Mobile games now account for 33% of installs, 10% of time, and 74% of consumer spend

Mobile gaming continues to hold its own, accounting for 10% of the time users spend in apps — a percentage that has remained steady over the years, even though our time in apps overall has grown by 50% over the past two years. In addition, games are continuing to grow their share of consumer spend, notes App Annie in a new research report out this week, timed with E3.

Thanks to growth in hyper-casual and cross-platform gaming in particular, mobile games are on track to reach 60% market share in consumer spend in 2019.

The new report looks at how much time users spend gaming versus using other apps, monetization, and regional highlights within the gaming market, among other things.

Despite accounting for a sizable portion of users’ time, games don’t lead the other categories, App Annie says.

Instead, social and communications apps account for half (50%) of the time users spent globally in apps in 2018, followed by video players and editors at 15%, then games at 10%.

In the U.S., users generally have 8 games installed per device and globally, we play an average of 2 to 5 games per month.

The number of total hours spent games continues to grow roughly 10% year-over-year, as well, thanks to existing gamers increasing their time in games and from a broadening user base including a large number of mobile app newcomers from emerging markets.

This has also contributed to a widening age range for gamers.

Today, the majority of time spent in gaming is by those aged 25 and up. In many cases, these players may not even classify themselves as “gamers,” App Annie noted.

While games may not lead the categories in terms of time spent, they do account for a large number of mobile downloads and the majority of consumer spending on mobile.

One-third of all worldwide downloads are games across iOS, Google Play, and third-party app stores.

Last year, 1.6+ million games launched on Google Play and 1.1+ million arrived on iOS.

On Android, 74 cents of every dollar is spent on games with 95% of those purchases coming as in-app purchases not paid downloads. App Annie didn’t have figures for iOS.

Google Play is known for having more downloads than iOS, but continues to trail on consumer spend. In 2018, Google Play grabbed a 72% share of worldwide downloads, compared with 28% on iOS. Meanwhile, Google Play only saw 36% of consumer spend versus 64% on iOS.

One particular type of gaming jumped out in the new report: racing games.

Consumer spend in this subcategory of gaming grew 7.9 times as fast as the overall mobile gaming market. Adventure games did well, too, growing roughly 5 times the rate of games in general. Music games and board games were also popular.

Of course, gaming expands beyond mobile. But it’s surprising to see how large a share of the broader market can be attributed to mobile gaming.

According to App Annie, mobile gaming is larger than all other channels including home game consoles, handheld consoles, and computers (Mac and PC). It’s also 20% larger than all these other categories combined — a shift from only a few years ago, attributed to the growth in the mobile consumer base, which allows mobile gaming to reach more people.

Cross-platform gaming is a key gaming trend today, thanks to titles like PUBG and Fortnite in particular, which were among the most downloaded games across several markets last year.

Meanwhile, hyper-casual games are appealing to those who don’t think of themselves as gamers, which has helped to broaden the market further.

App Annie is predicting the next big surge will come from AR gaming, with Harry Potter: Wizards Unite expected to bring Pokémon Go-like frenzy back to AR, bringing the new title $100 million in its first 30 days. The game is currently in beta testing in select markets, with plans for a 2019 release.

In terms of regions, China’s impact on gaming tends to be outsized, but its growth last year was limited due to the game license regulations. This forced publishers to look outside the country for growth — particularly in markets like North America and Japan, App Annie said.

Meanwhile, India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia lead the emerging markets with regard to game
downloads, but established markets of the U.S. and China remain strong players in terms of sheer numbers.

With the continued steady growth in consumer spend and the stable time spent in games, App Annie states the monetization potential for games is growing. In 2018, there were 1900 games that made more than $5 million, up from 1200 in 2106. In addition, consumer spend in many key markets is still growing too — like the 105% growth in two years in China, for example, and the 45% growth in the U.S.

The full report delves into other regions as well as game publishers’ user acquisition strategies. It’s available download here.

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Facebook’s new Study app pays adults for data after teen scandal

Facebook shut down its Research and Onavo programs after TechCrunch exposed how the company paid teenagers for root access to their phones to gain market data on competitors. Now Facebook is relaunching its paid market research program, but this time with principles — namely transparency, fair compensation, and safety. The goal? To find out what other competing apps and features Facebook should buy, copy, or ignore.

Today Facebook releases its “Study From Facebook” app for Android only. Some adults 18+ in the US and India will be recruited by ads on and off Facebook to willingly sign up to let Facebook collect extra data from them exchange for a monthly payment. They’ll be warned that Facebook will gather what apps are on their phone, how much time they spend using those apps, the app activity names of features they use in other apps, plus their country, device, and network type.

Facebook promises it won’t snoop on user IDs, passwords, or any of participants’ content including photos, videos, or messages. It won’t sell participants info to third parties, use it target ads, or add it to their account or the behavior profiles the company keeps on each user. Yet while Facebook writes that “transparency” is a major part of “Approaching market research in a responsible way”, it refuses to tell us how much participants will be paid.

“Study From Facebook” could give the company critical insights for shaping its product roadmap. If it learns everyone is using screensharing social network Squad, maybe it will add its own screensharing feature. If it finds group video chat app Houseparty is on the decline, it might not worry about cloning that functionality. Or if it finds Snapchat’s Discover mobile TV shows are retaining users for a ton of time, it might amp up teen marketing of Facebook Watch. But it also might rile up regulators and politicians who already see it as beating back competition through acquisitions and feature cloning.

An Attempt To Be Less Creepy

TechCrunch’s investigation from January revealed that Facebook had been quietly operating a Research program codenamed Atlas that paid users ages 13 to 35 up to $20 per month in gift cards in exchange for root access to their phone so it could gather all their data for competitive analysis. That included everything the Study app grabs, but also their web browsing activity, and even encrypted information since the app required users to install a VPN that routed all their data through Facebook. It even had the means to collect private messages and content shared — potentially including data owned by their friends.

Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them

Facebook’s Research app also abused Apple’s enterprise certificate program designed for distributing internal use-only apps to employees without the App Store or Apple’s approval. Facebook originally claimed it obeyed Apple’s rules, but Apple quickly disabled Facebook’s Research app and also shut down its enterprise certificate, temporarily breaking Facebook’s internal test builds of its public apps as well as the shuttle times and lunch menu apps employees rely on.

In the aftermath of our investigation, Facebook shut down its Research program. It then also announced in February that it would shut down its Onavo Protect app on Android, which branded itself as a privacy app providing a free VPN instead of paying users while it collected tons of data on them. After giving users until May 9th to find a replacement VPN, Onavo Protect was killed off.

This embarrassing string of events that stemmed from unprincipled user research. Now Facebook is trying to correct its course and revive its paid data collection program but with more scruples.

How Study From Facebook Works

Unlike Onavo or Facebook Research, users can’t freely sign up for Study. They have to be recruited through ads Facebook will show on its own app and others to both 18+ Facebook users and non-users in the US and India. That should keep out grifters and make sure the studies stay representative of Facebook’s user base. Eventually Facebook plans to extend the program to other countries.

If users click through the ad, they’ll be brought to Facebook’s research operations partner Applause’s website that clearly identifies Facebook’s involvement, unlike Facebook Research that hid that fact until users were fully registered.. There they’ll be explained how the Study app is opt-in, what data they’ll give up in exchange for what compensation, and that they can opt-out at any time. They’ll need to confirm their age, have a PayPal account that are only supposed to be available to users 18 and over, and Facebook will cross-check the age to make sure it matches the person’s Facebook profile if they have one. They won’t have to sign and NDA like with the Facebook Research program.

Anyone can download the Study From Facebook app from Google Play, but only those who’ve been approved through Applause will be able to log in and unlock the app. It will again explain what Facebook will collect, and ask for data permissions. The app will send periodic notifications to users reminding them they’re selling their data to Facebook and offering them an opt-out. Study From Facebook will use standard Google-approved APIs and won’t use a VPN, SSL bumping, root access, enterprise certificates, or permission profiles you install on your device like the Research Program that ruffled feathers.

Different users will be paid the same amount to their PayPal account, but Facebook wouldn’t say how much it’s dealing out, or even whether it was in the ball park of cents, dollars, or hundreds of dollars per month. That seems like a stern departure from its stated principle of transparency. This matters because Facebook earns billions in profit per quarter. It has the cash to potentially offer so much to Study participants that it effectively coerces them to give up their data. $10 to $20 per month like it was paying Research participants seems reasonable in the US, but that’s enough money in India to make people act against their better judgement.

The launch shows Facebook’s boldness despite the threat of anti-trust regulation focusing on how it’s surpressed competition through its acquisitions and copying. Democrat presidential candidates could use Study From Facebook as a talking point, noting how the company’s huge profits earned from its social network domination afford it a way to buy private user data to entrench its lead.

At 15 years old, Facebook is at risk of losing touch with what the next generation wants out of their phones. Rather than trying to guess based on their activity on its own app, it’s putting its huge wallet to work so it can pay for edge on the competition.

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Verified Expert Growth Marketing Agency: Growth Pilots

Growth Pilots is one of the more exclusive performance marketing agencies in San Francisco, but they know how to help high-growth startups excel at paid marketing. CEO and founder Soso Sazesh credits his personal experiences as an entrepreneur along with his team’s deep understanding of high-growth company needs and challenges as to what sets Growth Pilots apart. Whether you’re a founder of a seed or Series D stage startup, learn more about Growth Pilots’ approach to growth and partnerships.

Advice to early-stage founders

“I think a lot of times, especially at the early stage, founders don’t have a lot of time so they’re willing to find the path of least resistance to get their paid acquisition channels up and running. If things are not properly set up and managed, this can lead to a false negative in terms of writing off a channel’s effectiveness or scalability. It’s worth talking to an expert, even if it’s just for advice, to ensure you don’t fall into this trap.”

On Growth Pilots’ operations

“They have good business acumen, move fast and work as an extension to your internal team.” Guillaume McIntyre, SF, Head of Acquisition Marketing, Instacart

“Something we pride ourselves on is working with relatively few clients at a time so we can really focus all of our team’s efforts and energy on doing the highest quality work. Each of our team members works on a maximum of two to three accounts, and therefore they’re able to get very invested in each client’s business and integrated into their team. We really try to simulate the internal team dynamics as much as possible and pairing that with our external capabilities and expertise.”

Below, you’ll find the rest of the founder reviews, the full interview, and more details like pricing and fee structures. This profile is part of our ongoing series covering startup growth marketing agencies with whom founders love to work, based on this survey and our own research. The survey is open indefinitely, so please fill it out if you haven’t already.

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Interview with Growth Pilots Founder and CEO Soso Sazesh

Yvonne Leow: Tell me a little bit about your background and how you got into growth.

Soso Sazesh: I grew up in northern Minnesota where there is no tech industry whatsoever and then after high school, I came out to Silicon Valley and got exposed to the epicenter of the technology industry. I became very interested in startups and hustled to find startup internships so I could get experience and learn how they operated.

After a couple of startup internships, I got accepted to UC Berkeley and that gave me even more exposure to the startup ecosystem with all of the startup events and resources that UC Berkeley had to offer. I worked on a couple of startup projects while I was at UC Berkeley, and I taught myself scrappy product management and how to get software built using contract developers.

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5 Crucial Tips to Get Your Job Search Back on Track

Sometimes—despite your best intentions—your job hunt doesn’t go well. No matter how much work you put into it or how prepared you are, you keep on hitting roadblock after roadblock. The weight of that failure eats at you, both in financial stability and self-esteem.

I’ve been there myself with my job searches, and it’s no fun. But you need to pick yourself up again and get back in the saddle, because if you don’t the only other option is staying unemployed.

Here’s how to continue your job search when everything sucks.

1. Regroup

The first thing you’ll want to do is take a short breather for your health and headspace.

This can be hard when the job search is weighing you down, but you need time to regroup and figure out where your search is failing. There’s no point in throwing yourself against a proverbial wall for no profit.

During this break, sleep some more, do some relaxing activities, and talk to your friends. Misery loves company, as they say, and if your friends are job searching too they’ll know how tough it is. They’ll be able to sympathize with you without brushing off your concerns about the process.

If your friends aren’t searching, they’ll be your biggest cheerleaders. In both cases, your friends might be able to spot an error in your application that you haven’t found yet—especially in you’re trying to find work in the same industry. They might have contacts that can connect you to the right people at the right companies, or tips on job searching itself.

One of the best tools for job searching online is finding search engines tailored to your interests. Check out our article on the best ways to use Indeed for job hunting.

2. Hunt for Resources

While you’re taking this short break, look for job hunting resources that are in your area: they can support you when things get rough.

These resources often take the form of an employment office, where you’ll potentially have access to career counselors, free wi-fi, printers, internal job postings, free or conditional training, resume writing classes, and financial support.

Sometimes there’s this mindset that if you need the “help” from one of these offices, you’ve failed. There shouldn’t be, however, as this idea of failure couldn’t be farther from the truth.

These employment offices are there to give you structured guidance during a complicated, time-consuming process. I’ve used one before, and when I did, it made the job search so much easier. Think of them as mentors.

You can also find additional resources online. If you’re looking for a place to start your search, there are usually government-run or government-adjacent websites that compile links on where to find employment. They also list the steps that you can take if you are eligible for extra assistance.

If you’re in the US and looking for a place to start, there’s CareerOneStop and Find a Job at USAGov. If you’re Canadian, there’s the Job Bank.

3. Look Into Temp Work

One of the inevitable things that comes from a very long job hunt is the financial strain. No matter how much money you’ve saved, or how much support you have from your family, your funds will start running dry.

The looming fear of debt can be terrifying. Persistent, low-grade anxiety about a lack of money can make it hard to sleep or eat. This might make you perform worse during interviews. It’s a vicious cycle.

To deal with this financial burden, you can try looking into temp work.

This work doesn’t have to be in your field or full time, or even above minimum wage, although a higher wage would be nice. The goal is to simply find something that helps you pay the bills and lets you job search on the evenings and weekends.

If and when you start a temp job, it may feel frustrating. The temp work probably isn’t what you want long term.

It will help you, however, because it will relieve some of the financial stress. It might also motivate you to find the job you really want to do.

Resources you can use:

• Indeed
• LinkedIn
• ZipRecruiter
• SimplyHired

This is a non-exhaustive list of job search websites that list temp work. If you want to find something that is more specific to where you live, we recommend doing a quick Google search on your own location. There’s a good chance you’ll find services that are local to your area.

4. Leave One Day of the Week for You

One of the major reasons that people get burnt out on job searches—especially if those searches go on forever—is “the grind”. If you’re doing the same thing every day, all day, for months on end—or even years—it can be enough to drive a person to despair.

You’ll get mentally and physically exhausted.

One way to avoid this burnout is to save at least one day of the week for yourself. On this day, do fun things to recharge and give yourself a break, whether that’s exercising, reading books, hanging with friends and family, or watching Netflix. Sky’s the limit so long as it’s within your budget.

This “free time” might feel weird at first. Your brain might try to trick you into feeling guilty about taking some time for yourself.

By having this regular break, however, you’ll feel more rested. You’ll also be able to perform better on the days you are job hunting. Treat it like a reward that you give yourself after a long week of working at your job search.

5. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

Lastly—and this is super important for your mental health—don’t compare yourself to others.

This can seem like overly-emotional advice compared to the other items on this list, but understanding that everyone has a different path to employment is crucial for your success.

A good example of this mindset is when you and your classmates graduate from university or college. After you’re done, everyone you know will be job hunting, and some folks get those dream jobs faster. It’s really hard not to think “why not me?”

I know I did.

This anxiety is compounded by the fact that we’re living in an age of social media over-saturation. If someone’s life is amazing, you’ll see it. But their success is not your success, and it doesn’t change the fact that everyone’s path is their own.

Keep your eyes on your own paper and how your own journey is making you feel. Have an internal barometer for success. You’ll be happier with yourself when you focus on your personal transformation, instead of some arbitrary, external marker of success set by others.

Good Luck on the Job Search

These tips are designed to help you if your job hunt is going poorly. That said, they can also work well if you’re just starting out. It’s better to avoid burnout before it starts.

Looking for more practical tips on how to increase your chances of landing a job? Check out our tutorial on how to create a resume from scratch using Canva.

Read the full article: 5 Crucial Tips to Get Your Job Search Back on Track

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Botanium: Urban Gardening For All

Our verdict of the Botanium:
Small scale hydroponics isn't new, but usually, it's a choice between ugly and cheaply made units or full-scale DIY projects. Botanium combines a simple system with great aesthetics to make the best no-fuss, single plant hydroponics setup we've ever seen.910

Urban gardening can be a thankless task. Over and under watering can kill fragile plants, and if you are out of town for any stretch of time, it’s game over. There are home hydroponics kits available, but they tend to be poor quality or require some serious DIY commitment.

Botanium is an automatic, aesthetically pleasing, home hydroponic system which claims to solve both problems. Does it work? Is it worth the €69 (around $77) price? Is it possible for even a career plant killer to finally grow coriander? That’s what we are going to find out today.

What Is Botanium?

Botanium is an all-in-one hydroponics system for growing small plants. The focus here is on herbs, chilies, or small fruit plants like tomatoes or strawberries. Comprising of two stacked plastic units, Botanium combines a lower level for water and growing nutrients and a top layer for the growing medium and seeds. The two halves slot together, connecting five watering nozzles at the top to the pump in the bottom tank.

The project was successfully funded in five days on Kickstarter in 2017, and the first units were shipped later that year.

What’s In The Box?

The Botanium unit is made of hardened plastic measuring 250 x 136mm (that’s around 10 x 5.5 inches), which is available in a variety of colors. The electronics are sealed in the bottom of the unit, and a small pump is affixed to the inside of the bottom of the tank. A small transparent flute on the side shows the water tank level.

It runs at 5A via a two meter USB cable which connects to the provided 5V 1A wall plug.

You also get a box of the growing medium made of porous stone, a 25ml bottle of growing nutrient, the power adaptor, a quick start guide, and a manual. The kit doesn’t come with seeds, but they are available from Botanium for another $4, or you could buy your own locally.

Getting Set Up

Setup is easy, as the quick start guide gives clear instructions. I’d done a little research on hydroponics in the past, so to see how intuitive the guide is I decided to let my partner set it up. Getting started requires a quick rinse of the growing medium, before filling the tank, adding drops of nutrient, and adding the seeds.

Botanium requires no special equipment or tools, and within a couple of minutes, it’s ready to go.

One thing to note, the guide specifies a set amount of nutrient to give, but the Botanium blog highlights differing amounts required depending on whether you are growing herbs, chilis, tomatoes, or strawberries.

Once set up, put it in a sunny place and plug it in. The watering system kicks in, and that’s it. No soil, no worrying about how much water you should give or how often. Every three hours the pump activates, and in time you’ll have the plant of your choice growing.

The top half lifts off, so when the water is getting low, you can pour away the old, and refill it, adding new nutrients. Note that if light levels are a problem in your home, any non-incandescent bulb will work for growing plants indoors.

Life With Botanium

I am in a unique position to review this project. My partner is a keen gardener who, like many, has no space to do so in a city. I, on the other hand, am a terrible killer of plants, but do have experience with hydroponics and microcontrollers. I’ve built a similar system on a larger scale in the past, so I was interested to see how an all-in-one solution would work day-to-day.

In short, the concept of “set it and forget it” is entirely accurate. We live in a tiny flat, so the noise of the pump was a potential concern, but even in the dead of night, you don’t hear the pump, only a light trickling as the water runs through the growing medium. According to Botanium, the unit uses around five milliwatts per day, so power consumption is not a worry either.

Botanium is a Swedish company, and the aesthetics reflect this. One of the selling points of this kit is that it embodies “Scandinavian Design.” I’m not the most aesthetically minded person, but I find it hard to believe that this wouldn’t look good in any modern household. The plastic doesn’t feel or look cheap, and even the box it comes in has a pleasing floral design.

Does It Work?

Nice aesthetics and design don’t mean much if a product doesn’t work. One of the odd constraints of this review is that plants need time to grow. Getting a long term analysis of Botanium is impossible in this context.

That said, in the 11 or so days it has been since Botanium arrived several healthy small coriander plants have sprouted. Hydroponics as a whole is much more forgiving than traditional soil-based indoor gardening, so this isn’t much of surprise. So far, around a third of the water has been used, so over a month between refills seems likely.

There is no screen or app, and this is a good thing.

After all, the idea of this thing is that it looks after your plant with little input from you. Sometimes the best things in tech are invisible. If it weren’t for the cord you’d be forgiven in thinking Botanium is just a modern looking vase.

Should You Buy A Botanium?

Botanium is targeting people who want herbs, chilies, and fruit without the time or space to grow traditionally. If you love having fresh herbs to cook with or suffer from plant killing hands, Botanium will be perfect for you.

To many, this will be worth the €69 euro cost for a Botanium. It isn’t a one use gimmick either. This is a fully fledged, tiny hydroponics system that you can use again and again.

Yes, you can build your own system from scratch for much cheaper, and cheaper pre-built systems do exist. Those who already grow plants in soil may not see the point in the extra cost.

For ease of use, aesthetics, and most importantly, a truly hands-off growing experience regardless of space and light, Botanium is a near perfect product.

Enter the Competition!

Botanium Starter Hydropnics Giveaway

Read the full article: Botanium: Urban Gardening For All

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Here’s How to Report Spam Text Messages

What Is Reddit Karma and How Do You Earn It?

Karma is the concept that whatever you put out into the world you’ll get back. Cause and effect. However, Reddit employs its own form of karma, but Reddit Karma isn’t the same as real-life karma.

When you join Reddit, you’ll see a number on your profile. Does it actually do anything, or is it just a vanity metric? In this article we explain what Reddit Karma is, and how you can get it.

What Is Reddit Karma?

Reddit Karma is the score you get for posting and commenting on Reddit. Your total Karma is shown on your profile, and when someone hovers over your username on desktop, they’ll see a breakdown of Post Karma and Comment Karma. Some people are so good at Reddit that their Karma runs into the millions.

How Does Reddit Karma Work?

You get Reddit Karma when people upvote your posts and comments, and you lose it when you get downvoted. It’s that simple. Neither Reddit Coins nor Reddit Premium can buy you Karma, and explicitly asking for upvotes is heavily frowned upon.

How Is Reddit Karma Calculated?

When you first start earning Karma, it looks like every upvote adds a point to it. But once you get into the thousands, the math becomes a little murkier.

Reddit uses an algorithm to calculate Karma and doesn’t disclose exactly how it works. Allegedly, the more upvotes a link or comment gets, the less Karma each upvote is worth. That means a comment with 15K upvotes isn’t necessarily going to get you 15K of Comment Karma.

What Does Reddit Karma Do?

Sure, it’s flattering to have a six-figure score under your name, but is there anything more tangible that Karma can get you? Let’s break down the benefits of having good Reddit Karma.

• Post and comment as much as you want. Perhaps you noticed that when you’re still new on Reddit, you have to wait before you can post again. Once you earn more Karma, that limit goes away.
• Join “exclusive” subreddits. Some subreddits require minimum Karma for you to join and/or post. For example, you need at least 100K Post or Comment Karma (not combined) to visit r/CenturyClub.
• Enjoy more credibility. Reddit’s trust is notoriously hard to earn. Having more Karma means more credibility for whatever you have to say.
• Bend the rules without getting in trouble. Reddit rules get more lax for you when you have more Karma—for example, you’re less likely to get banned for self-promotion.

None of these benefits are any good outside of Reddit, but some people manage to monetize their Reddit Karma by selling their accounts or posting on behalf of brands. Which is lucrative, but not in the spirit of Reddit.

How to Get Karma on Reddit

While the mechanics of earning Karma is more or less clear, many new Redditors want to crack the code and figure out how to earn it faster.

Like with any community, building a reputation on Reddit boils down to posting good stuff. And unless you desperately need Karma, you should simply engage and contribute and let things take their natural course. But if you have to get those extra points—to join a certain subreddit, for example—here are a few tactics to help you earn Reddit Karma faster.

1. Join Popular Subreddits

Big subreddits like r/funny and r/pics are where millions of people hang out, so if you post something that hits home with them, you can get lots of Karma from that post alone. The downside of massive communities is that they’re heavily moderated, and even if you manage to post as a newbie, you might have a hard time cutting through the noise.

2. Post Things That Are Funny or Unique

This sounds quite obvious, but your post has to be notable in order to get noticed. Memes with viral potential are probably your best bet, as are unusual, fascinating photos and videos. This photo of a husky walking on water, for example, got 41.4K upvotes in the r/pics subreddit, earning its author a shedload of karma.

To get a better feel of what does and doesn’t fly on Reddit, sort the posts in your feed by Top and see if you can spot a pattern there. And to learn from the very best, check out the highest-rated Reddit posts of all time.

3. Discuss Hot Topics

There’s always a heated discussion on Reddit. So if you have something to say about the college admissions scandal or the disappointing Game of Thrones finale, there’s probably a buzzing thread where you can say it.

The tricky part here is that hot topics can be extremely polarizing, meaning you’re as likely to get downvoted as you are to earn Karma. Especially if you post an unpopular opinion.

4. Comment First and Make a Good Point

Another good tactic is to monitor new posts in popular subreddits and jump on the ones that have good upvoting potential. If the post gets hot, your comment will go up with it by sheer proximity. But it won’t get upvoted just because it’s the first one.

Witty comments and relevant GIF reactions are usually good for upvotes. So are insightful, well thought out explanations and arguments. Oftentimes a comment with thousands of upvotes simply expresses a sentiment that enough people could relate to. Like this reaction to a YouTube video in r/videos that scored 45.6K points just because a lot of people agreed with it.

5. Ask and Answer on r/AskReddit

One of the biggest subreddits, r/AskReddit has some 23 million members, which is twice the population of Belgium. The premise is simple and compelling: ask questions, give answers.

Almost anything goes here, so you can finally ask the questions that have been bugging you for years. For example, why some men have Anime girls as their profile pictures, or whether a baby centaur would suck on the horse nipples or the human nipples. And if enough people think it’s a question worth asking, they’ll add thousands of points to your Karma.

Can You Lose Karma on Reddit?

Oh yes. You can lose Karma quickly and easily if you upset enough people. As we mentioned above, when your post or comment gets downvoted, you lose Karma.

Can you lose all of your Karma? That’s really a numbers game. Depending on how much Karma you originally had and how big a feud with Reddit you get yourself into, your Karma can even go into the negatives. Which is what happened to the Redditors who posted the most downvoted Reddit comments of all time.

Earn and Keep Your Reddit Karma

Earning Reddit Karma is just part of the game—you’ll also want to keep it. And a controversial post is not the only thing that can get you heavily downvoted.

Perhaps the biggest offense is breaking the Reddiquette (Reddit etiquette), a code of conduct you observe on the platform. So you should read up on the things you should never do on Reddit, unless you want to risk losing all of your Karma.

Read the full article: What Is Reddit Karma and How Do You Earn It?

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The 7 Lightest Laptops in 2019

Yubo is a social network about socializing

Meet Yubo, a French startup that wants to make social networks a bit more… social. Yubo is an app designed for teenagers, and it’s all about meeting people, making new friends and belonging to a community.

The app has quietly grown over the past few years and managed to attract 20 million users. There are now close to a million users who open the app every day, and the company says that it is currently growing by 10 percent month-over-month.

But what makes Yubo so special? Last year, I wrote that social networks were no longer social. And Yubo shares the exact same vision.

“Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat… everything is fake,”co-founder and CEO Sacha Lazimi. According to him, when you join one of the big social networks, you can’t do anything and you can’t just be yourself. You end up following the same top accounts with millions of followers.

It’s a passive experience that involves a lot scrolling and liking, but very few meaningful interactions. In other words, many teens feel lonely on those social networks.

Lazimi has a strong vision of what a social network should be. In many ways, Yubo feels like an internet forum or an IRC channel, but designed for mobile. If you’re still defining your identity as a teen, Yubo can help you talk with people who share your interests even if they don’t go to the same school as you.

Yubo is specifically designed for teens, which means that you can’t even create an account if you’re too old for the app. After that, the startup wants you to meet new people and spend time together in the app.

You can find friends with a Tinder-like screen that lets you swipe left or right. Many people think it means that Yubo is a dating app. But Lazimi defends this model by saying that the vast majority of people don’t even meet up in person — he says Yubo is more about finding long-distance BFFs.

The startup knows that having a young user base is a touchy subject. It tries to moderate questionable content as quickly and as effectively as possible. Let’s hope that the company can stay on top of moderation as the platform grows.

But the most interesting part of the app is the live-streaming rooms. Users can get together and host a group live stream. Other users can join the live stream and chat with the hosts. They can talk about the latest Netflix TV show, play the guitar with their friends or just chill and talk about random stuff. It’s a bit like Houseparty meet YouNow.

You can buy in-app items or subscribe to a premium account to boost your live stream, give more visibility to your profile or your friend request.

“The future of social networks is about social discovery. We’re trying to avoid becoming a performance-based network. We don’t want to emphasize likes or views,” Lazimi said.

And that vision is what might differentiate Yubo from other social networks out there. The startup isn’t the only one trying to innovate in the social space. And it’s nice to see that there’s a group of entrepreneurs willing to try different things to go beyond Instagram.

The year social networks were no longer social

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Europe publishes common drone rules, giving operators a year to prepare

Europe has today published common rules for the use of drones. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) says the regulations, which will apply universally across the region, are intended to help drone operators of all stripes have a clear understanding of what is and is not allowed.

Having a common set of rules will also means drones can be operated across European borders without worrying about differences in regulations.

“Once drone operators have received an authorisation in the state of registration, they are allowed to freely circulate in the European Union. This means that they can operate their drones seamlessly when travelling across the EU or when developing a business involving drones around Europe,” writes EASA in a blog post.

Although published today and due to come into force within 20 days, the common rules won’t yet apply — with Member States getting another year, until June 2020, to prepare to implement the requirements.

Key among them is that starting from June 2020 the majority of drone operators will need to register themselves before using a drone, either where they reside or have their main place of business.

Some additional requirements have later deadlines as countries gradually switch over to the new regime.

The pan-EU framework creates three categories of operation for drones — open’ (for low-risk craft of up to 25kg), ‘specific’ (where drones will require authorization to be flown) or ‘certified’ (the highest risk category, such as operating delivery or passenger drones, or flying over large bodies of people) — each with their own set of regulations.

The rules also include privacy provisions, such as a requirement that owners of drones with sensors that could capture personal data should be registered to operate the craft (with an exception for toy drones).

The common rules will replace national regulations that may have already been implemented by individual EU countries. Although member states will retain the ability to set their own no-fly zones — such as covering sensitive installations/facilities and/or gatherings of people, with the regulation setting out the “possibility for Member States to lay down national rules to make subject to certain conditions the operations of unmanned aircraft for reasons falling outside the scope of this Regulation, including environmental protection, public security or protection of privacy and personal data in accordance with the Union law”.

The harmonization of drone rules is likely to be welcomed by operators in Europe who currently face having to do a lot of due diligence ahead of deciding whether or not to pack a drone in their suitcase before heading to another EU country.

EASA also suggests the common rules will reduce the likelihood of another major disruption — such as the unidentified drone sightings that ground flights at Gatwick Airport just before Christmas which stranded thousands of travellers — given the registration requirement, and a stipulation that new drones must be individually identifiable to make it easier to trace their owner.

“The new rules include technical as well as operational requirements for drones,” it writes. “On one hand they define the capabilities a drone must have to be flown safely. For instance, new drones will have to be individually identifiable, allowing the authorities to trace a particular drone if necessary. This will help to better prevent events similar to the ones which happened in 2018 at Gatwick and Heathrow airports. On the other hand the rules cover each operation type, from those not requiring prior authorisation, to those involving certified aircraft and operators, as well as minimum remote pilot training requirements.

“Europe will be the first region in the world to have a comprehensive set of rules ensuring safe, secure and sustainable operations of drones both, for commercial and leisure activities. Common rules will help foster investment, innovation and growth in this promising sector,” adds Patrick Ky, EASA’s executive director, in a statement.

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Welcome’s new app will do your travel planning for you

Welcome is a new app that CEO Matthew Rosenberg said is designed for a more spontaneous approach to traveling.

“What we’re going after is these millennials [and] Gen Z travelers who feel comfortable going in the moment,” Rosenberg told me. “Eighty-five percent of people aren’t even looking at activities before they arrive.”

So instead of asking travelers to create their own itineraries by browsing through a list of recommendations, Welcome builds the itinerary for them. When you’re planning to visit a destination, or when you’ve arrived and are wondering what the do, you can open Welcome and browse through a list of potential locations and activities, indicating which ones interest you. You can also browse recommendations from local experts, or ask for tips from your friends.

Wander then uses your responses to create a schedule for you, consisting both of places you’ve explicitly said you want to visit and of things that would probably be of interest. The itineraries are also based on location, with different travel options like taking an Uber or Lyft, mass transit or walking.

Most intriguingly, the itineraries adjust in real-time — if one of the items on the list doesn’t interest you, you can swipe to skip it, and Wander will automatically fill in the gap with new activities. Or if you find a great spot where you want want to spend the whole afternoon, the app will once again adjust. Rosenberg said it’s even pulling in weather data, so “if we were going to send you to a park in the afternoon, and at lunch it starts raining, we can replace it with a museum.”

He acknowledged that this approach might be less suited for travelers who like to plan everything in advance — but even then, he noted, “The truth is, for all the planning that happens, most people’s plans tend to fall apart in the moment. Something always changes, some alley you want to go down, some boat you want to take, some sort of adventure that if you didn’t take it, you’d regret. That’s what we’ve really tried to embrace.”

Rosenberg added that the app could eventaully introduce new ways for users to more explicitly filter the results based on their preferences — say, if they’re particularly interested in theater or museums, or if they’re on a tight budget.

Welcome says it already offers recommendations in more than 250 cities worldwide.

It’s a free app, and Rosenberg said the focus is on growth, not monetization. While he plans to make money by driving purchases and transactions, he said Welcome will never be “advertising-driven”: “Everything we show you is authentic. No one’s paying us to send you to some mediocre restaurant.”

The startup was founded by Rosenberg (who previously founded video app Cameo) and Peter Gerard, and it’s raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by 3 Rodeo.

“What we use today in travel is rooted in this old-school style of thinking,” Rosenberg said. “What I mean by that is, most travel sites put a bunch of pins on a map, but it’s still up to you look around and figure out what to do. I don’t think anyone’s really thought: How can we take advantage not only of the mobile device, but really the data that’s out there right now … No one’s really built tools for our generation.”

Travel startups are taking off

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UK carriers warn over ongoing Huawei 5G uncertainty: Report

UK mobile network operators have drafted a letter urging the government for greater clarity on Chinese tech giant Huawei’s involvement in domestic 5G infrastructure, according to a report by the BBC.

Huawei remains under a cloud of security suspicion attached to its relationship with the Chinese state, which in 2017 passed legislation that gives authorities more direct control over the operations of internet-based companies — leading to fears it could repurpose network kit supplied by Huawei as a conduit for foreign spying.

Back in April, press reports emerged suggesting the UK government was intending to give Huawei a limited role in 5G infrastructure — for ‘non-core’ parts of the network — despite multiple cabinet ministers apparently raising concerns about any role for the Chinese tech giant. The UK government did not officially confirmed the leaks.

In the draft letter UK operators warn the government that the country risks losing its position as a world leader in mobile connectivity as a result of ongoing uncertainty attached to Huawei and 5G, per the BBC’s report.

The broadcaster says it has reviewed the letter which is intended to be sent to cabinet secretary, Mark Sedwill, as soon as this week.

It also reports that operators have asked for an urgent meeting between industry leaders and the government to discuss their concerns — saying they can can’t invest in 5G infrastructure while uncertainty over the use of Chinese tech persists.

The BBC’s report does not name which operators have put their names to the draft letter.

We reached out to the major UK mobile network operators for comment.

A spokesperson for BT, which owns the mobile brand EE — and was the first to go live with a consumer 5G service in the UK last month — told us: “We are in regular contact with UK government around this topic, and continue to discuss the impact of possible regulation on UK telecoms networks.”

A Vodafone spokesperson added: “We do not comment on draft documents. We would ask for any decision regarding the future use of Huawei equipment in the UK not to be rushed but based on all the facts.”

At the time of writing Orange, O2 and 3 had not yet responded to requests for comment.

A report in March by a UK oversight body set up to evaluate Huawei’s security was damning — describing “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cyber security competence, although it resisted calls for an outright ban.

Reached for comment on the draft letter, a spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport told us it has not yet received it — but sent the following statement:

The security and resilience of the UK’s telecoms networks is of paramount importance. We have robust procedures in place to manage risks to national security and are committed to the highest possible security standards.

The Telecoms Supply Chain Review will be announced in due course. We have been clear throughout the process that all network operators will need to comply with the Government’s decision.

The spokesperson added that the government has undertaken extensive consultation with industry as part of its review of the 5G supply chain, in addition to regular engagement, and emphasized that it is for network operators to confirm the details of any steps they have taken in upgrading their networks.

Carriers are aware they must comply with the government’s final decision, the spokesperson added.

At the pan-Europe level, the European Commission has urged member states to step up individual and collective attention on network security to mitigate potential risks as they roll out 5G networks.

The Commission remains very unlikely to try to impose 5G supplier bans itself. Its interventions so far call for EU member states to pay close attention to network security, and help each other by sharing more information, with the Commission also warning of the risk of fragmentation to its flagship “digital single market” project if national governments impose individual bans on Chinese kit vendors.

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Card readers at electric vehicle charging stations will weaken security, researchers say

Electric vehicle charging stations could become one of the next big targets for fraudsters — thanks to proposals in several state that researchers say would weaken their security.

Most electric vehicle (EV) charging stations rely solely on a credit card linked to an app or through contactless payments with RFID-enabled credit cards or through a driver’s smartphone. Contactless payments are one of the most secure ways to pay, cutting out the credit card entirely and reducing the chance that a card will be cloned or have its data skimmed. For charging stations — often in the middle of nowhere and unmonitored — relying on contactless payments can reduce device tampering and credit card fraud.

But several states are proposing EV charging stations install magnetic stripe credit card readers, which the researchers are prone to abuse by fraudsters.

Arizona, California, Nevada, Vermont, and several states across New England are said to be considering installing credit card readers at publicly funded EV charging stations.

“While these proposals may be well-intentioned, they could expose drivers to new security risks while providing cyber criminals with easy access to attractive targets,” wrote security researchers April Wright and Jayson Street, in a paper out Monday by the Digital Citizens Alliance, a nonprofit consumer group.

Instead, they say EV charging stations and other point-of-sale machines should continue to rely on contactless payment methods and lawmakers “should engage with the security community to better understand fraud risks associated with credit card readers.”

“These proposals would effectively reverse the industry’s careful considerations regarding EV charger payment options,” said the researchers.

Much of the issues fall on the continued reliance of magnetic stripe cards, which remains one of the most common payment methods in the U.S.

Where other nations, including the U.K. and most of Europe, have adopted chip-and-PIN as the primary way of paying for goods and services, the U.S. still relies on the insecure magnetic stripe. Hackers can easily skim the data off the credit card and repurpose a stolen magnetic stripe to commit fraud. Although chip-and-PIN is more secure than the magnetic stripe, card fraud remains a risk until chip-and-PIN becomes the primary method for making payments. Even with chip-enabled cards, fraudsters can still steal payment card numbers and card verification codes by using hidden pinhole cameras.

Credit card skimming is said to be a $2 billion industry.

Using mobile contactless payments, like Apple Pay or Google Pay, would largely render the risk from card skimming almost entirely moot, they say.

Until more secure options are used, the introduction of magnetic stripe readers at EV chargers “would represent an unnecessary risk” to drivers.

Schneider’s EVLink car charging stations were easily hackable, thanks to a hardcoded password

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RapidAPI nabs $25M led by Microsoft as its API marketplace cracks 10K APIs and 1M users

APIs — the lightweight programming interfaces used by developers to integrate other applications with theirs, or to help their apps integrate with others — have become an essential building block of our software-powered world, with a majority of organizations building and working with them and, by some estimates, upwards of 50,000 of them in circulation today.

Those numbers and popularity, however, can lead to a lot of fragmentation and disorganization in terms of discoverability. Now, one of the startups that’s building a marketplace to help fix these problems has raised funding to capitalise on the opportunity.

RapidAPI, which developers use to search for, pay and connect to public APIs, has closed a Series B round of $25 million.

CEO and co-founder Iddo Gino said in an interview that the startup plans to use the funding to continue both expanding the size of its marketplace and the kinds of tools that it provides to developers to engage with it.

Up first will be a new product aimed at developer groups, appropriately titled RapidAPI for Teams, which will help them not only manage their use of public APIs but also organise and use their own internal APIs and microservices. (The product will be free for up to five developers and charged at $10 per user per month thereafter for unlimited calls, Gino said.)

The funding comes at a time of decent growth for the startup. The company now counts 10,000 APIs in its marketplace, which it estimates covers 33% of all publicly available APIs globally (leaving lots of room still to grow); with developers using RapidAPI now standing at 1 million, who now collectively make 500 billion API calls each month from a wide variety of companies big and small, including Microsoft, SendGrid, Nexmo, Telesign, Google, Skyscanner  and Crunchbase (TC’s cousin).

Customers, meanwhile, include some of API providers along with other enterprises, including Cisco, Hyatt, SAP, Delta, and Reddit.

In addition to that we have 20,000 more APIs that are either stale (not used, mostly private) or are used by just one user in private mode so we don’t consider them in our count.

The stats RapidAPI is putting out today are all up on numbers it revealed to me last year, when I wrote about the startup’s Series A. (Then, it had 8,000 APIs, 500,000 developers and 400 billion calls.)

It now also has some 50 employees spread out between San Francisco, Tel Aviv and Ukraine.

The Series B — which brings the total raised by RapidAPI to around $38 million — is being led by M12, the VC arm of Microsoft, with DNS Capital and previous investors Andreessen Horowitz and Green Bay Capital also participating.

Microsoft’s involvement is strategic and notable: the company has long been building itself as the go-to platform for all things developer, a strategy that goes back years but more recently has extended to its big investment in its Azure cloud platform, as well as its acquisition of code repository GitHub, among many other moves. You can easily see how well something like RapidAPI could complement those existing tools.

“Responding to the torrid growth of the API economy, RapidAPI is changing the way businesses scale with APIs and microservices,” said Mony Hassid, General Manager and Managing Director at M12, in a statement. “We are excited about the potential for RapidAPI to enhance developers’ productivity, streamline duplicative work, and assist to combine API contracts.” Hassid also has now joined RapidAPIs board of directors.

From what we understand, Microsoft wasn’t the only strategic company that was eyeing an investment in RapidAPI in this round. But Iddo Gino, the company’s young founder, said in an interview that the terms of this deal were very clear and the company is very free to pursue partnerships with others, including Microsoft competitors.

Competitors are top of mind for RapidAPI in another regard, too. As you would imagine, the popularity of API usage — which extends not just to software but a number of hardware devices and IoT devices that the software powers — has led to a number of companies that are all going after the same business.

Companies like Zapier and IFTTT (also backed by Andreessen) provide directories of apps that can be connected together; and ProgrammableWeb also has offered a longstanding API directory, although Gino argues that it incorporates less of the tools that RapidAPI offers. He noted that he sees Manifold, which is a much larger cloud services marketplace, a more direct competitor.

The proliferation of tools for developers, and more specifically those aimed at helping developers work with APIs, will inevitably lead to more consolidation, with bigger fish swallowing up some of the minnows, or the minnows coming together for a stronger proposition to the market. RapidAPI has already been a beneficiary of that trend: it acquired Mashape in 2017, leading to a nice bump in its user numbers. And there could be more of that to come.

While RapidAPI has focused up to now on public APIs, the turn with teams to private APIs will open the door to a whole new set of services and use cases that speak to another kind of growth for the company. Citing a survey by Ping Identity, RapidAPI notes that 25% of companies typically use more than 1,000 internal APIs or microservices, while another 35% have 400–1,000 internal APIs. API days are here again, it seems.

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Shazam for Android now recognizes music played through headphones

Shazam, the Apple-owned app that helps users identify songs playing around them, can now recognize songs you’re listening to through your headphones when using an Android phone or tablet.

Acquired by Apple for $400 million last year, the company introduced a feature called ‘Pop-Up Shazam’ to its Android app this week that, when enabled, works with any other Android app to track and identify songs playing externally or internally on the phone.

It’s a feature that many users have requested for years. Prior to this, when a user would chance upon a music track in say a YouTube video, they only had two inconvenient ways to shazam the song. They could either unplug the earphones from the phone and let the audio play through the built-in speakers, or draw an earpiece close to the mic of the phone.

The new feature enables Shazam to track the audio signal beaming off of other apps, thereby not completely relying on just output from the surrounding and a phone’s speaker. The app is tapping the audio signal by using a persistent notification that floats around and could be dragged — like the ones from Facebook Messenger — and can be activated by a single tap.

In our test, the feature worked as advertised through both wired and wireless earphones (amusingly, Apple’s AirPods) and on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube apps. iPhone users hoping to use a similar feature will likely have to patiently wait as persistent notification isn’t something that Apple’s mobile operating system currently supports. Apple could potentially find an alternative workaround in the future.

Google has taken a shot at audio recognition in recent years, too, after it introduced a ‘Now Playing’ feature in its Pixel 3 series smartphone last year. If enabled, the phone actively looks for songs playing in the surrounding, identifies them and keeps a log.

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