Microsoft kills select MSN apps, Photosynth for iOS and Windows Phone

Microsoft has announced that it's axing the Photosynth apps on Windows Phone and iOS. Effective immediately, the apps are losing all developer support and being pulled from their respective stores. If you already have Photosynth installed, you can continue using it — but Microsoft is being very direct in warning that from here on out, you're on your own. "We are doing this because the new Photosynth Preview technology and its cloud processing is a more immersive way to capture a place than the spherical panoramas that our apps produce," the company wrote on the Photosynth website.

Users with existing panoramas created with the apps are urged to upload them to Photosynth.net (which isn't going away), where they can either be shared or set as private depending on your privacy preferences. Photosynth isn't the only app going away; Microsoft is also retiring a few (presumably unpopular) MSN mobile offerings. Thankfully in those cases, the end isn't quite so imminent.

Both MSN Travel and MSN Food & Drink for Windows, iOS, and Android will be discontinued on September 28th. MSN Health & Fitness for all three platforms will go away on November 1st. "We regularly evaluate our business to ensure we’re focused on the areas where our users find the most value," Microsoft said in a statement. "We will continue to support those apps with broad consumer appeal including News, Weather, Sports and Money, which will be made available as apps on Windows 10 and will remain cross platform."

Read Ellen Pao's goodbye letter to Reddit: 'I am just another human'

Ellen Pao is trying to end her time as interim Reddit CEO on a note of positivity. In her resignation letter, Pao says her time at the helm of one of the internet's most vibrant and influential communities has "been an adventure" since day one. "I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly," Pao said, with the latter — especially recently — causing her to "doubt humanity." "I am just another human; I have a family, and I have feelings." But Pao says the good has outweighed the bad by a huge margin, and she's thankful for those who rejected and pushed back against the disgusting behavior exhibited by Reddit's worst users over recent weeks.

Pao isn't leaving because of the threats, twisted words, and harassment, though. Those "trolls" as she openly calls them are likely in the midst of a victory dance, but that's not what this really is. "Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining reddit’s core principles," Pao wrote. Her full letter follows below.

Emphasis added by Ellen Pao.

After more than two years at reddit, I have resigned today. My first day was April 1, 2013 (go orangered!), and every day since has been an adventure.

In my eight months as reddit’s CEO, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly on reddit. The good has been off-the-wall inspiring, and the ugly made me doubt humanity.

I just want to remind everyone that I am just another human; I have a family, and I have feelings. Everyone attacked on reddit is just another person like you and me. When people make something up to attack me or someone else, it spreads, and we eventually will see it. And we will feel bad, not just about what was said. Also because it undercuts the authenticity of reddit and shakes our faith in humanity.

What has far outshone the hate has been the positive on reddit. Thank you, kind strangers, for expressing your support. You gilded me 100 times. (For those of you who apologized for generating a wave of accusations that I gilded myself, please don’t feel bad. You did a good thing.) And thank you for sending cute animal pics and encouraging me to "Stay safe!" when the site overheated with expressions of hate in various forms. There were some days when your PMs inspired me more than you can imagine.

Most touching were the stories from regular users. Some told of people they knew who had committed suicide for being transgender or exposed in revenge porn. Others shared their experiences of being harassed and expressed empathy and gratitude. More recently, several users apologized for trolling me and for not giving me the benefit of the doubt when the troll hivemind moved against me. Initially users said they were afraid to post supportive messages openly; recently they started fighting back against the trolls publicly on reddit with support, corrections and positive messages.

So why am I leaving? Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining reddit’s core principles.

You will be in good hands -- our strong leadership team will now be led by u/spez, one of reddit’s original co-founders. Like u/kn0thing, he’s lived and breathed reddit since its inception and will work passionately to ensure reddit’s success.

Thank you to all the users who shared your excitement about reddit and what we’ve done and for encouraging everyone to remember the human. And thank you for making my time here at reddit an amazing learning experience.

The paradox of popping back in time

Here we go again. The movie Predestination, released in the UK this week, is the very latest in the long history of time travel films. There's been more than 100 since theTerminator and Back to the Future franchises began 30 years ago — all of which are science fiction that have little to do with science facts.

Like many of them, Predestination has its own engaging twist: Ethan Hawke plays a time agent who nips back through history to snuff out crimes before they can be committed. Like all of them it's chronologically illogical: the split second a movie has someone monkeying with time you are doomed — predestined, you might say — to abandon the science and enter a plea of temporal insanity.

Things very quickly get very brain boggling. Consider this — if someone builds a time machine, what's to prevent them going back one minute and smashing it up before they first use it? Which means it never gets used — so how did it get smashed up? What prevents the whole parade of paradoxes thrown up by time travel to the past — becoming your own grandfather, killing Hitler before he starts World War II and so on — is that they trash big laws of physics. And the Universe, as far as we understand it, likes to play by the rules.

One of the fundamentals that underpins not just physics but every aspect of existence is the law of cause and effect, always in that order. Changing the past would violate that: your actions would affect what caused you to go back in the first place - so if you did manage to kill Hitler he wouldn't have done what led you to go back and kill him.

Holding a real Star Trek Communicator makes you feel like you're in Starfleet

Who wouldn't want to feel just a little bit like Kirk or Mr. Spock? Here at Comic-Con 2015, the Wand Company is showing off a prototype of its upcoming Star Trek TOS Bluetooth Communicator, a working replica of the communicator Federation officers used on The Original Series. In truth, it's a glorified Bluetooth speaker. But holding makes you feel a little bit like you're on an away mission.

The little device was actually designed using one of the original props from Star Trek, and is composed of a combination of pressed metal, aluminum, and textured plastic. Without having actually lived through the 1960s, I thought it felt authentic — weighty and purposeful for people in Starfleet. The grill flips opens with the actual sound effects from the show, and the speaker and transceiver make it look truly like a 23rd century artifact.

Using the device involves just pairing it to your smartphone. We tested it using an older iPhone, so tapping one of the bottom-most buttons activated voice control, from which you can simply say the contact you want to reach via the Communicator's receiver. Calls came in loud and clear, so it works pretty well for a prototype.

The Wand Company partnered with ThinkGeek to make the Communicator available to the public by early next year

Google Picks A Fight With China State Web Registrar

Google has announced it will no longer accept certificates from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) following a major breach of false certificates issued by MCS Holdings in Cairo, the company who handles quite a few .cn domains.

The false certificates may have allowed unverified and malicious websites to obtain clearance, passing through web browser checks. Google claims this is reason enough to pull CNNIC’s certificates, although the web registrar in charge of millions of domain certificates is not happy.

In a statement the CNNIC called Google’s decision “unacceptable and unintelligible”. The decision will mean banks and government sites certified by the CNNIC will not be given the green tick by Google, but show a red cross instead.

Google is holding onto terms with CNNIC for a short time, but will remove the certificates from its database. The search giant has said the CNNIC is welcome to reapply once it sorts its system out and make sure no internal breaches of interest happen again.

It is not the first time Google and China’s internet regulator have clashed heads. In 2010, Google removed search from China following a lengthy amount of government requests and privacy violations. This has lead to Baidu—the Chinese language search engine—becoming the second most used search engine worldwide.

Google has also been seeing recent activity from the Chinese government to block Gmail. Even though Android is the most popular OS and Google Chrome the most popular web browser in the country, Google Play is blocked and most of Google’s apps are banned or unused.

The Chinese government has also been busy attacking GitHub, the coding databank for developers and casuals, attacking two areas directly angering the government. The first was a network allowing Chinese people to see the internet without the Great Firewall, the other was the New York Times translated into Chinese.

   

Netflix New Terms Of Service Allows Subscription Termination If You Use VPN

Netflix has been giving mixed signals regarding VPN and geo-location tools, with the first reports claiming a ban would hit, followed by CEO Reed Hastings and other executives appealing to VPN users, and now Netflix has changed its policy to destroy VPN users.

The terms of service change allows VPN users to be banned from the service. It is the first move by the streaming company to crack down on people changing location to watch movies only available on Netflix US.

It is not clear if Netflix will actually go through with the bans, but it does show that studios are cracking down on content being watched in regions where it is not supposed to be watched.

Studios that license content to Netflix already have a lot to lose from the move, considering customers pay $6 per month compared to $2.49 per episode on iTunes or $15 on DVD. Considering the licensee will only receive a small portion of the $6 per user on Netflix as well, it is most likely not beneficial to be on the platform.

That means shows tend to be unavailable or incomplete in other regions, due to lack of interest or lack of subscribers. Netflix US is far and away the most popular service with over 40 million subscribers in the US, and just 70 million subscribers in total.

Netflix is clearly trying to remove the barriers that the film studios are laying down, but it is a losing race. Even though Netflix has a huge audience and the potential to make a low budget TV show the next big thing (see Breaking Bad, White Collar), it is not enough for film studios to give up lucrative TV and DVD agreements in other regions.

Game of Thrones airing in all countries and coming to several internet TV providers might be incentive to change the trend, but HBO is in an advantageous position to offer the most watched TV show to as many people as possible.

Google Fiber Forces Broadband Companies To Compete

Google Fiber is preparing to launch in several new cities in North Carolina, Georgia and Utah in the next year, something that has shaken the traditional internet service providers to actually compete.

It must be an odd feeling for companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, who for the past decade have set oligopolies up to make sure competition in the American broadband market does not exist.

Sadly, Google Fiber has no interest in backroom deals. It is focused on bringing 1Gbps internet to millions of Americans, and is forcing broadband companies to fight tooth and nail for every customer—most of whom have already declared loyalty to Google Fiber.

In Atlanta, Comcast just announced it will launch 2Gbps speeds to customers through a high-tier package. It also plans to launch 1Gbps speeds nationwide, how convenient given the current uprise of Google Fiber construction cities.

It is still unclear whether the 2Gbps package will have any tacked on installation fees or massive monthly costs, knowing Comcast we are going to guess it will be out of the budget for many customers.

Comcast is not the only broadband provided feeling threatened, AT&T announced 1Gbps coming to Austin, Texas later this year, coinciding with Google Fiber’s launch in the city.

Time Warner Cable also announced customers in Charlotte, North Carolina will be receiving six times the current broadband speed on all packages, from 15Mbps to 50Mbps, in the next few months. That’s not exactly 1Gbps, but it is TWC’s attempt at customer loyalty.

Verizon and Cablevision have both announced nothing on the speed increase side, although they are both not available in the cities Google Fiber is planning to launch. Cox Communications announced it will double broadband speeds for customers nationwide by 2016, with 1Gbps options coming to some cities.

It is a great time for Americans, but in most cities there are still major issues with speeds and price. Google Fiber can only reach so many households, but with the net neutrality law coming into effect later this year we might see a surge in fiber movements by Google, as the utility rights grant them more freedom to construct and utilise older infrastructure.

Let’s not be naive here, Google is not the great guy that provides internet with no long term goal. Google wants as many users on the internet as possible without data caps or massive expenses, in order to have more users on Google services, and in turn more ads viewed.

BitTorrent Shoot Makes Big Batch Media Sharing Easier

BitTorrent’s new mobile application, BitTorrent Shoot, makes big batch photo and video sharing easy as pie – even when you want to share between Android, iOS, and Windows Phone devices. The biggest advantage of the app, beyond its cross-platform support, is that it leverages BitTorrent’s Sync Technology to move your files. That means that files are shared directly with the device you want to share it with, without making a trip to the cloud first.

The benefit to this type of file sharing is that it makes file transfers a lot faster and much more private. When using BitTorrent Sync, the files you share are only accessed by you and the person you are sharing with. The company’s servers don’t act as middlemen in the process.

The app itself is easy to use but it may be a little different from what you’re used to. On the main screen you have two options to choose between: Send or Receive depending on whether or not you’re the one sharing pictures or videos. Clicking Send opens up your gallery where you can choose multiple pictures and/or videos to send. The app will then generate a QR code that any user who clicks receive can scan to download the files you’re sending. There isn’t a size limit on the number of files that you can transfer using BitTorrent Shoot.

Shoot may be easy to use and it offers excellent privacy to boot, but the app is going to face the big challenge of achieving mainstream adoption like many other newcomers to the market. It isn’t really a chore nowadays to send big batches of media files. Although other solutions, like AirDrop for example, don’t offer the same amount of cross-platform support, privacy, or speed that Shoot does, getting people to embrace QR codes instead of what they’re used to will be an interesting process.

Shoot offers three free sends, then you have to pay $1.99 to continue using the app. When VentureBeat asked BitTorrent why it didn’t make the app free upon launching and offer in-app purchases down the road, BitTorrent’s answer focused on privacy: Like with BitTorrent Sync, we never monetize the user indirectly. On Shoot, you’ll never see an ad. Sharing is fully private, so we’re not harvesting any user data,” a spokesperson told the publication.

Firefox 39 Arrives With Critical Bug Fixes And Hello Link Sharing

Mozilla recently launched Firefox 39 for Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows. Notable changes to the popular web browser include the ability to paste Android clipboard content into editable web content, smoother scrolling and animation on Mac OS X, an option to share Hello URLs via social networks, and critical bug fixes. Firefox 39 for desktop is available for download now from Firefox.com and the update is trickling out slowly on Android via Google Play.

Important bug fixes addressed in the update include memory corruption and “exploitable crash” fixes, two “high” severity flaws,  half a dozen “moderate” severity flaws, and a single “low” severity flaw. Detailed information regarding these bug fixes can be found here. The update also arrived with better malware detection and support for the Unicode 8.0 skin tone emoji.

According to Firefox though, the crowning achievement of this update is the ability for users to share their Firefox Hello link on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. In Firefox 33 beta, Mozilla introduced an experimental WebRTC feature that allows users to make  free voice and video calls without additional software, plugins, or logging into an account. The feature was further improved and launched in Firefox 34. Now Mozilla is calling Firefox Hello “the first global communications system built directly into browser.”

WebRTC is compatible with Chrome and Opera so users don’t need the same software or hardware as the person they want to call. To use the new sharing option released with Firefox 39 users first have to add their social networks by visiting Services For Firefox, and then clicking the “Activate Now” button. After that, sharing Hello links is as easy as clicking the Firefox Hello button and sharing a link with a social network on the list.

Other changes in Firefox 39 include improved performance, improved NPAPI plug-in performance, removed support for insecure SSLv3 network connections,

Make Any Display A Chrome OS Computer With Chromebit

Google and Asus have recently announced two new products: the Chromebook Flip and the Chromebit. Both come with new form factors for Google’s web-based platform Chrome OS.

In the past year Chrome OS has seen huge growth in the education market, alongside personal users grabbing the low-cost netbook. Google has two providers Haier and Hisense launching $149 Chromebooks in the upcoming weeks, targeted at emerging markets that have not been able to pick up previous Chromebook models.

The Asus Chromebook Flip is the first convertible netbook running Chrome OS. It features a 360 degree wedge similar to the Lenovo YOGA line. This means it can be used as a tablet as well, by folding the keyboard on the back of the display, and also can be placed in the ‘hut’ position for watching movies.

Internally, the Chromebook Flip features an ARM-based Rockchip processor, 2GB or 4GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The display will be a 1280 x 800 resolution touch-screen display, one of the first on the Chromebook lineup. It will cost $249 and launches later this year.

This coincides with Google’s current update to the Chrome web browser, offering better touch-screen support. Google will be adding extra security to Chromebooks in an upcoming patch, alongside the addition of the Google Now launcher on the platform.

That wasn’t the only device launched by Asus today, in fact it might not be the most interesting. The Chromebit, a $100 USB stick, was launched by Asus alongside the Chromebook Flip.

The Chromebit looks almost the same as the Chromecast, but instead of streaming movies and TV shows from the web to the TV, it will turn any display into a fully fledged Chrome OS computer. Inside the small USB stick is 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage—enough to power Chrome OS.

This could be a massive product for classrooms with older displays, where the Windows license costs too much and the machines cannot be replaced. The Chromebit is an easy solution to an ageing fleet of computers, meaning instead of upgrading everything just throw away the Windows PC and stick the Chromebit inside.

The other major advantage of the Chromebit for schools is if every student gets one, they can plug it into their home PC and work from home. It is an excellent opportunity, but there is still no read on how well it performs tasks.

That’s Not Classic Nintendo On Your Android Device, It’s Malware

Android may have security features built into the operating software that reduce the chances of a security breach but Android users and Nintendo fans should be on guard. There’s a new piece of Android malware on the loose that is showing up in third-party app stores dressed as a classic Nintendo game. First identified by cyber-security firm Palo Alto Networks, this malware is said to look and act like advertising software. Its main goal is to steal your personal information.

The malware infecting Android devices is hidden in a gaming app and better known as Gunpoder. Based on anopen-source Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator, the app is being downloaded by 1980s and 1990s Nintendo games fans. It’s available via third party app stores. But how does it work?

Once the app has been downloaded the app displays a message that says it is ad supported. When you tap “OK” you are agreeing to let a program called Airpush collect data from your Android device. Airpush is regularly used to push in app mobile adds. In this case however, using the NES emulator, it collects personal information including location, contacts, and information about the device you’re using. “They’re trying to build a profile of people so they can target them for spearfishing or other malicious activity in the future,” says Scott Simkin, the senior threat intelligence manager at Palo Alto Networks.

After agreeing to have your data collected, the app dishes out another notice asking users to purchase a “Lifelong License” for the small fee of $0.45. If you do so, the app will collect your payment info and charge you the pocket change fee. Palo Alto Networks says that using Airpush allows Gunpoder to avoid detection by antivirus softwaresince most antivirus software doesn’t block or detect adware as malware.

Latest New Software Updates

Ezywap brings you the latest in software updates and new releases every week, and today’s updates are no different. With all the great releases coming out it’s hard to pinpoint which ones are top notch, but the following updates have a lot to offer for both long-time users and new users alike.

One of the biggest updates today is the release for Flash Player. Which one, you say? All of them! Well, at least the ones for Internet Explorer, non-IE browsers, the beta for Internet Explorer, and the beta for non-IE. That’s a lot of Flash happening!

As any developer who’s created content that requires Flash knows, this platform is practically the web standard. After all, 1.3 billion devices–from PCs to phones to tablets–run Flash Player. So making sure your content is compatible with all the latest features of Flash is a good idea. These features include enhanced privacy controls, incredibly versatility in the number and style of filters you can apply, and improved 3D graphics rendering ability. These features and more can be found in today’s release of version 18.0.

Why Blog? Here Are 5 Main Reasons Why You Should Consider Starting Your Own Blog.

Why should you consider starting your own blog? Well the truth is if you are an entrepreneur or operating your small scale business, the thought of you setting up your own blog should have highlighted itself a couple of times but maybe you still didn’t see the big deal behind you putting up efforts to actually kick-start your own blog, how it will benefit your business and help you scale higher.

You’ve probably read somewhere on the web that blogging is a great way to roll ahead of your competitors, get public recognition, grow your leads list and find more clients to grow your business to more conversions. This is quite true as a blog is a great marketing tool to get upfront sales ahead of your competitors. Still, many don’t seem to have profound insights into the wonders that a blog can do to their business. In this post I will be taking you through the key reasons why a blog is of outmost importance to your business’s marketing campaigns and why you (irrespective of your business line) should consider starting your own blog.

Main Reasons Why You Should Consider Starting Your Own Blog.

1.) Starting your own blog connects you to potential customers

The general format of a blog is aimed at creating an enhanced communication between you and an audience base that are engrossed to your articles and are more likely to be converted into clients. This is the best way of rolling your business for more sales as your audience base is quite targeted and regularly updating them with quality and helpful articles in line with your niche will give them grow more trust for you and they sure will see it worthwhile giving your product/service a try or whatever affiliate product you are promoting on your blog.

2.) Starting your own blog is cheaper

Unlike other marketing tools, blogs are quite cost effective and easy to get by. Yet, its marketing effectiveness is compared to none. It will only take you a few bucks to handle your blog’s domain name and hosting fees and get your blog live. Even though you might need to spend a few more bucks to hire a developer to handle your blog’s design, modern Contain Management Systems like WordPress and blogger are quite easy to set up and get them running without ever hiring a developer. Still, it’s always a good practice to go in for a developer to give your blog a compelling design that will increase your conversions especially if you’re not all that techie.

3.) Starting your own blog helps you in building your Brand.

Generally, people are more willing to buy from people they know, like and trust and having a blog in any niche simply gives you all of that. Though your brand might be simple or conventionally crafted to company recognition, a blog still remains the ultimate powerful tool of preaching your brand out to the world and through your brand’s blog; people will then get to know more about you and your business.

10 Ways To Help You Make Money On Fiverr

When the word freelancing is whispered nowadays, the first thing that comes to mind is “fiverr”. Yes! Fiverr has indeed emerged to the top of the freelancing industry with millions of freelancers offering thousands of services; whatever it is you want, you can be sure of finding it on Fiverr. With this popularity however comes great competition within sellers. How to stand above this competition and get sales to enable you make money on fiverr? Here are some tips I have put together for you:

1) To make money on fiverr you need to optimize your profile picture:

Your profile picture is one of the key aspects that contributes to your account’s credibility. This considering, your profile picture should be as professional as possible. Might be real picture of you or a graphical representation of your service, whichever you decide to go by, ensure you make it as professional as possible.

2) To make money on fiverr you need to optimize your profile description:

Your profile picture is what is displayed below your profile picture and equally one of the great credibility determinants. Most buyers always read through your profile description to see if you have the experience to handle their tasks. With this is mind, you should write a compelling profile description which covers your skills for the services you are offering and maybe stating any achievements or awards you have related to the service you are offering. This helps in converting your visitors to buyers.

3) To make money on fiverr you need to optimize your gig title:

Gig title is what displays on the fiver platform when buyers are searching for the service you are offering. Generally on fiverr, Gig titles are in the form “I will ________ for $5”. Also fiverr gives you the opportunity of putting one word within your gig title in CAPS. This is quite a cool way of grabbing attention and I recommend you putting your main KEYWORD in capital letters. For example, say you are offering article writing as a service, your gig title should look something like this “ I Will WRITE a 500word Article for $5 ” or “ I Will Write A 500word SEO article”. Here you see the words “Write” and “SEO” in caps in the first and second exampples. This is because your potential buyers have these words in their minds when they are searching for such a service, all they want to see is someone who can “WRITE” an article to boost their “SEO”. So capitalizing this words helps in grabbing their attention and gaining them over.

Free website traffic : Here’s how to increase website traffic

What’s a website without traffic? Knowing how to increase website traffic is a must for every website owner and webmaster as having a constant flow of website traffic is undoubtedly important for a website’s success. It’s just this simple, No traffic, No customers, and No sales; hence, your business gets stuck. In this post I walk you through 7 great tips to guide you on how to increase website traffic and grow a better and more successful online presence.

1. How to increase website traffic 1: Write Quality Content.

Writing quality contents keeps you above your competitors and places you high on search engine results and hence sending you a great deal of FREE website traffic. The algorithm of search engines is easy to understand; the more QUALITY content you have, the better standing you have over your competitors on search results. When a user types a search term in a search engine, the search engine simply loops through all websites with content related to the search term typed in by the user and sorts them by quality of the contents present on them. This is whywriting more quality content than your competitors keeps you upfront and gets you a great deal of the lucrative website traffic from search engines.

2. How to increase website traffic 2: Write An Engaging Blog.

Writing a blog that serves your audience with informative insights helps in building a better website traffic chain. The more quality articles you have on your blog or website the more your readers are sure to return and keep the traffic rolling and you even profit from referral traffic as your visitors, knowing the quality of your blog, are sure to share your contents with friends on social media and other online platforms.

3. How to increase website traffic 3: Know Your Keywords.

In order to get your fair share of the free website traffic from search engines, it is important to actually get a perception of the possible keywords your prospects are searching for on search engines and try getting those keywords into your articles in a user friendly way. Luckily we have the Google keyword Planner tool which gives us insights into these keywords and their monthly searches. Always ensure to have a keyword within the first and last 25 words of your page content and try getting all your contents above 500 words to add to your ranking on search results.

4. How to increase website traffic 4: Use Social Media.

When you write top-notch articles that are actually compelling and keep your audience satisfied all through, it somewhat helps in broadening your audience scope as satisfied audience are more likely to share your compelling contents on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google which sure returns back free website traffic to your website and drastically increases your business’ conversions.

5. How to increase website traffic 5: Article Marketing.

Though Article marketing is still quite an effective line to get free website traffic, compelling and keyword targeted articles are essential to get your links ranked high and sending you free website traffic. This therefore implies that effective article writing is not about writing just about anything to get a link back, but writing compelling articles that will fetch you high esteem from readers and make them trust you and want to visit your site for more and hence “free website traffic” for you.

Setting and achieving goals : How to set goals and achieve them

Learning how to how to set goals and achieve them is a powerful personal experience that should be regarded with some priority, particularly if you ostensibly failed in your past attempts to get through with your goals. When I say “ostensibly” it’s because you actually getting the thoughts of setting and achieving goals means you not far from track, but what keeps breaching your dreams/goals from being real?

There are several reasons that might have stood between you and your dreams….maybe some interruptions or delays to your efforts…whatever it is, what is important is you’ve realized your flaws and are now motivated to move on to a more successful track.

To start with, it is important for you to carry out a little “self-assessment” to be true to yourself and ensure the success of the track you are about to embark on.

Self-development: How to set goals and achieve them: Let’s start by accessing your values

The part of accessing your values is of out-most importance in any decision making scenario. This entails you accessing yourself for all important values that will be affected by the decisions you are about to make. For example: money, happiness, marriage, kindness, family, good looks, friends, hard work, friendships, education, accomplishment etc. This trivial list is just to give you a perception on what “Accessing your values” really stands for and how you can use them in setting and achieving goals.

Go through your list of jutted down values and re-consider which of them are really important to you and ensure your goals aren’t depriving you from such important values. This will guide you in making goals that are worthwhile and you are sure of benefiting from without regretful thoughts in future.

Self-development: How to set goals and achieve them: Now let consider all the goals you would like to achieve in life.

You’re likely to be asking yourself now what the difference is between – values and goals?. Considering our topic, we can consider values as ongoing while Goals can, at some future time be completed and marked off the list.

With that in mind, which goals will you be going for? Improving your skills in some area of life? Finding more suitable employment? Spending more time with family? Did loss of job require the learning of new skills? What skills will you choose?. Write them down. Don’t be frightened by the lengthiness of your list, its actually good when you have many goals, it all depends on how you handle them

Haven drafted your list of goals, next is to sort them in order of most important to you while considering they abide with the values you previously listed. Once you have prioritized your goals, it makes it easier for you to conveniently pick the most important ones to drive towards achieving. While listing many goals is a good notion, you should be however careful not to set goals that will discourage you in the course of completion.

Blog writing tips: How to write Effective and Engaging Content

Writing effective and engaging content requires some mastery of quality blog writing tips to perfect. You might have heard that content marketing works great but never taken up the initiative of learning to write compelling article for your blog or website. In the below paragraphs I list down 4 strategies to get you started with writing effective and compelling content that will help in engaging your audience.

Blog writing tips 1: Bold headlines/header

Structuring your content is quite a vital key when it comes to writing compelling content your audience. You need to structure your content in a way that brings out your apparent big picture in a way structured to be easily understandable to your audience. This enhances understanding for your readers and hence brings about more interactions between you and your prospects.

Blog writing tips 2: Good bulleted articles

Lists are good content ideas when dealing with a several points you need to put down. Everyone loves seeing lists in contents, it kind of makes reading the content a whole lot easier and allows for easy understanding of your opinions. This is why having lists in your content is of outmost importance to your content writing profession. However, don’t go extra exaggerate on your listings. Just ensure you get the lists where they fit and your audience will appreciate your content and will in turn show their appreciation by engaging and recommending your content to others. That’s how you grow!

Google+ business account: Importance Of Having a Google+ Account For Your Business.

Google+ (formerly Google Places) is one the most powerful Google products which was introduced some years back as a Social Media tool and saw many internet entrepreneurs rushing for Google+ business accounts for their business. It however felt nothing like a real time social media and have received many “mixed” reviews from the web. On its part, Google kept on turning the keys as days go by to improve Google+ functionality by modifying the User Interface to a more familiar social media look. Functionalities like the Google+ circles and +1 where somewhat confusing to most people and most wondered how they could effectively use this to promote their business and some even wondering if actually having a Google+ account is important for their business’s online presence. The answer… YES!!! Get Your Google+ Business Account ASAP!!!

Google + was an indication that “the big G” is improving on its online achievements and making moves to enable it stand still as not only the dominating search engine but the key point of any online presence. Below are 10 reasons wherein I explain why you should place Google+ at the peak of your online presence.

1. Google+ Accounts Are Easy Set Up

Google+ setup for personal and business profiles is way easier to get by as compared to the pesky Privacy settings you get when registering for other Social Medias like Facebook and Twitter.

Tips To Get Your Blog Noticed? Here are 5 Tips For You

Traffic is the center of any online business and if you not knowing how to get your blog noticed nullifies all efforts you put on building your online presence. Traffic from search engines is the best an easiest traffic technique available to bloggers and is definitely something to consider if you really want to get your blog noticed. Now, best way to show up in the search engine results is to optimize each of your blog posts for a specific keyword phrase. In the below paragraphs I walk you through on some vital steps on how to effectively use converting keyword phrases that will better place you on a fair share of search engine traffic.

How To Get Your Blog Noticed 1 : Decide On A Keyword Phrase.

If you really want to get more blog traffic you need to write about things that people want answers to. Start by finding a good keyword phrase to use in your post. Longtail keywords are the best as they will help you be more specific about what you write. There are several keyword tools such as Wordtracker, SEO Book Keyword Tool and Keyword Eye that can help you to choose your keyword phrase.

How To Get Your Blog Noticed 2 : Create An Outline For Your Blog Post.

You can start to outline your blog post once you have your keyword phrase and you know what you want to write about. Ensure that your title contains your keyword and that your content will actually provide what you say in your title. Include your keyword in your main header tags. This is the text that is bigger and bolder than normal body text and search engines place more importance on them.

Four 4 easy Steps to figure out what to sell on Fiverr.

Still struggling to figure out and decide what exactly to sell on Fiverr? Let me try to provide you 4 easy ways to figure out exactly what kind of gigs to sell on Fiverr.

. See what others are selling

A great place to get started is to simply browse through Fiverr’s marketplace. The best way to do this is to go into every category and sort the gigs by highest rating. The highest rated gigs are generally the gigs with the most ratings (most sales) and the gigs with the most sales are safe to say the most in-demand gigs in that category. This is a terrific way to gauge what is in demand on Fiverr.

This also makes it easier when creating gigs. You can simply look at the best-selling gigs that are very similar to yours and copy many of the keywords and descriptions they use. Obviously don’t copy their descriptions word-for-word but it makes it easier for you when you’re coming up with your own.

2. Solve buyer problems

You can also create gigs that address common issues. Numerous Fiverr users are business and website owners that utilize Fiverr to outsource areas of their work. Is there something you can do to assist them with necessary tasks?

For lots more ideas, check the Buyer Requests section of Fiverr. Go to the Sales page of your Fiverr profile and then you’ll discover a heading called Perks along the right-hand sidebar, and below that is the link for Buyer Requests.

Here you’ll be able to see what buyers are looking for and try to meet their requests with a gig of your own. However, this section also makes for good research. If you see a pattern and number of similar requests, it can give you a good idea of what’s in demand and what’s trending on Fiverr.