Daily Archives: April 13, 2021

The carbon crisis: Four big questions for the packaging industry – Packaging Europe

Posted: April 13, 2021 at 6:44 am

What practical steps is the industry taking and what solutions are on the horizon to tackle the monumental challenge of carbon reduction? Victoria Hattersley spoke to experts from the Carbon Trust, Amcor, Mondi, Smurfit Kappa and Tetra Pak to get their views on some of the big questions around this issue.

Reducing carbon emissions to avert climate catastrophe is the true existential challenge of our times far more than Covid or anything else we can conceivably think of. And while the pandemic might have given us some temporary breathing space over the past year as emissions, according to the Global Carbon Budget Report, took a 7% drop, its almost certain we will be back on the same destructive path as soon as life returns to what we might blithely consider normal.

We know all this, and at Packaging Europe we report daily on the steps various members of the value chain are taking to grapple with this task. Some are making real progress, while others readily use terms like circular economy and decarbonization but have yet to make the kind of substantive changes the situation requires.

None of the people I have spoken to for this piece claim to have all the answers but were happy to share their thoughts on what concrete action might look like. The first question they addressed and its one we will all by now be familiar with was:

1. Do we need to put the focus on carbon over plastic waste?

The plastics backlash is perhaps an overused term but its certainly had major reverberations across the industry in recent years. So much so that some would say the focus on the undeniably dire issue of plastic waste has drawn attention away from the wider overall climate crisis. Is this a fair representation?

In part, it may come down to a simple case of what the eye can see. Obviously the plastic waste is more visible so I think that, even in the perception of government and media sometimes it is put in the same bucket as climate change when really they are very different, says Gerald Rebitzer, Director of Sustainability at Amcor Flexibles. Both are very important so Im not saying we should think of it as one vs. the other, but my personal view is that the climate crisis is the important issue for humanity.

But for others, they are really two parts of the same thing and cannot be treated separately. Tackling plastic waste and addressing the climate crisis are both important and often go hand-in-hand, says Laura Timlin, Director, Business Services at the Carbon Trust. We know that we need to move away from using fossil fuels in order to help global economies to fully decarbonize should virgin plastic derived from fossil fuels continue to be used at the current rate, it will comprise 17% of global emissions by 2050. So, reducing reliance on virgin plastic will be crucial to tackling the climate crisis at the same time as addressing the damaging environmental impact of plastic waste.

Most likely, the solution lies somewhere in-between. We cannot put all our energies into reducing plastic waste when the plastics industry is not even the biggest producer of carbon emissions: but more efficient use of the plastics we do create and perhaps a greater focus on non-fossil-based materials could make a real difference. Which leads us on to our next question.

2. What decarbonization routes should the industry focus on?

The above is all well and good: but if this justified urgency is not backed up by concrete action on a systemic scale then well all be left floundering. The people I spoke to have some areas of agreement and some differing views on where the industry should be directing its efforts. What does seem to a source of agreement is that all stakeholders in the packaging sector need to broaden their perspective.

The increased use of recycled content for plastic production is one strand: the world as a whole needs to come to treat plastic as the precious commodity it is. Only then can it be part of the solution, rather than contributing to the problem.

Utilizing recycled content is very important in a low carbon economy, says Laura Timlin. Carbon emissions continue to come from plastic packaging after its disposal with the amount of emissions dependent on the manner of its disposal. Most plastic packaging has low value and is not recycled but rather incinerated, which not only generates emissions but also wastes resources. Part of this comes down to an increased focus on design for recyclability and resource efficiency, using materials that are part of mainstream recycled pathways.

While increased recycling and improving the entire infrastructure for this could certainly reduce the overall carbon footprint of fossil-based plastics, we should also consider the role played by the feedstocks themselves.

Some put it more emphatically: While circular economy policy measures on recycling are essential, we need an environmental approach that includes the decarbonisation of materials and manufacturing, to reduce the impact on our planet.One approach is plant-based, says Gilles Tisserand, Head of Sustainability Transformation, Tetra Pak Europe & Central Asia. Plant-based materials are renewable and better for the environment. Renewable resources can be replenished over time and enable a move away from fossil fuel-based products, with a lower carbon footprint and reduced environmental impact. Bioplastics developed from sugarcane are an exciting area and we are continuing to innovate with sugarcane-derived polymers. Already, weve launched our Tetra Rex Plant-based carton, the worlds first and only fully renewable beverage carton.

And what about reusables? In recent years a considerable amount of momentum seemed to be building around reusable packaging models but this has slowed a little in part, but not wholly, because of the safety concerns around Covid-19. So how can the industry get reuse back on track, enabling it to play its part in the carbon solution?

A lot more needs to be done to push this agenda, says Laura Timlin. A re-use model provides a compelling way to reduce climate impacts by avoiding emissions associated with single-use packaging. Many brands will need to completely rethink their business model. Not only does a re-use model need to be easy for a consumer but it also needs to help a brand maintain its market value, credibility and competitiveness.

However, Gerald Rebitzer sounds a note of caution here, reiterating the importance of LCA: Carbon emissions for reuse models need to be considered so one should only make that change if it leads to lower carbon emissions; for example, if reusable bottles are being shipped a long way that somewhat negates the environmental benefits.

The above are by no means the only routes to carbon reduction, but its a fair overview of the directions in which the sustainability conversation is moving.

3. Should we be materials-agnostic?

Another big question with no simple answer: what of the packaging materials themselves and their respective carbon footprints? Do we favour plastics? Paper? Infinitely recyclable materials such as metal and glass? The crux of this issue is that its very hard to quantify the individual carbon impact of any material. By what metric do we measure? The initial production of the material? Distance travelled? Weight? End of life? So many questions and there are many, many more.

With plastic, for example, its protective properties are undeniable and carbon impact of production is comparatively low, so the issue here is that we are still, globally, falling short when it comes to the appropriate collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure.

According to Gerald Rebitzer, while Amcor uses plastics, aluminium and paper, from a carbon perspective, for most applications plastics and specifically flexibles are kind of unbeatable. But we need to solve the recyclability question otherwise there will be policies that ban certain plastics and then you go back to metal cans or glass which have a very bad LCA performance compared to plastics even if they are recycled.

What about the perspective from the paper industry? How does it counter the argument that paper is far more energy-intensive than plastic to produce and that, furthermore, that the paper industry is currently under less pressure from governments to tackle its emissions?

It is not a simple matter of evaluating a carbon footprint in isolation, says Susan Brunner, Senior Sustainability Positioning Manager, Mondi Group. We also have to consider the energy fuel mix (for paper its mainly biomass-based), in particular whether the energy is derived from renewable materials. According to Cepi, the paper industry has lowered its carbon emissions by 27% since 2005 and is the largest industrial generator and user of renewable energy in Europe.

And other paper producers believe perhaps unsurprisingly that we should be moving away from plastics altogether. Plastic is a fossil-based product and for the moment not easily recycled, says Steven Stoffer, Group VP of Sustainable Development at Smurfit Kappa. Even when it is recycled, it will most likely eventually be used as fossil-based fuel for heat generation. From that perspective, it has a delayed use as fossil fuel. Paper will never have that issue.

Or maybe, in some cases, there should be no packaging at all? The important thing with packaging is to avoid knee-jerk reactions by substituting with alternate materials that do not perform as well, says Laura Timlin. The lowest emission scenario is to eliminate all packaging where it is not required, i.e. online grocery retailers now offer a no bags option which enables the customer to unpack straight from the delivery crate.

How do we unpick all these varying and sometimes quite opposite opinions? Is an agnostic approach the best one: in short, yes, if you consider it to be a case of choosing the right material for each application (oft-used phrases such as plastics where possible, paper where necessary come to mind here). There is no sense in demonizing any one material: it comes down to that delicate balancing act of accounting for all the many metrics that make up the life cycle of a package.

4. What are the most promising emerging solutions or technologies?

The above has been focused mainly on todays market realities but technology is evolving all the time. Are there any game-changing solutions emerging with the potential to make a real difference to the packaging sectors carbon footprint?

For Gerald Rebitzer, there is not one single tech, or even a handful of technologies it comes down to systemic change increasing use of renewable energy everywhere, increasing recyclability: if we really get to the point where a large proportion of plastics are recycled and stay in the loop then the losses are filled with polymers from renewable sources. Then you have the most perfect system available as you keep the polymers in the loop wherever possible and you can plug the gaps with renewables. That would actually disconnect the plastics from the fossil fuel usage and related impact.

Chemical recycling, of course, is always hovering tantalizingly on the horizon, and most would agree there are huge opportunities for circularity here if or when the technology becomes widely available and economically viable. But there is still work to be done around the economics of this, and also the energy consumption required for the process.

As an interesting side note, Gerald Rebitzer gives us an illustration of how focusing on emissions reduction in one industry can have a trickle-down effect on sustainable development in other sectors.

At the moment a lot of the raw materials for polymers are a by-product of fuel production for the automotive sector: naphtha, diesel etc. If you look at how much oil and gas goes into fuels vs. how much goes into plastics, about 90% goes into fuels. At the moment chemical recycling is competing with a by-product that is generated from fuel production. Once there is more regulatory demand for electric cars and fuel production is reduced then chemical recycling should become a lot more competitive because there would be less of these by-products available to use. It could change the dynamics of the petrochemical chain.

As to paper, Smurfit Kappas Steven Stoffer tells us how new fuels, such as hydrogen, may help to make the industry more energy efficient. Also, there are lots of ongoing studies researching how to make paper without the use of water. If that is possible, then the energy requirements from paper reduction will be greatly reduced.

But this problem will not be solved by technology alone, cautions Laura Timlin. While new technologies can help, the real difference will be behaviour change from both organizations and consumers.

How to move forward?

To be blunt, is this behaviour change happening quickly enough?

There will hopefully always be areas of healthy disagreement, but more and more what we hear is voices calling for broad areas of consensus. It is not a case of pitting one material or one strategy against another. With carbon, there is no perfect solution, only the best that can be achieved. Of course, as individuals we can all play our part, but we are beyond relying on the example of individuals alone: the major change has to be systemic.

Some companies are doing a lot in this space but this level of effort needs to be universally applied in order to see significant change, says Laura Timlin. It is therefore really important for packaging companies to demonstrate the action they are taking by committing to, and then setting science-based targets backed by a plan on how they are transitioning to meet the requirements of a 1.5-degree pathway aligned with the Paris Agreement.

Indeed. And there has been some real progress made within the industry, while initiatives such as the European Green Deal aim to provide incentives for change, transforming the 27-country bloc into a low-carbon economy without reducing economic growth. But this is no time for hearty back-slapping and champagne all round. There needs to be greater transparency and scrutiny around decarbonization: those in the industry that are doing their part will welcome that; others will need to rethink.

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An Interview With the Man Who Keeps Uploading My Feet to WikiFeet – The Cut

Posted: at 6:43 am

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images

Back in the fall, I received an unexpected text from a man I had just started seeing. Are u on wikifeet?

Assuming he was joking, I laughed and said no. Then he sent me a link to my wikiFeet page. I had never actually heard of the website basically an encyclopedia of celebrity foot photos for fetishists and foot enthusiasts until that moment.

To be clear, I am not a celebrity. I have decent Twitter following from having reported on politics for over a decade, from tweeting jokes about politics and appearing on cable news sometimes. But I was pretty shocked to be looking at my own wikiFeet profile, which included my full name, birthday, and photos of me and my exposed feet, dating back to a family vacation in 2013. The images seemed to have been lifted from my Instagram page, which I keep public because I share my work and media appearances there sometimes. My feet had a very sad 3.5 out of 5 stars rating, which categorized them as okay.

The discovery was surreal; I wasnt offended or unnerved, though I can understand why someone would be. I mostly thought it was funny, and posted a video of me wiggling my painted toes in a flattering filter to my story for my fans, as a joke. Within minutes, a screenshot of it showed up on wikiFeet.

At this point, my investigative journalist instincts kicked in. I figured I could triangulate the persons identity by refreshing wikiFeet over and over after posting a barefoot photo, and then checking my list of story viewers as soon as it showed up. This narrowed the list of suspects down significantly, but not quite enough to be conclusive. I decided to try a direct approach: I posted a story that said, If you are the person posting my foot content please DM me! No shade, I just have questions.

I assumed no one would come forward so much so that I forgot to even check my DMs from people I dont follow until months later. It wasnt until last week that I noticed, to my surprise, the man had reached out. His name is Robert Hamilton, a 58-year-old salesman from northern New Jersey. Okay, he wrote. What questions do you have? I admit I posted, if it bothers you I apologise and will not do it again.

Robert agreed to go on the record and was helpful and responsive as I tried to set up an interview. I was only reminded of the nature of our relationship at one point when he asked, right after saying he was available to chat Thursday, whether my feet are ticklish. (I dodged the question.)

I called him on Thursday afternoon, while he was in the middle of watching a Yankees game. Hes gregarious and has a thick Jersey accent. We spoke for nearly an hour, almost entirely about feet.

Robert! Is it just Robert, or do you go by something else? You sound young.Yeah, just Robert. And Im almost 60 years old, young lady.

Do you consider yourself a foot fetishist?Yes.

Since when?Age 6.

Thats very specific. What happened when you were 6?A couple things have happened, but well start there. I have five sisters well I had five, two of them passed away. But a lot of their friends would come around, and we had a pool in the backyard, and theyd be barefoot. You know, theyd be here while my sisters werent here, theyd just come over and use the pool, and I would give them foot massages.

What was the other thing?When I was about 9, these new people moved on my block, right? They were older girls. And they had their own pool across the street. We were playing this game, and they were like, Well, we have to tie you up, because we captured you, you know? Youre the bad guy. They tied me to a lawn chair, with my hands over my head and my feet tied down. And they started tickling my feet, and it just drove me crazy.

I think thats what made me realize theres nothing wrong with it. Its fun. I just didnt feel like it was weird or anything. So Im thinking to myself, Hey, what is the problem with this? This is who I am. Im not hurting anybody, Im not robbing banks. Just let it ride. Thats when I decided, Who gives a shit?

How do you interact with wikiFeet? How much time a day do you spend on it?Well, for example, if Im watching a movie with a beautiful actress that I like, Ill go on there and check out her feet. Or if Im reading a story about someone like you who I think is very pretty, Im gonna go check and see if shes on there. Because Im curious, and I love feet.

How many photos have you posted there?A couple hundred.

How did you first discover my feet? I cant remember how I first discovered you. But I looked on Instagram and saw you on there and you had a lot of barefoot pictures, and I just followed you, that was all. I also like your dog. I like Pedro, hes cool. Your feet are quite beautiful, by the way.

Thanks. What makes a foot attractive to you?I like the painted toes. I like an arch, the more pronounced the better. Im kinda weird with the toes, I like a rounded big toe. If its more square its okay, but the rounded is better. I definitely like the soles. But I like the arches, that gets you turned on.

Ive noticed that sometimes within ten minutes of me posting an Instagram story that shows my feet, the screenshot is up on wikiFeet. How does that happen? Do you spend all your time on Instagram waiting for new foot content to drop?I dont sit here looking for it. If I just happen to see it and I like it, Ill put it on there. But Im not sitting here all day staring or anything. That doesnt pay the bills.

So why not just look at feet on Instagram, or screenshot them for yourself? What do you get out of posting them to another website?You know, thats a great question. I dont really get anything out of it. I just like to share it. I mean, people like feet, like me, and you have beautiful feet, and I just put it on there. I just think Im helping other people out. I mean, I do save some for myself.

There isnt much of a community on wikiFeet. Its not like people can heart the photos or whatever. Sometimes someone will send you a little note like, Thats a good picture, thanks a lot. Good job. Thats really it; you dont really connect with anybody. I just like to share the picture with other people, Im generous that way.

Like that one of you on the stoop in what was it, a flying-nun getup? And you were barefoot

I was dressed as a handmaid for Halloween. You posted that one?Yeah. Sorry. That was very sexy.

Do you ever think about how it might be a bit invasive to take someones personal photos and put them on a fetish site without their knowledge or consent? That some people might be unsettled by that?Yes, I do think that. You know, except I cant call up Jennifer Aniston and ask. But it does cross my mind, because I have five sisters and six nieces, and I guess not everybody would be kosher with it. Believe me, it crosses my mind. I do have a conscience. I think people seem to have a good sense of humor about it. I mean, you obviously do. Some celebrities say its a badge of honor.

I noticed that wikiFeet has pretty strict rules about whose feet and what kinds of photos you can post. The person has to have an IMDb page to be fair game. Do you pay attention to those rules when you want to post someone like me, who isnt as well-known?Yeah. For example, a musician from England who performed barefoot, like Ill find a picture I think is sexy, and Ill put her name in IMDb. And she didnt have a page, so I couldnt post hers. But you did.

Who elses feet besides mine do you like to post?I put up Jennifer Aniston. Kelly Ripa, though I dont really like her, but anyway Kate Beckinsale, I put her up a lot. Musicians. Sheryl Crow.

What are the best feet youve ever seen?Marilyn Monroe, Kate Beckinsale, Laura Bassett. Im ass-kissin, baby! Grace Kelly. Rita Hayworth, oh my God, I love her.

Youve posted Ritas feet?Yeah, I did. But shes gone, so I dont think she gives a shit.

Do you rate womens feet on wikiFeet?Yes.

Do you ever rate them poorly?No, you know why and this is silly, like I know these people but I dont wanna hurt their feelings. If theyre ugly, I just dont go there again.

What are your main interests besides feet and the Yankees?Live music. The last concert I went to was Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul at the Beacon Theatre, November of 2019, just before I got this damn heart surgery that almost killed me.

You almost died?Yeah, I had a quadruple bypass, and it was a heck of a lot of fun. But you know what? When I was in Florida in the hospital Ive had a couple surgeries I had the nurse coming in at night showing me her feet. I actually took her out to dinner a couple times. I can just get girls out of their shoes, its a thing I can do.

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Pixies give seal of approval to Nandi Bushells cover of Where Is My Mind – Louder

Posted: at 6:43 am

Pixies have given their seal of approval to a cover of Surfer Rosa classic Where Is My Mind recorded by musical prodigy Nandi Bushell.

Bushells epic drum battle with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl was one of the more heartwarming stories to emerge during the past 12 months, and the gifted English schoolgirl has continued to entertain her 274,000 YouTube subscribers in recent months by uploading covers of classic songs by Muse, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Who and - most recently - Pixies to her channel. And her efforts have not gone unnoticed, as, earlier today, Pixies posted Great work @Nandi_Bushell! in response to Ms Bushells solo cover of Where Is My Mind.

Check out the full version of the song below:

Pixies recently rescheduled their upcoming Dublin show at the Iveagh Gardens to July 16, 2022. The bands scheduled support to Pearl Jam at Londons Hyde Park has also been moved, and will now take place on July 8, 2022.

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4 Ways to Use Video Content on Facebook to Increase Audience and Conversion – – VENTS Magazine

Posted: at 6:43 am

A Facebook page is an extension of your businesss website. It amplifies your reach to a new audience beyond website visitors.

Compared to a website, its more effective for sharing news about your company, promoting new content, and building closer relationships with your clients/consumers.

A section on Facebook thats currently increasing in popularity is video content. The social platform encourages its users to upload video content directly to their website by improving their search algorithm for ranking native video results above other content formats (i.e., photos, status updates, etc.).

So how can you best exploit this Facebook algorithm change for your business?

One thing to keep in mind when uploading your video to Facebook is to keep it short.

Research by SocialBakers on this topic found that videos that were less than 21 seconds in length performed in the top quarter for completion rates. It makes a lot of sense, considering one-third of Facebook users use the mobile app for browsing their news feed.

Chances are, theyre not only browsing Facebook; maybe they also check Twitter, Instagram, or other social media. So they likely dont want to spend more than a minute watching a video that might not do them any good.

Thats why you need to cram as much value as possible into a short video. If you thought that wasnt possible, youre wrong. Tip Hero has a lot of short (1 minute tops) but helpful videos. And they get millions of views for each of them.

I know: Tip Hero is not an industrial corporation or a niche startup. They work in a relatively general niche, and their audience range is much more significant.

Lets say youre a niche startup with a particular market target. Itd be good to have an exciting piece of media for pitching your concept to investors and for publishing it so other investors can see what creative ideas you have.

In this case, you should create an explainer video for your business, like this one from Pinterest.

An explainer video is a short (<2 minutes, consisting of 200 words of narration or less), informative, and a commonly animated video thats generally used to describe what a product or a company does in a fun and descriptive visual.

Interesting, isnt it? An explainer video can explain an abstract concept much better with a visual presentation. These kinds of videos wouldnt be called explainers otherwise.

If you want to learn more about explainer videos and see more examples of them, heres a showcase by startups and companies from all over the world.

As a company, youve got to have a mission to aim for and a vision to guide you. Facebook is the perfect place to share your companys aim.

The reason? More and more people are turning to social media platforms to learn about brands. Half of the participants in a Lab42 survey said they find a brands Facebook page more helpful than its website.

Nike is an excellent example of a brand that uses video content to share its view with the world on Facebook. The videos they share with their audience arent about selling the productstheyre about showing the world what values they stand for.

Video content can be great for evoking emotions in an audience, so try to incorporate this into your video content on Facebook. It can be anything from making your audience laugh to making them feel angry or sad.

Research by Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science found that the most-shared video content on social media were pieces with the most substantial emotional impact, regardless of the emotions positivity or negativity.

Corporate videos are usually serious stuff, and people do not browse their Facebook for additions to their stress levels from their daily activities. Give your audience a break and inject elements of fun into the videos you upload to Facebook.

If you think this is cheesy, well, it is. But the point is to make your video less stressful and fun to watch because thats what gets people to watch it in its entirety.

General Electric did just that in their recent promo video for employment opportunities:

I dont recommend going with this fun type of video constantly, though, especially if youre a B2B company. B2B companies need to make the best first impression they can to show potential clients that they mean business.

Facebook is currently experimenting with new video formats. It is a good feature for businesses with Facebook pages because it provides new and exciting ways to share your videos and get involved with your audience.

Here are the kinds of videos you should try for your business:

Live video on Facebook offers a whole new level of audience interaction for your business. Its convenient for something that requires real-time interaction between you and your audiences, such as interviews and Q&A.

Facebook Live allows you to reach anyone who follows you, but with all the posts from everyone else, some of your audience might miss your live stream. However, there is an option to boost your live stream. Regular live streaming tends to increase subscribers to your pageand thus, you have a larger audience to reach.

Its more technical, and its not for everyone on Facebook. It requires more than just a smartphone with iOs or Android running to make a 360 video. But the results of a 360 video can be phenomenal.

Related to Facebooks new features, other changes alter the way businesses use video content on various social platforms.

The keys to getting the most from Facebook as a marketing funnel using video:

What do you have in mind for your next Facebook post? Leave a quick comment.

Author Bio

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).

Twitter: @breadnbeyond

Email: [emailprotected]

LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro

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Material Gallery Android app to be decommissioned in favor of web app – 9to5Google

Posted: at 6:43 am

Google is set to kill decommission their Material Gallery app on Android, pushing designers to the web app.

About APK Insight: In this APK Insight post, weve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), were able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. Well try to enable those that are closer to being finished, however, to show you how theyll look in case that they do ship. With that in mind, read on.

By Googles own description, the Material Gallery app is a collaborative tool for uploading design work, getting feedback, and tracking revisions, launched in 2018. Recently, Google changed Material Gallery from using its own infrastructure to using Google Photos, which means your uploaded creations now count against your Google accounts storage quota.

The next change that seems to be coming to Material Gallery is that Google may be shutting down at least the Android app, if not also the iOS app. The latest update version 1.4.36 rolling out now via the Google Play Store includes a few different variations on the notice explaining that Material Gallery for Android is shutting down, each with a blank where the shutdown date would go.

The Material Gallery Android app will be decommissioned on %1$s.

See our Help Center for more information.

The Material Gallery Android app will be decommissioned on %1$s.

Help Center for more information, or use Google Takeout to export your data.

In the third message, which will only be shown after the apps decommissioning deadline, its revealed that the web app for Material Gallery will continue to work as normal. This means only the mobile app will shutting down, not the service itself.

The Material Gallery Android app was decommissioned on %1$s.

See our Help Center for more information, or visit gallery.io to continue using Gallery.

The mentioned Help Center page has not yet been updated with information about the Material Gallery Android app shutting down, but with a bit of digging into the apps code weve found the date that the app will be decommissioned, July 8, 2021. However, until the above notices are live in the app and the proper support pages are in place, we cannot be fully certain that the Material Gallery mobile app is indeed shutting down or when that would happen.

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Want to Make Your Music Blow Up on TikTok? Here Are 8 Proven Tips – Digital Music News

Posted: at 6:43 am

Playlist Push cut its teeth on Spotify playlists, once the most important battleground for growing your music. But that was before TikTok exploded, and Playlist Push started diversifying accordingly to help artists grow their careers on the short-form video app. Now that TikTok looks like its here to stay in the U.S., Playlist Push joined forces with Digital Music News to distill the best pro tips for making your music blow up on this fast-growing platform. Enjoy.

Nailing the sound clip the 15-second to 60-second segment that plays when creators select a song is imperative. The majority of TikTok videos are 10-15 seconds in length (and feature 10-15 seconds of music), but distributors typically set songs sound clips as their first 15, 30, or 60 seconds by default.

This is the foremost impediment to promotional achievements on the service, as the sound clip should showcase the catchiest 15 seconds of the track at hand. The sound clips for Old Town Road, Supalonely, and Dreams, for instance, present the tracks most memorable (and TikTok-suited) elements.

You can customize your TikTok snippets through your distributor or by manually uploading a video.

For musicians, being personally active on TikTok is an important component of building meaningful relationships with users and music fans.

Regularly creating content will enable you to determine what works in videos and the types of content that users like most while bolstering your following. Plus, commenting on viral videos with your music is a quick and engaging way to attract additional followers yet.

Followers, in turn, can help you to launch campaigns and capitalize on trend-related opportunities.

Frequently enjoying other TikTok users videos, with an emphasis on learning from their technical characteristics, is also a worthwhile habit.

Then, you can effectively reverse engineer the videos and the strategies of todays leading TikTok voices.

Implementing straightforward video concepts is another key ingredient in the recipe for music-promotion success on TikTok. For obvious reasons, accessible trends reach a larger number of fans than niche concepts. Concepts that are fun and easy to replicate make it easier for your song to spread.

Sharing the best fan renditions of your top-performing TikTok videos across all of social media is a great way to amplify promotional effectiveness. Many of the resulting viewers will craft their own clips featuring your music helping to keep the trend and the fan interest going.

The holy grail is for the music to spill into streaming and into fan-base building, summed up Playlist Pushs George Goodrich when speaking to Digital Music News.

Understanding and adapting to the basics of TikToks algorithm is a must. In brief, the portion of users that watch a video from beginning to end and, better yet, multiple times is more significant than likes, comments, and shares.

Its the completion rate that TikTok analyzes when deciding whether to plug emerging clips on users For You pages. Consequently, inherently interesting content is positioned to succeed from the outset.

While marketing your music on TikTok, its important to bear in mind that there are north of 800 million users and many more videos than that on the three-year-old service.

Given this immense volume of users and content, riding trends to new career heights is in many ways a long game. Practice, including determining what works best for you and your followers, is therefore invaluable.

Lastly, running a TikTok promotional campaign via Playlist Push is an excellent way to help your music explode on the app. To date, Playlist Push has executed more than 1,000 campaigns, generating a cumulative total of well over two billion views for participating artists.

Kicking off your own far-reaching promotional effort takes just minutes and is as easy as sending Playlist Push a link to your TikTok sound (as well as your preferred hashtag) and selecting a launch date. Playlist Pushs network of more than 3,700 micro-influencers (boasting some 935 million followers) will then be enlisted to create concept-centered clips with the music.

Rather than paying for one or two overhyped creators, Playlist Push maximizes your value by engaging micro-influencers for each campaign, getting you more videos, more views, and more shots at going viral.

Playlist Push also enables creators to analyze the play counts associated with both paid TikTok videos and videos that are created organically, and this information can be used to reach fans outside of TikTok, including on streaming services.

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Five reasons to choose fiber Internet over traditional networks – WRAL Tech Wire

Posted: at 6:43 am

This article was written for our sponsor, Ting Internet.

Having a reliable and secure Internet connection is more critical now than ever. With work-from-home and remote learning, theres never been more demand on your home network. Fiber Internet gives customers speeds and dependability that standard copper connections simply cant match.

Fiber-optic Internet is a relatively new technology, and many people may not know why switching over will save you time and give you more peace of mind. Here are the top five reasons to make the switch to fiber from a traditional network so you can enjoy blazing speeds and unparalleled stability.

Standard copper networks often have massive disparities between upload and download speeds. You might have decent download speeds with brutally slow uploads, making telecommuting or uploading videos a frustrating task.

Todd Rubin, Regional Manager for fiber optic provider Ting Internet, says by bringing fiber directly to the home (FTTH), latency is greatly reduced because of faster communication with the server, also known as ping.

Latency is how fast data is transmitted, says Rubin. Its measured in milliseconds, and the average ISP has latency speeds between 30 and 50 ms. With fiber optics moving at the speed of light, latency can be significantly reduced. So if youre transmitting, uploading, and downloading your files, its going to go a lot quicker.

With Ting Internet, upload and download speeds mirror one another, reducing tasks that would take 10 to 20 minutes on a copper connection down to mere seconds. Additionally, symmetrical speeds help support the growing number of devices attached to home networks, including smart home features, without compromising your connection.

Copper networks can be thrown offline for a variety of reasons. They werent made with a forward-looking approach. In fact, the wires were initially designed for voice calls, so theres a limit to how much they can transmit.

Its not just the devices youre using at the moment, says Rubin. You also have your TV, your different smart home appliances, your security system. All of those things are working simultaneously and all need to run seamlessly without interruption or lag.

Outdated systems are also susceptible to outages from inclement weather or large temperature fluctuations and become bogged down when theres high demand. Fiber networks like Ting Internets wont go down during severe weather and can handle as many users as you can throw at it. While copper wires have limitations, the only things keeping fiber from being faster are the devices that use it.

Coaxial Internet connections can be tampered with relatively easily. With a simple splice, bad actors can gain access to copper Internet connections. A fiber network uses light to transmit data, which makes stealing much more difficult. Splicing into fiber connections is exceptionally complicated, adding an extra level of security to your network.

The true potential of fiber-optic Internet has yet to be reached. As technology evolves with routers and devices getting faster, fiber lines will meet the challenge. Data travels through the glass at lightspeed, and as increased rates become the norm, fiber lines can get even faster.

Currently, Ting Internet offers 1 Gbps (1,000 Mbps) symmetrical speeds, which is the top speed available to consumers. As technology evolves, this could be on the lower end of the speed spectrum. Fiber Internet will speed up as fast as devices allow, while copper lines will need to be updated or replaced outright to have a chance.

Because fiber Internet will meet future demands, you wont have to worry about future upgrade costs.

Fiber transmits communications with pulses of light through glass strands. Because of this, its basically the speed of light and an extremely efficient process, says Tim Herzog, Ting Internet senior manager of field operations. To this date, nobody has ever put enough through it to max its capacity. So its only limited by the electronics that provide light to the glass.

This article was written for our sponsor, Ting Internet.

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Transhumanists Aim To Replace God With Machines In Digital Immortality – The Federalist

Posted: at 6:43 am

Transhumanists have hyped the new religion of high technology for decades now. The basic idea, fairly prevalent in Silicon Valley, is that rapid advances in scientific knowledge and tech innovation will culminate in our de facto omniscience and omnipotence. Even though humanity is lost in a godless cosmos, digital devices will allow us to transcend our ape-like forms.

As Googles Ray Kurzweil famously quipped, Does God exist? I would say, Not yet.

One day soon, they promise, well use artificial intelligence to overcome the limits of our meat-based cognition. According to Yuval Noah Hararis 2015 best-seller Homo Deus, computer programmers will realize the age-old fantasies of shamans and prophets by creating a virtual version of the spiritual realm. These Davos darlings are certain God is dead, but Google still wants to patent His best ideas.

Ultimately, they hope to replicate the fabric of ourselves in cyberspace, where we can all live happily ever after that is, until the electricity goes out. A recent paper by Russian transhumanist Alexey Turchin argues this digital resurrection is not only possible but necessary to reach our full potential. We just need enough power both computational and electric to create a virtual afterlife and then keep it running.

For Turchin, the solution is to construct a Dyson Sphere around the sun a megastructure 186 million miles in diameter thats covered in solar panels to capture the dying stars rays. That way, we can run the gargantuan super-computers required to house our digital selves. Sounds easy enough, I suppose. Maybe we can fill the potholes in the road while were at it.

Joining the race to boost fashionable ideas, the once sober Popular Mechanics covered Turchins work enthusiastically:

Think about the end of your life and what might happen next. If your soul exists, you continue on after death and everything is wonderful. And if it doesnt and your fate is utter demise, well, some part of you could still continue infinitely as a digital copy. Its a win-win situation in both scenarios, Turchin says.

If these lunatics convince enough people their scheme is truly working, theyll expect the rest of us to treat these gibbering clones like real people. Even worse, given the shrill demands for religious tolerance, well have to pretend we enjoy their company.

The concept behind digital resurrection goes back to the Ship of Theseus paradox, articulated by the ancient Greeks. Imagine you have a huge wooden ship. You gradually replace the rotten boards with new wood, plank by plank. Eventually, every old part has been replaced by something new. Is it not the same ship as before, only better?

Transhumanists seek to do the same with the human personality. Every neuron will be replaced by networked processors and then some. For example, to preserve himself for future immortality, Alexey Turchin submits the details of his life to ubiquitous surveillance. In addition to keeping a trivia-packed diary, he records every conversation, videotapes his behaviors, and wears an EEG headset while making art or listening to music. He has faith that one day some godlike AI will use this tedious information to resurrect him.

You could call this self-obsessed behavior a personal quirk, but Turchin is hardly alone in this endeavor. For many, its been part of the new normal since before the New Normal.

The Scan Truck is a good illustration, both literally and allegorically. Based in Los Angeles, the company developed a mobile photogrammetry studio decked out with more than 200 digital cameras to capture the uppermost, photorealistic models. The experience is like stepping into an inside-out insect eye.

Subjects who enter The Scan Trucks portable Panopticon preferably in the buff have a million pics snapped from every possible angle. The resulting composite image is then used to create a digital double. This second self includes every scar, pore, and birthmark. The service has become enormously popular among special effects specialists in the movie industry. Its also used to create hyper-realistic avatars to inhabit a virtual environment.

Clever enough, but what about ones inner self?

In line with Turchins methodology, a digital immortality industry has emerged to monitor every aspect of your life. Their services, as advertised, will create a lasting imprint of your earthly persona for friends and family to enjoy when youre gone.

Start-ups with names like Eterni.me, Replika, DeadSocial, and Deep Nostalgia are working hard to re-create deceased loved ones from photographs, home videos, personal diaries, intimate letters, second-hand anecdotes, and of course, online tracking technology. Replika offers an AI talk therapy app that probes living subjects to get at the core of their personality. The constant refrain is that we need to break down privacy barriers and become vulnerable to digital invasion.

For a modest price, this data is correlated with the subjects physical attributes. The resulting electro-wraith can then speak to the bereaved from beyond the grave. Just open your laptop, and theres your late grandma, insisting you have another plate of chicken casserole.

What about grandmas subjective soul, though that mysterious entity who watched you grow up from behind her smiling eyes?

When transhumanists tackle this issue which is less often than youd think they typically deny the existence of a stable, spiritual self thats distinct from brain activity. When the body dies, that soul will disappear. Thats why creating an electronic backup is so important.

For one thing, AI augmentation will make Grandma 2.0 smarter and less whimsical. For another, some rude guest is bound to sit in her empty chair if you dont replace her with a digital super-being.

Throughout that process, the still-embodied subject is scanned, probed, and reconstructed as a digital double. Making multiple copies is even better, but anything beats total oblivion. As years pass, the biological version will wither like a butterfly cocoon. The digital double will soar into the future on a cloud of 1s and 0s.

For those guided by materialist philosophies where transcendence is only available via physical means theres no better way to overcome the finality of death. Naturally, transhumanists tend to see people who believe in a spiritual existence beyond this mortal coil as quaint at best. As a quaint heathen myself, I suspect their well-heeled megalomania is far more irrational than any traditional religion.

These technocratic delusions are only a problem to the extent were forced to participate. Im content to live my life as a caveman and let others become cyborgs, so long as they keep their crossed wires to themselves. Thats not the world theyre creating, though. The insidious elements of their techno-cult from materialist self-obsession to ubiquitous surveillance have crept into our daily lives for decades now.

Consider the widespread adoption of monitored electronic communication. In olden times, the idea that our most intimate letters could be intercepted, analyzed, and added to detailed personal dossiers kept by tech executives and government agents to be used at their pleasure would be laughable. Today, its as routine as driving a few blocks to the grocery store.

In the blink of an eye, we saw the rapid migration of personal interaction to social media. Its now normal to document a childs life for public consumption by total strangers. For many, the privacy barriers have already been broken down. Weve made ourselves vulnerable. The craziest part is that most have enjoyed it.

The next steps in this supposedly inevitable process are just over the horizon. After years of stops and starts, virtual reality will soon be as commonplace as a television set. Many youngsters already idolize virtual influencers who dance across their touchscreens. These bubblegum apparitions are elaborate, entirely fictitious pop stars made from scratch by devious programmers. Some kids have no clue theyre not real people.

For years now, men of fighting age have retreated into video games. Would-be mothers are using dating apps to run out the biological clock. Having been conditioned by porn for generations, wealthy incels are sleeping with eerily convincing silicone dolls. Super-real sexbots are just around the corner.When the snozzberries taste like snozzberries, youll know the end is nigh.

In all of this, we see an increasing detachment from the real world of visceral struggle, heartbreak, and redemption. Without these challenges, people dont develop character or deep social bonds. Anime-obsessed man-babies are a symptom of this tendency. The insane desire for digital immortality is another.

Technocracy is being normalized at an alarming pace. If a population can be convinced that kids need state-supplied hormone blockers to become self-realized, its only a matter of time before theyre ready to upload their souls to corporate data banks. In fact, just hack into their smartphone and youll see theyre already doing it.

One of the darker tenets of the techno-cult is that their innovations are necessary for survival. Anyone who chooses to reject body modification, cognitive enhancement, or mind-uploading will be like job applicants who come to an interview with no smartphone or social media account. Theyll get left in the dust.

In a competitive technocracy, organic humans are doomed to extinction. Trendy cyborgs will transition to digital immortality, while the rest of us become fossils. To the extent that Big Tech holds sway over our lives, its a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yet the transhumanists have it backward at least in the long run. The Egyptians were convinced they would reign forever, as were the Romans. Ultimately, however, their arrogance proved futile. The same will be said of Silicon Valley oligarchs and their consumerist disciples. One day, immortal digital souls will be displayed in museums like crumbling marble statues.

Until then, wed be wise to build high fences as nature takes its course. Were still free to choose our own paths. This is a spiritual conflict on their terms, but Im keeping faith that anything is possible.

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At a crossroads: the intersection of higher education and corporate training – Chief Learning Officer

Posted: at 6:43 am

The stark lines between higher education and corporate training in the e-learning space are starting to blur. The philosophies, methodologies and objectives for teaching and training are vastly different, and, as a result, the technologies that support each have also diverged with very little cross over. Now, corporate training and higher education are discovering there are benefits for both sides when they partner to offer cross-training solutions and share content.

The increased presence of digital learning that has risen during the past year, combined with the need to develop (and redevelop) a skilled workforce, presents opportunities for higher education and corporate training to work together. The challenge is bridging the technology gap, as the systems that support these distinct learners have never had to work and play nicely together.

Distinct approaches

Higher education focuses on teaching foundational concepts and tends to be more abstract, whereas employee training provides hands-on, practical experiences that go beyond having knowledge of a subject. While the two are quite often complementary, learning is more theoretical while training is about practical application and skills development.

In order to understand the technological variances between higher education and corporate learning management systems, its helpful to review some of the primary differences that have contributed to the dramatically disparate digital platform designs that underpin each.

Learner intent

For higher education, content and technologies are developed with the requirements of the student learner in mind. Traditionally, it was assumed that learning and education were a students top priority, with longer periods of time spent learning and focusing on developing the foundation of knowledge. Learning occurs primarily in a classroom setting with textbooks, assignments, papers, assessments and exams. LMSs that target higher education were specifically designed to supplement in-class lectures or to resemble the in-person classroom model in course duration and learning style.

Corporate learning needs are typically more immediate and must fit into an employees existing work schedule. In most cases, training is more specific in nature and is centered on a particular skill set. Corporate learners often require just-in-time training to perform their jobs and to answer questions as they arise. Learners dont have time to acquire critical skills over the course of months or even hours, and corporate LMSs were designed specifically with these limitations in mind. Microlearning is a great example of just-in-time, on-the-job training that doesnt translate well in the academic world.

The definition of a course across the higher education and corporate audiences illustrates this distinction well. College courses span multiple weeks and consist of a variety of modalities and assignments while courses in the corporate world are discrete activities assigned to employees with the expectation that completion will take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

Measuring success

Another clear difference between the two is that corporate training doesnt usually evaluate employees course completion in the same way that universities grade students. Going back to the objectives of both, we can understand how the metrics of each will differ.

Success for a student learner would mean passing the semester-long course, which consists of multiple activities within it that roll together to determine a final grade. Activities might be scored individually (think assessments), but the collective participation is what ultimately determines a final grade or completion.

On the corporate side, metrics are captured at the specific activity level with the goal of reporting on who has taken what courses, whether they passed a course and even how much time was spent on the activity. These metrics facilitate reporting and measuring the impact training has on employee performance and the overall business. This can also take the form of audits for compliance training or skills-based training for better job performance.

As a result of these unique needs, the majority of available LMSs cater to one audience only. In many cases, the LMS that a university uses to educate its students is not the same system used to train its employees and staff.

The technology divide

Its not an accident that the LMSs and platforms that support higher education and corporate training are designed so differently. There are distinct goals that drive the architecture of each type of system.

Lets return to the course example. A professor builds a course in the higher ed LMS that includes multiple components and activities, many of which might be elective or supplementary to the overall course subject. Some components of the course might be assignments or assessments that are graded, but the course within the academic LMS is designed to act as a container, housing multiple types of activities that students access over the course of several weeks. Higher ed LMSs are intentionally designed to support the idea of a long-running, instructor-led curriculum, with a final total grade as the measurement.

On the corporate side, an LMS administrator might build a course by uploading a single piece of content, like a file or video asset, and assign it to employees to complete within a very narrowly defined timeframe. The concept of a course is more transactional and discrete in this case. Corporate-centric LMSs are designed to support this model with built-in authoring tools, content library integrations, and reporting and analytics to track and measure the impact of each individual training activity.

Specific standards

Not only are the LMSs for higher education and corporate training architected differently, the standards used for each audience are not the same. E-learning standards are an important detail to consider as they allow software, content and systems from independent vendors to function well together without custom work for each combination of systems. The standards make it easier to know which content and systems will be compatible with one another.

For higher education, Learning Tools Interoperabilityis the most commonly used standard. LTI helps to standardize connections between LMSs (known as Platforms or Tool Consumers in the spec) and learning applications or content libraries (known as Tools or Tool Providers). LMS and learning tool providers use LTI to handle the launch and authentication requirements to securely and seamlessly connect learners from an LMS with external services and content. If you want to provide your content to higher education institutions, its highly recommended that you consider using LTI to integrate or share your courseware.

On the corporate training side, SCORM emerged as the de facto standard, with SCORM 1.2 being the most universal and basic version, but xAPI and cmi5 are gaining traction due to their flexibility and robust reporting capabilities. To provide your curriculum to corporations, you will want to ask what standard their LMS supports and consider ways to make your courseware compatible.

Currently, these silos and artificial distinctions between the various learning applications and the different types of content are beginning to break down. Ideally, every platform would be able to deliver every type of training in every standard, but that isnt currently the case. Corporate LMSs have generally shied away from supporting LTI, but there is evidence that adding this support could go a long way in bringing valuable higher education learning activities into the corporate space. Likewise, corporate training initiatives will have a better chance of success with higher education institutions if they present content as LTI or another supported format.

Working across the divide

Its becoming increasingly critical to have partnerships and resources available on hand to easily provide the skills and training that both corporate and student learners require. No one has time to build out a full-blown curriculum, and why should they if they can leverage one that already exists?

Benefits for corporations

Corporations are starting to see the value in offering product training and technical certification programs to students as a means to train or preskill their future workforce. Additionally, companies are realizing that they can look to higher education institutions to help supplement the ever-growing need to reskill or upskill employees as job roles shift and technologies change over time. In fact, higher education is uniquely suited to offer corporations pieces of their curriculum as short training courses, such as technical competencies, computer program training and other soft skills that are in high demand.

By partnering with higher education institutions to offer certifications and training, organizations will be able to tap into a skilled workforce that is ready to start working more quickly with less on-the-job training, skilled in the roles theyre applying for and equipped with the specific experiences the company is looking for in new hires. Companies will also be able to more easily reskill and upskill their current staff as needed, meaning theyll have the right candidates knocking on the door and the ability to continually train current employees, which is key for retention efforts.

Benefits for higher ed institutions

Universities will also see big benefits in fostering these partnerships. By collaborating with businesses and organizations in their area, they will better understand employer needs and can create and offer courses and programs to meet future workforce goals. Higher education institutions will also know what courses they offer that can be used to reskill or upskill employees who are working for their partners. To do this successfully, universities will want to discuss with their partners what career pathways employees take and how they can provide courseware to meet those needs.

Universities who offer curricula that include relevant job skills and certifications that employers desire in new hires will provide their graduates with a strong foundation for entering the workforce. In many cases, these programs will help recent graduates secure higher starting salaries as they come in with valuable professional certifications and more practical knowledge early on. Ultimately, students choose to pursue higher education as a means to find good jobs that they enjoy and to become gainfully employed shortly after graduation. Students who reach those objectives are more likely to be happier, well compensated and think positively about the university that helped them reach their goals.

Partnerships in action

Several large organizations have already started breaking down the silos and reaping the benefits of partnering with universities. A great example is AWS Academy, which supplies professors at higher education institutions with free cloud computing courseware to assist students in earning certifications and gaining technical skills needed to find in-demand technology jobs. The content is available via LTI to institutions, making it more accessible for instructors and educators to incorporate into their existing curriculum.

Conclusion

With the ongoing pandemic and the way we learn and work changing, there will certainly be new challenges and opportunities for both higher education institutions and corporate training partnerships. These changes have already caused universities to consider virtual learning on a larger scale and shifting to online formats as a longer-term strategy, both of which have future growth potential. Similarly, many organizations had to quickly pivot and adapt to using online technologies at a much higher rate than ever before, including for onboarding, continuing education, reskilling and upskilling due to workplace disruption.

Organizations can use their content to form partnerships with universities, and universities can leverage this content to supply those organizations with future employees who are equipped with the in-demand skills and certifications for which those companies are actively recruiting. The future demands higher education and corporations work together to shape a more skilled workforce. The challenge is breaking down the technology barriers that have developed over time in order for this to become a reality.

Tammy Rutherford is the managing director at Rustici Software, which helps e-learning companies work well together by compliance with specifications such as SCORM, xAPI and cmi5. She has spent more than 13 years in the e-learning space. To comment, email editor@clomedia.com.

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What is Strava, and how does it work? – 220 Triathlon

Posted: at 6:43 am

What is Strava?

Strava is a well-known digital platform for multisport tracking where users can make free accounts and become a part of the Strava community. Once joined, you can record and upload workouts, add friends and like each others activities, known as giving kudos. The platform has a smartphone app that can sync directly with your smart watch or bike computer, you can include photos and comments on uploaded activities and join various challenges, as well as set yourself distance goals each month. Strava is the Swedish word for strive and the company aim to promote an ethos of personal development, acceptance and mutual encouragement across their users.

Many beginners may be enticed by sporty friends to download Strava and keep track of their activities, whilst becoming part of a wider online sporting community. This can be useful to get to grips with different routes in your area, compare your performance over time, and a useful means to start holding yourself accountable for keeping fit. Best of all, all your sporty friends probably already have Strava, and you can link up with them, have a nose into what theyre up to, and impress with your own fitness escapades.

Recently, Strava has introduced a subscription option where only paid members can access tools such as route builder, goal setting, training plans and fitness over time analyses. Arguably most useful, though, is the ability to create routes, which you can then upload to your fitness device and follow on the fly. As for whether you should invest in this, its worth really considering your reasons for using the app and what you find useful. If you are new to an area or often like to explore new places, it may be worth investing in the 47.99/year to get access to this facility. Or if youre really into your metrics and wants all the juicy details on the development of your fitness over time, the insight of your cumulative fitness, fatigue and form can be illuminating, but bear in mind that these stats are only available if you use the app often and train with power meter and heart rate data. Also handy is the ability to take a look at your training log, which can be set to show all types of activities and give totals at the end of each week, a useful way to visualise training bulk and future training planning. Along the same vein, we liked the matched activities information available to subscribers, which allows you to compare your efforts over the the same routes over time. If you are only a casual Strava user, or are not yet Strava-obsessed, then perhaps you wouldnt get the most out of the subscription option since you can still interact with other users and upload workouts on the free version of the app.

Long-time Strava users may remember the fly-by feature where you could see a map of all Strava athletes who were also tracking their ride/runs that you come into contact with when on your own activity. This allowed you to have a nose into other local athletes training and routes and find out more on that speedy guy with the aero wheels you saw 10km into your own ride. However, this feature is now opt-in only due to safety concerns over the potential for athletes to be followed or intercepted on their workouts, especially for athletes who often follow the same route in isolated locations or during antisocial hours.

Another means to safeguard your data is to put your account on private mode and create a privacy zone to hide the exact start and end locations of activities so that your home address is not evident when uploading workouts into the community. For your loved ones peace of mind, you can choose to set up Beacon which will send a text to a designated contact with live tracking details to follow as you complete your activity. In summary, Strava can be dangerous in terms of it being a social media platform, which will always carry certain cyber risks, but the Strava team has put measures in place to protect users against harmful activity and a bit of cyber common sense should keep users safe.

What you really want to know is: what exactly the app can offer you, and is it worth creating yet another social media account? Well, lets get into it

Your profile and personal activity tracking

Like may social media profiles, you have the option to upload a photo of yourself, write a short bio, and your profile will also display your weekly totals of swim/bike/run, or whatever activities you most often do. The bottom of your profile will also show your routes, segments, posts and any gear you have inputted as often in use (this can be useful to know when you pass the 500-mile mark in one pair of trainers and it is time for new ones). Also in view is your trophy case showcasing all the challenges you have successfully completed and what clubs you are a part of. Of course, you have the option to set all of these details as private and only those whom you allow to follow you can see this information.

The Strava Community

Follow friends accounts, exchange comments and kudos on their activities, join clubs, and take a peek at their photos, whilst judging their activity name choice (yes this is a very important part of the posting process) all of this is a big part of being a Strava user and you will learn quickly that Strava scrolling can be pretty addictive. One of the major selling points to Strava is that it is now so widely used amongst the fitness community that youre bound to find people you know already on the app when you sign up, a ready-made support base of fellow sports enthusiasts just waiting for you. There are all sorts of challenges to motivate and keep you on track towards your fitness goals, these include 5k, 10k and half marathon monthly challenges, as well as total distance challenges each month, and even partner challenges like run a total of 50 miles in April to raise awareness for Prostate Cancer.

Special Strava features:

Segments Also motivating is the personal achievement tracking during activities, which lets you know when you have ran your fastest 5k, fastest split, or where you rank in the top ten on a segment (a segment is a section of road/trail and has been mapped and named as its own segment). Athletes can like to challenge themselves by racing the top times along these segments to see if they can rank a high score, we call this segment chasing and many watches and bike computers can even be set to give alters to indicate the start and end of a segment when youre out training.

KOM and QOM The KOM refers to the king of the mountain and is the fastest male athlete on a segment. QOM, you guessed it, means queen of the mountain and refers to the fastest female athlete on any given segment. These revered titles are competitively won, the name originates from gruesome mountain ascents where the fastest riders up really were treated like royalty.

Local Legend Introduced only in the past year, this title is reserved for the athlete who frequents a segment the most often out of all athletes who traverse it. Hence the name, local, this title is generally only won by locals who often ride/run along a certain segment which is likely to be in the area they live. This title is a nod towards inclusivity as it does not take into account an athletes pace or distance, this is merely about frequency, which gives athletes of any pace the chance to proudly grab the title.

Streak challenges This is a relatively new type of challenge where a user can take on a streak goal, an example of which is uploading an activity four times a week for four weeks, with each activity needing to last at least 30mins. You can check your challenge progress under the challenges tab, and you are awarded with a virtual rosette when a challenge is completed. Signing up to (free) initiatives such as this is a great way to hold yourself accountable and to commit to regular weekly exercise.

Likelihood is, if youre asking this question, then you dont have the Strava syndrome. This term is used by the Strava golden oldies, the Strava-obsessed, the avid Strava scrollers, those who spend most of their run contemplating the perfect ironic-sounding title for said run. You know who you are. If theres one drawback of Strava, or similar such sports tracking apps, its that there is a possibility to become too competitive with your peers and negatively compare your performance with theirs. This can happen to anyone. Getting too in your head and self-depreciative about your performance is nothing to be ashamed about, in an era where people now publish their exercise results across social media platforms, are we really surprised that such issues can sometimes arise? When this happens it can be helpful to bring yourself back to your why, your reason for exercising and why you love what you do. If your why has been obscured by a burning desire to create the funniest Strava post that will accrue the most kudos, perhaps it is time to gently re-evaluate your priorities and re-find your love of the sport. Remember, if its not on Strava, it did still happen, no matter what your sports watch tells you to the contrary.

Persuaded to give Strava a try? Download the app here.

Please note that all information and opinion in this article has been independently given and is not affiliated with Strava in any capacity.

Top photo illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

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