribute to the smart, dynamic, driven women of Galvanize, we invite you to check out the stories behind their successes and struggles....

You’ve got a lot going against you starting your own venture. There’s a dozen other companies trying to solve the same exact problem, you’re working with little to no money, few people understand the concept of your product/service, the press won’t return your emails, there’s a lack of quality technical talent….and on, and on. That’s why it’s important to capitalize on every advantage offered your way. More than 50,000 startups have recognized this, as evidence by their taking part in Microsoft’s BizSpark program....

When you join 2UP, you might be expecting a large community of users, all of whom have something to share with you. Except there isn’t – at least not yet – so you may run into issues such as seeing only a limited number of faces challenging your position and inviting you to challenge their own. My main problem with the app is that it feels half-baked. It doesn’t help you with instructions or give you guidelines to get started after you register with your Twitter ID....

Step 1: Choosing your niche and your product For most entrepreneurs-to-be, defining the market and choosing the right type of products is the hardest step to accomplish. Fret not! Here are the key bite-sized tips to get you through: Choosing the right price segment: if you opt for selling low cost products, reaching positive ROI may be rather challenging. Choosing a high-scale product ($1.000+ per item), your potential customers might want to speak to someone on the phone or via live chat, or even visit your office....

So, with that in mind, here’s a rundown of the three major ways in which virtual reality will affect the future workplaces of startups get together and work together, as condensed from Fast Company’s recent look at the future of the VR workplace in general. 1: VR Meetings Will Bring the World Together Microsoft is planning the ‘Holoport,’ which will use 3D cameras to record and transmit your every gesture, as well as every object in your room....

Because it is taking many companies so long to catch on to the benefits of remote work, many experts are choosing to go into freelance work that allows them to work their own hours, set their schedules, and work from wherever they want. If this sounds appealing to you, the following industries are worth exploring. Whether you are interested in working remotely for a specific company or you want to freelance by using job sites, this post is for you....

Called “Take the ‘Being Strapped’ Out of Bootstrapping (HINT: It’s All About Credit)”, the session focused on how people can start and scale a business by leveraging the business credit (and personal credibility) that they build. And, unless you’re sitting on thousands of dollars in your savings, at one point you’ll have to use that credit history to attempt to get some funds from a lender. Who Needs Credit, Anyway?...

Below are the four common mistakes startups make when it comes to marketing. Not Tracking Your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Rate When you are just starting out it’s hard to determine your best method for acquiring customers or growing your user-base. Be a smart marketer and don’t put all the eggs in one basket by investing all the budgets in one channel that was told to nail great result for company X....

Abusing personal information is particularly easy to do on platforms that provide access to nuanced details, like Facebook. Google is taking steps to improve personalized ads with the launch of “My Activity” pages, which allows people to view the information Google has stored on them and opt-in to receive personalized ads based on that info. Across the industry, data is improving, but data alone won’t completely help marketers. You still need storytelling skills and a bit of common sense....