From alerts to notifications, to web chat prompts and customer service calls, there are a lot of options to speak with your customers. Above all, as an organization, you need to be where your customers and users are, and use the platforms and services they prefer to communicate with. Although direct to consumer text messaging platforms are not a new concept, Teckst’s solution is intuitive and does not require coding....
The trigger for this question is that the nature and scenery would be too distracting for some folks, but it’s actually one of the best tools that I have in my toolbox. When the day gets too hectic I can take a 15-minute stroll along the beach and get my feet wet in the salty Pacific – it’s a source of relaxation, retreat, and calm that I can tap into when needed....
What draws fashion-focused small businesses to Instagram in particular? There’s more than one answer. Here are the top three. A post shared by Lynn Paik (@lynnpaik) on Dec 17, 2016 at 2:40pm PST The “Cool” Network Instagram straddles that magical combination of being simple yet popular — particularly with the coveted 18-30 demographic. Sure, Snapchat is nipping at its heels, but if you want a highly engaged slice of the internet-faring population, Instagram is one of the highest-profile networks available....
Yet despite a hyped 2016 holiday season of VR hardware debuts, the devices still haven’t caught on with the general public. Forrester data shows that in 2016, 42 percent of U.S. adults online hadn’t heard about VR headsets. Also, 46 percent said “they don’t see a daily use for it their lives.” What’s taking so long? VR Is Too New One simple equation determines whether something’s cool: It must feel new, yet old....
Maxwell Health provides health care software and a concierge service to businesses to simplify benefits and reduce insurance costs. Maxwell Health was one of five finalists who pitched onstage today in front of the judges and an audience of entrepreneurs and investors. The runner-up was Speek, a faster and simpler conference calling app. Maxwell Health gets a $10,000 grand prize and possession of the coveted Tech Cocktail Chalice. They also get a host of other perks, including a $500 Zappos gift card, a lifetime membership to CLEAR, SOLO Eyewear frames, a free press release through MarketWired, 10 startup books from O’Reilly, a Ministry of Supply combo pack, and a Sphero robotic gaming system....
A plan has emerged from Japan to make coding mandatory for all elementary school students in 2020. As the article states, “Programming is defined as creating software programs that work in the way intended by programmers. Many teaching materials are available that can help children learn as if they were playing games, including those that control the motions of characters and building blocks”. And although this plan is meant to encourage more Japanese schoolchildren to embrace coding, other countries can learn to follow suit to shift perspectives on coding and creativity....
Recently our Denver-based SEO company launched a lead generation campaign that achieved a whopping 85.9% conversion rate from traffic that was driven from Facebook and in this article I’m going to show you exactly how we did it. Here’s proof via a screenshot of that campaign’s performance metrics: Now that you’ve seen proof of the success that we’ve had with Facebook marketing, I’m going to jump right into exactly how we achieved those numbers with the hopes that you can then go out and duplicate our process....
But the problem is you don’t have the budget to launch a huge campaign. Luckily for you, and other businesses like you, you have the option to work with micro-influencers. They are much less expensive than their top-tier counterparts. Micro-influencers have a smaller reach than regular influencers, but that doesn’t mean they’re less effective. Quite the opposite actually. They, and conversions than other types of influencers. They’re especially effective if you plan on launching an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram....
That’s right, the Catholic Church will be participating in a panel discussion titled Compassionate Disruption: The Vatican and Innovation. It will feature Bishop Paul Tighe, the adjunct secretary to the Pontifical Council of Culture, along with a myriad of tech influencers and Catholic leaders to discuss faith and innovation in the world today. It will be a historic first for both SXSW and the Catholic Church, as one of the highest profile events in the history of the conference....
To test out those lessons, the only logical thing left to do was create an account and see what it looks like, on the inside, from the eyes of a potential customer. I registered for a free account and was immediately brought to the manager dashboard. From this proverbial heart, the user can access study materials while work managers can closely track their employees’ progress. Knowing who has or has not finished their coursework and what grades they received makes it easier to keep all employees accountable for their own actions....
While having a registered trademark is the obvious step to make, below are four more essential tips to protecting your ideas and intellectual assets. Non-Disclosure Agreements and IP-Assignment IP-assignment agreements are a common practice these days among tech startups. You should require all employees, founders and even third-party providers to enter into one before starting the job. Without these in place, your startup at certain point your company may not be able to use the core portions of the IP....
With the development of digital marketing, the video has become a popular tool for promoting startups. With more than 2 billion smartphone and 3.4 billion Internet users worldwide, automatic video playback on social networks and 4 billion videos viewed every day, video promotion is turning into a distinct marketing strategy with the highest ROI among other digital marketing strategies. There is no need to spend millions of dollars on investing in a celebrity video: as long as the quality is not sacrificed, a low budget video can achieve great results....
The company had a previous investment of $105,000, and now Clouse says they can focus their efforts on hitting the right milestones to position themselves for a potential Series A round. Additionally, even with competitors such as StubHub and Ticketmaster, Tixers has plenty of room to grow and disrupt the market. UpTech was a lead investor for this round, but Tixers also secured funding from angels and investors from Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, and Chicago....
Here’s the lowdown on what this means for the average Facebook user, as well as a look at where Facebook might be going with their spin on a video grab. How Facebook Watch Works In a blog post, Facebook explained how the new platform will include a “Watchlist” that allows you to keep up with the latest episode — like the “subscriptions” tab on the left of your YouTube homepage....
We still learned a lot, though. Dorsey seemed reflective about the recent shortcomings of Twitter, and pensive about its responsibilities to the world. He also responded to criticism about how Twitter has handed President Trump’s activities, claiming his behaviour has been no worse than Obama’s ever was… We take a look at the highlights of the podcast, and the five things we’ve learned about Twitter this weekend. 1. Twitter is Considering an Edit Feature As any Twitter user knows, the ultimate horror is spending hours crafting the perfect tweet, only to publish it and then realize that you’ve included a typo....
Uber’s ads weren’t converting, and after further experimenting, the transport network found that a full two thirds of its ad budget — $100 million — wasn’t needed. The bulk of Uber’s ad fraud issues went down in 2017, which means that the dust is just starting to clear now. Entering the new year, brands would be wise to revisit the highest-profile volley in a billion-dollar battle still faced by brands today: Ad fraud....
Vine, Instagram, and Tumblr are all charging forward, too. And Facebook—despite claiming that audiences are the ones demanding video—is apparently paying news and entertainment sources a total of $50M to use live video streaming. How will every media source on the internet manage to cram that much video down its audiences’ throats? Here’s a rundown of what to expect from the future of video. 1. The Rise of the Recipe Video You know how your fifth grade English teacher told you to tell a story though your essay?...
It’s the biggest podcast industry acquisition ever, and Spotify isn’t done. The company has stated that it plans to spend a total of $500 million on podcasting investments, meaning it still has a few hundred million to burn. Here’s what the podcast acquisitions mean for Spotify, for the entire podcast industry, and for all the tiny underdog podcasters out there. Spotify Acquires Gimlet Media and Anchor Above all, this news points to a big shift in the podcast industry....
It’s all happening at WeWork – Fulton Market as we host our Chicago Startup of the Year Competition & Mixer as part of the Tech.Co Celebrate Startup Tour. The event will last from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM and will feature some of Chicago’s most promising startups. Image Credit: Flickr/Anh Dinh In addition to all of the community connections you can make by attending a Tech Cocktail Mixer, the connections you can make with the event sponsors can lead to getting your most important customers, partners, and even investors....
According to a recent study, open source code written by women on the popular software repository is more often approved than code written by men. However, while this may seem like a victory for women in tech everywhere, there is a notable caveat to these findings: this is only the case when the women coder’s gender is a secret. Which, in so many words, is pretty disappointing. The data is fairly damning in the study....
