Category Archives: Mind Uploading

National Health Authorty (NHA) approved DRiefcase has integrated with WhatsApp to enhance user experience in storing personal healthcare records (PHR). DRiefcase is Indias first Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) integrated health locker.

Being Indias first NHA approved PHR app, it helps users directly store personal medical records into their accounts by directly uploading them over WhatsApp.

ABDM is a digital framework that will connect patients, doctors and other healthcare stakeholders nationwide to facilitate safe and secure movement of health information.

Talking about this development, Sohit Kapoor, Founder at DRiefcase, We have always believed that any software platform cannot expect patients or doctors to adapt to their user journey. The user journey of the platform has to work the way they do and minimize disruptions for them. Keeping this conviction in mind, we have now enabled using WhatsApp as a method of uploading medical records onto our health locker

This integration will be instrumental in bridging the information gap that exists between patients and caregivers to facilitate safe and efficient flow of information. This will also facilitate flow of information to other stakeholders in the ecosystem, such as pharma companies, insurance companies and governments, all through an everyday app like WhatsApp.

DRiefcase can be a very resourceful platform for its users through the use of WhatsApp as Indians are comfortable using it to communicate with familiar medical professionals.

Being a a patient-centric platform, DRiefcase helps users manage their digital medical records for more than 5 years in a secured manner, gives access to PHR, empowers users to maintain and manage their family medical records online. It also ensures ease of upload and fast retrieval of records in a timely manner. DRiefcase helps scan all medical records including radiology reports such as X-rays and MRIs with the help of a pan-India team at the comfort of ones home.

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DRiefcase integrates with WhatsApp to enhance user experience in storing personal healthcare records - The Financial Express

The potential for GIFT IFSC in inbound investment into India, Outbound for the world and also what we called Missed Call investments a.k.a jurisdiction purely for servicing the fund.In conversation with CA Aditya Sesh, MD, Dr. Sujata Sesh, Director and CA Shabarish, VP, Basiz Fund Serviceswho speaks about their leadership in fund administration and the role of digital currency in emerging market in India.

Basiz is the market leader in fund administration; tell us more about how the sector has changed since Basiz's inception.CA.AdityaSesh:At the time we started operations in India , the concept of outsourcing fund administration and fund accounting work was still to catch on. I vividly remember that in the initial days when I went around to talk about our services and what good we could do for them, the response would generally be that all this work could be done by them in house and this would be easy for them to administer. Some of them also had concerns about data security despite the fact that we had advanced security systems to ensure data security right from the start. It took many years of explaining to clients that the gamut fund administration, fund accounting, investor services and the allied requirements like support with taxation in various geographies etc are far too complex and diverse for an AIF and the Fund Manager to focus on. Our plank then and now is that the Fund Manager must be left free to focus on evaluating the investment, adding value to the investment and exiting it with the single minded focus on ensuring a decent return to the investors. It may be beneficial to outsource activities which do not fall under the purview of core investment activity.What are your expectations for your newest branch in GIFT City in terms of business operations?CA Shabarish:We were one of the earliest off the block to actually have a presence in GIFT City, Gujarat. We have been evangelising the benefits of GIFT City to all our clients in various parts of the world and we see a fair bit of interest in the minds of the people to understand the benefits of GIFT City. The potential for GIFT IFSC in inbound investment into India, Outbound for the world and also what we called Missed Call investments a.k.a jurisdiction purely for servicing the fund. One of the most important benefits that GIFT City offers to potential funds and investors is that it is a clean jurisdiction, does not carry any FATF baggage and has a very pro-active team managing it. Our personal experience in dealing with the officers there has been very positive. Having said this, it is only a question of time before the jurisdiction becomes popular with fund managers and lawyers around the world.How do you see your industry being impacted by digital money as it gains traction throughout the world?Dr. Sujata: It is important to define what we mean by digital money. There is an entire ecosystem which transacts using digital money. The great benefits of digital money are that it is seamless, quick, enables fast transfers, is traceable (from a security standpoint) when routed through an appropriate secure system, and should ideally reduce transaction costs over a period of time. The biggest threats are cybersecurity and the risk of counterfeiting. The Reserve Bank of India is exploring whether we should go in for a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency). This may not be very far away as blockchain technology has made great strides in the last few years. This may also help cross border transactions. In terms of the AIF Industry, it will be another mode of attracting investment and remittances which will be helpful. There are thoughts that the US, China and Japan are all in planning mode on rolling out a digital currency. It will achieve the desired traction once the guidelines are in place and people understand the security aspects. The recent directives by the Central Government to tax the capital gains on cryptocurrency shows that the Government is keeping an eagle eye on the usage of cryptos in India.

Where do you see digital currency going in the Indian market, and what policy steps do you anticipate the regulator taking?Dr. Sujata: Digital currency is in its nascent stage in India. It will get popular over a period of time and the Central Government is also aware of the positives and negatives of digital currency. In its simplest form, digital currency with reasonable level of controls will be useful to power the digital business push as also reduce transaction costs apart from reducing the need to store and transact with physical currency. As far as India is concerned, let us understand that when digital payments were introduced, we had many sceptics, including some who did not buy into this idea and were vocal about their opposition to this concept. I was reading a report recently which said that digital payments in India had grown by 33% in 2021-22 over 2020-21. In terms of volume of transactions, India effected 7422 crore digital payments in 2021-22 as compared to 5554 digital payments in the previous year. NPCI (UPI) alone recorded till February 2022 transactions of a value of Rs. 8.27 lakh crore. As businesses come back to normal post CoVid 19, it would be safe to expect that the only way digital will go is up. The regulator will continue and should continue to monitor this space carefully and will take all steps necessary to protect the interest of the user.How has the fund administration industry's operations changed as a result of digitalization?CA Shabarish: The AIF Industry has also needed to revamp its operations keeping in mind the increased level of digitalization going on. Hitherto, a substantial part of these activities consisted of physical transmission of documents, checking and uploading. We at Basiz have put all these items on to a digital onboarding process wherein a substantial part of these processes are completed through the online mode, including digital signatures. As we go ahead, I believe that digital will be the way forward as AIF Industry service providers try to strike an effective balance between the speed required by the industry with efficient checks and balances. Software development is driving this engine and as days go on, we will reach a level where with blockchain support, the entire ecosystem could be driven at one go.

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Management of Basiz Fund Services, speaks about their Fund administration Edge and the impact of digitalization - Deccan Herald

To build long-term relationships with the consumers, content marketing is the most natural tool for marketers, said Ranjeet Kumar, Head of Brand and Content, Scaler, in a free-wheeling chat with BuzzInContent.com.

He said, For any brand to build top of mind recall, it has to involve the consumer at its core. Content is the intervention that the consumer wants to watch. Brands that are able to engage with the consumers naturally through content are able to build long-term relationships with them.

Scaler Academy is an ed-tech start-up that helps college students and tech professionals upgrade their skills. Launched in 2019 by Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena, its parent company, InterviewBit has grown multi-fold during the pandemic, with revenue galloping 200% over the pre-Covid level.

Explaining the importance of content marketing for ed-tech platforms like Scaler, he said, Upskilling doesnt happen naturally once a person finishes higher education and gets a job. Upskilling is very needs-based and transactional once a person is settled in a job. Ed-tech has a high involvement but low intent and interest. Therefore, tough to convert into action. Any education-driven company would want to reduce the customer acquisition cost in the longer run. It cant happen by buying spots on big-ticket IPs, but by doing meaningful conversations through content.

Out of Rs 100 crore set aside for marketing in 2022, the brand has allocated Rs 60-70 crore to content and Rs 30 crore for advertising.

Scaler has also amped up its in-house content setup and one can gauge that with the crores of investment gone behind creating its in-house 1200 square feet content studio. The brand and content team consists of 35 people at Scaler.

The core focus of the brand is to leverage digital media's power by creating IPs, curating branded content, and choosing the right voices to partner with for influencer campaigns to accurately convey the brand's value proposition to its niche audience.

Scaler has divided its content strategy into two parts, one is consumer content, where they collaborate with platforms, like TVF, of the content world and build brand awareness and eventually bring the consumers to its platforms. The second one is the learning content, which is further divided into bouquets: Masterclasses, recorded tech bytes, Live events and other similar content that helps consumers learn.

Kumar said that while learning content has been there since the platforms inception, the brand started its journey on the discovery side of content only a year ago. For Scaler, the Southern market is the core market and hence its big-ticket content IPs are also centred around the Southern market. Going forward, it will launch more Hindi and English big-ticket IPs as well.

Two months ago, Scaler along with its digital agency Isobar collaborated with the content platform Girl Formula for the web series 30 weds 21 Season 2. The 7-episodes web series is on its way to crossing 100 million organic views by end of June, said Kumar.

The web series:

The last branded web series to cross over 100 million organic views was TVFs Aspirants created for Unacademy.

Most recently, Scaler has collaborated with Bhartiya Digital Party, a regional digital entertainment company to launch the web series B.E Rojgaar, which will release on May 20.

The trailer:

These web series were specifically written for Scaler. Its not that we just associated with an already planned web series, commented Kumar.

Sharing the thought behind launching a property as expensive as a web series than just going the snackable content route, which is comparatively cheaper, Kumar said, To create a long-term relationship, one needs a full-stack approach. One needs to invite the customers in a disarming way where they get to consume entertaining content. Post that, one needs to build snackable content that the brand can keep uploading on YouTube to keep the engagement going. We are focussing a lot on big-ticket content IPs. End of the day, we want to drive content to commerce and through such big-scale content IPs, the uptick has been significant for us.

The brand has garnered over one lakh YouTube subscribers in three years. It uploads more than four videos on YouTube every day and is able to convert over 200 subscribers daily. While 70% of subscribers on YouTube are organic, 30% of the subscribers have come to the platform inorganically, added Kumar.

While Scaler has been heavily focussed on video content until now, going forward, it aims to focus more on audio content, which is podcasts.

In audio, while the sample size is less, the consumer in the hot state is more than in the video. We have done a couple of experiments. We are sure that with the success we had on running audio content, we will see some good uptick, added Kumar.

Branded content is fairly new in India. Getting the skilled and the right talent for this stream is not childs play. On being asked how Scaler goes about hiring people for the branded content and content team, Kumar said that over and above basic skills one needs for content, they also look at the entrepreneurial mindset in a person while hiring. We look at people who dont shy away from rolling their sleeves to solve business problems. Secondly, we look at core competencies. We have people from journalism, television and advertising.

While devising the brands content strategy, Scaler has a two-point checklist it follows:

Kumar said that it sees its consumers consuming more gaming, entertainment and infotainment content.

He further said, When it comes to choosing the content partners, our bias is more content-driven than platform-driven. We take into consideration our business objective, the demographics we are targeting and consumer preferences. This helps us narrow down our search for the right content partner.

Kumar further said that the brand ensures to keep its content plan to be documented. If I have to do content in January next year, I should be ready with the roadmap maximum by the end of May, said Kumar.

Many a times when a Content Head moves out from a company, and is replaced by a new one, they tend to change the whole content plan and strategy. As a result, the already running content IPs are left hanging in the air, while new ones are created.

Kumar said that content shouldnt be treated like just another marketing channel but be embedded in the DNA of the company. He said, The content mindset of the company shouldnt be dependent on its people. Dont make content people-centric but culture-centric. If a person leaves, the company must again hire people with similar mindsets.

Scaler is very selective when it comes to influencer marketing. While the brand works with Category A and B influencers, it is highly optimistic about nano and micro-influencers. Scaler does 15-20 activities with micro and nano influencers every month and 4-5 activities with Category A and B creators.

Kumar believes that measurement of content marketing success will remain a pain point for a foreseeable future. Explaining the same, he said, When you put out content, there is a direct correlation on impact and there is also an indirect correlation. For example, a person consumes content, but might not immediately buy the product and returns to buy the product two months later via performance marketing. That success will be attributed to performance marketing, while the consumer decided to buy the product because of the content he consumed two months ago.

He added, The attribution of the lead will go to performance marketing, whereas content marketing attribution wont happen. Now with moving into a cookie-less world, attribution of content marketing success will become even more blur.

Kumar also said that differentiating between real and vanity metrics has become another big problem. Reach has become a vanity metric. For example, if we take the case of a content creator and celebrity. While the celebrity might have a higher reach than a content creator, it will have lesser engagement in comparison to the creator who might have 1/10th reach of a celebrity but a higher engagement rate.

Scaler has produced all its content for digital and is not much of a believer in partnering with TV, radio and print for their content needs. Unfortunately, the TV ecosystem doesnt support the organic placement of content. Also, off-late, we havent come across good ambitious projects on TV, print and radio. We are absolutely okay to collaborate with print, TV and radio players if it matches our goals.

Concluding the conversation, Kumar said that going forward, Scaler will ensure to produce quality content along with focussing on the frequency of the content. Its not about doing many things, but doing fewer things and right. Well be carefully choosing our content partners and associating with credible people.

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Content marketing is the most natural tool for marketers to build long-term relationships with consumers, says Scaler's Ranjeet Kumar - BuzzInContent

Do you still need third-party antivirus software on modern systems? There are tradeoffs, so make sure you know what youre getting into before clicking that download button.

When you have to decide if youre going to install extra security to protect yourself from viruses and malware, its essential to know what risks youre facing. If you get infected by one of the various kinds of malware, you could be in serious trouble.

The main risks are losing your data, having your data stolen, having your identity stolen, and perhaps worst of all, having money stolen from your accounts.

Viruses and other malware have plenty of tricks to get your data or money. At present, ransomware is probably the most dangerous and destructive. This malware encrypts your data in the background and then demands a ransom to release it.

Adware bombards you with advertising pop-ups in an attempt to make money. Spyware watches you, looking for personal information or passwords for identity theft. Trojans attach themselves to otherwise innocent-looking programs. PUPs or Potentially Unwanted Programs are bundled into other software installers. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are numerous vulnerabilities that malware can exploit, but that doesnt mean you need security software to protect yourself from it!

The simple fact is that if you use your computer responsibly, its doubtful that youll ever encounter a virus or another type of malware. Stick to using software from reputable sources, examine email attachments and email senders for authenticity, and refrain from using flash drives or hard drives that have been plugged into computers you dont know.

You can also manually check attachments and other files for the presence of malware by using a site like VirusTotal, which gives you the benefit of showing the results from multiple antivirus engines.

You can also use a virtual machine program such as VirtualBox to test out software and ensure its safe before using it on your computers entire operating system.

Also, be sure to have cloud backups of your most essential data so that if a virus does destroy your data, you still have a copy in a location it cant be touched. Cloud storage services usually have a rolling window where you can restore any corrupted files that have been uploaded from your computer back to their original state.

If youre using Microsoft Windows, then Microsoft Defender is already up and running from when you first boot up Windows. Theres a sense among users that using the store brand antivirus that comes with your operating system means you arent that well protected. The truth is that Windows Defender consistently ranks among the top commercial antivirus packages to detect and destroy malware. Its no stretch to call it a good antivirus program, and dismissing it is perhaps a little misguided.

Defender uses the best practices of modern antivirus software. It receives virus definition updates as soon as they are available, offers real-time protection, and uses heuristic virus detection. Heuristic detection allows an antivirus package to guess whether something is a virus by its behavior, which means it can stop viruses even without a virus definition.

Like any software, Defender isnt perfect. For example, it has a disproportionate dependence on being online. So if you spend significant amounts of time offline and engage in risky behavior while doing so, another software package might be better for you. However, in terms of actual performance, its right up there with paid packages while costing the user nothing. Its not the best antivirus software, but when you factor in its price, Defender is hard to beat!

An essential part of computer security is controlling what information flows from your computer to the internet and back. You can be infected by certain malware (such as worms) through your internet or network connection without any help from you, the user.

If youre already infected with malware, you also dont want it calling back home and uploading the information its stolen from you. Paid antivirus software might advertise that they include a firewall, but you should know that Windows already has a software firewall built-in along with an antivirus. Not only that, but theres a good chance that your network router has a firewall of its own. So dont be swayed by the offer of a firewall as a feature.

Windows Firewall is quite basic, even if it does get the job done. The firewalls you get with paid software might offer valuable features to you. If you only need the core features of a firewall, youre already covered.

Antivirus software developers include internet security features to get more users to switch to their products. This may consist of a password manager, and it might seem like a good idea to get a free password manager with your security suite since that seems like a better deal than paying a monthly fee for a service like LastPass.

There are rather excellent password managers built into popular internet browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Theyll generate and store strong passwords for you completely free of charge. Youll even get a warning when one of your passwords is featured in a hacker breach.

Historically, Apple Mac computers like MacBooks and iMacs havent needed antivirus software thanks to security through obscurity. Thats just a fancy way of saying that such a small percentage of computers out in the world are Macs that virus creators dont think its worth the effort to create anything for them.

Mac users who only download trusted Mac software or software from the official Mac App store probably have nothing to worry about, but Mac viruses and other Mac malware are out there. MacWorld maintains a Mac malware list if youre curious about the exact threats youre facing.

Apples recent shift to their CPUs, starting with the Apple M1, has significantly increased the platforms security. Still, theres already at least one malware package that attacks M1 systems in the form of Silver Sparrow. Ultimately, most users dont need antivirus on Mac, but that strongly depends on your usage patterns. If you want some peace of mind, check out The Best Antivirus Options for Mac.

Microsoft Defender has the advantage of being designed as an integrated part of Windows 10 and 11. Unfortunately, thats not true for other antivirus options. Anyone who has used the major antivirus brands has experienced performance problems at some point.

These programs not only consume CPU and RAM resources, but their scanning can also interfere with the operation of legitimate applications, slowing them down or causing crashes.

This varies from application to application and from antivirus to antivirus. Its worth reading up on the performance impact of any paid antivirus software youre considering to see what users say about its effect on performance. Professional reviewers may also run benchmarks to determine how much performance impact a particular antivirus has on a computer.

If you rely on specific programs or are a gamer, you should check whether a given antivirus is known for conflicting or interfering with your favorite games or mission-critical applications.

Its becoming rare for antivirus software to be sold as a once-off application. Instead, youre likely to pay a monthly fee. Even if you pay once for the software, you may have to pay an annual fee or keep receiving virus definition updates.

Depending on your risk profile, whether you have access to built-in antivirus like Defender, and how much you need the extra features some paid options provide, the running costs may be unreasonable.

Speaking of costs, there are many free antivirus programs out there. They dont cost you any currency, but obviously, they need to make money somehow. If youre not paying directly, that means selling your information, bundling unwanted programs into their installer, or showing you advertisements.

If a free version also has an upgraded paid version, then the free version may have too many features removed to offer good virus protection.

Installing antivirus suites can add a ton of bloat to your computer. There may be many different components to the suite, each vying for your attention. There may also be automatically installed plugins that add themselves to your browser or to office software to fight macro viruses. A good antivirus protection suite will let you choose which components to install and which to defer, but even that can be a confusing chore!

One feature that most antivirus programs dont offer is a VPN or Virtual Private Network. VPNs create private tunnels over the internet, hiding your internet activity from anyone on the same network. That includes other users on your LAN (Local Area Network) and your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

VPNs are crucial if you ever use your computer on a public Wi-Fi network. Whether thats at work, at a coffee shop, or in a hotel, other users can steal all sorts of information from your network data, and thats something an antivirus program wont protect you from.

If you decide that you want to install third-party antivirus protection on your computer, then its a good idea to stick with mainstream brands and have a known history. Especially since there are so many fake antivirus programs, you may see these phony antivirus programs advertised on dodgy websites or social media. Theyll tell you that your computer system is infected, charge you money to fix it, and if youre lucky, youll only lose a bit of money. Mainstream cybersecurity software brands and software include:

Suppose you want to evaluate the relative merits of the different antivirus options or confirm that an antivirus program is legit. In that case, a great resource is AV-Test, which specializes in reviewing and testing this software. You can also check out our Best Virus & Malware Scanner for some great suggestions.

You probably use your smartphone or tablet more than your desktop computer these days, so youve likely wondered if you need antivirus for that. If youre an Android smartphone user and use software from sources other than the Google Play store, you may want to look into a reputable Android Antivirus app.

Check out How to Remove Malware From an Android Phone and Best Android Antivirus and Security Apps. For iOS users, antivirus programs arent an option, but if you havent jailbroken your iPhone or iPad, its a non-issue.

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Do You Really Need Antivirus Software on Your Windows or Mac Computer? - Online Tech Tips

I want to be authentic: so in the future, with generations gone, people can listen to my music and think, Yeah, this speaks to the time. I feel like I can relate to what was happening, says Koffee, her dulcet tones melting from my laptop speakers on a Zoom call a couple of weeks prior to the London launch of her debut album. She's on the other side of the world in Kingston, Jamaica, and her screen's blacked out, but she assures me she's sun-drenched and blissed out. The message for my debut album, Gifted, comes from my own personal influences. The things that I've experienced, the climate of the world, the pandemic and the feelings that came with that situation. I wanted to uplift people, she continues. I think it's important to inject positive energy into the world and just try to stay on a path that can keep people feeling light. I tend to write from my heart. Things that are true to me, and hopefully music that years down the road I will still enjoy performing and still have a message for the youth.

Koffee's time on the road thus far has been fast and furious. In less than half a decade, she went from uploading a song for Olympic medallist Usain Bolt on YouTube to her music career skyrocketing. By 18-years-old, she'd inked a deal with a major label. Then in 2019, aged 19, released her five-track dancehall EP Rapture, which saw her make history as the youngest recipient and first-ever female reggae artist to win a GRAMMY. Since then, she's hit No. 1 on the reggae charts, dropped her first full-length and worked with everyone from Protoje, to Jay-Z, to Kendrick Lamar. As she riffs about leaving a legacy behind in her lyrics, it's mad to conceive how short her musical journey has been given what she's achieved and even more mind-blowing that 15 years ago, music wasn't even a thing she thought to pursue.

Growing up in Spanish Town, Jamaica, Koffee never expected to become an artist. At 14, she even briefly studied to become a pharmacist. There's even a clip of me saying I want to become an astronaut on live TV, she laughs, recalling early childhood ambitions. But Koffee was naturally musically gifted from the outset. She cut her vocal chops in the church choir every Saturday and was raised on a diet of gospel, reggae and lovers rock by her mother, an actress and a Seventh Day Adventist.

I sang in the church choir at an infant age. I was pretty much born in the church. But no, I never thought I'd make a career out of it. I realised I was enjoying music around age 16, and I explained to my friends that I would probably be a ghostwriter for other artists. They kept encouraging me to do my own thing... and here we are," Koffee laughs.

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Positive energy: Koffee's uplifting reggae is bringing light to the world - Mixmag

The earliest media coverage of Instagram tended to emphasize the platforms technical attributesits ease of use, its many filters, the pleasantness of its neat grid layoutas much as the social aspects. By the time that Facebook acquired the app, in April of 2012, however, it had developed a distinct culture, one firmly rooted in the aspirational. Instagram, as a New Yorker contributor remarked the day after the acquisition, makes everything in our lives, including and especially ourselves, look better. With assistance from the apps glossy filters, even the most mundane of still-lifesa poppy-seed bagel on a desk, a curtained window, a traffic cone lying on its side in the roadcould be imbued with an indelible hipness. Ten years later, Instagram is a veritable dinosaur, culturally ubiquitous but quietly flailing as its appeal among teen-agers shrivels. Meanwhile, the current fixation among young people is a platform marked as the anti-Instagram.

This is BeReal, a social-media app founded in 2020 by the French entrepreneurs Alexis Barreyat and Kvin Perreau. In the past few months, the platform has seen a surge in users, accompanied (or perhaps catalyzed) by a rash of glowing media coverage, including in the Wall Street Journal, Teen Vogue, and Business Insider. To summarize the BeReal user experience: once a day, at a random time, the app sends a push notification to its users, granting them two minutes to snap a two-way photo using their phones front- and rear-facing cameras. Only after posting the daily photo can users see what their friends have posted; photos taken after the two-minute window are marked as late, and metadata reveal how many times a photo has been retaken before the final image is postedan element supposedly designed for the sake of transparency, but which reads more like a badge of shame. There are no filters and no videos, just a stream of candid-seeming photo diptychs, all of which disappear once the next alert is sent. The strict limitations and sense of urgency inherent to BeReals design, the apps team and fans argue, serve its goal of cultivating authenticity, a word that can be found in virtually every article written about the app. On the marketing front, the company doesnt shy away from throwing a gauntlet at the feet of the platforms against whose image BeReal was made. BeReal wont make you famous, the App Store description states. If you want to become an influencer, it continues, you can stay on TikTok and Instagram.

Perusing BeReal is, in some ways, markedly different from using Instagram. Although the platforms share the central endless-scroll structure, several common genres of Instagram postengagements, parties, concerts, graduations, vacationsare, if not entirely absent, far rarer on BeReal. Instead, the permascroll reveals people walking their dogs, studying for finals, eating dinner, watching movies, reading, and brushing their teeth. Instagram was initially marketed as a sort of online photo diary, but using BeReal is perhaps an even more voyeuristic venture, one which drops the user not into major life events or chosen moments but, rather, pinprick views into the everyday in all its banality. Unaided by filters, appearance-tweaking tools such as FaceApp, and opportunities to craft a perfect moment, BeReal posts do at least come across as more authentic in aggregate; where the sky in the background of an Instagram post is so often an uncannily vibrant, piercing blue, on BeReal it is just a regular sky. I cant describe scrolling through BeReal as fun so much as anthropologically fascinating, but its appeal to teen-agers, in particular, makes intuitive sense to me. The daily two-minute countdown gives the app a gamified edge, much like maintaining a Snapchat streak or sharing Wordle results.

Lurking beneath the surface of BeReals marketing is an implicit thesis about the impact of more traditional social platforms such as Instagram: they encourage dishonesty and, in so doing, degrade our social and emotional health. This may explain the righteous or even moralizing terms in which BeReal describes itself: its not just another social-media app but a vision for the future of social media, one that is softer, kinder, and healthier. This is a worthy notion but also a contradictory one. For as much as the company preaches authenticity, whats actually being transmitted is merely a different kind of performance. On many days since signing up for BeReal, Ive been taking a nap or lying on the couch, staring at my phone, when the alert arrived. In most cases, Ive either hurried to find something less embarrassing that I could plausibly be doing or simply skipped posting that day, thus missing out on the experience of Being Real entirely. Users may not be able to whiten their teeth or adjust the saturation in their posts, but they can still stage their pictures against their apartments nicest wall, or push piles of dirty laundry out of view. The difference between BeReal and the social-media giants isnt the formers relationship to truth but the size and scale of its deceptions.

One could argue that Instagram has already beat BeReal at its own game. In the past few years, many have remarked on the rise of casual Instagram, a philosophy of posting that Mashable recently described as having a studied carelessnessnatural lighting, less makeup or none at all, and visible clutter abound. This, too, is not so much a shift away from performance as a shift from high to low. Be it on Instagram, TikTok, BeReal, or elsewhere, users cannot help but perform a version of themselves that has been idealized or augmented for public consumption. That the images we encounter on these apps are inauthentic is not in and of itself dishonest or unhealthy. If something is unhealthy within this equation, its that we still harbor an expectation that authenticity might be found within the permascroll.

The creator and team behind BeReal seem sincere in their convictions about the danger of constant exposure to the artifice of online life. But its hard to ignore the way that the apps design leans into one of the most noxious aspects of social media. Whereas platforms such as Instagram allow users to lurk without uploading their own content for any length of time, posting is a compulsory part of the BeReal experience: you cant scroll through others daily posts until your own has been uploaded. This element, combined with the apps use of push notifications, makes it difficult to modulate ones level of engagement with BeReal: youre either all in or all out. This expectation of constant use is, to my mind, a far more annoying and even insidious aspect of social media than encountering phony representations of others lives. It seems counterproductive, to say the least, that revealing my truest self might require me to be continually available for daily doses of self-exposure.

The fantasy of an authentic social-media experience is as compelling as it is categorically impossible. It would, after all, be nice to discover that the secret to peering into the fully realized, complex personhood of another was as simple as finding the right design. But for all the documentation of our lives now available to usposed or realwe do not appear to know one another more profoundly or intimately for it. While scrolling through BeReals in the past few weeks, Ive occasionally felt gripped by loneliness. Seeing others partying, hanging out with friends, or curled up on the couch with their significant others, framed as everyday slices of life, elicited a more intense fear of missing out than Ive ever felt on Instagram. And yet, on the occasion that the push notification arrived while I myself was at a bar or out to dinner with friends, I didnt notice it until hours later. If theres a solution to the discontent that accompanies social-media overexposure, it might just be to log off.

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BeReal and the Fantasy of an Authentic Online Life - The New Yorker

New celebrity dating rumors seem to pop up every day, as your favorite stars enjoy keeping their fans guessing about their personal livesbut according to her recent social media posts, Keyshia Cole is the latest to be the focus of intrigue. On her Instagram stories, Keyshia Cole made it clear that she misses her recent musical collaboration with Antonio Brown a lot.

Last month, Antonio Brown revealed that he was working on his first album, Paradigm, and that Keyshia Cole will appear on the first single. Theyve been previewing the video for the albums first song, Dont Leave, and have built a friendship in the process. However, admirers believe there is more to the story based on her recent social media posts.

Miss him! On her Instagram stories, Keyshia Cole captioned photos of the two together. I really miss him, she says. Despite the fact that neither has officially addressed the rumors, the Internet went into overdrive with thoughts and speculations that the two could be more than pals.

Antonios new work has so captivated Keyshia that she has already stated that the unreleased CD is deserving of the highest musical honora Grammy. The music video will be released soon, allowing fans to observe Keyshia and Antonios relationship up close and personal.

ALSO READ: Who Is Kelly Osbourne Dating: A Look At Her Stressful Relationship History

According to Keyshia Cole, Antonio Browns debut album, Paradigm, may win him a Grammy. (Photo: @keyshiacole)

Cole told TMZ on April 22 that Brown is talented and that she wouldnt have worked with him musically if she didnt believe that. I believe he is tremendously talented, the 40-year-old continued. His corpus of work is something I admire. In my opinion, he will be excellent. I do. I wouldnt have worked with him unless I thought hed be terrific.

When asked if Brown should give up his football career to pursue music full-time, Cole replied, I dont think he should give up anything. You can achieve anything if you put your mind to it.

ALSO READ: Who Is Jojo Siwa Dating 2022: Confirms That She Is Seeing Kylie Prew Once More

Cole answered, Of sure! when asked if she thinks Brown, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver, will win a Grammy. Whatever you do, you put your mind to it. Live your life whatever you wish.

When people saw Coles words on the internet, many others concluded they were made just because she was allegedly dating him. Cole and Brown first became friends in March when they were making a music video for their song Dont Leave.

Keyshia Cole and Antonio Browns new single is included in a video.

Cole fueled the connection rumors by uploading a video of what appears to be Cole displaying her tattoo of Browns initials. There has been no additional information about Cole and Browns connection since then.

When The D Good, you top supporter!

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Keyshia Cole Dating: Her Loves And Hook Ups, Here's All The Information! - Newsbreak - Newsbreak

By William Henry, Content Marketing Manager at Feathr

As any association knows, growing membership, promoting events, and boosting revenue is easier said than done. Pressure to succeed in these areas often falls on marketing executives, who face the daunting task of capturing human time and attentionboth scarcities in a digital era rife with communication overload.

For a shot at success in this brave, new world, association marketers must employ digital advertising strategies that keep members and prospects continuously engaged.

Thats where retargeting comes in. This common form of online advertising keeps associations front and center through the use of cookies, or small pieces of data stored in a users browser.

Youve probably seen retargeting in action online, even if you dont recognize it by name: Youre browsing Amazon for a colorful pair of running shoes one day. The next day, youre scrolling through your newsfeed for interesting articles. There, alongside the article you click on, is an ad for the same pair of shoes that previously caught your eye. By providing you with additional touchpoints, Amazon keeps the shoes top-of-mind and increases the chance that youll convert.

Retargeting is the perfect antidote to the hesitation inherent in online transactions. Research in the consumer world shows that over 95 percent of first-time website visitors are not ready to buy. That could explain why in March of 2021, online shoppers worldwide abandoned 80 percent of their shopping carts, according to Statista.

But not all hope is lost: By harnessing the power of retargeting, marketers can effectively nudge visitors after theyve left a website, recapturing traffic they would otherwise lose. In the association space, ad retargeting provides opportunities to boost event registration, recruit prospective members, and re-engage current members as they travel across the web.

Best yet, with the right tech partner, campaigns are easy to set up, deploy, and analyze. Some providers even offer affordable campaign management services, creative assistance, and consulting recommendations.

For the Association of Nutrition & Foodservice Professionals (ANFP), retargeting provides an avenue for reminding website visitors about pathways to earning the Certified Dietary Manager, Certified Food Protection Professional (CDM, CFPP) credential as well as continuing education opportunities.

A lot of our marketing efforts are focused on touting the benefits of the credential, and then spreading awareness about member benefits, including educational offerings and live events, said Emmy Bender, marketing manager at ANFP.

When ANFP signed up with Feathr, a digital marketing platform, in late 2019, the marketing teams intention was to drive live event registrations. Because of the pandemic, we pivoted and used our retargeting platform to focus on certification and education, Bender said.

Retargeting campaigns in both certification and education led to significant increases in ROI, and ANFP began to run them monthly. We have continued to see great success, Bender said. Its demonstrated in front of me every month when Im looking at the analytics for these campaigns and consistently seeing positive growth.

Now that in-person events are back, ANFP has begun using its retargeting platform to promote its Annual Conference & Expo and two regional meetings. In March, we ran a campaign promoting our Nashville regional meeting, Bender said. A $50 retargeting investment brought in almost $2,000 in registrations.

Bender said that todays digital marketing platforms make retargeting campaigns a breeze. Theres not a lot of work to do other than narrowing down your audience segments, determining who youre going to target and how you will target them, she said.

With the right technology, users can segment digital audiences based on various activities and attributes and correlate them with specific marketing messages. Associations can then tailor advertisements to different audience segments or use existing engagement data to run campaigns at times of the day when they know a particular segment is active online.

Youll also need to figure out what constitutes a conversion, Bender said. With our certification campaign, for example, an exam registration or a certain amount spent on study materials would count as a conversion. From there, its just uploading the creative, hitting deploy, and watching the conversions come in.

Associations can also leverage outreach tools like geofencing to drive visitors in particular locations to their sites. Geofencing is great for events, Bender said. If you know that a related association has an event going on, you can send ads for your association out to people in that specific area.

Other tools enable users to reach people who are searching for similar offerings through keywords or who have similar interests as existing audience members.

Ultimately, by becoming more targeted in outreach, associations can ensure their campaigns provide relevant messages to the right people at the right timea cardinal rule of effective digital advertising.

The team at Feathra marketing platform that helps associations serve up highly-targeted ads based on interests and behaviorsthanks Emmy Bender, marketing manager at ANFP, for sharing her experience working with Feathr. For more information on how associations can increase awareness, grow membership, promote events, and create new revenue, visit feathr.co/solutions/associations.

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Boost Online Visibility and ROI with Retargeting - Associations Now

Nothing I've seen has captured the strange experience of being a teenage girl on the internet as perfectly as new indie horror movie We're All Going to the World's Fair.

It taps into a very specific type of teenage dysphoria, one where identity is a malleable, shifting thing. Who you are is a mix of your reality, the 'you' that you create in your mind and the one you're designated by the strangers who find a way through the boundaries of your private world. It's a feeling that time-traveled me back to the arrival of the internet in the family home, and the entire world of strangers, communities, and fandoms that appeared instantly like a magical kingdom I'd found in the back of a wardrobe.

We're All Going to the World's Fair, which is available to stream now, opens with a simple but spooky premise: Isolated teenager Casey is recording vlogs in her room and is about to attempt the 'Worlds Fair Challenge'. It's a YouTube viral trend that involves a Candyman-style incantation with supposedly occult results. To participate she has to repeat "we're all going to the world's fair," whilst watching a video (which we never see, but lights her face ominously), after which she will begin to change.

Based on the videos uploaded by other players, which the film periodically shows us in montages, the exact nature of how the player is changed varies wildly, presumably based on their creativity in video editing apps. Because it's all just a game, right? But as Casey begins to report her own findings to her audience about the effects of the game, she's contacted by a man called JLB with a dire warning and an offer to help.

You wouldn't expect a horror movie from 2022 to bring back the days of AOL and ICQ, but the emotions are the same. Being a teenage girl in those early days of the internet was liberating and empowering in a way that was intoxicating. It was before TikTok and YouTube, when sites were mostly plain text, chatrooms flourished and webcams were unheard of in a normal family home. You might be a kid with a cellphone, but it didn't have a camera, and uploading a photo meant buying a scanner and forcing a vacation picture from the family album through it.

Weird girls that loved books and wrote bad poetry could thrive, creating perfect personas where they became the darlings of the chatrooms. With a cute moniker and our A/S/L, we weren't turning ourselves into catfish, we were becoming mighty sea monsters.

While We're All Going to the World's Fair is very much about the internet of now, recreating that feeling of ignoring your body's pleas for sleep to let some streaming site pour endless videos into your eyeballs. It perfectly distills that feeling of teenage transformation. As Casey uploads a variety of increasingly unhinged videos, it's never clear how much is pure performance and how much is genuine distress, or when one suddenly becomes the other. It also took me back to that time when you suddenly realize men don't see you as a child anymore, but something else, which was both exciting and terrifying. Online in the late '90s you could get high on the at-a-distance attention of people you never had to meet, while still wrapped in the cotton wool of your childhood home.

Casey's sinister savior appears like every man you met in those chatrooms. Patriarchal one minute, wheedling the next, building as much of a fiction from his own desires as any glorious lie you typed into a chatbox. He's fascinated with Casey and she has a power over him even as he's trying to play the role of the rescuer.

Hiding just beyond that though, like some mid-'40s Slenderman in the woods, is the knowledge that if they were to meet in real life his protective spiel would turn into something else entirely, and any sense of control would slip through her fingers.

In the early chatrooms days, once you'd declared your A/S/Ldeclarations that were taken as gospel because what else was there?it was never long before the men in the chatrooms started to target you with questions or compliments or attention, marking territory with verbal cues as if you couldn't just disappear with the click of a mouse, change your handle, and be back as an entirely new girl in minutes.

The real casanovas might present you with the chatroom equivalent of a rose, @},. In private messages, the men that wanted to talk about our sexual experience, how they wanted to "cybersex" with us, to ask us questions we only understood because we'd read got hold of mom's bonkbuster novels, were 10 a penny. The ones that were stranger and scarier were the ones that started that way and then quickly descended into confessions about their wives, their jobs, their children, swearing we were the only ones that understood them. The need came off them in waves, and felt more dangerous and suffocating than the sexual nonsense we heard shouted on school buses and playgrounds anyway.

In the movie, JLB feels like a stand-in for every guy called Fred who wanted me to tell them it was all going to be OK. Everyone wants to shock you with filth when you're an adolescent girl, but being asked to be the whore and the angel and the therapist by a man who is the same age as your dad was truly shocking.

For teenage girls, for women, for anyone the world wants to berate and possess, the online world has changed and become something else entirely in 2022. The creepy ARG-inspired moments of We're All Going to the World's Fair have already happened with Slender Man, while hoaxes like the Momo challenge sent parents into a pearl-clutching panicand honestly, you should worry more about your offspring eating Tide Pods for clout than vaguely demonic online rituals.

Having a personal brand starts as soon as you get your first smartphone and upload a selfie. From that moment there's no escape, your peers, your predators, and the world can reach you through the internet at any moment of the night or day. For Casey, there's very little sense of a life beyond the one she's uploading in chunks for her unquantified audience. No parent intervenes beyond a single angry rebuke shouted up the stairs, no friends stop by to giggle over the weirdness of it all, and she's not texting or scrolling through Instagram. Both her real life and her online life have narrowed to focus entirely on the World's Fair Challenge.

Whatever your gender identity, age, or familiarity with social media trends, We're All Going to the World's Fair should be essential viewing for horror fans. Beyond its personal resonance for the ICQ veterans among us, it's one of the few movies about the internet that doesn't entirely embarrass itself by the end. I'd never want to spoil the movie, but it never does what you expect it to, and never takes the easy, obvious path to its conclusion.

In the end we're just another of Casey's viewers, whether we're seeing the videos Casey makes, her interactions with JLB, or raking our eyes across the bedroom in the background, looking for clues to who she is away from the icy glow of her laptop screen. The truth is that you won't find her identity there, or in the videos she makes. She's still building it one idea at a time, and you'll only ever see what she wants you to see.

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We're All Going to the World's Fair is the online experience of a teenage girl in horror movie form - PC Gamer

When it was first announced that the first teaser trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water was coming attached to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it was only a matter of time before the footage was uploaded online for the world to see.

Based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters mind-blowing opening weekend haul of $450 million, Disney must have decided that enough people had seen Sam Raimis sequel to justify uploading the Avatar 2 footage, even if it doesnt play anywhere near as well on a computer or phone screen.

Having spent the last 13 years painstakingly crafting the follow-up to a revolutionary technical marvel thats become the highest-grossing film in the history of cinema on two occasions after reclaiming its crown from Avengers: Endgame, it would be an understatement to say that The Way of Water comes bearing massive pressure.

However, James Cameron has made a career out of proving his detractors wrong, and dont bet against him doing it again. Following the release of the teaser, a batch of fresh Avatar 2 images have now arrived for your perusal, which you can check out below.

Plot details remain largely under wraps, but its obvious that family will be the driving theme of the second installment. The underwater motion capture looks incredible, and weve barely even seen a glimpse of what Cameron has under his sleeve.

Could Avatar: The Way of Water become the industrys first-ever $3 billion hit? It sounds fanciful, but we definitely cant bet against it with any degree of certainty.

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Return to Pandora with stunning 'Avatar: The Way of Water' images - We Got This Covered