Here’s where top gaming VCs are looking for startup opportunities

With cross-platform experiences like Fortnite and PUBG, in-game socializing environments, and subscription-based cloud gaming services from Playstation, Google, Amazon, and others, the gaming industry is entering a new era beyond mobile.

These days, the industry is at the center of social media and entertainment trends; gaming is expected to earn $152 billion in global revenue this year, up 9.6% year over year. 

Given my recent writing on Unity, the most-used game engine, and ongoing research into interactive media trends, I wanted to find out how top gaming-focused VCs are assessing the market right now. I asked ten of them to share which trends they are most excited about when it comes to finding investment opportunities:

• David Gardner, Partner at London Venture Partners
• Henric Suuronen, Partner at Play Ventures
• Samuli Syvähuoko, Partner at Sisu Game Ventures
• Jay Chi, Partner at Makers Fund
• Peter Levin, Managing Director at Griffin Gaming Partners
• Gigi Levy-Weiss, Partner at NFX
• Ethan Kurzweil, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners
• Jonathan Lai, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
• Blake Robbins, Partner at Ludlow Ventures
• Jon Goldman, General Partner at GC Tracker & Board Partner at Greycroft Partners

Amid the mix of predictions, there were several common threads, such as optimism about the rise of games as broader social platforms, opportunities to invest directly in new studios, and skepticism about near-term investments in augmented or virtual reality and blockchain.

Here are their responses.

David Gardner, Partner at London Venture Partners

“PC Games are back. Great place to start new IP to then migrate a success to multiple platforms. There is more innovation in business models and more open distribution on PC to facilitate audience growth without the punishment of mobile CPIs.

VR & AR remain out. We stood away from VR in the beginning and extend that to AR while the user experience for games remains a disappointment. Let’s hope those new Apple glasses do the trick!

Crypto remain a theological war zone, but honestly everything on offer has been available in the cloud world, but the real consumer benefit isn’t showing up.

We love games that are expanding audience demographics and are sensitive to less hardcore audiences.  For example, women players are estimated to account for 1 billion gamers.”

Henric Suuronen, Partner at Play Ventures

“At Play Ventures, we believe we have just entered the golden era of mobile gaming. Who would have believed 10 years ago that Nintendo and games like Fortnite and Call of Duty would all be on mobile. Mobile is not just a games platform anymore, it is THE games platform of choice for casual and core players alike. Consequently, in the next 2-3 years we will invest in 30-40 mobile games studios across the globe.”

Samuli Syvähuoko, Partner at Sisu Game Ventures

“We at Sisu Game Ventures have been investing in many sectors since 2015 including free-to-play mobile games (especially big here in Finland), VR, AR, PC, console, instant messenger, hypercasual, audio and most recently cloud-native games as well. In addition to game studios, around a third of our investments are into games related tech/infrastructure. 

We’ve so far not dipped our toes into blockchain or eSports and our appetite for doing more investments in VR and AR is nil. To me, the most interesting mega trends lie with the promise of cloud gaming when utilized to its full potential. Another term that encapsulates my excitement is games-as-a-social-hobby. Put this and the extreme accessibility of the cloud together and you’ll have a game with revolutionary potential.”

Jay Chi, Partner at Makers Fund

“We are looking closely at ‘Gaming as Media’ related content and platforms — the emergence of new interactive experience centered on ‘viewers as participants.’ Gaming as social media falls under this thesis. We are also looking for MMO and Metaverse enablers given increased demand for specialized, scalable and affordable technologies that empower lean startup teams to create and operate large-scale worlds and novel gameplays. 

We also see potential for new start-ups to emerge in hypercasual games with midcore/social meta — no one has truly cracked this genre yet.”

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Google brings in BERT to improve its search results

Google today announced one of the biggest updates to its search algorithm in recent years. By using new neural networking techniques to better understand the intentions behind queries, Google says it can now offer more relevant results for about one in ten searches in the U.S. in English (with support for other languages and locales coming later). For featured snippets, the update is already live globally.

In the world of search updates, where algorithm changes are often far more subtle, an update that affects 10 percent of searches is a pretty big deal (and will surely keep the world’s SEO experts up at night).

Google notes that this update will work best for longer, more conversational queries — and in many ways, that’s how Google would really like you to search these days because it’s easier to interpret a full sentence than a sequence of keywords.

The technology behind this new neural network is called “Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers,” or BERT. Google first talked about BERT last year and open-sourced the code for its implementation and pre-trained models. Transformers are one of the more recent developments in machine learning. They work especially well for data where the sequents of elements is important, which obviously makes them a useful tool for working with natural language and, hence, search queries.

This BERT update also marks the first time Google is using its latest Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips to serve search results.

Ideally, this means that Google Search is now better able to understand exactly what you are looking for and provide more relevant search results and featured snippets. The update started rolling out this week, so chances are you are already seeing some of its effects in your search results.

 

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How we experience awe -- and why it matters | Beau Lotto and Cirque du Soleil

How we experience awe -- and why it matters | Beau Lotto and Cirque du Soleil

Neuroscientist Beau Lotto conducted an ambitious study with Cirque du Soleil on the emotion of awe and its psychological and behavioral benefits. In this talk and live performance, he shares some of their findings -- and stands back as Cirque du Soleil dancers create their own awe-inducing spectacle.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Facebook starts testing News, its new section for journalism

Facebook’s news section, which was previously reported to be imminent, is here: The company is rolling out Facebook News in a limited test in the U.S. as a home screen tab and bookmark in the main Facebook app.

In a blog post, Facebook’s Campbell Brown (vice president of global news partnerships) and Mona Sarantakos (product manager, news) said that news articles will continue to appear in the main News Feed. However, they said that creating a specific tab focused on journalism “gives people more control over the stories they see, and the ability to explore a wider range of their news interests, directly within the Facebook app.”

Brown and Sarantakos added that the News tab was developed in consultation with publishers, and also based on feedback from a survey of more than 100,000 Facebook users in the United States earlier this year.

It sounds like Facebook News will use both human editors and algorithms to determine which stories you see — an unusual move for a company that’s been hesitant to police the content posted by users and advertisers. Specifically, there will be a section called Today’s Stories, curated by a team of journalists to highlight the biggest national news stories of the day.

At the same time, Facebook will also provide algorithmic story suggestions based on your interests and activity. You’ll be able to hide articles, topics and publishers that you don’t want to see, and to browse sections devoted to business, entertainment, health, science and technology, and sports — topics where Facebook users apparently felt underserved.

“Regarding personalization, publishers worry that machine learning has limits and they’re right,” Brown and Sarantakos wrote. “We have progress to make before we can rely on technology alone to provide a quality news destination.”

Nonetheless, they suggested that algorithms will be “driving the majority of Facebook News,” and that they’ll be working to ensure that those algorithms are also surfacing “new forms of journalism in the digital age, including individual, independent journalism.”

Also included: a section where users who have linked their news subscriptions to their Facebook accounts can browse content from those subscriptions.

Which publishers will be included? Brown and Sarantakos said they must be part of Facebook’s News Page Index, and also by abide by the company’s Publisher Guidelines, which includes prohibitions against misinformation (as flagged by third-party fact checkers) and hate speech.

Facebook did not provide a list of participating publishers, but screenshots of the News section include stories from The Wall Street Journal, Time, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Bloomberg, Fox Business, Business Insider, NPR and others; spokespeople for The Post, BuzzFeed and the LA Times confirmed their participation.

So even if publishers have been burned by relying too much on the social network in the past, it sounds like they’re not going to give up on working with Facebook.

It probably helps that the company is paying some of these publishers millions of dollars a year, according to Recode. (A Facebook spokesperson told me, “To ensure we’re including a range of topic areas, we’ll start by paying a subset of publishers who can provide a steady volume of fact-based and original content.”)

BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith told me via email that BuzzFeed is “glad to participate” and that “Facebook is taking the lead in recognizing the value news provides to these platforms in a tangible way.”

And Hillary Manning, The Los Angeles Times’ vice president of communications, said (also via email), “We anticipate that we’ll reach new readers through Facebook News and, as we reach more readers, we expect to see more growth in our digital subscriber base.”

Facebook says News will be available to a limited group of users in the U.S., starting today.

Why the Facebook News tab shouldn’t be trusted

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4 Ways to Use the Photoshop Clone Stamp Tool

Have you ever finished editing a photo only to notice that you’ve overlooked something? Whether it’s a hidden object lurking in the background or an unwelcome texture you can’t unsee, the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool can fix it.

Download our FREE "Adobe Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts" cheat sheet today to discover every Photoshop keyboard command you absolutely have to know!

In this article we show you some of the ways you can use the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool to fix your photos in post.

Repair Photos With the Photoshop Clone Stamp Tool

Before giving you examples of the ways to use the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool, let’s start with the basics. When using Clone Stamp, you’re looking to repair and retouch your images in a way that the original photo ends up enhanced while still seeming natural. Cloning shouldn’t break the illusion of your touched-up being the original image.

With this in mind, let’s look at four different ways to use the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool to your advantage.

Repairing Images With Clone Stamp

These first two uses for the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool deal with repairing images.

1. Removing Unwanted Elements in Your Photos

The first way you can use Clone Stamp is to get rid of anything you don’t want in a photo. Whether it’s a person or an object that needs to go, cloning from different sources in the photo allows you to remove them.

Take this landscape as an example. If the post in the foreground disappears from the photo below, you could create a pretty serene image.

To remove the post, first, observe the pattern of the grass on the ground while also looking to the area at the top of the post. By pulling from the different types of grass (green and brown) along with the bushes in the distance, it becomes possible to remove the post while keeping everything looking natural.

Do note that creating patterned grass will look unnatural. It’s important to not just use the Clone Stamp as a brush you drag along.

Using the same process you can remove cars, people, trees, and more from your photos.

2. Duplicate Beneficial Photo Elements

On the opposite end of the scale, an image can have too little going on. In Photoshop’s learning aid for the Clone Stamp tool, you practice filling a semi-empty vase with cloned flowers to make it look full. It’s a simple but effective exercise that shows you an intuitive way to use what already exists in an image.

Image Credit: Adobe

As with removing objects from images, it’s important to utilize your space well. When duplicating objects, consider what truly matters in an image. In a photo with one car on an empty street, you could fill the entire street with vehicles. That might not offer you much practical value, however, even for well-edited images.

As a comparison, you could take that same empty street view and replicate street lamps to fill a city with light and additional ambience. Using different layers, you could easily showcase the before-and-after to demonstrate the benefits of these edits. Utilizing some forethought before using the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool allows you to replicate or expand on favorable elements.

Retouching Images With Clone Stamp

These next two uses for the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool deal with retouching images…

1. Improve the Quality of Your Images

The Clone Stamp tool can do an impeccable job at cleaning up any visual blemishes that appear in an image. By zooming in via the zoom tool or Z shortcut, cloning occurs much more precisely and allows for finer edits. If you want to know some other quick shortcuts to work faster while cloning, look at these Photoshop keyboard shortcuts.

Once zoomed in, remove any dirt or artefacts by sourcing from the undamaged parts of the image with Clone Stamp. With the ability to make changes down to the individual pixel, you can easily fix any simple imperfections.

Additionally, if you’re dealing with any sort of digital preservation, this aspect of using the Clone Stamp tool helps a lot. When scanning in images, hair or fragments of dirt can sneak their way in. Using Clone Stamp you can easily remove these foreign objects.

Additionally, you might run into cases of damaged or illegible text. Clone Stamp functions much like a digital whiteout tool that can easily strip away the damaged typography. Afterwards, insert new text digitally or clone from the base font source if you need to maintain consistency.

Practically, if you can think of a clean-up scenario for an image, the Clone Stamp tool can play a part.

2. Utilize the Clone Source Panel for a Productivity Boost

While the basic use of the Clone Stamp tool can help speed up photo editing, the Clone Source panel adds a few additional options to the process. Upon first accessing the Clone Source panel, five Clone Stamp icons appear at the top. For anyone working with multiple images, these slots allow you to remember five different image sources for easy switching and tweaking.

Other Clone Stamp options include the ability to horizontally or vertically flip the cloned image. Click the respective icons next to the width and height boxes to use each transformation. You can tweak the angle of each cloned source as well prior to insertion.

Do you need to increase or decrease the size of your cloned image? The width and height scales in terms of percentage to allow for a custom coverage area.

Smaller tweaks also include the ability to show an overlay of the cloned image during placement. If you’re using the overlay, the opacity option allows you to change the visibility of it.

While these are tiny changes on their own, the menu allows for a lot of basic image editing options to transfer over to the cloned images.

More Photoshop Basics You Need to Know

Using the Photoshop Clone Stamp tool to repair and retouch images can breathe new life into your photos. Like most tools in Adobe’s arsenal, mastering the Clone Stamp tool can help take your photos to the next level.

Once you have mastered the Clone Stamp tool, you should take a look at these other Photoshop basics you can learn in one hour.

Read the full article: 4 Ways to Use the Photoshop Clone Stamp Tool

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Pixelbook Go review: a Chromebook in search of meaning

Few, if any, saw coming the Chromebook’s utter dominance of the K-8 category. In hindsight, it’s easy to see why the systems have been such a success story, of course: low prices, coupled with ease of wide-scale deployment and lockdown make them a perfect fit for the classroom. Fifteen million Chromebooks were sold in 2018 alone, with schools serving as the major catalyst.

But manufacturers are looking beyond the classroom for the future of the category. Google’s facing increased competition from super-cheap PCs supported by Microsoft, and those schools that have purchased systems aren’t due for refreshes. It’s no surprise, then, that average Chromebook prices are expected to rise across the board as more companies target mainstream use.

Selling Chromebooks outside of the classroom, on the other hand, has been a bit of a tougher life. After all, finding a powerful, reasonably priced PC isn’t hard in 2019. That’s part of what made the original Pixelbook such an oddity. The $999 price point qualified the device as a premium laptop. And while ChromeOS has certainly made some major leaps in the last several years, it has never been entirely clear who the product is for.

The same goes for the Pixel Slate. Both were nice enough pieces of hardware designed to communicate that there is a place for ChromeOS in the premium category. I don’t know that Google ever anticipated selling a lot of the things, so much as drawing a line in the sand — a kind of reference design mentality that gave birth to the Pixel line.

Google’s recent hardware event was, perhaps, something of a referendum on the play. The original Pixelbook, while not discontinued, has yet to get a refresh two years after launch. Heck, even the troubled Pixel Buds got a reprieve as the company previewed their successor. The Pixelbook, on the other hand, got the Go.

The new device isn’t a Pixelbook replacement — at the very least, Google’s looking to sell through its back stock, with some deep discounts earlier this year. Rather, the device seems to be more a tacit admission that the company was shooting a bit too high the first two times around.

With a $649 starting price, the Go is certainly more in line with what people are expecting from the category. Of course, I’ll admit that I got some pushback when I used the word “budget” to refer to the contrast between the Go and its predecessor. Certainly the standards for what qualifies as budget differ a great deal between the Chromebook category and the rest of the industry. As much as Google wants to push back against the notion, price has always been a key factor in adoption.

With devices routinely priced less than $200, the Pixelbook Go is actually toward the high end of the spectrum. Click through the listing and you’ll discover that prices go up quite a bit from there. In fact, you can currently spec the device up to $1,399 on Google’s site, which crosses over well into the premium category for most users. It’s honestly a pretty far cry from the company’s mobile strategy, where pricing continues to be a key distinguisher from competing flagship manufacturers like Samsung and Apple.

All told, the Pixelbook Go is a more compelling proposition than the original Pixelbook, based on price alone. But there’s nothing about the device that signals a company that is confident of what it wants to do in the category. At most, the Go is Google’s way of demonstrating confidence that there exists a future for such mid-tier devices, as companies like Acer attempt to look toward a life beyond the classroom.

The places where Google cut corners are almost immediately apparent. The device lacks the premium feel of the original product. Say what you will about the original Pixelbook, but it was a nice-looking device. At first glance, at least, the Go doesn’t distinguish itself much from other Chromebooks. The lovely glass and aluminum is gone, and in its place is a matte magnesium alloy that lends it a more plasticky finish.

The laptop comes in two Googley-named colors: Just Black and Not Pink. Google sent me the former, which is, well, just black. Honestly, it could have benefited from a touch of color beyond the small, white “G” on the tip of the lid. The salmony Not Pink pops a bit more. Honestly, Google should have gone full old-school iBook and offered up a bunch of different colors.

The device is portable, certainly. It’s a bit lighter than the original at 2.3 pounds to its 2.4 pounds. It’s a hair or two thicker, however, at 13.4mm to its 10.3. Carrying it around in my backpack for a few days certainly didn’t make my back miss my 15-inch MacBook Pro. The ridged bottom is a nice touch, too. It’s really easy to carry it with one hand.

Beyond aesthetics, the lower price means cutting some other corners. The biggest difference is the lack of a 360 hinge. Turns out those are pretty expensive — and one of the primary things that drove up the price in the original Pixelbook. For my own uses, it’s honestly not a huge loss. Testing the original Pixelbook, I didn’t find too many instances that required something other than a standard laptop setup.

Those looking to purchase the device for creative applications may miss it, however, along with the loss of pen input. A smaller loss is the lack of the edge to edge track pad — turns out those are relatively expensive to manufacturer, as well. The keyboard has grown on me. It’s certainly quiet, as advertised. The keys are on the soft side, especially coming from over on the MacBook side of things, but they offer a nice bit of travel for a laptop.

The screen is actually larger than on the original Pixelbook, jumping a full inch up to 13.3. That said, total resolution is down by default, at 1920×1080 (166 ppi) versus 2400×1600 (235 ppi). You can still upgrade to a 4K screen, for a price — $1,399, specifically. Again, one wonders precisely who that specific price point is for.

The Go retains the two USB-C port setup. That was one of the bigger critiques with the original system, but Google’s not standing down on this one. Perhaps I’m not the target demographic here, but four ports seems like a pretty good compromise, especially for those who like to dock their systems at work for external monitors and the like.

The processor has been upgraded from a 7th-gen to 8th-gen Intel (as you’d hope after two years), though the  base level system starts at an m3, rather than i5. There are, however i5 and i7 options. As in everything, an upgrade. RAM is the same, at either 8 or 16GB, while storage has been shrunk down at the base level, starting at a paltry 64GB instead of 128. Given how much you rely on cloud storage, that may be moot.

ChromeOS is still limited. I’m looking forward to a day when I don’t have to stipulate that with every review, but this ain’t it, chief. It makes sense in an educational setting, but the transition from Windows or MacOS will continue to be rocky for many. The addition of Google Play opens up the app considerably, but a fraction of apps are built with a non-mobile form factor in mind.

Some apps, meanwhile, just aren’t here. I’ve been considering bringing the device with me on an upcoming trip to China. The security and stated 12-hour battery life are big wins for that trip, but I’m not sure how to replace Audacity for the podcast editing I usually do on the plane. I am, however, open to any suggestions you might have.

Like the original Pixelbook, the Go seems to be a device in search of meaning. The $300 price drop is a step in the right direction, but Google’s competing with far cheaper offerings from third parties. I’m still struggling with reasons to recommend a Chromebook outside of the classroom, when there are so many affordable Windows options out there. Perhaps as a secondary, travel device. But even so, how many people need that specific use case?

The Go is clearly Google’s attempt to lead the way for manufacturers looking to explore Chromebook life outside the classroom. It has some nice hardware perks, but it’s not the revolution or revelation ChromeOS needs.

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Why publishers shouldn’t trust Facebook News

Are we really doing this again? After the pivot to video. After Instant Articles. After news was deleted from the News Feed. Once more, Facebook dangles extra traffic, and journalism outlets leap through its hoop and into its cage.

Tomorrow, Facebook will unveil its News tab. About 200 publishers are already aboard including the Wall Street Journal and BuzzFeed News, and some will be paid. None seem to have learned the lesson of platform risk.

When you build on someone else’s land, don’t be surprised when you’re bulldozed. And really, given Facebook’s flawless track record of pulling the rug out from under publishers, no one should be surprised.

I could just re-run my 2015 piece on how “Facebook is turning publishers into ghost writers,” merely dumb content in its smart pipe. Or my 2018 piece on “how Facebook stole the news business” by retraining readers to abandon publishers’ sites and rely on its algorithmic feed.

Chronicling Facebook’s abuse of publishers

Let’s take a stroll back through time and check out Facebook’s past flip-flops on news that hurt everyone else:

-In 2007 before Facebook even got into news, it launches a developer platform with tons of free virality, leading to the build-up of companies like Zynga. Once that spam started drowning the News Feed, Facebook cut it and Zynga off, then largely abandoned gaming for half a decade as the company went mobile. Zynga never fully recovered.

-In 2011, Facebook launches the open graph platform with Social Reader apps that auto-share to friends what news articles you’re reading. Publishers like The Guardian and Washington Post race to build these apps and score viral traffic. But in 2012, Facebook changes the feed post design and prominence of social reader apps, they lost most of their users, those and other outlets shut down their apps, and Facebook largely abandons the platform

-In 2015, Facebook launches Instant Articles, hosting news content inside its app to make it load faster. But heavy-handed rules restricting advertising, subscription signup boxes, and recirculation modules lead publishers to get little out of Instant Articles. By late 2017, many publishers had largely abandoned the feature.

Decline of Instant Article use, via Columbia Journalism Review

-Also in 2015, Facebook started discussing “the shift to video,” citing 1 billion video views per day. As the News Feed algorithm prioritized video and daily views climbed to 8 billion within the year, newsrooms shifted headcount and resources from text to video. But a lawsuit later revealed Facebook already knew it was inflating view metrics by 150% to 900%. By the end of 2017 it had downranked viral videos, eliminated 50 million hours per day of viewing (over 2 minutes per user), and later pulled back on paying publishers for Live video as it largely abandoned publisher videos in favor of friend content.

-In 2018, Facebook announced it would decrease the presence of news in the News Feed from 5% to 4% while prioritizing friends and family content. Referral shrank sharply, with Google overtaking it as the top referrer, while some outlets were hit hard like Slate which lost 87% of traffic from Facebook. You’d understand if some publishers felt…largely abandoned.

Facebook referral traffic to slate plummeted 87% after a strategy change prioritized friends and family content over news

Are you sensing a trend?

Facebook typically defends the whiplash caused by its strategic about-faces by claiming it does what’s best for users, follows data on what they want, and tries to protect them. What it leaves out is how the rest of the stakeholders are prioritized.

Aggregated to death

I used to think of Facebook as being in a bizarre love quadrangle with its users, developers and advertisers. But increasingly it feels like the company is in an abusive love/hate relationship with users, catering to their attention while exploiting their privacy. Meanwhile, it dominates the advertisers thanks to its duopoly with Google that lets it survive metrics errors, and the developers as it alters their access and reach depending on if it needs their users or is backpedaling after a data fiasco.

Only recently after severe backlash does society seem to be getting any of Facebook’s affection. And perhaps even lower in the hierarchy would be news publishers. They’re not a huge chunk of Facebook’s content or, therefore, its revenue, they’re not part of the friends and family graph at the foundation of the social network, and given how hard the press goes on Facebook relative to Apple and Google, it’s hard to see that relationship getting much worse than it already is.

That’s not to say Facebook doesn’t philosophically care about news. It invests in its Journalism Project hand-outs, literacy and its local news feature Today In. Facebook has worked diligently in the wake of Instant Article backlash to help publishers build out paywalls. Given how centrally it’s featured, Facebook’s team surely reads plenty of it. And supporting the sector could win it some kudos between scandals.

But what’s not central to Facebook’s survival will never be central to its strategy. News is not going to pay the bills, and it probably won’t cause a major change in its hallowed growth rate. Remember that Twitter, which hinges much more on news, is 1/23rd of Facebook’s market cap.

So hopefully at this point we’ve established that Facebook is not an ally of news publishers.

At best it’s a fickle fair-weather friend. And even paying out millions of dollars, which can sound like a lot in journalism land, is a tiny fraction of the $22 billion in profit it earned in 2018.

Whatever Facebook offers publishers is conditional. It’s unlikely to pay subsidies forever if the News tab doesn’t become sustainable. For newsrooms, changing game plans or reallocating resources means putting faith in Facebook it hasn’t earned.

Twitter And Facebook Are Turning Publishers Into Ghost Writers

What should publishers do? Constantly double-down on the concept of owned audience.

They should court direct traffic to their sites where they have the flexibility to point users to subscriptions or newsletters or podcasts or original reporting that’s satisfying even if it’s not as sexy in a feed.

Meet users where they are, but pull them back to where you live. Build an app users download or get them to bookmark the publisher across their devices. Develop alternative revenue sources to traffic-focused ads, such as subscriptions, events, merchandise, data and research. Pay to retain and recruit top talent with differentiated voices.

What scoops, opinions, analysis, and media can’t be ripped off or reblogged? Make that. What will stand out when stories from every outlet are stacked atop each other? Because apparently that’s the future. Don’t become generic dumb content fed through someone else’s smart pipe.

As Ben Thompson of Stratechery has proselytized, Facebook is the aggregator to which the spoils of attention and advertisers accrue as they’re sucked out of the aggregated content suppliers. To the aggregator, the suppliers are interchangeable and disposable. Publishers are essentially ghostwriters for the Facebook News destination. Becoming dependent upon the aggregator means forfeiting control of your destiny.

Surely, experimenting to become the breakout star of the News tab could pay dividends. Publishers can take what it offers if that doesn’t require uprooting their process. But with everything subject to Facebook’s shifting attitudes, it will be like publishers trying to play bocce during an earthquake.

[Featured Image: Russell Werges]

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YouTube Launches a Bandersnatch-Style Interactive Film

YouTube has launched its first interactive film. It’s called A Heist With Markiplier, and, as the title suggests, it stars popular YouTuber Markiplier. Interactive films have been a thing on YouTube for many years, but this is the first professional production.

Would you like to discover 70+ useful YouTube tips and tricks? Download our FREE YouTube cheat sheet now!

From Bandersnatch to Markiplier

Interactive films, which let you choose the course of the story, are coming of age. And it’s all thanks to Netflix, which had a big hit with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (everything you need to know about Bandersnatch). And there are more shows to come.

However, Netflix isn’t the only company producing interactive films, with YouTube known to be developing several ideas in the genre. And the first off the rank is A Heist With Markiplier, which is being released under the YouTube Originals banner.

How to Watch A Heist With Markiplier

A Heist With Markiplier comprises of 61 seperate videos, and there are 31 possible endings. You work your way through the videos, making choices at the end of each one, putting you in control of the story. And the replay value is high for completists.

As you can see from the trailer, A Heist With Markiplier shows what happens when you and Markiplier embark on a heist. So far, so self explanatory. However, based on the trailer, things quickly go awry, and veer off in directions you won’t be expecting.

This isn’t the first interactive film Markiplier has made. He previously produced A Date With Markiplier, which is entertaining but not quite as refined as A Heist. Still, if you like this particular YouTuber’s sense of humor it’s well worth a watch.

YouTube Originals Are Free for Everyone

A Heist With Markiplier is available from October 30th, 2019. Thankfully, as all new YouTube Originals are now free to watch, A Heist will be available for everyone to watch. And if it’s even half as good as Black Mirror: Bandersnatch it’ll be worth the wait.

Read the full article: YouTube Launches a Bandersnatch-Style Interactive Film

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8 Great Gift Ideas for Kindle Owners

Amazon Kindle devices are well established as the best ereaders available today. They’re so popular that most book lovers already own one. If you’re trying to buy a gift for such a person, that’s problematic; you can’t give someone a Kindle twice.

Thankfully, there are still plenty of brilliant presents for anyone who already has an Amazon Kindle. We’re going to look at eight great gift ideas for Kindle owners everywhere.

1. Kindle Unlimited Subscription

For any serious bookworms, a Kindle Unlimited subscription is a no brainer. For a few bucks per month, you can access more than one million ebook titles, thousands of audiobooks, and even well-known magazines like Time, Marie Claire, and BBC Good Food.

And there is no limit to the number of ebooks you can download in a month. For anyone who buys more than a couple of titles in a 30-day period, Kindle Unlimited is a guaranteed money saver.

The selection of ebooks available on Kindle Unlimited varies from country to country. But remember, you can change the country connected to your Kindle account by heading to [Username] > Your Account > Manage Content and Devices > Preferences > Change Your Country/Region.

2. A Kindle Case

Kindle Paperwhite Case Kindle Paperwhite Case Buy Now On Amazon $29.99

Anyone who owns a Kindle also needs a Kindle case. Don’t believe us? Here’s why.

Firstly, Kindle ereaders aren’t cheap. The entry-level model is a shade under $100; the 32GB version of all-new Kindle Oasis is almost three times the price. With that kind of outlay, you don’t want to risk damaging it.

Secondly, Kindle ereaders aren’t something you need to replace every couple of years. I speak from experience when I say that with proper care, they can easily last you for six or more years.

Thirdly, if you spend hours of every day with your head glued in a book, you don’t want scratches and blemishes on the screen. They’ll be distracting and dilute your enjoyment.

There are lots of Kindle cases to choose from. Above, we’ve recommended Amazon’s official case for the Kindle Paperwhite, but there are dozens of third-party versions available, too. Make sure you choose the right case for the model of Kindle that the gift recipient owns.

3. Renegade Concepts Kindle Caddy

Kindle Caddy Kindle Caddy Buy Now On Amazon $26.99

It can get a bit tiresome to hold a Kindle in your hand for hours on end. Even if your brain wants to carry on reading, there might come a time when your hands simply give up. It’s especially true if you have arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or other hand/wrist-based issues.

The solution is to use a stand for your Kindle. But rather than using a fixed, non-malleable stand, we recommend choosing the Renegade Concepts Kindle Caddy. It’s essentially a small beanie bag with a ridge along the front for the reader to slot their Kindle into.

Because the stand is a beanie bag, you can easily mold it to the correct angle for your eyes, regardless of whether you’re reading at a table, on the sofa, in bed, or even in the bath!

4. iKross LED Clip-On Reading Light

iKross Reading Light iKross Reading Light Buy Now On Amazon $12.99

All three of the current generation of Kindles have a backlight. However, the quality of the backlight varies considerably. For example, the backlight on the entry-level Kindle is powered by just four LEDs. The Kindle Paperwhite is powered by five, while the Oasis has a massive 25 LEDs. And some older Kindles don’t have backlights at all.

So, if the person for whom you are buying a gift suffers from poor eyesight and owns a basic Kindle, they might still need a little help to read their device in the dark. That’s where the iKross Reading Light proves useful. It has a clip with a 0.4-inch space, allowing it to connect to your Kindle (or any other tablet). The clip is covered with a silicone mat to make sure it does not damage your Kindle’s screen.

5. IQShield Screen Protector

IQShield Screen Protector IQShield Screen Protector Buy Now On Amazon $8.95

Not everyone is flush with money. If your budget doesn’t allow you to buy an expensive Kindle case or a year-long subscription to Kindle Unlimited, you can still show the book lover in your life that you’re thinking about them by buying a simple Kindle screen protector for less than $10.

We’ve suggested the IQShield model. It has an outer coating to prevent dust, grime, and fingerprints, but it also has a film for reducing glare and a wet-application method to avoid bubbles. Again, just make sure you buy a Kindle screen protector to match the correct Kindle model.

6. An Ebook

It’s possible to send almost any ebook on the Kindle Store as a gift to another person. The only restrictions are free ebooks, pre-ordered ebooks, and subscriptions.

You can send the book via email or via a redeemable, printed code. And you can even specify a future date for Amazon to dispatch the email; the recipient could wake up on their birthday or Christmas morning to find the title waiting for them in their inbox.

To send an ebook as a gift on Amazon, go to the title you want to buy and click on the Buy for others button. You can then choose the delivery method, delivery date, and accompanying message.

7. An Amazon Gift Card

Amazon Gift Card Amazon Gift Card Buy Now On Amazon $50.00

Of course, just because your friend or family member is a bookworm, it doesn’t mean that you have the faintest idea about books, authors, or publishers. That can be challenging when you’re buying a gift—how do you know which books are worth buying? How do you know which titles your loved one has already read?

As a workaround, why not buy an Amazon gift card? You can choose between electronic gift cards and physical gift cards, and Amazon offers gift card designs in 20 different categories. The categories include Christmas, Birthday, Easter, Get Well Soon, New Home, New Baby, and many more.

You can specify how much money you want to add, enter a custom message, and—in the case of electronic cards—specify whether you want a static or animated design.

8. Kindle Oasis

Kindle Oasis Kindle Oasis Buy Now On Amazon $279.99

Finally, perhaps you should consider whether the Kindle owner you’re buying for needs a new Kindle? Sure, Kindle ereaders do last for a long time, but Amazon releases updates and refreshes the models regularly. If the person is using a device that’s more than five years old, the performance bump from an upgrade could take their enjoyment to a new level.

The all-new Kindle Oasis, for example, now boasts a seven-inch screen, 32GB of storage, 300PPI resolution, support for audiobooks, an IPX8 waterproof rating, and page turn buttons. It is well worth the money.

More Gift Ideas for Book Lovers

The eight gift ideas we’ve looked at in this article should provide plenty of inspiration for anyone who needs to buy a present for a Kindle owner.

If you think the Kindle owner in your life would prefer the gift of reading, here’s how to buy a Kindle ebook as a gift.

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The 13 Funniest Online Name Generators

We don’t get to choose our birth names and most of the time they are pretty standard. That’s why you should use a funny name generator to create a new nickname or persona.

We’ve rounded up some of the best random and silly name generators available online so that you can have a new moniker within minutes. See what hilarious name you get given!

1. Harry Potter Name Generator

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a witch or wizard, there’s no better magical universe to be a part of than Harry Potter. But how can you pick up a wand and don a cloak without having a magical name? The Harry Potter name generator solves that—just input your real name and gender. I’m Jimmy Kettleburn, ready to put on the Sorting Hat.

If you are a Harry Potter fan, take a gander at our recommended Harry Potter apps.

2. North Pole Name Generator

Courtesy of the folks behind Elf on the Shelf comes this North Pole name generator. With this, you can find out what your name would be if you were one of Santa’s little helpers. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been naughty or nice. Select a character, input your real name, then click to submit and pull the lever.

3. Adele Dazeem Name Generator

We all remember when John Travolta got on stage at the Oscars and introduced singer Idina Menzel. Except, that’s not what he said. Instead, he welcomed the “wickedly talented Adele Dazeem.”

We’re not sure how he arrived at that name either. Nevertheless, the Adele Dazeem name generator lets your name get butchered in the same way.

4. Mob Name Generator

The National Museum of Organized Crime & Law Enforcement has created this great mob name generator. If you’ve ever watched a mob film and been drawn in by the idea of smooth-talking criminals in fancy suits, now you can have a name to go alongside.

Choose things like your region, crime, and role, and your mob name will pop out.

5. Wu-Tang Clan Name Generator

The Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop group from Staten Island, New York City. Their unique slang made its way into many of their songs, giving nicknames to everything and anything.

The members all have their own nicknames, like Inspectah Deck and Raekwon. Even the Rapper Childish Gambino found his name through a generator like this. Now you too can become an honorary member of the Wu-Tang Clan with this name generator.

6. James Bond Villain Name Generator

His name is Bond. James Bond. And his mission is to stop you once you’ve generated yourself a villain name. You can choose between a Fleming name and a modern name.

Ian Fleming authored the James Bond books, and he often gave his male villains Soviet names and his female characters some questionable names. Have fun and try out both versions to see which you prefer.

7. Dungeons & Dragons Name Generator

Dungeons & Dragons has always been popular, but it had a mainstream resurgence in part thanks to everyone’s love for Stranger Things. If you’ve been tempted to dive into the fantasy role-playing game, you first need to come up with a name for your character.

This Dungeons & Dragons name generator will help you out, asking you about your character’s race, class, and profession, before giving you a powerful new name.

8. Pirate Name Generator

You have your peg leg. You have your parrot. But you also need a pirate name. You can’t set sail on the sea without one. Your pirate name will help inform what type of person you’re going to be.

Pirate Palgrave the Swollen? Decrepit Wenchy Cutler? High-Pitched Benjamin? Just enter your real name, select your gender, and you’ll be ready to raise the Jolly Roger in no time.

9. Dinosaur Name Generator

Dinosaurs may be long gone from Earth, but people are rightly still fascinated with them. Of course, learning about them is one thing, but actually being a dinosaur is something else altogether. You can get one step closer to that fantasy with this dinosaur name generator.

Kids especially will love all the silly names that are generated from your name, favorite color, and birth month.

10. Music Star Name Generator

Put down the hairbrush in front of the mirror. It’s your moment to become a worldwide music sensation with this music star name generator. Don’t worry if you can’t sing—autotune will take care of that.

You can choose between a pop, rock, rap, or country name. All you need to do is enter your name, select your gender, and you’re ready to grab the microphone.

11. Vampire Name Generator

This name generator is a bit different from the others on this list because you don’t need to input any information. Instead, it will randomly generate as many vampire names as you want. If none takes your fancy, click the Generate button to get some more.

The names are perfect for adopting a new identify for Halloween. Just avoid any garlic.

12. Cat Name Generator

If you have a new kitten that needs naming, or simply think your existing cat needs rebranding, you can use this cat name generator made by the folks behind the Exploding Kittens game.

As such, you can expect some very silly names. Input things like your cat’s age, color, and favorite thing to find out what it should be called.

13. Hipster Business Name Generator

Put two random words together and you have an excellent name for your new hipster business. This generator goes one step further and even creates a logo for the business at the same time. You can also click either the name or the logo to change its style.

Go ahead and try it out—it’ll work great for your hipster bakery, pub, or barbers.

Let The Naming Fun Continue

Hopefully, you’ve found the perfect funny name through one of our recommended silly name generators. You could go by a new name every day of the week.

If you want to have more comedic names in your life, check out our list of funny Wi-Fi names to amuse your neighbors.

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The Best Sites to Design Your Own Custom Shoes Online

We could argue that the ability to design shoes online is always free—it’s just the “buying the shoe” part that costs money.

How we dress has long been an indicator of social status, occupation, or position. Take for example the saying “well-heeled” as a reference to the upper class, or the shorthand “slip-shod” to talk about poor craftsmanship. When you look at these phrases, you can see how our shoes and the status they bring became a huge part of everyday fashion.

But where can you buy custom shoes? Or better yet, how can you design your own sneakers? Here are the best places to design your own shoes online.

1. Zazzle

Zazzle is a great place to design your own sneakers online, ranging from slipons to high tops. With an easy-to-understand interface, Zazzle will immediately kick your creativity into high gear. This is especially true when you see all the ways that you can make your own shoes from scratch.

With Zazzle, the possibilities for designing custom shoes are endless. The website gives you unisex shoe styles to choose from.

When you open the edit screen, you’ll be taken to a 3D mockup of your shoe. Here, you can apply visual elements to your preferred style.

Take for example this shoe I’m designing. On the right side of the screen, you’ll see five expandable categories: Layers, Images, Icons, Text, and Shapes. In the bottom right-hand corner, you can also see a preview window of what your new custom shoes will look like.

Through Zazzle, you can change the color on your shoes, apply pre-made shapes, text, and emojis. You can also upload a piece of artwork and apply it, but we should stress that you should have permission to use this artwork first.

Zazzle will show you how to make your own shoes from scratch, but it’s very important to choose your shoe size before you start designing. Images will show up differently on different shoe sizes unless they are to-scale.

Once you have finished designing your own shoes online, click the Done button. Zazzle will take you back to your order screen.

On your order screen, you’ll see a mockup of your new shoe design from all sides. You can then add the shoes to your cart.

Note: These custom slipons would have cost me $74.90 plus applicable taxes, but there are different types of shoes on the website. As such, not all prices will be the same.

2. Nike By You

Nike By You is another place where you can design your own trainers online. Brought to you by Nike itself, this website offers a slick, simplified way to design your own sneakers to factory-specific standards. The pricing is competitive, and the application is easy to use.

In our opinion, Nike By You is one of the easiest ways to learn how to customize your shoes online. All you have to do is click on the Customize button, then pick a shoe from the list.

For this article, I’m going to design some sneakers that are wider in the toe. Once I click on a design I like, I can choose a shoe from some premade options, or I can edit a design instead. I’m going to click on Edit Design now:

While you cannot apply artwork or decals to these sneakers, you can change the colors on each individual part of the shoe. Each time you apply a new color, your previewed shoe will update automatically.

You can also click the < > arrows to cycle through different angles, to see what the shoes look like from each side.

After you’re finished designing your custom shoes, you can click on the Done button to go back to the order screen. Here are the updated shoes that I created:

Not bad if we don’t say so ourselves! With a price tag of $110.00, it’s not ridiculously expensive either. You can consider it money well spent.

As an aside: If you want to customize your “sporty” look even further, here’s some Apple Watch Sports Bands that you can buy for cheap.

3. Vans Customs

Now by this point, we think it’s important to reiterate that we’re going for quality websites over quantity when it comes to our recommendations. We want to make sure that the shoe shops we’re talking about have a track record for bringing you the best possible gear.

With that in mind, the last place that we want to recommend is the Vans “Customs” option, where you can customize shoes for men, women, and kids.

Like Nike By You, Vans Customs can be designed in a slick, easy-to-use interface. You can choose between different colors, patterns, and fabrics to decorate each part of your shoe:

There doesn’t seem to be the option to add personal artwork, but Vans makes up for this by having premade art prints that you can apply, ranging from abstract patterns to animal prints. Just go to the Patterns section and you’ll find them.

As far as the price? Each shoe varies—and the type of material that you use can increase the price—but overall Vans are set at a reasonable cost, and comparable to Nike By You in terms of quality. We definitely recommend giving this site a quick look.

Design Your Own Sneakers Online

While buying custom shoes will never be 100% cheap, it’s safe to assume that you’ll get what you pay for when it comes to shoes, and you don’t want something that’s super cheap anyways.

Not only will you get something that’s as individualistic as you are, but you’ll wear something that’s well-made too. Customizing your shoes online through these services can work out to a great deal.

Looking for other ways that you can customize your life and the gear you carry around? Here’s a list of the best MacBook keyboard covers you can buy.

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