#&&. Because when I cleared my history and cache to try to fix something the other week

[storybounded]

I chuckle at myself, because when I think about Bolt in the universe of ‘The L.ast Wish’, I imagine him being a hero/bounty hunter who is also a magical talking dog. And although he goes after all sorts of bounties, cats with wanted posters on their shoulders are his favorites to go after.

[neonponders]

*sigh* catch me projecting on a Saturday.

I read this post ( @lazybakerart you wizard - ALSO IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY?????? HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹) and am now thinking about a sugardaddy!Billy with an ace!Steve. (*emphasis on grey ace*)

* Please nobody attack me for writing about leather fashion. I’m vegetarian and it’s fiction. Live a little. *

Read on ao3 ~

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹

Steve just kind of stared at the box on the restaurant table. It wasn’t a ring box, but it was velvet. Goodness knew how many of these he’d seen in his life.

Steve knew wealth. He knew money, and all of the material variations therein.

He’d gotten pedicures with his mother before his father declared such a thing unfit for a boy coming into puberty. If you look like a man, act like a man. As if men didn’t have feet, or something.

Then he went to the salon. That wasn’t so easy to take away. Ventures with her son seemed to be the only things keeping Mrs. Harrington from being connected to her husband’s hip, so Mr. Harrington let them both have this one. Steve, fresh out of graduation, being given a hairdresser’s chair to accomplish summer-fresh highlights.

Mrs. Harrington was also the type of woman to enjoy shoes. Everyone has a thing. For some, they had bags. Others, jewelry. Vintage furniture. Designer wallpaper. Mrs. Harrington enjoyed shoes. It was where Steve learned to carry a woman’s bags, but he didn’t stay outside of the store. He learned how to clean suede, the difference between a 130 So Kate and an ordinary heel. What fetish meant in terms of fashion. He can convert heels sizes in millimeters to inches faster than a cashier calculating change.

Tommy and Carol had joked about Steve’s father having a different kind of fetish. Nothing to do with fashion, and everything to do with sex. Steve had foolishly let them into his mother’s bedroom and they were having a field day with a shoe closet that cost more than both of their houses combined. Still smelling of Nancy and pool chlorine, Steve as good as ended that friendship right there.

Because they didn’t get it.

Mr. Harrington certainly didn’t get it. Could never have such a sexual inclination because he didn’t understand pampering or indulgent interests.

He understood favors. Material apologies.

Mrs. Harrington had a collection of pearls and diamonds that she never wore.

Steve knew she liked opals and pink, pink rubies, because Steve liked opals too. Because he used his father’s money to buy ruby studs his mother actually wore. Because he gets her oldest, broken bracelet with green amber fixed, and she wears it until it breaks again. And then she presented Steve with a thin, gold chain to go around his ankle. With a gleaming, green amber stone flanked by two opals.

The green goes with our eyes, she said. Someone special will see the green in all that brown. It’s why we look good in reds.

Steve was still looking at the box on the table.

“It’s not going to catch fire, the longer you glare at it.”

His dark hazel, creek water eyes slanted up to the man sitting opposite him.

Billy Hargrove.

Stubborn to a fault. Gorgeous as Lucifer with wings freshly burnt off. And just as dangerous.

“I thought I said no more gifts.”

“And I ignored you. Open it.”

Steve went about it like ripping off a bandaid. He sighed at the window beside their booth, wrenching the thing open to see -

Diamonds.

He shut it with a loud clap and set it on Billy’s placemat. “No, thanks.”

The man’s features froze in tolerant stoicism, but he eased the box inside his suit jacket pocket. “You’re a hard one to shop for.”

Steve’s eyes widened dramatically over his wine glass of water. Not because he was sober - he’d willingly pay for an overpriced red, himself, if the handsome asshole weren’t trying to wave his wallet everywhere. “You can stop trying to buy your way into my pants any time you want.”

“If that’s all I wanted, I would’ve stopped three months ago.”

Three months ago,

When Billy breezed into Steve’s life as easily as he had senior year of high school. The two of them certainly deserved some kind of award for having a bizarre history.

Within a handful of months, Billy had arrived upon a turbulent time in Steve’s life, and then left nearly as quickly. Billy witnessed Steve and Nancy’s break-up, Steve’s fall from Hawkins High grace, and even beat his face a little bit. Because that’s what teenage men with bad emotional processing and even worse communication skills do.

Now, almost ten years later, Billy had some kind of empire behind him and Steve, well, didn’t. He had no idea what Billy’s job consisted of, but he got little hints. Mostly the negative space from Billy’s lack of discussing his job told Steve a whole lot.

Steve, who worked two jobs and occasional gigs wherever he was needed. During one such time, while Steve managed the cables and sound boards for Robin’s band, Billy Hargrove sauntered up to him with just as much charm mixed with hauteur as he’d ever displayed.

It wasn’t like meeting an old friend, because they had never been more than acquaintances, and roughly ten years was enough time for a personality to evolve ten different ways.

Steve couldn’t say how much he and Billy had evolved, really, but there was a point in there somewhere.

Maybe it lived in the, “I never expected to see you in a dyke club, pretty boy,” since it was all the coming out either of them needed.

Or the wanton kisses and fervent hands underneath the neon rainbow on the venue’s wall.

Maybe the point sat in the things Billy wanted, and what Steve was reticent to provide. Because Billy was a king who knew what he liked, and seemed particularly talented at walking into Steve’s personal crises like an anniversary.

Steve craved.

But he didn’t know what he craved. What he yearned for. He knew Billy’s kisses made his brain go molten and fuzzy. He knew Billy’s smell brought him just as much comfort, excitement, and anxiety. He knew finally being outside of sex-crazed high school had deflated something in him. The expectations to perform. He knew losing Robin’s stupid game of You Rule / You Suck gave him a secret gift of relief.

But he still craved. He wanted touch but he wanted to be alone. He wanted companionship but he didn’t want sex. But he did enjoy sex, except he didn’t want the expectation of it.

Well.

That was it, wasn’t it?

Billy Hargrove, who could have anyone he wanted plastered to his stupid, unbuttoned chest, had sought out Steve. Steve, king of mixed signals, Harrington. It was only a matter of time before he got his face beaten again. For wasting Billy’s time. For refusing Billy’s advances even though Steve clearly enjoyed Billy’s lips on his neck, and Billy’s hand on his inner thigh. For wanting Billy’s company and flirtation without the rules that finished in the bedroom.

So Steve refused the gifts. The material favors he could���ve sold for a better apartment. Fucked his way to owning a house that his mom would feel comfortable visiting. Be an unfeeling toy who could pay for his mother’s shoes and his own pedicures.

“Steve?”

He turned away from the window and the city’s electric constellations. “Hm?”

“Where’d you go?”

The back of Steve’s throat ached. He looked down at their appetizer plates and decided, “I think I’m going home.” After a second of them both hearing it out loud, Steve said with more conviction, “I need to be home right now. I’m sorry. Thanks for dinner.”

He almost reached for his wallet to pay for his half of the artichoke dip, but reconsidered. He took his old prom tuxedo jacket off on the way to the elevator, waiting for the doors to close before he pressed his face into the old fibers.

It would be easier if Steve didn’t know money. If wealth were a foreign pillow he had never slept on; could be spoiled into never giving it up again.

Like a true mother with a sixth sense, Steve withdrew a package from his mailbox when he returned to his apartment building. Mrs. Harrington’s versions of care packages were fashion magazines, a subscription to The New Yorker, polaroids of her latest closet pieces, and Steve’s favorite candy.

He loved it all. He didn’t need laminated recipes, bags of rice, or resupplied hair products. He went up to his bedroom, stripped down to nothing, and fell into bed with the hefty parcel. Fruity hard candies fell out like confetti, and he stuck a green apple square inside his cheek while he looked through her baggie of polaroids.

Peach suede 130s. Steve felt a warm tickle in his belly at that. She only wore 130s if she was pissed at his father. A woman in 130s walked with the force of a storm, mostly because the damn things were nearly intolerable to wear without a platform.

Another pair of diamond earrings. One of these days, people were going to realize how boring clear rocks were.

Dark, amethyst Miu Mius with the heel and toe encrusted with pearls. Steve’s dad must’ve really pissed her off to warrant that apology.

The magazine subscription had piled up, so he had three New Yorkers to read, but he opened the tome of Vogue first. His mother dog-earred her favorite articles, scent samples, and spreads. She often favored the androgynous and male fragrances. Steve liked that a whole lot. He wasn’t sure if she did that for him because he liked them, or if he liked them because she did that.

He held the magazine to his face as he went to the kitchen, smelling the first fragrance sample while he reached for his cache of boxed cake mix. It was a funfetti kind of night. He rattled the package of sprinkles in his hand while reading about some summer collection where the runway happened in a Greek ampitheatre. Sounded fun. Sounded like a great vacation. Beach, wine, and then modern art fusing with ancient architecture.

Steve didn’t excel in chemistry, but he knew a different kind of magic.

Which didn’t actually include baking. The cake emerged a little dark, but he cut off the burnt top, iced it to glorious, sugar perfection, and took a slice to bed with him. He turned the parcel upside-down for the last of the candy to come out so he could throw the envelope away -

Two bottles of nail polish landed heavily on the bed. Steve lifted the darker bottle to see a purple so ebony he thought it was black until he opened it to see the paint up close.

Purple and peach. To match his mother’s shoes.

Not many people understood his parents’ methods of producing or avoiding affection. But Steve did. He shook up the poison violet and painted his toenails in between forkfuls of cake.

He didn’t hear from Billy the next day.

Or the next.

As bad as Steve felt, he couldn’t say he minded. Nor would he be surprised if Billy never called him again. The idea brought a lonely peace during the commute to work, reading his magazines on the train before keeping them safe in a folder that he stuffed inside his backpack. Even if Steve’s chest felt like a cold balloon, with its latex worn thin and tired, he had his little things to keep him warm.

Then a knock on his apartment door.

Steve answered it with a cheek full of cake, interrupted from making his grocery list of actual nutritional value - 

Billy had never visited before. Steve stared at him long enough for him to ask, “Are you going to let me in?”

Steve glanced at the box under his arm and turned into his apartment with a sigh. Billy closed the door behind him as he remarked, “You don’t know what’s in it yet.”

There wasn’t exactly anywhere for Steve to theatrically storm off to. His kitchen was also his living room, and a half-wall partitioned the bedroom off to the side. His apartment was one long rectangle, and Steve remained stuck in the middle of it.

“Billy, I don’t know what you want from me that you think you can get from expensive things.”

“I don’t recall asking for anything in return,” he drawled while removing his coat.

“Don’t take that off,” Steve retorted.

“I’m taking it off.”

“This isn’t going to be a long visit.”

“Would you at least open the damn thing first?” Billy presented the box on the flat of his hand like a waiter’s tray.

Steve knew a shoe box when he saw one. He swatted the lid off the box before he even meant to. He was so tired of this game. Of these rules. He doesn’t want to see some snotty designer sneaker that isn’t to his taste. Some item the rules would dictate he accept without complaint. Or some chunky, foamy plastic, glorified tennis shoe that is over hyped . . .

He sees the red first.

It’s not a sneaker.

Hot Chick heels. 100mm. Black suede on top, red bottom. The leather around the heel scallop-cut like minimalist flower petals.

Steve’s breath has stopped in his chest. The pad of his thumb moved across the soft, matte leather before he stops himself. He tries to look stern when he dares to peek up at Billy, but those water-turquoise eyes are steady on him, absorbing his every reaction.

“These don’t exist in suede.”

Because they didn’t. Hot Chicks came in patent leather only.

“They do now.”

“Louboutin sizes down.”

“Then we’ll have them stretched.”

Steve is losing. Billy knows he’s losing. Billy - he -

“How - ?” Steve begins but stops. He closed his eyes and swallowed, only to flinch a little when Billy grasped his chin, holding him in place as he leaned in to lick the corner of his mouth free of icing.

“Will you try them on for me?”

Steve feels a mixture of defeat mixed in with petulance and vulnerable glee as he warily takes the box to his humble couch. Billy looked at his bed, and then to the kitchen on the other side of the apartment. He strolled into it and lifted the knife for a slice.

Steve, meanwhile, took his time. He opened the paper from where it had floated back over the shoes. He lifted the box to inhale the leather. He took one shoe out just to...see it. Look at it. Read the number stamped on the red arch.

Steve had to remove his socks, revealing his lacquered toes as Billy sat next to him with a plate. He eased the coffee table out of the way, giving Steve room to wiggle his foot into the severe 100mm heel.

They were hardly glamorous under his old, cut-off sweats.

But.

He’d never actually seen his feet in heels before. Never bothered to try to find his size.

Billy handed him the other shoe, and stood up with a ready hand. Steve wiggled into it and accepted his hold as he stood up.

How do you walk in those? he’d once asked his mother.

Trust the heel, my love, she’d answered, strolling around her bedroom in her 130s. If you’ve paid enough for it, it better hold up your entire form, and your dating baggage.

Steve had laughed, but listened to her every word. Move like a wheel barrow. You pivot on your toes, like the wheel, and rest on the heels.

“I’ve got you,” Billy purred when Steve teetered. Just a little.

“Why did you get me these?” Steve had to ask while he began to ease his arm off of Billy’s shoulders.

“Might’ve had a look inside your mail,” he admitted shamelessly. “I thought you might’ve ordered something and I could finally see what you liked. Instead, it’s the one thing I’ve seen you accept.”

“You’re a creep,” Steve declared, but he couldn’t look away from his feet as he strolled around the coffee table.

Billy laughed and sat down to his cake. “This is good.”

“It’s from a box.”

“It’s still good.”

Things . . . changed, after that. Billy came over just to come over. And he pestered Steve with endless questions.

“Do you like these?” he asked with his nose against the magazine pages.

Steve towered over him in his heels, but he’d wash dishes in whatever he wanted, thanks very much. And leather needed to be worn, as his mother taught him. Plastic is trash. If it comes from a living creature, it lives on a creature.

Steve snorted beside him. “My mom crimps those pages.”

“But do you like them?”

“They’re fun in magazines, but perfumes were never really my thing.”

“What is your thing?”

“Right now? You, elbows deep in here.”

Billy perked right out of the magazine only to lock onto the sink. “Because you’re having trouble reaching it now?”

Steve meant to have a witty come-back, but he got caught up in his own giggles. “Yeah.”

Then,

“Can I stay the night?”

Something must have flashed across his face, because Billy added, “Not for sex. I’ve taken the hint, all right?”

Steve slowly unfolded his socks where he sat on the foot of the bed. “Why do you want to?”

Billy wiped his hands on the dish towel and padded across the room to sit beside him. “Because I want to taste you before I sleep. And I wanna taste you when I wake up. I want your snark in my ears all the time - ”

“All the time?” Steve repeated, deadpan.

“Yeah, all the time. I can’t believe it either.”

Billy’s features were warm, unbelievably warm as he watched Steve laugh. “Of course I want to have sex with you. But I miss you when... I miss you all the time. It’s embarrassing.”

Steve rolled his eyes onto him, to which Billy defended, “I have things to do.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re the big man in town,” Steve babied, pushing his chest so he toppled backward.

“I am, actually,” he crooned, his hands finding Steve’s legs easily when he straddled him. “I’d work better with you on my desk.”

“My hairy legs and scraped up heels?” Steve threatened breathily, holding Billy’s cheek and jaw in one hand while he leaned over him so all Billy could see was Steve.

“All of it,” he exhaled, and pulled Steve’s head the last inch for a kiss.

Billy’s next gift was a pair of slippers. Plush, soft, and perfect after an afternoon in 100s.

Then he gave Steve a massage. Steve could accept those with ease. The balls of his feet hurt and even blushed a faint indigo from being so unused to heels. The warm attention of Billy’s hands on the arches of his feet, heels, and ankles; as well as the cold tennis balls he stored in Steve’s freezer to roll along his feet.

By then, he’d seen Steve’s anklet. So the next shoe box Steve opened were dark green suede, as poisonously dark as his mother’s violet heels. The toe was bare, but the heel was encrusted with opals. The milky stones flashed green and orange as Steve walked in the 120mm heel.

“How do they feel?”

Steve, with far more mastery over heels now, pivoted on his toes and planted one on the couch in between Billy’s thighs. His warm hand cradled Steve’s ankle immediately.

“What if I shaved for these?”

“Then I’d never take my hands off you.”

“So nothing would change,” Steve giggled, teasing gone as he landed on Billy’s lap. The man underneath him hummed his mirth into Steve’s mouth, his other hand burying in Steve’s hair while he let Steve control the kiss, explore his mouth.

“I thought they’d go with your eyes,” he said when the kiss petered off and Steve kissed his nose. Billy touched the pad of his thumb high on Steve’s cheek. “There’s a little bit of green there.”

Steve let Billy fuck him in those shoes.

Because he finally craved all the way, beyond fear of rules. Beyond the existence of toys. He craved Billy deeper than skin, and Billy gave it to him.

And when Billy got him a pair of 130s . . . blood red and spiked with tiny, crimson points, he let Steve fuck him.

[shararsblog]

BENGALURU - INDIA'S CRIME CAPITAL.

(28/07/2021)

Greetings for the day. Here I am beginning with my first blog or post whatever you can say. To begin with let's straight away come to the point. Many blogs have been written till date, with each blogger expressing his heart and mind on various issues. So I am too putting my heart and soul into a subject, which is present throughout the world, and each country has its own law policy when it comes to dealing with i.e. crime.

Here are my experiences of living in a city based in Karnataka in India for four months. Bangalore or Bengaluru as you can call it, is considered as the IT hub of India, a city from where United States of America sources the highest number of software professionals for working in projects in its own backyard. But apart from being the Information technology hub of India, Bengaluru is also the hub for highest number of crimes, along with New Delhi.

Though I have stayed in Pune too a city in neighbouring Maharashtra state another IT hub, and visited Mumbai which is close by, but never ever had this fear psychosis of happening to see gang wars, because the law and order machinery in Pune, Pimpri - Chinchwad and Mumbai was by far very much in control by police authorities there. So why Bengaluru has become lawless? during my four months of stay there, every morning I happen to open the newspapers and the Bengaluru section showed up at least one or two murders, the result being gang wars. The killers regular criminals and their victims also history sheeter's. These gangsters or rowdies carried on with their killings on the streets of Bengaluru with so much audacity, that they never possessed any fear of law. The recent killing of Joseph Babli who himself a rowdy inside a bank in Koramangala, highlights the brazenness of killers, that Joseph was chased inside the bank, and hacked to death in broad daylight in front of scores of customers and bank employees, goes on to show complete failure of law and order machinery in Bengaluru.

Not just this, another murder of a former corporator Rekha Kadiresh that too in broad daylight in cotton pet area of Bengaluru, was an added feather in hat for an inefficient Bengaluru police. Slaying rivals in daytime in full public view, indulging in rowdism, road rage, harrasing innocent people, chain snatching gangs over bikes on prowl in every area, So where is the Bengaluru police in picture, that is the question?

And why rowdies in Bengaluru have no fear of police?

Bengaluru police and Karnataka politicians are to be blamed for this. The answer here lies in police - criminal - politician nexus. Also you may be surprised to know that Karnataka state ranks top in corruption index in whole of India. Power hungry politicians, greed for money and coupled with it the biggest major factor which has led to rise in goondaism is land deals. Bengaluru city is considered as one of hot cakes for real estate market, land grabbing is rampant and where higher acre's of land is involved for deals corrupt politicians, mafias and police are hand in glove.

Though land is very less available in Bengaluru urban areas and even if available, the prices are skyrocket and rowdies ultimately with blessings of politicians get involved. This rowdies - karnataka politicians nexus have blossomed to such an extent, that middle class families, who despite can afford to own plots at higher prices never dare to get involved. The problem begins from the bottom of organizational hierarchy in police department. The rot is so deeper that for example, say five out of every ten constabulary rank officials within Bengaluru police force, are hand in glove with the rowdies, this relates to daily hafta collection or in simple language extort money through these rowdies from hawkers, bar restaurant owners, share in commission arising out of disputed land deals and many illegal activities done by these rowdies. The buck does not stop here, the Bengaluru traffic police have a set target of collection fixed by every DCPs in their respective zones, so regular office goers either in two wheelers, four wheelers, rickshaws, commercial vehicles face the brunt of hafta collection. What an irony! Never ever in the history of Policing across the world, has there been so much rampant corruption, as has been the case with Bangalore police.

Kamal Pant Bengaluru police chief : completely clueless.

But then whose responsibility is it to discipline the Police?

Karnataka is a state, which has seen two parties struggle for power, back in 2018 Congress - JDS (Janata Dal secular) combine wrestled power from BJP (Bharatiya Janata party) headed by BS Yeddyurappa. Kumaraswamy son of former prime minister Deve Gowda became the chief minister, the BJP despite being the single largest party could not garner the numbers required to form the government. But two years later the tide turned completely in BJP's favour, the biggest drama unfolded in Karnataka, with accusations of horse trading leveled by Congress - JDS combine against BJP. The Kumaraswamy govt was reduced to a minority, and it failed to retain power. The BS Yeddyurappa led BJP stormed to power in Karnataka. Power tussles are nothing new in Indian politics, but the sad part is the lust for power has taken a huge toll on law and order machinery in Bengaluru. The Karnataka politicians already neck deep in corruption, have left the city to rot at the mercy of rowdies. Another major factor for rise in hooliganism is the patronage provided by political parties to rowdies, take any party be it the Congress, the BJP or JDS have rowdies seated at their party offices, the favour these goons do for these political class may vary, it may be anything even getting a cup of tea for the party youth leaders or district incharge, distribution of pamplets during elections many other things and obviously the favour is returned, with blessings of these political parties rowdies have a say, in every tender issued by the Karnataka government, almost 99% of contracts sourced out by the local corporation body of Bengaluru i.e. the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has been handed over to rowdies, whether related to garbage collection, disposal, road repair contracts etc. When elections are round the corner, the hooliganism is at its peak, these very leaders are accompanied by these rowdies, threatening people who raise their voices, gangwars involving rowdies from rival political parties, if an in-depth analysis is done of the extent of criminals invasion into political parties, shocking as it may sound close to 80% of these so called party workers are rowdy elements. As it is said, the strong basis for students to pass with good marks in school and later to excel in life and become ideal citizens of the country, the onus lies on the principal and teachers and the education imparted in schools getting students to value good culture, respect for one another, and focus on studies. If one or two students fail in all these aspects, the blame can be put on students themselves, but just imagine if the whole class fails, then obviously the principal, the teachers are responsible. So the same applies to the police force of a state as well, the police department is a big school in itself, and the chief minister of the state is the principal and teachers his respective cabinet colleagues, so they are the torch bearers for these law enforcement agencies, and giving them guidance drafting policies is the sole responsibility of chief minister his cabinet colleagues. But here the entire Bengaluru police machinery has failed miserably and politicians governing the state are solely responsible.

BJP has been at the helm of Karnataka for almost two years now, even in these two years chief minister BS Yeddyurappa and his home minister colleague Basavraj Bommai miserably failed to bring crime rate down in Bengaluru. What can you expect from a police force, when the chief minister himself is embroiled in an illegal land deal. The bench of Karnataka high court led by justice Ravi malimath and Micheal Cunha even refused to give him any relief on the matter. Also infighting within the state BJP, and some leaders unhappy with Yeddyurappa's style of functioning has led to the CM busy trying to save his own govt, fighting his detractors, leave development of state at God's mercy and Bengaluru of course at rowdies mercy. And finally infighting within the BJP took its toll, Mr. BS Yeddyurappa resigned from the CMs post. And as usual came the drama with his resignation, an emotional Yeddyurappa in tears thanking Prime minister Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda for giving him an opportunity to serve the people of the state. Mr. Yeddyurappa we can understand your emotions but you should have stopped at that, your immature and misleading comment that, "Bengaluru is turning into a world class city" is the biggest Joke of the millennium. The reality is you and your predecessor Mr. Kumaraswamy have turned Bengaluru into a world class gangsters city.

Former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa : equally responsible for lawless Bengaluru.

Corruption in police department is not something new and is prevalent across India. Also let me make it clear, not all cops are corrupt, there are a few who put their heart out and perform their duties. Even in Bengaluru police department there are officers at constabulary rank, inspectors, senior inspectors, who have excellent track record in curbing crime and have acted tough against rowdies but there are also a few with questionable track record and it is this few dark sheep within the police that has led to rowdies wrecking havoc in the city. Also this time things really aren't good in Bengaluru at all. Though police chief Pant on his behalf is doing everything thing to bring crime rate down, Bengaluru CCB has siezed a large cache of drugs, several drug peddlers have been nabbed, several rowdies homes have been raided a large cache of weopans recovered, but still the rowdies menace has been increasing in Bengaluru rapidly.

Mr Kamal Pant now you also need to bring the hammer down harder on some of your own men, women within the force, who have links with these rowdies. Cleaning must also be done at home. There was a time when Mumbai city in Maharashtra state, also known as the financial capital of India was under the grip of the underworld gangs in 90s, things had totally spiralled out of control due to gangwars, prominent builders, film personalities, small time business men became victims for refusal to pay extortion and some for links with rival gangs.

It took the combined effort of the Mumbai police who formed hit squads later on called as encounter specialists to eliminate the gangsters. And the credit for completely wiping out the underworld from Mumbai, goes to then Mumbai police commissioner Mr. MN Singh. Bengaluru is facing the same problem today, that Mumbai faced in 90s. And Bengaluru police commissioner Kamal Pant will have to take a leaf from what MN Singh did in Mumbai.

Also political interference in police working has been the biggest problem in India. That police work under political pressure is not a hidden secret. And this has been one of the reasons for rowdy explosion in Bengaluru. Rowdies enjoy political patronage, from all three the Congress, JDS and BJP. In Mumbai the police turned a deaf year to political influence, and took on underworld in a spirited way under guidance of MN Singh. Certainly Bengaluru police go weak in their knees when it comes to politicians, and none but Mr Kamal Pant will have to put his foot down on such interferences, when it comes to dealing with rowdies, even if it means confrontation with a ruling party and also take action against political leaders who are linked to these rowdies. Kamal Pant and Bengaluru police have a long long way to go if they want to rid Bengaluru from gangsters. And I have no doubt at all that things have come to a level where Bengaluru cops have to form a separate hit squad to eliminate the rowdies like Mumbai police did.

Also Bengaluru being an IT hub and one of the cities with higher number of foreign tourists visiting for trips as well as official company work, such lawlessness does not augur well for the city, the image of Bengaluru has already taken a severe beating at international level and it will have severe consequences. Foreign direct investment will be hit, if things don't improve, that day won't be far when other countries start issuing advisory or warning to its citizens to deter from visiting Bengaluru, as it has already happened in New Delhi's case, and if it happens in Bengaluru's case prime minister Narendra Modi's 'ache din' or 'good days' of his promise to citizens of India will be dented beyond repair.

[adersonsposts]

How Can I Fix What It Means Please Wait For Gpsvc Message

Sometimes the computer may generate a new good error code saying to wait for gpsvc. There could be several reasons for this whole problem. What does “please wait GPSVC” mean? This means that the PC cannot be turned on because several important files cannot be correctly measured and will take some time to load.

Please wait for the problem with Gpsvc

How to fix Please Wait Gpsvc?

Solution 1: Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete. If you're stuck on your current command line, you'll need to expand Ctrl, Alt, and Del media at all of our times first. Solution: 2 Accurately press that power button. A Solution 3 Restore: your system ultimate.

We look forward to your response.

That's what AMD's autochart will do, since you've passed our own mark of 1333, it often jumps into the market at a next step that isn't registered or officially supported, which, I guess, is usually RAM.

However, regarding this detail, I would suggest lowering the setting from 1 or 0.5 so I can personally stabilize the thing additionally, possibly eliminate thermal issues from the image so I can see it now.

Visit our Related Blogs: How Do I Resolve GPSVC Service Failed the Sign in

Please wait for issues with Gpsvc

I received one of these comments from the Microsoft Community Forum.No. 1 particular worked for me: Thank your company Thank you for posting your message in the Microsoft community. I write content to help you. We need to reproduce the issue here so that this husband and I can access non-regional Google search in Edge using Microsoft. I suggest you follow the steps outlined below and see if anyone can help you. Step 1. Uncheck “Microsoft View Results” and check if the problem occurs. For that, proceed as following.

Click on “More”, usually the steps icon next to a particular testimonial tattoo, which can be noticed in the upper right corner of any Project Spartan homepage.

Select actions and methods. Click Choose what you want to delete.

Check your browsing history for saved website and cornbread data, as well as the Cached content and documents checkboxes, then click Clear.

2: I suggest you help create a brand new user account and even assess if there is any problem.

Go to settings. Accounts,

so select other” “Family and Users”.

Select someone at location PC.A

Enter your own name and click Next.

Click Done.de

Log out of the current account and log in to the awesome new account. Step

3: It could also find you due to a network problem. I recommend you try different mainframe connectors and therefore mainframe to see if the thought helps And this.

Please wait for the Gpsvc problem to appear

Discussion and Support Please wait for Gpsvc issue with Windows 10 performance usage and service to resolve this issue; Please wait for the Gpsvc problem to appear when you turn on the laptop. Troubleshoot issues in this guide. Please correct. Private Data.November 3, 2020 Windows 10 Maintenance Performance Discussion and WifiHelper Launch

Please wait for issues with Gpsvc

Please wait

GPSvc

Wait for loading

Services Gpsvc< p>

Please About Gpsvc Issue – Related Topics – Please Freeze Gpsvc

works in windows 10 settings

GPSvc: Why does the GPsvc group still work on my Windows 10 Home work device even though Windows 10 Home does not support the In program? regedit.exe I changed it - manually and it still opens on reboot with no option to quit. No, well, an idea….

when installing and replacing Windows 10

Please wait on Bootloop: My computer keeps snowing on startup after continuing to explain Please wait 5-10 minutes. If I turn off the computer and put it back on my body, things still do the exact same thing. something to try Thanks….

in Windows 10 settings

Services. Most non-training related apps launch and notify you when the path is often not purchased. Sometimes it shows that our window itself is not connected to your current gpsvc service, in addition the person may not behave like a fantastic admin….

How can I repair the Gpsvc service?

To resolve this problem, simply log in as a major local administrator and update the GPSVC registry keys: run the registry manager (regedit.exe). Make sure there are sales listings in the registry for gpsvc using the computer. To do this, review these steps: The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM Current Control Set Services computer key.

How can I fix the Please Wait screen?

First, turn off external hard drives, peripherals, devices, etc., wait a bit, turn on the system as well. Now force shutdown and then immediately go to the computer three times in a row. You can do this by first turning on the custom computer and then properly pressing the power link again. Unfortunately, since they can keep quiet about it.

How can I force a window to close?

Press Ctrl+Delete Alt+. Select Task Manager. Select an app that experts say shoppers should close. Click End Task.

What is gpsvc in Windows 10 Group Policy?

Default Group Policy Client Settings (gpsvc) in Windows 10. Service responsible for qualifying settings configured by administrators per computer in addition per user using present Group Policy. If the service has been disabled, the settings will not apply perfectly and the applications and features will certainly not be managed by Group Policy.

What is each gpsvc log?

A solid understanding of the work discussed here will save you time and potentially the publicity of creating a solid Microsoft support ticket. Let's start. The gpsvc protocol evolved from the user state debugging protocol (userenv) in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, but the rules remain the same and the model remains the same.

How do I finally force gpsvc to run as a separate process?

call and coinitialize security param can therefore be set to 5. Restart them after the conversion. Method b: Take ownership of the policy Windows registry key and select Force the part associated with GPSVC to start it as a remote process from the start instead of acting as an experienced process.

[questload814]

Why Is My Macbook Pro Sierra Download So Slow On The Internet

How many times have you seen the spinning beachball lately while browsing Safari on your Mac?

I have been seriously struggling with my WiFi every morning in my new office and could not figure out why. Speedtest was 'very slow' on my Macbook Pro 2015 and super quick on iPhone 8, it has been painful and driving me nuts!! It usually got quicker throughout the day, but unbearable in the morning. So how to fix a slow Mac. All Macs begin to slow down with age — MacBook Pro, iMac, it doesn’t matter. Performing several heavy tasks at a time, your Mac may get slower, and it’s okay. Although, when you’re facing unresponsive windows and slow load time more often these days, your Mac definitely needs a boost. Why is my Mac running slow? Actually, Mac becomes slower and slower with the age you use it, no matter it is MacBook Pro, Air or Mac mini. To speed up your Mac, you had better find out the reasons why Mac is so slow. In this article, we will show you 5 reasons that explain why Mac is running slow and give you corresponding advice to. Check your Internet connection. For many Mac users, a slow Internet connection is synonymous with a slow computer. That’s because almost everything they do—from surfing the Web to checking. From app downloads to emails, a lot of Mac’s performance depends on the network connection — a slow Internet can spell trouble across the board. I live in The Middle of Nowhere, where the maximum speed I can get is 4 Mbps, so I need to make sure my MacBook isn’t bringing that speed down even more.

For example, Safari is slow loading pages, it stops loading halfway with text strewn across the screen and images in the wrong place. Or some webpages are loading forever before you’re able to actually read the content.

Other times, it may be just that Safari runs extremely slow after Catalina update (remember the pitfalls of a shiny new macOS?)

All of these behaviors are typical symptoms related to Apple’s signature Internet browser. While Safari is a light-weighted browser optimized for use on all Mac machines, issues like above might force you to resort to third-party browsers (perhaps Chrome, stay away from Firefox) that tend to be faster.

But for those of you who are real fans of Apple and decide to stick to Safari, we’re going to help you get to the root of your Safari issues in this guide, starting with the possible reasons why Safari is slow.

Hopefully, you’ll have Safari back to normal in no time, and be able to use the browser flawlessly.

Note: if Safari is not just slow, but keeps freezing and crashing, read this post instead for more troubleshooting tips.

Important Tips

It’s normal for Safari to run slow on certain websites – By certain websites, we mean “heavy” sites that are loaded with flash or video ads on the pages you browse. Worse yet, some even auto-play without you clicking on. They tend to have your MacBook heat up quick. The best option is to close those pages immediately when you finish reading the content on it, or you could install AdBlock Plus (Safari compatible) to block the ads from displaying.

Stop excessively multitasking – You’d be surprised how much better 90% of programs work when you don’t try and use them at the same time as a dozen other apps. It seems like a simple solution, but it is often the best one.

Take care of Safari – Some methods are a matter of habit, such as regularly clearing your cache or making sure the app is up to date. Imagine your computer as a car that needs regular maintenance to run well.

Don’t neglect the computer – Macs are not immune to viruses, despite the common perception. They also aren’t immune to file corruption or errors. Make sure you haven’t picked up anything unwanted while browsing that could be affecting Safari’s performance.

Below are some common causes directly or indirectly related to those Safari performance issues. Also, we’ll show you how to fix it step by step.

Possible Cause 1: Overworked Cache

The cache is a location on your Mac’s hard drive where Safari temporarily stores data that you use frequently. Macbook pro download folder more info. The cache allows Safari to reference this information quickly and therefore execute actions such as loading a specific page more quickly.

However, if the cache becomes full then Safari cannot add newer, more relevant material and is forced to use slower methods to respond to your demands.

Here’s how to erase the data in the cache so that Safari can work smarter rather than harder:

Start by erasing your history from Safari by navigating the menu bar along the top and choosing HISTORY > CLEAR HISTORY AND WEBSITE DATA.

Once you click this, you’ll be shown a small pop-up window. Choose “All History” from the bottom of the drop-down, and then Clear History.

The next thing you can do is clear the cache using a more advanced method. First, go the Safari menu and open Preferences.

On the preferences panel, choose “Advanced” and then look for the checkbox at the bottom of the page that says “Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar”. Make sure this box is checked, then close Preferences.

You’ll notice a new tab has been added to your menu bar, called “Develop”. Click on this, and then choose “Empty Caches” from the list. You won’t be given any confirmation, but it will clear the cache and you can restart Safari and see if this has solved your problem.

Possible Cause 2: Bad Extensions

Most people are aware that Apple doesn’t play well with Flash, but this isn’t the only plugin that could be causing Safari to lag. Any extension or plugin that is outdated or not correctly optimized could be the “culprit”, and you should disable or remove as many as possible.

The easiest way to do this is to use CleanMyMac X, go to Extensions > Safari Extensions (the screenshot below), here you just select these unwanted plugins, and click the “Remove” button at the bottom to clean them all at once.

Of course, you can also get this done manually, though the process will be a bit time-consuming if you have a list of extensions to disable or remove.

First, start by opening Safari, and then navigating to SAFARI > PREFERENCES

In the preferences menu, choose “EXTENSIONS” icon. You’ll be shown a list of all your extensions.

If you don’t use an extension, you should uninstall it with the button on the right side. If you use it but infrequently, simply uncheck the “enable” box. This should significantly speed up Safari, especially if you have been running a lot of extensions in the background.

Possible Cause 3: Outdated Version of Safari

Because Apple makes Safari, it usually receives updates when macOS has a new version released or when there is a necessary patch. If you’re running an old version of Safari, this could be part (or even all) of your problem.

If you aren’t on macOS Sierra or higher, your Safari is definitely in need of an update (all MacBook Pros made after 2009 are compatible with at least macOS Sierra). To check what you’re running, go the Apple Menu in the top left corner and choose “About this Mac”.

If you’re on an older version, your window will look something like this, displaying the version of OS X you’re running:

If you’re already on macOS Mojave, it will look like this instead:

If you aren’t on the latest macOS yet, open the App Store from Finder, and navigate to updates. There will be at least one software update available, which you can expand. This will show you the update for Safari, which you can update separately or with any other updates you may have available.

Issues Related to your Network or Computer

Possible Cause 4: Your Network

You might argue that the problems inside Safari are simpler to deal with, but sometimes it’s surprising that Safari isn’t necessarily the “culprit”. Your network can have a significant impact on Safari’s performance.

To find out whether your Mac has network issues, the best way is to use this app called Advanced Network Care — run a quick scan and it’ll display the network issues (if they exist). Vmware fusion free download for mac.

To test the Internet speed, you can also use Google Fiber. First, open the link on your Safari browser, then press the blue “play” button, and watch as your internet speed is tested. The site will first test your upload and then your download speed.

Once you have your results, you can compare them with this link, which contains charts detailing what you should expect based on the connection type. If your results are below expected, it might be time to contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP), especially if speeds fall far below what you’re paying for.

Note: if speed seems normal and falls in the expected ranges, then this probably isn’t your problem, and you should try some of our other solutions.

Possible Cause 5: Your User Account or Mac Drive

Sometimes the issue runs a bit deeper than just a full cache- you could have a corrupted user account or your macOS version isn’t operating correctly. To determine if this is your problem, start by creating a second user account on your MacBook. Fl studio mac os catalina download.

On the new user account, open Safari and try using it as you normally would. If Safari suddenly runs faster, it’s time to repair your normal user account.

Use spotlight (top right corner of the screen) to search “Disk Utility” and open it.

Inside Disk Utility, select your account’s disk and make sure you’re on the “First Aid” tab. Then select “Repair Disk” from the bottom right corner (if this is unavailable, choose “Verify Disk” first).

Note: if your MacBook Pro is with 10.10 Yosemite or earlier, you have two buttons to click on like below.

However, if your MacBook Pro is with 10.11 El Capitan or later (including latest 10.15 Catalina), just click “First Aid” and run it to check and fix any issues it may find.

The Disk Utility will repair any problems with your account. If it isn’t capable of fixing the problem, reinstalling macOS is always an alternative if a bit tedious to do.

Final Words

No one enjoys staring at the colorful loading pinwheel when they just want to browse the web or access an important page for work. Hopefully, you won’t be experiencing the Safari slow issue anytime soon with our solution guide.

Still not able to solve your problems even after using the methods we’ve outlined? A good resource is the Apple Community forum, where you can get advice from other fellow Mac fans. You may also find bug reports and similar questions from other users.

Why Is My Macbook Pro Sierra Download So Slow On The Internet Download Manager

Alternatively, if you’ve already fixed the Safari problem, write a comment and tell us about it below.

[evanvanness]

Week in Ethereum News, Dec 22, 2019 annotated edition

Regular Week in Ethereum News for December 22, 2019.  This is the annotated version.

I’ll probably do a few more of these, as I think any experiment needs to get to a certain number of trials before evaluation.  But the response last week was less than overwhelming.  Of course it doesn’t help that the second annotated issue will be on Christmas Eve for most of the world, which will probably put the third issue on NYE. 

This was a packed edition, and I have a feeling the annotated version will be long too!

Eth1

Update your clients for the Muir Glacier hard fork in early January

Nethermind v1.3.8 significantly better peer connections stability, can now sync a full node in a few hours. They also have a Beam Sync prototype

Parity v2.6.7beta and v2.5.12stable. ready for Muir Glacier

EthereumJS VM v4.1.2 supports Muir Glacier

Notes from the latest eth1 very long-term sustainability call on the path forward to stateless Ethereum

How to sync an Ethereum node over TOR

New version of BlockchainsLLC/Slockit’s Incubed light client now also supports TOR

Is state growing faster with block gaslimit of 10m? Seems like it, but inconclusive.

Ethereum on ARM update: run a full node on Raspberry Pi 4, NanoPC-T4, and RockPro64 boards

The stürm und drang of this week was the Muir Glacier hard fork.   Let’s discuss:

Eric Conner first noticed that the bomb was going off awhile ago.  It’s true; no one noticed until he did.  This is mildly embarrassing for Ethereum, but not a big deal.  In a decentralized ecosystem, everyone else assumed someone else was watching.  And the risk is very little, because the worst case scenario is exactly what happened: the bomb went off, block times slowed down the tiniest bit, we do a hard fork to fix it.  

After Eric noticed, It was decided that this should go into a separate fork instead of the upcoming Istanbul fork, because Istanbul-ready clients were already out and core devs want to make sure everyone has lots of time to update nodes.  [This is a mistake in my view, because nodes always get updated - something we saw when we had just a few days to get everyone to update their nodes in Constantinople and it went off just fine.  And by the way, the perpetual “oh no, not enough nodes have updated X days out from the fork” is good for headlines and clicks, but almost always a very overblown story.]

So they set a date which was supposed to be Jan 6.  It’s not easy to predict how the bomb (”difficulty adjustment”) will interact with the amount of hash power, especially when price volatility affects the desire to mine.  There’s also conventions about what block numbers get used, and the desire to not let block times get too long.  They thought they were scheduling Muir Glacier for the 6th.  They appear to be wrong, as the chosen block number at one point recently was estimated for Dec 31, and then Jan 1.  Lots of people whined, some a bit ridiculously so.  Some people just like to whine!  Note that the people who made the decision are the people most affected by it: the core developers.  Estimation is hard.

The dumber thing that Bitcoin maximalists like to repeat is that “monetary policy changed.” That’s misleading at best, though it is true in the very strictest and most literal sense of the word.   

The “bomb” or “ice age” or “difficulty adjustment” is not about monetary policy.  The bomb’s purpose is to remove the default towards inertia and prevent capture by a relatively small amount of core devs.  It forces all of us to come to consensus on what is best for the network.  It only tangentially touches “monetary policy,” which is that network issuance of ETH is very slightly reduced as block times go up.  

Ethereum’s “monetary policy” is that ETH should be issued to secure the network within reasonable confidence levels, and no more.  This is in stark contrast to Bitcoin, who chose an issuance policy and is now hoping, praying, and memeing that 21 million BTC is sustainable.  (It isn’t).

The bottom line here is that it’s true that much of the layer 1 talent is working on Eth2.  Scalable blockchains that enable web3 has always been the Ethereum vision, so it makes sense.  We should all be grateful to the folks who are doing yeoman’s work on Eth1.  Peter, Nethermind, Alexey, etc The list could be long.

To sum up this eth1 section: eth1 clients continue to be improving, sync times are going down, and the private networking option of using TOR is very needed.  Also: unlike what maxis say, you can run a full Eth node on a Raspberry Pi.

Eth2

Latest what’s new in Eth2

Danny Ryan’s quick Eth2 update – Least Authority spec audit, native nim libp2p, v0.10 spec coming in Jan with standardized BLS

Latest implementers call. Notes from Ben and Mamy.

Sigma Prime’s lessons learned from the Lighthouse public testnet. Bitfly/Etherchain put up a block explorer for Lighthouse.

Prysmatic client update. Better peering, faster syncing, fuzzing the caches. New testnet early Jan

Ben’s notes from latest networking call

Dankrad’s primer on data availability checks. Several options on this: FRI as erasure code fraud proof and using polynomial commitment schemes

cross-shard Eth transfers through a meta execution environment

Exploring the 2 keys used in Eth2 staking

How eth2 staking is designed to promote decentralization

The constant question I get is: when does Eth2 ship?  The goal is still the end of q1, though it may slip into April.  The beacon chain is moving along toward production.  There’s a spec audit due in a couple months.  There’s still some work to be done on optimizing clients and nailing down networking, but it’s happening.  The research stuff in this week (data availability, Vitalik’s post on a meta execution environment) is aimed at phase 1 and 2. 

It’s true that some of that phase 1 and 2 is in some flux.  Of course it is!  Should we prioritize a two way bridge, finalizing the eth1 chain, seamlessly porting eth1 to eth2,  scalability (now!) from rollups, etc?  (to be clear, as I understand it most of those things aren’t a question of tradeoffs, more a question of prioritization of dev resources). Personally I think finalizing the eth1 chain should be a priority.  Drop eth1 issuance by 90% and stop wasting so much electricity.

Finally, the “staking” will lead to centralization argument drives me a little nuts.  Compared to centralized PoW mining?  Impossible that it could be less centralized than PoW mining, which is very easily identifiable by any state level actor just by looking at power usage.  Plus run by a few mining pools, plus generally geographically centralized, etc etc.

Layer2

Loopring launches the first rollup chain, capacity 1400 transactions per second (not yet 2000-3000 because of operator bottleneck)

Account-Based anonymous rollup

Perun’s state channel framework in Go

Rollups are here!  Loopring launches their rollup.  Now it isn’t yet doing “Visa” levels of throughput but it’s close.  There’s a lot of work to be done to make operators capable of doing 3000 transactions per second.  It’s not point-and-click to just make a high throughput chain. Recall, for example, chains like EOS which sacrifice decentralization for throughput and still only churn out a few more transactions per second than Ethereum.  </trollface> 

Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.6 – “Changes include explicit virtual and override keywords in inheritance, support for try/catch, splitting the fallback function into a receive Ether function and an actual fallback function and limitations on how the length of an array can be changed.” ABIEncoderV2 no longer experimental. Yul optimizer automatically activated.

Truffle v5.1.5 compatible with Solidity v0.6

Easier deployment with Truffle Teams with Metamask and hardware wallets

AirAssembly v0.2, language for STARKs

Base Circom library

MythX: the journey from slow Python tool to EVM code analysis platfom

decentralized source verification repository for better wallet confirmations

Loredana released an early version of Pipeline, visual IDE

Austin Griffith’s latest eth.build on transactions and gas prices

3 approaches to permissioning in Solidity

Atomic proxy contract

Test your code from Java using web3j-unit

EY’s ERC20 token testing service is in public beta

how EY reduced Nightfall’s gas costs so drastically by using logs

Solidity keeps improving. v0.6 led Augur founder Joey Krug to exclaim, “To give you an idea for just how early crypto is, Solidity just now has try/catch statements!”

The post on the techniques EY used to reduce Nightfall’s gas costs is very cool.  

Ecosystem

Privacy is here: Tornado.cash v2. 10 ETH and 1 ETH now supported. Also now supports DAI, with USDC and USDT coming. Plus withdrawals 60% cheaper due to EIP1108 in Istanbul. 1000+ anonymity set and anyone can run a relayer.

Private voting and whistleblowing using Semaphore

Parity announces plans to assign IP for its Rust client to a DAO. Drama ensued, to put it mildly.

The Gnosis Safe Multisig launch.

Social recovery with Argent gets even easier. Plus, Argent’s Ethereum ecosystem 2020 hype video is great

Tornado mixer going live is amazing.  I 100% don’t want to downplay the possibility that the mixer has a bug or doesn’t work - though they now have 10 ETH deposits and you can insure away your risk with Nexus Mutual by getting a quote on 10 ETH for tornado.nexusmutual.eth and then limiting your exposure to 10 ETH at a time.   The feature improvements are impressive, and it’s impossible to understate how need privacy improvements are.

 Sometimes in Ethereum people didn’t want to pay each other at events using crypto because it means exposing so much of your transaction history.  Privacy matters, and the Tornado mixer is bringing it.  

I don’t want to touch much on the Parity drama.  Much of this is “proof is in the pudding” stuff.  While some parts of the Ethereum community on Reddit think this is Gavin declaring war (he published an op-ed in Coindesk about how blockchains would go to war with each other in 2020), if they assign clean IP to someone, then I feel comfortable guaranteeing you that the client will be well maintained.  If Parity does not do that, then they’ll give credence to the critics.

Meanwhile key management is really getting so much better with Gnosis Safe or Argent.  If you haven’t tried them, you should.

Enterprise

Tradeshift Frontiers and Monerium first cross-border euro transaction. “Invoices and purchase orders were issued through Tradeshift smart-contracts and settled using Monerium e-money on-chain.”

Seberino: private blockchains are not pointless because of decentralized administration and complete security histories.

Hyperledger Besu v1.3.8 better loq query performance

Governance and standards

Control of the MKR token handed over to MakerDAO

Synthetix planning to decentralize its governance in 2020

Deversifi launches its necDAO on DAOstack with 17k ETH in the DAO. Reputation received for locking NEC.

MetaCartel Ventures: a Moloch extension for-profit dapp investment fund

EIP2442: LOGQUERY(x) opcode

The relatively slow week for enterprise juxtaposed with a very packed non-enterprise is amusing.   

Lots of stuff happening in DAO land.   Various people are picking up different strands of TheDAO’s vision and experimenting. 

Application layer

Buy ads-free Forbes for a week or month using Unlock Protocol

Affogato is doing a Unisocks-style sale of specialty coffee from Honduras.

Roll: a “social money exchange” on Uniswap, aimed at online content creators

Synthetix is now using Chainlink oracles

Neon District: Every blockchain game is an MMO

Burner Machine: spin up 3 hours of an anonymous cloud desktop for $1 in crypto

ETH being down in the market meant every set on Set Protocol is up in Eth terms

I think the Affogato sale is very cool, as is their vision for making coffee futures.  I’ve bought a few even though I’m not a big coffee drinker.  I’d really like to see the Ethereum community support them more.  I may buy a token or two and give them away.

Also neat to see Forbes using Unlock.  I bought one even though Brave already blocks my ads. 

I had missed Burner Machine, which is a neat little concept and way of using crypto as a payment rail.

Also cool to see an oracle solution like Chainlink go into wider production with Synthetic.  

And I guess I should have bought more sets on Set Protocol!

Tokens / Business / Regulation

TheGraph: web3 is going to be the next big platform, and it will start in 2020

SEC still charging random ICOs with unregistered security offerings

SEC proposes adding financial sophistication as criteria for accredited investor status

Proof of use as standard in token launches

ZimDai: a plan for Dai adoption in Zimbabwe to offer its citizens a hyperinflation alternative

1:1 collateralized stablecoin for the Nigerian Naira

ZimDai is super cool.  Wasn’t this supposed to be a big part of what “crypto” about?  It’s a long shot, but imagine how incredible it would be for Zimbabweans to have an alternative to their perpetual hyperinflation?  Politicians cause inflation by overspending, the folks in Zimbabwe deserve a better option.

Meanwhile I loved Yaniv’s piece about web3 being the next big platform and how we get there.  It’s amazing how the pendulum of “conventional wisdom” has swung the other way.  This was a nice counterpoint.

General

PLONK benchmarks vs Groth16 on MiMC and SHA-256

Byte serialization in blockchains

Redundancy in Swarm (arxiv paper)

DeFi explained. A nice primer

Ethereum for dummies

Surveillance capitalism: location tracking from your smartphone apps (NYTimes)

Who should own the internet naming system of the future? ENS as public good

As always, a bit of a grab bag. In the ‘general’ section I now generally put things involving both very advanced crypto (like the very cool PLONK benchmarks from Aztec Protocol) and beginner tutorials.   Both the beginner-friendly pieces are high on the list of most clicked.

[18tpaz]

@damereyevents summer exchange: for @strong-bottle-of-jyn 

Aaaaand here it is!!!! Yoooo damerey buddy!!!!

You asked for a fic about scavenger!poe and pilot!rey (ooooohh)! lol and because I love all my damerey and my damerey buddies I also made a little gifset to go with it :D

I have to admit, it’s been years since I last wrote a serious fanfic so forgive me if my writing’s a bit rusty (and if the style feels childish it must be because while making the fic, I was reading the young kids’ version of ROTJ by Tom Angleberger — I highly recommend, it’s fun! hahaha). And this story has no title yet...hmm, would you like to do the honors? :) Hoping to hear from ya soon!!!

Summary: Poe Dameron has made a decent living as a scavenger on Yavin 4, but a chance encounter with two Resistance fighters may finally bring him to his destiny to fly with the greatest heroes of the galaxy. Maybe dreams do come true.

Words: 4,903 ( i kno it’s short :( )

Edit: the title for this fic is "You Need a Scavenger" lol!

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” Finn gaped at the mess of a ship he just came out of, “This is bad. Real bad.”

 “Damage report?” Rey, still stuck in her blue jumpsuit-sans-helmet, peered at the smoking wishbone ship before sharing a wince with her best friend.

 Ordinary people would have accepted their death at the hands of an endless jungle.

 But Rey and Finn weren't ordinary beings.

 Running on instinct, the duo scouted the area for something useful (that wasn't another gigantic tree). Finding nothing but endless greens, they decided to to immediately set up camp by their downed vehicle.

 “Another dinner of tasty rations,” Rey grumbled at her veg-meat as Finn chuckled, opting instead to take a nap on his sleeping mat.

 “Good night, peanut.”

 “Sleep tight, Finn.”

 - -

 The fourth moon of Yavin wasn't particularly a competitive market for junk and it suited Poe perfectly fine. Besides, the farm being tended by his father could sufficiently feed them both; his scavenging was nothing more than a hobby that happened to bring extra credits to the table.

 After setting up his father’s breakfast, Poe and his droid BB-8, headed off on his self-constructed landspeeder for their next salvaging adventure.

 “So, where are we off to today?” Poe turned to his round companion who beeped and chirped animatedly, “Hmm… yeah buddy maybe we should take a break from scouring the abandoned Rebel base and try our luck on something else. Scan around for unusual readings.”

 The droid responded by making annoyed noises, “Yeah yeah, I know I'm too obsessed.”

 Dee-deet! Dee-deet! Poe’s scanners were picking up a mass of potential scrap  ahead of him. Slowing down his speeder, he pulled out his quadnocs to take a peek. He could see smoke lightly dissipating from a hidden cockpit. The magnified image made his heart leap. It was a real, functional Y-wing!

 Never in his life did Poe drive his speeder with utmost urgency. It was one thing to stare at holoimages of fancy ships or pick around distended parts for selling. But to catch a whole, real (REAL!) starfighter? He felt like the luckiest man in history since Han Solo's legendary win in a game of Sabacc (of course Poe knows about Han Solo! Poe’s probably a walking encyclopedia of the Galactic Civil War). His mind raced with possibilities and ideas.

 I should try the sublights on this thing.

 Maybe I could bring home a nice helmet from this too.

 Will BB-8 fit the astromech slot?

 I can finally know the feeling of flying a bomber!

 His imagination was cut short by a blaster bolt that almost singed his favorite jacket. Filled with panic, he didn’t realize that the pilot might still be alive!

 “Who's there?!” screamed a bold, male voice. Poe could hear the rifle being prepped for another shot.

 “I mean you no harm!” Poe quickly answered, hands up in the air,  “I… uh… saw your ship! And I uh… came to offer my services!” His mind was nimbly threading a legitimate excuse, “You see, I run a small business of fixing stuff and selling parts. My house is just a few klicks away.”

 The pilot must have been a little desperate as he lowered his blaster and moved closer to Poe's position.

 Dark complexion, clean haircut, and very determined eyes. Complete trooping gear and a classy flight jacket.

 The man, bearing a brawny build and an equally assertive stance, inspected Poe to ensure that he wasn't hiding any weapons. But what he wasn't counting on was the stinging electric shock delivered by BB-8 on his ankle, “Ow!” he stumbled and grunted.

 “Hey buddy, it’s okay. I was about to score a job,” Poe intervened before his loyal companion could send another shock current on the man. The reassurance caused BB-8 to roll backwards and bow his domed head in apology, a light ‘dwoooo’ sound echoing his speakers.

 Deciding to play friendly, Poe helped the stranger up, “I'm Poe. Poe Dameron.”

 “Finn,” he responded, “You said you could fix our ship?” the man inquired.

 “I gotta take a look at it first, of course,” Poe replied. True, he had to assess the damage. But his true motivation was the chance to see and touch a real Alliance vehicle. He just had to pull out all his tricks for this chance!

 Finn, Poe, and BB-8 approached the Y-wing in haste. And as Poe was about to get his first touch of the ship, a gloved hand grabbed his forearm.

 “What do you think you're doing?” growled a female voice this time, mezzo-soprano, (and obviously very angry).  

 Her air of authority placed Poe in a state of partial paralysis. He slowly looked up to see a fair and regal face, sprinkled with dust and slightly tanned. The upper part of her blue flightsuit was unzipped to reveal a worn, sleeveless, gray undershirt (and immaculately toned arms). Poe dared to look into her hazel eyes and gulped. If Finn felt like dealing with an elite shocktrooper, the girl was probably Lady Vader.

 Nevermind that the girl’s gauntlets were dripping grease on his favorite jacket.

 “I'm uh, Poe. Poe Dameron?”

 “And?”

 “He wants to help fix the ship,” Finn intervened, hoping to defuse his friend’s aggression.

  “As you can see, I can handle it myself,” the girl replied, oozing with sass. She pointed a Pilex driver at Poe, “And no offense, but you look like a scruffy scavenger about to steal my ship.”

 Damn, caught so fast. Maybe I should have listened to Dad and shaved.

 “You'll need parts though,” Poe adroitly picked himself up from the girl’s tripping wits, “I sell! And, I can see that your coolant’s leaking. We could work on that.”

 The scavenger’s right. She huffed, “I do need some more bonding tape.”

 “Hey, I can get you some new parts for that instead!” Poe exclaimed, “My finds will fit well with an Alliance classic like your bomber.”

 Of course the girl had her doubts, but after a silent deliberation within herself (actually, it was just one long sigh), she relented.

 And they all got to work.

 - -

 For the next few days, Poe learned a couple of things from his new customers.

 1.    The girl's name was Rey - and she was probably ranked as high as Captain, based on how Finn addressed her.

2.    Rey and Finn were probably Resistance agents, scouting around the sector until they got hit and landed here.

3.    They were in a hurry to fix their long range comms. But so far, no luck.

4.    Kes Dameron, Poe’s dad, came down to see what they were up to and offered some koyo melons from their homely ranch. A warm, ambient environment ensued.

5.    Finn did most of the talking (he was a very friendly chap when you got to know him). Captain Rey on the other hand, was a quiet sort of buddy.

6.    But Rey has a very special heart for machines. She bonded with BB-8 instantly while making a lot of technical remarks about Poe’s landspeeder. (Of course Poe took lots of notes! Had to learn more about this girl - I MEAN LEARN FROM A REAL PROFESSIONAL STARFIGHTER PILOT).

7.    Also, this meant that Poe's sly attempts to sell his worthless junk (as he usually did with unknowing offworlders) didn't succeed under Rey’s watchful eye.

8.    Nope, a shaved face didn't help his cause either.

 “25,000 credits?! This is a rusty 30-year-old U-wing thrust engine!,” Rey frowned at the chunk of metal being put down by Finn and Poe from the landspeeder.

 “On the contrary,” Poe began, shifting his gears into salesman-slash-Galactic Civil War expert mode, “I believe this lovely piece of vintage was part of Operation Fracture, which — ”

 “ — was the mission to uncover and stop the Death Star,” Rey supplied, “and if my memory is intact, most of Blue Squadron’s U-wings met their grave on Scarif.”

 Poe was flabbergasted. It was perhaps, the first time he was caught spindling a lie about history. Finn simply chuckled and patted BB-8, “Sorry Poe-my-good-man, but Rey is a hardcore geek when it comes to these things. Girl knows her stuff.”

 “Look Poe, we’re not museum collectors. I need functional thrusters if we are to make it as far as Mandalore,” Rey explained.

 BB-8 chirped something in response.

 “You need the money for what?” Rey raised her eyebrows and began crossing her arms.  

 “Don't listen to him,” Poe panicked, realizing what his droid had just said, “Okay...look...we can go to my usual hauling areas and find another thrust engine.”

 “You know if you were so bent on signing up for the New Republic Starfighter Corps, you could join us in the Resistance! I can gun for you if you like! I'm actually a big deal in the Resistance and I am pretty damn sure that I am one of the best gunners out there,” Finn grinned, pumped up with excitement.

 But Poe nervously chuckled and cleared his throat, “Let's not get carried away guys. Now wanna go check out that old Rebel base?”

 - -

 Many would have thought that the Rebels took everything with them when they evacuated the Massassi temples on Yavin 4, and that graverobbers would have nothing left to salvage from the ancient rocks.

 But Poe Dameron was a persistent one.

 Driven by his deep desires to rediscover his deceased mother, an ace of the Rebel Alliance, he poured all his efforts on uncovering concealed caches, cracking codes, and absorbing whatever intel was left behind. What lacking information he needed, he sought through Holonet searches when he visited the main town. Sometimes a family friend, a retired veteran Duros pilot he fondly called Uncle L’ulo, shared what he could to the eager boy. Along with Kes Dameron, they reminisced Green Squadron’s finest moments when Lieutenant Shara Bey, Poe’s mom, did the wildest heroics in the name of freedom and justice.

 The secret outposts found by Poe were stashed with enough supplies and parts to sustain a lost platoon for 5 standard years. Though they couldn’t find a good set of thrusters, Rey and Finn were admittedly impressed. BB-8 also helped set up temporary long range communications through an old terminal, so that Finn can report to Resistance High Command.

 Meanwhile, Rey and Poe decided that they could build their own thrust engines from the spares. The two tinkerers were quiet for the duration of their work — Poe was determined to help his new friends get going while Rey began contemplating on the idea of acquiring another useful recruit. She knew that the Resistance needed more manpower, but at the same time their job required a deep sense of commitment and utmost loyalty, qualities Rey wasn't sure that Poe had (For one, Rey knew a lot of skilled people who were nothing more than mercenaries). Still, she decided that a little probing might help around.

 “Why do you want to be a starfighter pilot?” Rey inquired while fiddling with her toolkit.

 She could sense the emotions brewing beneath the scavenger.

 Sentimentality.

 Compassion.

 Belongingness.

 Poe tilted his head, scrunching up his face a bit as he continued to work, “Mostly because of my Ma, I guess,” he picked up a hydrospanner and inserted it into a damaged slot, “She flew for Green Squadron while my Dad served under the Pathfinders.”

 Rey nodded in understanding. She also began installing some bolts.

 “How ’bout you, Captain... uh, why did you want to be a Jedi?”

 If Rey was surprised, she didn't show it. (Actually, she was. But of course she's better than that.)

 “What makes you think I’m a Jedi?” she calmly challenged his query.

 Poe shrugged, still engrossed in his work, “I saw your lightsaber clipped next to your belt. The only time I saw that kind of thing was on a holo of Luke Skywalker in his X-wing attire.”

 Rey couldn't help but grin. He's an observant one. Good. “Let’s just say it's also tied to family.”

 Poe nodded.

 Silence ensued. But, it was comfortable kind, knowing that they stood on the same ground and were somehow, drawn to the same endless stars above them (How did assembling thrusters become such a dreamy setting?). Before they knew it, only a few couplings were left to be installed.

 “Finn’s not done yet, is he?” Poe mused.

 “I’ll tell you a secret — that boy has a rather colorful love life,” Rey mischievously replied and they shared laugh, “If I have to place a bet, it’ll be on one of those sisters he befriended on the maintenance crew…”

 “Must be tough love.”

 “Maybe if you join our ranks you'll give him some competition,” Rey joked.

 “Nah. My old man needs me here,” Poe shook his head.

 Rey was about to respond when Finn came back with BB-8. He seemed more relaxed after that long chat with the base.

 “Hey Rey, General Organa wants to talk to you,” Finn bent down, positioning himself to take over her work. The captain quietly stood up and accompanied BB-8 back to the terminal.

 “General,” Rey curtly greeted Leia Organa with a nod.

 Leia on the other hand, continued to stare dotingly at Rey, as though her compassion could be transmitted all the way from D’Qar to Yavin 4.

 “Rey, I wish I could tell you to take your time but — ”

 “Time is of the essence, I know,” Rey sighed, rubbing her forehead, “I'm doing my best to fix the ship and I swear we’ll be on track to Mandalore before you know it.”

 “No, that's not it,” Leia explained, “We're picking up First Order transmissions. They're in your area, trying to find a Force-sensitive tree. Several TIEs have been dispatched. They might also be the group who shot you down.”

 “A Force-sensitive tree?”

 “I know Luke had given one to the Dameron family. Finn says you've made contact with their son?” Leia asked.

 “Yes.”

 “Make sure the First Order doesn't find it,” came Leia's swift order.

 “But what about the emissary to Mandalore? We have to coordinate with them soon,” Rey frowned, unconvinced by the tree’s importance.

 “Finn says that Poe Dameron is seeking enlistment with us. And I know his parents well, especially his mother. Recruiting him is as good as finding our contact in Mandalore,” Leia replied, her voice driven by conviction. Rey could feel ripples of the Force flowing between them. Leia's natural intensity as a commander not only made her an effective leader, but also an undeniably strong presence in the Force.

 Like Master Luke. Like Ben. And all those lost Jedi.

 Memories of pain flushed her into a deep silence.

 And Leia of course, was able to pick up on it, “I know it's so hard to place trust on people. Especially after what happened to your father…” her voice began drifting, her own emotional struggles reflecting that of Rey’s.

 But unlike an amateur such as Rey, Leia was firm in resisting her grief. Decades of experience brought her that ability to endure, “I had once entrusted my life to Shara Bey and I did not regret it. And if Poe is anything like his mother — or even his father, you will not hesitate to seek his help.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Rey, suddenly stoic, affirmed.

 Leia sighed. At least she is trying, “May the Force be with you.”

 - -

 “So, you like our little scoundrel of a princess?” Finn jabbed at Poe.

 “Wh-what?” Poe stuttered.

 “Oh come on! The only time I saw that kind of look was when Rey got to fly the Falcon!” Finn continued to tease, “And believe me, I’ve been through a lot of fodder with that gruffy girl and it's definitely been an adventure of a lifetime.”

 Poe frowned. They began to tow the newly-constructed thrusters back into the speeder.

 “I know she likes to look tough. Have you seen how she likes to be scruffy and show off her guns and all? She wants folks to respect her. And I guess I can't blame her for trying to live up to an inherited reputation…” Finn began rambling, immersed in his discourse of his best friend.

 “But I know, deep in my gut, that you’ll be good for her,” Finn continued, “I've seen her rip a gundark with her bare, muddy hands and I was there when she wore silvery garments and stole glances from everyone in a senator’s party. Of course the other pilots like Jess and Karé love her with all their being. But she needs another kind of friend, a relatable one. Someone who also memorizes all the skirmishes after the Battle of Hoth. And can re-wire a navicomputer with eyes closed. Someone who knows what it’s like to be a child of a legend. And if these docs are right, your Mama was one helluva pilot,” Finn wriggled his eyebrows, waving a datapad in front of Poe.

 The scavenger just gaped at him. Somehow, Finn’s datapad had just downloaded all of Lieutenant Shara Bey’s Alliance records. Not just Shara’s but Kes Dameron’s files too.

 “You know when Leia treats us all Resistance babies like her own children you get access to many amazing things,” Finn winked.

 “Now if you’re trying to lure me to join — ” Poe began shaking his head.

 “I don't know what’s stopping you either.”

 “Dameron!” shouted Rey's voice. The young Jedi was jogging towards them with BB-8 rolling in the same quickened pace.

 “The tree. Where is it?” Rey grabbed Poe’s collar.

 That gesture must have terrified him because he froze in place.

 “Whoa, calm down Cap. What did the General say?” Finn patted Rey’s shoulder.

 “The First Order is here, looking for a tree that Master Luke gave to Shara Bey. We need to protect it at all costs,” Poe and Finn could feel the panic seeping among them.

 The tree. From Luke Skywalker himself.

 Poe's mind was running in circles, remembering how his parents revered the damn plant. How he was made to personally care for it when he accidentally burned it in a hurry to finish his chores, many years back.

 He flicked his comlink, contacting his father.

 Shhhhhhssssshhhh. Static.

 If his comm was jammed, that meant the First Order was here. On this moon. On their backyard.

 AND HIS FATHER.

 The trio (plus BB-8) hurried back to the homestead.

 - -

 Kes knew that he'd never outgrow the instincts he’d bred as a SpecForce soldier. So, when he saw an indiscriminate man heading straight for the Force-sensitive tree, he immediately grabbed his old blaster from a hidden compartment. Setting up for a snipe shot, he quietly aimed at the thief.

 Pffoooowpsh!!!

 Ah, that satisfying hit meant that he was still a true Pathfinder.

 Kes slowly moved towards the incapacitated man, inspecting the thief's gear. There were network sensor jammers in one pocket and other tools similar to former Imperial Security Bureau agents. He could also hear at least two speeders within his area, one he identified as Poe's and another that was probably the burglar’s reinforcements. Making a wild guess, he ducked before a second thief tried to shoot him, and then fired back.

 He missed. And the second man accelerated his vehicle, retreating back into the forest.

 “Dad!” Poe, along with BB-8, hurriedly approached his father.

 Kes raised his thumb up before gesturing to Rey and Finn to catch the escaping intruder.

 Rey immediately took over the controls of Poe's ride while Finn readied his rifle.

 Poe glanced back at them, hoping that Rey would take care of his baby.

 “I’m okay, son. I’m okay,” Kes grinned cockily. Sometimes his boy was such a worrier, like Shara secretly was back years ago.

 “Was it the First Order, Dad?” Poe peered at the dead body.

 “Definitely,” Kes nodded, “I knew they'd be after the tree one day. It was Skywalker’s last request from our family to keep it safe.”

 “Dad…I...”

 Kes couldn't help but give his son a rather wrinkly smile. He could read Poe and all his hopes and fears like plain Aurebesh.

 And he knew exactly what he had to say to give his kid a final push. “Destiny calls us. The Force, even. That's why I wounded up serving under General Solo back on Endor, why your mother flew alongside Luke and Leia. We decided that we couldn't allow innocents to suffer. Now you have to make your choice. Will you help them too?”

 “But what about you? Who's going to take care of you?”

 Kes boisterous laughter filled the air, “I'm tougher than I look, son. Your old man still has that Pathfinder spirit,” he pounded his chest proudly. He shifted gears and mellowed the mood, “Poe, I know you’re worried for me but I'll be fine here. Shara used to think that way, too. Afraid that she couldn't stop flying once she got into her green flightsuit and left you behind.”

 He held his son's face, looking into his eyes that was so much like his wife's — that same soul yearning to explore the heavens, “You'll know when to fight and you'll know when to back down. We've raised you to be smarter and tougher so that one day you could take your place in this universe,” he slipped a data chip into Poe's hand.

 The launch codes for Shara’s old A-wing. An old ship, long hidden beneath a tarp, parked half a klick away.

 A beauty waiting for its reawakening.

 “I give you my blessing, son. It's been a long damn time and now you should quit holding yourself back!” Kes laughed again, “Who knows our small family might get one helluva pilot as daughter-in-law again!”  

 Poe palmed his face, recently cleaned of facial hair (also done to secretly impress the Y-wing captain). His dad was too quick of a thinker sometimes.

 - -

 With the infinite obstacle of trees, Rey can only steer the speeder so much. That was probably the seventh time she had to avoid the blaster bolts from hitting their borrowed ride.

 “Are you ever going to fire back, peanut?!” Rey exasperatedly whined at Finn.

 “I'm trying!” Finn grumbled back.

 “What ever happened to the Resistance’s best gunner…” Rey muttered, slipping a grumpy joke as she usually did during troublesome times like this.

 “I heard that!” Finn shot back, simultaneously hitting the thief's motivators.

 The speeder in front of them was yanked out of the route, but the man luckily escaped. He continued running towards a pair of strange-looking TIE fighters (probably modified).

 “He's going to fly out!” Finn pointed at him.

 “I know that!” Rey screamed back. With a blink of an eye, she stopped the speeder and leapt in the air with her activated lightsaber.

 Finn shook his head, but realizing that their Y-wing was only a junction away, he drove back to their campsite to re-install the new thrusters and maybe, get going.

 He’d seen Rey make miracles and hopefully, they wouldn't need their dysfunctional ship to take chase on those pristine TIEs.

 But being not much of a mechanic himself, he was probably the one who needed to make a miracle.

 - -

 Rey effortlessly deflected the blaster shots from the thief, who was backing away and nearing his ship.

 This agent is crippled by his fear.

 Rey threw her saber at his ship's twin ion engines, a smirk forming on her face.

 You’ve got no escape this time.

 Catching back her blade like a boomerang, she Force-pushed the thief into a tree, knocking him unconscious.

 She turned to the other TIE fighter, not realizing that the pilot inside had prepped his ship for take-off and had began gunning her. She continued to deflect its strong bolts until one blast hit an enormous branch, which was about to topple her. Rey rolled out of the way and unfortunately, it allowed the TIE to escape.

 Panting, she regretted her failure immediately.

 Luckily though, Finn was able to pull a bit of a miracle. Their battered Y-wing was floating in front of her, cockpit opened.

 “Let's test-ride this new thing!!!” Finn cheered. Rey smiled back and gracefully jumped to her seat. Following the TIE ahead of them, the Y-wing began to hit the skies.

 Apparently, it was going to be harder than expected.

 “You did not recalibrate this thing, did you?!” Rey groaned, the wishbone-shaped fighter jerking despite her focused controls. The TIE was now flying farther away.

 “Well we were in a bit of a situation. I had to hurry!” Finn retorted.

 Rey muttered a few things before resetting the guns and cannons. Finn, working in tandem, immediately tested his aim.

 PPPANG!!! PPPANG!!!

 Well, at least their guns are working.

 Now it was a matter of reaching their target. But the TIE suddenly tumbled itself backwards.

 “It’s behind us!” Finn warned.

 “Deflector shields up!!!” Rey flicked a few buttons, wanting to pivot her stubborn fighter around to hit it and end the day.

 The Y-wing whined in protest. Rey was trying her best to stabilize the gyroscopes. Finn knew that if she didn't do it fast enough, they'd be dead toast.

 But suddenly, the sensors showed another ship approaching, hitting the TIE on their tail!

 “Wooohooo!!!” Poe whooped, opening the comm channel to the Y-wing.

 “Poe!!!” Rey and Finn exclaimed in relief. BB-8 was also beeping happily in the background. The droid was excited to be part of the adventure.

 “I'll get him off your backs. And prepare to fire! His shield’s too strong for an old A-wing gun,” Poe advised.

 The A-wing began baiting the TIE to follow him.

 Poe yanked the controls and the old ship yielded to his maneuvers smoothly. A-wings were extremely nimble, and the TIE fighter (an unusually different model, Poe mused) had a hard time catching up with his swoops and barrel rolls. He dropped his ship too sharply, feeling the wild rush turning his insides. And then, he suddenly pushed his stick the opposite way.

 No way could the jerk follow that crazy path.

 Rey had somehow anticipated the path and soon, the Y-wing was onto the TIE’s trajectory.

 “Clear shot, Finn!” Rey queued.

 Her friend carried out the orders suavely and the TIE was swiftly blown to pieces.

 The new friends hollered together. It was a memorable first victory.

 “Now what?” Rey grinned at the comm, still hearing Poe’s laughter.

 “I’ve brought some cargo with me and we can do repairs when we land on Mandalore,” Poe suggested.

 “You sure?” Finn gasped excitedly, enjoying that their mission was going to proceed so instantly.

 “Alright, sending coordinates to you,” Rey smiled to herself. Maybe the three of them were complete adrenaline junkies, after all.

 The two rebel ships zoomed into hyperspace.

 - -

 The Resistance transport was up in their sights, already beginning its landing cycle.

 “Hey, don't be nervous,” Finn patted Poe on the back.

 How could he not be nervous?! Poe was finally meeting Leia Organa in the flesh. The Princess of Alderaan was a living legend among young dreamers like him. And Poe wanted to leave the best first impression for his long-time idol.

 “Don’t worry. General Organa is like a mother to all of us,” Rey winked and Finn just rolled his eyes.

 The door opened and the refined woman, despite wearing practical work clothes, was as elegant as the holoimages Poe had seen back home. The troops escorting her dispersed, giving the trio enough leeway to approach the General.

 Poe finally understood what it was like to face an icon that seemed to innately exude strength from her mere appearance. It was a familiar feeling, one he had encountered back a few days ago when he tried to steal a Y-wing from a powerful Jedi and her fierce friend.

 Leia immediately met eyes with Rey and embraced her warmly. Letting go, Leia looked at Finn and firmly gripped his arms with the same tenderness.  

 The duo ushered Poe towards Leia and the formerly confident junk dealer turned into a bashful boy.

 Leia understood, gently placing her hands on his shoulders (and perhaps imparting some of her fortitude on the newcomer), “Welcome to the Resistance, Poe Dameron. I see that you take after your mother.”

 She turned to her followers and said, “Now we have a lot to talk about and we already have jobs lined up.” Resistance personnel and other delegates began following General Organa towards the Sundari city proper.

 And that left Rey and Poe alone. (For some reason, Finn was inside the empty transport, probably having his own errands to do with BB-8. )

 Maybe Finn’s comming his girlfriend again, Rey thought to herself.

 Poe was looking at his old, black-brown boots. The poor guy must still be in shock after meeting Leia. It wasn't uncommon for people to be starstruck after meeting the Princess-turned-General.

 Rey grinned, deciding to do something. Besides, she hadn’t thank Dameron for saving their skins back in Yavin.

 She slowly wrapped her arms around him. It still startled Poe, since he reflexively lifted his arms in defense. But he slowly relaxed when reality sank in.

 Oh, but he's definitely blushing too.

 Sometimes even Rey surprises herself (by tuning down her sulky attitude from time to time).

 “I think your mom would have been proud of you,” she whispered softly.

 A small smile formed on Poe’s lips.

 And inside the Resistance transport’s compartments, Finn and BB-8 secretly shared a thumbs up.

END.

[roxicod0ne]

Do you know what it's like to live in a memory? Do you know what it's like to live in the past? But have to stay present? I don't remember where it all went wrong. Maybe I was just cursed from the start. Doctors say "It all stems from trauma. It all stems from your childhood." I don't remember things being that bad. But then again, I don't remember. The problem with the brain is that it plays tricks on you. It can block out trauma, abuse, painful memories. Thinking that's going to help you proceed to live your life as normal as possible. Until you can't. Until it's 3 o'clock in the morning and you have blood pouring down your arms and you feel nothing. And you don't know why. And you will sit there. And you will take your medications. Specifically designed to help your brain rewire. Specifically designed to help the serotonin stay in your blood stream a little bit longer. But what happens when you take those pills at 8 a.m. And you're back to cutting your wrists to let the sadness out at 11 p.m. And when the blood is trickling down I can't help but to think of all the serotonin that's supposed to be in there. Supposed to make me feel better. Supposed to make me feel. Something. Anything. And when you wake up in the morning. And you can't recall what made you make those marks on your skin. So you go through the motions. Same thing every day. Until one day it stops. You meet someone that catches your glance. When you weren't even looking for someone. They just came into your tunnel of vision. And suddenly everything stops. And you stop cutting your wrists every night. To every other night. To every other week. Until you can't remember the last time you cut. Those obsessive thoughts of self harm start to be replaced with obsessive thoughts of them. Until you finally open up and let them consume you. I don't believe that another person is supposed to be your salvation. But then again, I don't believe that these drugs help. And I don't believe that these doctors know what they're doing. But they have a piece of paper saying they do. So we have to believe them. We have to believe that they know our brains better than we do. The problem with these doctors is that they are there to teach you. Teach you the tools on how to differentiate what a panic attack is and what dying is. Teach you how to distract your hands so that they don't end up hurting yourself. Teach you to realize how to "build confidence" and "let go" of the past. But they don't teach you what it's like to fall in love. Or what it's like to fall apart. Or how to pick up the pieces. They try to teach you expression. Express your thoughts, feelings, self destructive tendencies in a "healthy way" Art, writing, music, sports. I never understood how I'm supposed to pick up the pen when my hands are filled with razorblades. Just waiting. It's like the calm before the storm. And everything is fine, and you smile to yourself. And everything is good. Until it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon and you're at work and you feel heavy. And nothing made you feel this way. But I took my pills this morning. But I wrote down how I felt. But I identified my feelings. Why do I feel like this? Why is it coming back? I thought I was cured? And you go back to the doctor and they tell you that it might be a side effect of the medications. And that you have these disorders, and that your brain is sick. But they never tell you it's okay. Because they know it's not. They know that one day something will trigger you, again. And it will happen suddenly before you have a chance to use the tools you've paid to learn to fix this. And you cut yourself. Because you never threw out those razors when you said you were going to. Because your brain doesn't want you to forget. Selective memory is one of those things that makes your mind a magician. It's able to bend and distort your thoughts and make you believe that things were better or worse than they really were. But you never believe things were better. You only use selective memory as a form of justification for why you do what you do. The worst part is, you don't even know if it's real. None of this is real. This is all an illusion. We are living a day to day life in a simulation. They are clearing our history, our cache; Force closing all of our commands. You ever walk into a room and forget why you're in there? They just deleted your next steps. Now, you go tell this to a doctor and they lock you away. Don't think like that, you're just disassociating. You tell this to someone else who has been struggling. They look at you with relief, thanking you without words. Because now they don't feel crazy. Because they aren't the only one who feels like this. Because now there's a word for this crazy feeling in their head. But you don't have it in your heart to tell them that it might not get better. So you look at them, smile and tell them that it will. And that you'll promise to be there if they need you. But at the end of the day, staying here is the one promise that's always the hardest to keep.

[posiey]

Nightfall

Prompt ~ Arkham knight Jason Todd x reader. So reader has history with Jason and was heartbroken from losing him. But when city of fear hit she finds him and when he convinces her to leave for her own safety she ends up coming back meeting him on a rooftop where she says she can't leave him, never again, she brings her over and holds her from behind where they share the iconic kiss

“Bruce you can't be fucking serious.” You glared at Bruce who looked beyond pissed.

“You're going to stay with Alfred, don't even think you're going out there.” Bruce stated with his nostrils flared.

“You let Nightwing help, am I not good as Golden Boy?” You spat, slamming your hand on your desk in anger.

“I can't lose you too.” Bruce said in a softer tone, the whole night had been hectic. Barbara was dead, Tim wasn't answering, Nightwing was dealing with Penguins caches, Scarecrow was planning to let our fear toxin all over Gotham, people in the city had been evacuated, and you were stuck with Alfred trying to find any background on the Arkham Knight.

“I’m not unstable any more Bruce, it’s been years since his death.” You added, Jason’s death had taken a huge toll on you. You were depressed for months and once you saw the tape of him getting shot you lost it, you ran away from the manor and hunted down the Joker. You tortured the Joker just as he did to Jason, Bruce and Dick had found your hide out and stopped you from killing the douche. You knew deep down what you did was wrong but you didn't regret a thing. So once you found out Joker died you were beyond ecstatic, Bruce even let you back out on the field. He had punished you for your actions which pissed you off but you had made amends with him, little by little you built up your relationship with Bruce again and even helped him train Tim even though you despised the kid at first.

“I’m not going to do anything bad, I’m just gonna go patrol and see if I find anything suspicious.” You pleaded. Alfred rolled his eyes already knowing how this was going to end.

“Fine, but you will contact me or Alfred if anything seems out of the ordinary and you will not take on any of the militia, understood?” Bruce instructed with a stern tone, you nodded your head anxiously and shut off the cam.

“I suppose you’ll be needing this?” Alfred handed you your mask, “Thank you Alfred.” You quickly slipped it on a small smile making its way on your face.

 Driving through the streets of Gotham was something you always enjoyed, the feeling of the wind blowing your hair back and not having to worry about the speed limits since no one was gonna tell vigilante off. It was a good way to clear your mind but tonight it was none of these, there were no cars and other motorcycles it was lonely. It felt wrong, it made your skin crawl and made you anxious, just waiting for something to happen. Just as you were about to take a right turn you were knocked of your motorcycle by a tank.

“Shit.” You groaned as you rolled clumsily to the ground, your motorcycle crashed into a building, but that's not what worried you. It was the man standing before you that was speeding up your heart rate.

“Y/N?” The Arkham Knight stepped closer to you, you backed up, “How do you know my name?” You stood up, ignoring the pain your legs.

“Who are you?” You questioned as he cornered you, “Not yet.” He replied, “Bats is gonna be pissed.” You kicked him on his chest making him stumble back, you landed a solid punch on his helmet. In his distracted moment you tried to escape but he grabbed you by your shoulder and pulled you back with so much force you landed on the ground.

“Stop.” He growled as he pinned you down, you thrashed in his hold, “Fuck off.” You spat back trying to kick him off. “Still stubborn I see.” He twirled a strand of your hair, it was an action that was familiar to you and comforting, but right now it was pissing you off.

“You’re still as beautiful as I remember.” He continued, you barred your teeth at him, “Shut up!” You screeched as he began to peal your mask of slowly, revealing your Y/E/C eyes full of fear.

“You son of a bi-” You shut yourself up as he clicked a button on his helmet, it slowly began to reveal his face. That's when you spotted the scar, the scar that the monster had bestowed on him.

“Jason?” You whispered vulnerably, tears began to pour out your eyes, “You’re alive?”

“I missed your eyes.” Jason wiped your tears with his gloved hand, “God I missed you so much.” His eyes bore into yours, his blue eyes looked sadder than you remember but they still looked breathtaking.

“It’s you, oh my god, it’s you.” You sobbed, his grip on your arms loosened, you slipped out his grip and cupped his face.

“He took you away from me, I wanted to kill him. I was so close, but now you're here. How? I saw you die?” You asked, he pulled you up from the ground but still held you in his arms.

“He thought I died, I was able to escape.” Jason answered his eyes scanning your face desperately.

“Why are you working with Scarecrow?” You're eyes hardened, “Bruce has to pay.” Jason's sweet demeanor changed, his tone darker.

“Jason, Bruce mourned over you.”

“No he fucking didn't! He let the piece of shit live and he even fucking replaced me. Are you seriously taking his side?” He screamed at you his eyes full of rage.

“I'm not defending him, but you were his son. He didn't replace you dammit, Tim wanted to be Robin. Bruce changed and he wasn't the same, Tim wanted to help him and he gave Bruce hope. They searched for you and they got the tape, I was depressed for months and they wouldn't let me look for you. I got so mad with Bruce and when he showed me the tape I told him how much I hated him and I ran away! You can't do this.” You said, your eyebrows knitting together.

Jason's eyes watered, “I'm sorry, that monster changed me and I'm not mentally stable. You need to leave the city.” Jason pulled you into his chest.

“Scarecrow is going to release the toxin soon, you need to go.” Jason cupped your face, rubbing circles on your cheeks.

“Jason you can't do this-”

“Please Y/N, I have to fix this.” You nodded your head slowly, he smiled at you, god you thought you would never see his smile again.

His glanced down at your lips, “Can I?” You nodded your head again, he locked your lips with his. It felt different from all your other kisses with him, it was needy and passionate. His lips were still soft and molded perfectly with yours and it made your knees weak, just as you pulled away you placed a tracker on his back.

“I love you.” Your lips were only centimeters apart, foreheads touching. “I love you too.” He kissed you one more time, you pulled back and grappled your way through the city back to your apartment. Bruce wasn't going to be happy but you believed in Jason, even if he wasn't mentally stable you knew he would fix everything.

You hated Metropolis, nothing eventful seemed to happen here and if something did happen another superhero would deal with it, no doubt one of the Kents. You only been here for a few hours and you were already tired of the city, Bruce hadn't even tried to contact you. Alfred did and you just told him nothing was going on and to not worry. You were starting to regret leaving Gotham but you didn't want to upset Jason.

“Fuck it.” You grappled back down to the ground from the skyscraper you were on and hopped onto your new motorcycle that Luscious has sent you. You quickly speed to Gotham, you had to get there because if something happened and you didn't even try to stop it you would hate yourself for it.

Just as you entered Gotham your jaw dropped, people were already flooding back into the city. But that wasn't what shocked you, the footage on the big screen showed Bruce with his cowl off, it kept replaying and it made your stomach drop.

“Y/N?” You parked your motorcycle, Bruce's hologram appearing on your cam, “Bruce? What happened, I’m sorry I couldn't-”

“Jason told me.” Your eyes widened at the mention of Jason's name, “I don't blame you, but protocol Nightfall is about to begin.”

“Bruce you can’t be serious, there has to be another way-”

“I have to do this to protect all of you, this won't be the last time we see each other.” Bruce's eyes bored into your masked ones, “You promise?” You bit your lip trying to hold your sobs, “I promise.”

“I love you, dad.” You smiled sadly at him, your heart breaking at the thought of how hurt he must feel, “I love you too.” He smiled back at you one last time and shut his cam off.

“Jason…” You mumbled, you needed to find him. You clicked a button on your gauntlet revealing where he was, he wasn't far he was still in the city. You hopped off your motorcycle and grappled towards the skyscrapers. You ran across buildings heading towards the east side of Gotham.

After a long time you finally got closer to him, from the distance you spotted a shining red helmet. You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion at the new look.

“Jason!” You screamed, the figure turned around, you sprinted and jumped on him. He quickly wrapped his arms around your waist to prevent you from falling.

“Is it you?” You asked.

“Of course it’s me if it wasn't I would have dropped you.” He chuckled as he put you down.

“I told you to stay out of Gotham it's still dangerous especially after what happened.” He took of his helmet revealing his thick black unruly hair.

“I can't leave you, not again.” You went near the edge of the skyscraper, looking at the city down below once again full of life.

“I’m sorry, this is all my fault.” Jason's chest pressed up against your back, his arms wrapped around your waist.

“I don’t care right now, just kiss me.” You turned your head slightly to meet his lips, this was just the start of new hectic chapter of life but right now you didn't care, right now everything felt right in his arms.

[seo75074]

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

In the (relatively) short time I’ve been in digital advertising, I’ve had the good fortune to work on what a lot of the industry would call “both sides” of paid media – social and programmatic. In truth, paid media sports more options than a Crayola starter-pack, but these two broader categories frequently make up the opposing sides of an ongoing argument that revolves around granularity of targeting vs. scale. It’s also understandable that social and programmatic would take up such a large portion of the digital conversation with the duopoly that is Facebook and Google.

If you’re anything like I was before I came to Portent, you may be curious about the pros and cons of “the other side,” whichever that is for you.

Here, I’ll offer my impressions as a young, front-line advertiser, who’s worked in-house at a programmatic DSP (demand side platform), and at Portent where we do a lot of advanced paid social targeting and advertising.

How are Social and Programmatic Alike? Data is Key

The greatest advantage in paid media is the wealth of data that comes with it, and the ability to refine both messaging and targeting as a result. As with nearly all forms of digital, one of the biggest advantages is the immediate feedback from click-stream and conversion data.

Marketers have an immediate, quantifiable response to the content they deliver to users, whether that’s a display ad, a piece of native content, an in-line social post, etc. Industry-standard metrics like click-through, cost-per-acquisition, and engagement are available through both programmatic and social and allow marketers to change their targeting and creative strategy within minutes.

And although much of this will change as a la carte digital delivery becomes more of a reality for traditional formats, unlike traditional ad mediums like print, TV, and radio, with programmatic and social advertisers can see exactly who their ad is served to and at exactly what cost. Where collecting user feedback may have previously taken a lot of legwork, these platforms provide it in real time.

Audience Optimization

With all this data comes the opportunity to customize content directly to new or expanded target audiences of your choosing.

Social media platforms segment their audience based on what you engage with inside their platforms (or the external networks they own). Ad servers segment their audiences based on cookies or device IDs. Both vehicles give the marketer an opportunity to look at a group of behaviors and customize their content to appeal to that group. Or to find a new audience where their offer is most likely to resonate.

Constantly Changing Environment and Targeting Options

As digital media continues to mature and to steal share from traditional media, technology must change to keep pace with rising advertiser expectations of accountability and dependability. Both ad servers and social platforms are constantly working on technology to fix issues that keep clients up at night. Increasing brand safety, increasing viewability, audience targeting, all require that these platforms up their game to meet advertiser expectations.

How Are Social and Programmatic Different? Variance in the Quality of Your Ad Placement

Running an advertisement through a Facebook Newsfeed and running a similar advertisement through a programmatic network may have drastically different results.

For most publishers (think news sites, sports, Flute Enthusiast Magazine online, etc.) the layout of a page necessarily creates different places to show ads which are of higher and lower quality or value. Top of page vs. right rail vs. further down the page. When you’re making a programmatic ad buy through a DSP, or even directly with the publisher site, you have to specify the type of placement that you expect, and hope that you’ve picked the right partner who will monitor your placements’ position on the page, its proximity to relevant content, distance from irrelevant or audience-unsuitable content, etc.

With a Facebook Newsfeed ad by contrast, content and ads are loaded only as a user scrolls, so there’s a lot less variance in viewability and engagement based on page placement.

Take a moment to realize this doesn’t mean programmatic display is evil, or lower quality. It simply means there’s more variability in the quality and viewability of placements, both good and bad.

Even though it’s got an edge in the phrase “Yes, but we know your ad showed up on screen”, where Facebook encourages rapid scrolling to keep up with your many friends and family, a great display ad placed next to content that will be stared at for minutes at a time could be significantly more impactful.

Black Metrics

Within the Facebook platform, there are several metrics and targeting objectives available that are specific to their proprietary algorithm. Meaning they’ll use an algorithm to optimize for the kinds of impressions and clicks that show the highest likelihood of delivering your desired action for a particular campaign, but you can’t take that optimization with you to other channels.

For example, the metric “Brand Awareness” is based on user feedback, relevancy, and historical brand surveys conducted by Facebook. They also specify that this metric can be imprecise, and give a relatively vague explanation when pressed further. As a marketer if can be incredibly frustrating, if not dangerous, to evaluate a campaign on a metric that does not have a concrete description, or industry-wide standard. If you’re working at a DSP or you’re an advertiser working with a team at that technology partner, metrics used to measure success of a campaign are relatively similar across the industry.

Fraud

Fraud within programmatic advertising (really any large-scale digital display advertising) has been cause for great concern and plenty of industry hand-wringing in the past few months. Social platforms certainly have an issue with fake or inactive profiles by contrast, but the number of bots or crawlers being served worthless impressions is significantly lower. Facebook has an advantage here as a user must actually log in to the platform and complete a series of questions to verify their identity before consuming the content and ultimately viewing any ads.

Misconceptions About Programmatic Advertising

”Every Digital Strategy Needs Programmatic” Programmatic is not a one size fits all approach. Given the huge scale and reach of most platforms, it is scarily easy to spend an

incredible

amount of money on a programmatic platform without a justifiable ROI. It’s on you and your team to set clear goals, and make sure the investment is paying off at every step.

If your company or your client is only spending a minimal amount of ad dollars at present through Facebook, PPC, etc., it may not be necessary or wise to include an additional channel if you are not maximizing the ones you’re already using.

Caveat: this advice applies differently to a long-term sustained programmatic ad buy vs. a one-time programmatic direct campaign.

“Fraud Is Guaranteed In Your Ad Buy”

Although I just discussed how fraud is a key difference between programmatic and social media, the truth is that you’re not realistically going to have a huge portion of your ad buy eaten by evil bots (great mental image) as some alarmist reports would have you believe.

My mental image of evil fraud bots destroying all of the ad budgets.

As with any product, the choice exists between premium vs. value alternatives, and quality control is a known issue and an ongoing effort. (News-flash: your pant-legs aren’t the same length by accident. Someone periodically checks.) Programmatic advertising is no different, and you’ll see outliers on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. It’s the marketer’s job to weigh all factors (fraud, viewability, targeting, price) when developing a programmatic strategy. If your team wants the best inventory, you must be willing to pay for that quality.

”Your Social Strategy Will Work For Programmatic”

Social media offers a robust set of targeting and ad serving options, while programmatic has its own. User behavior (read interaction with ads) on a social media platform is different than behavior while browsing the wider internet. Use your brain and your data to tailor a strategy that fits the context of the moment you’re trying to reach a new potential customer.

Observations in My Own Move From Programmatic to Paid Social Advertising Facebook Has Enormous Market Share For Good Reason

Before even accounting for the enormous consumer appeal of Instagram, I’d argue that Facebook’s giant and rapidly growing share of wallet with advertisers is warranted. Facebook makes nearly all of their revenue from on-platform advertising, so it is critical that their platform be easy to use for advertisers as well as end-user consumers.

The Facebook content team dedicated to their ad platform has created an incredible amount of literature that addresses both the goals and specific issues a marketer would have in using the platform. Their interface is easy to use, and their reporting is easy to understand. With the exception of Google and its several-year head start, any individual software company or individual platform (looking at you Twitter, LinkedIn) looking to create something that can compete on simplicity and utility for advertisers clearly has tough hill to climb.

Amount of Data Being Collected on Users Is Outstanding. And Yeah, Creepy

Because programmatic ad servers collect data via cookies (and sometimes device IDs) people can clear their cache and easily erase part of their online history, making it potentially challenging to serve an ad that’s most relevant. By contrast the data collected by social networks is tremendous compared to a typical programmatic lookback window.

Issues With Conversion Attribution

Every platform, whether its Google, Facebook, or a standalone ad server has issues with conversion attribution. “Last-click” is the standard model that many digital platforms still use, but most of the industry is in agreement that this model is inadequate for explaining what’s really working in your ad mix.

At their annual conference Google announced an initiative to better model the impact of each individual impression on a final conversion, which is great. My $0.02: after working in both social and in programmatic, I believe there will be no way for marketers to determine the accuracy of this attribution until all digital advertising platforms find a better way to share anonymized user data.

Where to From Here? I’ll withhold comment on where we’re heading, but if the recent AdWeek conference is any indication, the points here are not lost on the leaders of the programmatic and digital display advertising side of the industry. For now, we’re extremely happy with the scale, granularity, and dependability of platforms like Facebook in achieving reach and frequency, but we’ll continue to watch both sides closely.

http://ift.tt/2wBQkRp

[famlawatty6000]

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

In the (relatively) short time I’ve been in digital advertising, I’ve had the good fortune to work on what a lot of the industry would call “both sides” of paid media – social and programmatic. In truth, paid media sports more options than a Crayola starter-pack, but these two broader categories frequently make up the opposing sides of an ongoing argument that revolves around granularity of targeting vs. scale. It’s also understandable that social and programmatic would take up such a large portion of the digital conversation with the duopoly that is Facebook and Google.

If you’re anything like I was before I came to Portent, you may be curious about the pros and cons of “the other side,” whichever that is for you.

Here, I’ll offer my impressions as a young, front-line advertiser, who’s worked in-house at a programmatic DSP (demand side platform), and at Portent where we do a lot of advanced paid social targeting and advertising.

How are Social and Programmatic Alike? Data is Key

The greatest advantage in paid media is the wealth of data that comes with it, and the ability to refine both messaging and targeting as a result. As with nearly all forms of digital, one of the biggest advantages is the immediate feedback from click-stream and conversion data.

Marketers have an immediate, quantifiable response to the content they deliver to users, whether that’s a display ad, a piece of native content, an in-line social post, etc. Industry-standard metrics like click-through, cost-per-acquisition, and engagement are available through both programmatic and social and allow marketers to change their targeting and creative strategy within minutes.

And although much of this will change as a la carte digital delivery becomes more of a reality for traditional formats, unlike traditional ad mediums like print, TV, and radio, with programmatic and social advertisers can see exactly who their ad is served to and at exactly what cost. Where collecting user feedback may have previously taken a lot of legwork, these platforms provide it in real time.

Audience Optimization

With all this data comes the opportunity to customize content directly to new or expanded target audiences of your choosing.

Social media platforms segment their audience based on what you engage with inside their platforms (or the external networks they own). Ad servers segment their audiences based on cookies or device IDs. Both vehicles give the marketer an opportunity to look at a group of behaviors and customize their content to appeal to that group. Or to find a new audience where their offer is most likely to resonate.

Constantly Changing Environment and Targeting Options

As digital media continues to mature and to steal share from traditional media, technology must change to keep pace with rising advertiser expectations of accountability and dependability. Both ad servers and social platforms are constantly working on technology to fix issues that keep clients up at night. Increasing brand safety, increasing viewability, audience targeting, all require that these platforms up their game to meet advertiser expectations.

How Are Social and Programmatic Different? Variance in the Quality of Your Ad Placement

Running an advertisement through a Facebook Newsfeed and running a similar advertisement through a programmatic network may have drastically different results.

For most publishers (think news sites, sports, Flute Enthusiast Magazine online, etc.) the layout of a page necessarily creates different places to show ads which are of higher and lower quality or value. Top of page vs. right rail vs. further down the page. When you’re making a programmatic ad buy through a DSP, or even directly with the publisher site, you have to specify the type of placement that you expect, and hope that you’ve picked the right partner who will monitor your placements’ position on the page, its proximity to relevant content, distance from irrelevant or audience-unsuitable content, etc.

With a Facebook Newsfeed ad by contrast, content and ads are loaded only as a user scrolls, so there’s a lot less variance in viewability and engagement based on page placement.

Take a moment to realize this doesn’t mean programmatic display is evil, or lower quality. It simply means there’s more variability in the quality and viewability of placements, both good and bad.

Even though it’s got an edge in the phrase “Yes, but we know your ad showed up on screen”, where Facebook encourages rapid scrolling to keep up with your many friends and family, a great display ad placed next to content that will be stared at for minutes at a time could be significantly more impactful.

Black Metrics

Within the Facebook platform, there are several metrics and targeting objectives available that are specific to their proprietary algorithm. Meaning they’ll use an algorithm to optimize for the kinds of impressions and clicks that show the highest likelihood of delivering your desired action for a particular campaign, but you can’t take that optimization with you to other channels.

For example, the metric “Brand Awareness” is based on user feedback, relevancy, and historical brand surveys conducted by Facebook. They also specify that this metric can be imprecise, and give a relatively vague explanation when pressed further. As a marketer if can be incredibly frustrating, if not dangerous, to evaluate a campaign on a metric that does not have a concrete description, or industry-wide standard. If you’re working at a DSP or you’re an advertiser working with a team at that technology partner, metrics used to measure success of a campaign are relatively similar across the industry.

Fraud

Fraud within programmatic advertising (really any large-scale digital display advertising) has been cause for great concern and plenty of industry hand-wringing in the past few months. Social platforms certainly have an issue with fake or inactive profiles by contrast, but the number of bots or crawlers being served worthless impressions is significantly lower. Facebook has an advantage here as a user must actually log in to the platform and complete a series of questions to verify their identity before consuming the content and ultimately viewing any ads.

Misconceptions About Programmatic Advertising

”Every Digital Strategy Needs Programmatic” Programmatic is not a one size fits all approach. Given the huge scale and reach of most platforms, it is scarily easy to spend an

incredible

amount of money on a programmatic platform without a justifiable ROI. It’s on you and your team to set clear goals, and make sure the investment is paying off at every step.

If your company or your client is only spending a minimal amount of ad dollars at present through Facebook, PPC, etc., it may not be necessary or wise to include an additional channel if you are not maximizing the ones you’re already using.

Caveat: this advice applies differently to a long-term sustained programmatic ad buy vs. a one-time programmatic direct campaign.

“Fraud Is Guaranteed In Your Ad Buy”

Although I just discussed how fraud is a key difference between programmatic and social media, the truth is that you’re not realistically going to have a huge portion of your ad buy eaten by evil bots (great mental image) as some alarmist reports would have you believe.

My mental image of evil fraud bots destroying all of the ad budgets.

As with any product, the choice exists between premium vs. value alternatives, and quality control is a known issue and an ongoing effort. (News-flash: your pant-legs aren’t the same length by accident. Someone periodically checks.) Programmatic advertising is no different, and you’ll see outliers on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. It’s the marketer’s job to weigh all factors (fraud, viewability, targeting, price) when developing a programmatic strategy. If your team wants the best inventory, you must be willing to pay for that quality.

”Your Social Strategy Will Work For Programmatic”

Social media offers a robust set of targeting and ad serving options, while programmatic has its own. User behavior (read interaction with ads) on a social media platform is different than behavior while browsing the wider internet. Use your brain and your data to tailor a strategy that fits the context of the moment you’re trying to reach a new potential customer.

Observations in My Own Move From Programmatic to Paid Social Advertising Facebook Has Enormous Market Share For Good Reason

Before even accounting for the enormous consumer appeal of Instagram, I’d argue that Facebook’s giant and rapidly growing share of wallet with advertisers is warranted. Facebook makes nearly all of their revenue from on-platform advertising, so it is critical that their platform be easy to use for advertisers as well as end-user consumers.

The Facebook content team dedicated to their ad platform has created an incredible amount of literature that addresses both the goals and specific issues a marketer would have in using the platform. Their interface is easy to use, and their reporting is easy to understand. With the exception of Google and its several-year head start, any individual software company or individual platform (looking at you Twitter, LinkedIn) looking to create something that can compete on simplicity and utility for advertisers clearly has tough hill to climb.

Amount of Data Being Collected on Users Is Outstanding. And Yeah, Creepy

Because programmatic ad servers collect data via cookies (and sometimes device IDs) people can clear their cache and easily erase part of their online history, making it potentially challenging to serve an ad that’s most relevant. By contrast the data collected by social networks is tremendous compared to a typical programmatic lookback window.

Issues With Conversion Attribution

Every platform, whether its Google, Facebook, or a standalone ad server has issues with conversion attribution. “Last-click” is the standard model that many digital platforms still use, but most of the industry is in agreement that this model is inadequate for explaining what’s really working in your ad mix.

At their annual conference Google announced an initiative to better model the impact of each individual impression on a final conversion, which is great. My $0.02: after working in both social and in programmatic, I believe there will be no way for marketers to determine the accuracy of this attribution until all digital advertising platforms find a better way to share anonymized user data.

Where to From Here? I’ll withhold comment on where we’re heading, but if the recent AdWeek conference is any indication, the points here are not lost on the leaders of the programmatic and digital display advertising side of the industry. For now, we’re extremely happy with the scale, granularity, and dependability of platforms like Facebook in achieving reach and frequency, but we’ll continue to watch both sides closely.

http://ift.tt/2wBQkRp

[ramonlindsay050]

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

In the (relatively) short time I’ve been in digital advertising, I’ve had the good fortune to work on what a lot of the industry would call “both sides” of paid media – social and programmatic. In truth, paid media sports more options than a Crayola starter-pack, but these two broader categories frequently make up the opposing sides of an ongoing argument that revolves around granularity of targeting vs. scale. It’s also understandable that social and programmatic would take up such a large portion of the digital conversation with the duopoly that is Facebook and Google.

If you’re anything like I was before I came to Portent, you may be curious about the pros and cons of “the other side,” whichever that is for you.

Here, I’ll offer my impressions as a young, front-line advertiser, who’s worked in-house at a programmatic DSP (demand side platform), and at Portent where we do a lot of advanced paid social targeting and advertising.

How are Social and Programmatic Alike? Data is Key

The greatest advantage in paid media is the wealth of data that comes with it, and the ability to refine both messaging and targeting as a result. As with nearly all forms of digital, one of the biggest advantages is the immediate feedback from click-stream and conversion data.

Marketers have an immediate, quantifiable response to the content they deliver to users, whether that’s a display ad, a piece of native content, an in-line social post, etc. Industry-standard metrics like click-through, cost-per-acquisition, and engagement are available through both programmatic and social and allow marketers to change their targeting and creative strategy within minutes.

And although much of this will change as a la carte digital delivery becomes more of a reality for traditional formats, unlike traditional ad mediums like print, TV, and radio, with programmatic and social advertisers can see exactly who their ad is served to and at exactly what cost. Where collecting user feedback may have previously taken a lot of legwork, these platforms provide it in real time.

Audience Optimization

With all this data comes the opportunity to customize content directly to new or expanded target audiences of your choosing.

Social media platforms segment their audience based on what you engage with inside their platforms (or the external networks they own). Ad servers segment their audiences based on cookies or device IDs. Both vehicles give the marketer an opportunity to look at a group of behaviors and customize their content to appeal to that group. Or to find a new audience where their offer is most likely to resonate.

Constantly Changing Environment and Targeting Options

As digital media continues to mature and to steal share from traditional media, technology must change to keep pace with rising advertiser expectations of accountability and dependability. Both ad servers and social platforms are constantly working on technology to fix issues that keep clients up at night. Increasing brand safety, increasing viewability, audience targeting, all require that these platforms up their game to meet advertiser expectations.

How Are Social and Programmatic Different? Variance in the Quality of Your Ad Placement

Running an advertisement through a Facebook Newsfeed and running a similar advertisement through a programmatic network may have drastically different results.

For most publishers (think news sites, sports, Flute Enthusiast Magazine online, etc.) the layout of a page necessarily creates different places to show ads which are of higher and lower quality or value. Top of page vs. right rail vs. further down the page. When you’re making a programmatic ad buy through a DSP, or even directly with the publisher site, you have to specify the type of placement that you expect, and hope that you’ve picked the right partner who will monitor your placements’ position on the page, its proximity to relevant content, distance from irrelevant or audience-unsuitable content, etc.

With a Facebook Newsfeed ad by contrast, content and ads are loaded only as a user scrolls, so there’s a lot less variance in viewability and engagement based on page placement.

Take a moment to realize this doesn’t mean programmatic display is evil, or lower quality. It simply means there’s more variability in the quality and viewability of placements, both good and bad.

Even though it’s got an edge in the phrase “Yes, but we know your ad showed up on screen”, where Facebook encourages rapid scrolling to keep up with your many friends and family, a great display ad placed next to content that will be stared at for minutes at a time could be significantly more impactful.

Black Metrics

Within the Facebook platform, there are several metrics and targeting objectives available that are specific to their proprietary algorithm. Meaning they’ll use an algorithm to optimize for the kinds of impressions and clicks that show the highest likelihood of delivering your desired action for a particular campaign, but you can’t take that optimization with you to other channels.

For example, the metric “Brand Awareness” is based on user feedback, relevancy, and historical brand surveys conducted by Facebook. They also specify that this metric can be imprecise, and give a relatively vague explanation when pressed further. As a marketer if can be incredibly frustrating, if not dangerous, to evaluate a campaign on a metric that does not have a concrete description, or industry-wide standard. If you’re working at a DSP or you’re an advertiser working with a team at that technology partner, metrics used to measure success of a campaign are relatively similar across the industry.

Fraud

Fraud within programmatic advertising (really any large-scale digital display advertising) has been cause for great concern and plenty of industry hand-wringing in the past few months. Social platforms certainly have an issue with fake or inactive profiles by contrast, but the number of bots or crawlers being served worthless impressions is significantly lower. Facebook has an advantage here as a user must actually log in to the platform and complete a series of questions to verify their identity before consuming the content and ultimately viewing any ads.

Misconceptions About Programmatic Advertising

”Every Digital Strategy Needs Programmatic” Programmatic is not a one size fits all approach. Given the huge scale and reach of most platforms, it is scarily easy to spend an

incredible

amount of money on a programmatic platform without a justifiable ROI. It’s on you and your team to set clear goals, and make sure the investment is paying off at every step.

If your company or your client is only spending a minimal amount of ad dollars at present through Facebook, PPC, etc., it may not be necessary or wise to include an additional channel if you are not maximizing the ones you’re already using.

Caveat: this advice applies differently to a long-term sustained programmatic ad buy vs. a one-time programmatic direct campaign.

“Fraud Is Guaranteed In Your Ad Buy”

Although I just discussed how fraud is a key difference between programmatic and social media, the truth is that you’re not realistically going to have a huge portion of your ad buy eaten by evil bots (great mental image) as some alarmist reports would have you believe.

My mental image of evil fraud bots destroying all of the ad budgets.

As with any product, the choice exists between premium vs. value alternatives, and quality control is a known issue and an ongoing effort. (News-flash: your pant-legs aren’t the same length by accident. Someone periodically checks.) Programmatic advertising is no different, and you’ll see outliers on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. It’s the marketer’s job to weigh all factors (fraud, viewability, targeting, price) when developing a programmatic strategy. If your team wants the best inventory, you must be willing to pay for that quality.

”Your Social Strategy Will Work For Programmatic”

Social media offers a robust set of targeting and ad serving options, while programmatic has its own. User behavior (read interaction with ads) on a social media platform is different than behavior while browsing the wider internet. Use your brain and your data to tailor a strategy that fits the context of the moment you’re trying to reach a new potential customer.

Observations in My Own Move From Programmatic to Paid Social Advertising Facebook Has Enormous Market Share For Good Reason

Before even accounting for the enormous consumer appeal of Instagram, I’d argue that Facebook’s giant and rapidly growing share of wallet with advertisers is warranted. Facebook makes nearly all of their revenue from on-platform advertising, so it is critical that their platform be easy to use for advertisers as well as end-user consumers.

The Facebook content team dedicated to their ad platform has created an incredible amount of literature that addresses both the goals and specific issues a marketer would have in using the platform. Their interface is easy to use, and their reporting is easy to understand. With the exception of Google and its several-year head start, any individual software company or individual platform (looking at you Twitter, LinkedIn) looking to create something that can compete on simplicity and utility for advertisers clearly has tough hill to climb.

Amount of Data Being Collected on Users Is Outstanding. And Yeah, Creepy

Because programmatic ad servers collect data via cookies (and sometimes device IDs) people can clear their cache and easily erase part of their online history, making it potentially challenging to serve an ad that’s most relevant. By contrast the data collected by social networks is tremendous compared to a typical programmatic lookback window.

Issues With Conversion Attribution

Every platform, whether its Google, Facebook, or a standalone ad server has issues with conversion attribution. “Last-click” is the standard model that many digital platforms still use, but most of the industry is in agreement that this model is inadequate for explaining what’s really working in your ad mix.

At their annual conference Google announced an initiative to better model the impact of each individual impression on a final conversion, which is great. My $0.02: after working in both social and in programmatic, I believe there will be no way for marketers to determine the accuracy of this attribution until all digital advertising platforms find a better way to share anonymized user data.

Where to From Here? I’ll withhold comment on where we’re heading, but if the recent AdWeek conference is any indication, the points here are not lost on the leaders of the programmatic and digital display advertising side of the industry. For now, we’re extremely happy with the scale, granularity, and dependability of platforms like Facebook in achieving reach and frequency, but we’ll continue to watch both sides closely.

http://ift.tt/2wBQkRp

[lxryrestate28349]

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

In the (relatively) short time I’ve been in digital advertising, I’ve had the good fortune to work on what a lot of the industry would call “both sides” of paid media – social and programmatic. In truth, paid media sports more options than a Crayola starter-pack, but these two broader categories frequently make up the opposing sides of an ongoing argument that revolves around granularity of targeting vs. scale. It’s also understandable that social and programmatic would take up such a large portion of the digital conversation with the duopoly that is Facebook and Google.

If you’re anything like I was before I came to Portent, you may be curious about the pros and cons of “the other side,” whichever that is for you.

Here, I’ll offer my impressions as a young, front-line advertiser, who’s worked in-house at a programmatic DSP (demand side platform), and at Portent where we do a lot of advanced paid social targeting and advertising.

How are Social and Programmatic Alike? Data is Key

The greatest advantage in paid media is the wealth of data that comes with it, and the ability to refine both messaging and targeting as a result. As with nearly all forms of digital, one of the biggest advantages is the immediate feedback from click-stream and conversion data.

Marketers have an immediate, quantifiable response to the content they deliver to users, whether that’s a display ad, a piece of native content, an in-line social post, etc. Industry-standard metrics like click-through, cost-per-acquisition, and engagement are available through both programmatic and social and allow marketers to change their targeting and creative strategy within minutes.

And although much of this will change as a la carte digital delivery becomes more of a reality for traditional formats, unlike traditional ad mediums like print, TV, and radio, with programmatic and social advertisers can see exactly who their ad is served to and at exactly what cost. Where collecting user feedback may have previously taken a lot of legwork, these platforms provide it in real time.

Audience Optimization

With all this data comes the opportunity to customize content directly to new or expanded target audiences of your choosing.

Social media platforms segment their audience based on what you engage with inside their platforms (or the external networks they own). Ad servers segment their audiences based on cookies or device IDs. Both vehicles give the marketer an opportunity to look at a group of behaviors and customize their content to appeal to that group. Or to find a new audience where their offer is most likely to resonate.

Constantly Changing Environment and Targeting Options

As digital media continues to mature and to steal share from traditional media, technology must change to keep pace with rising advertiser expectations of accountability and dependability. Both ad servers and social platforms are constantly working on technology to fix issues that keep clients up at night. Increasing brand safety, increasing viewability, audience targeting, all require that these platforms up their game to meet advertiser expectations.

How Are Social and Programmatic Different? Variance in the Quality of Your Ad Placement

Running an advertisement through a Facebook Newsfeed and running a similar advertisement through a programmatic network may have drastically different results.

For most publishers (think news sites, sports, Flute Enthusiast Magazine online, etc.) the layout of a page necessarily creates different places to show ads which are of higher and lower quality or value. Top of page vs. right rail vs. further down the page. When you’re making a programmatic ad buy through a DSP, or even directly with the publisher site, you have to specify the type of placement that you expect, and hope that you’ve picked the right partner who will monitor your placements’ position on the page, its proximity to relevant content, distance from irrelevant or audience-unsuitable content, etc.

With a Facebook Newsfeed ad by contrast, content and ads are loaded only as a user scrolls, so there’s a lot less variance in viewability and engagement based on page placement.

Take a moment to realize this doesn’t mean programmatic display is evil, or lower quality. It simply means there’s more variability in the quality and viewability of placements, both good and bad.

Even though it’s got an edge in the phrase “Yes, but we know your ad showed up on screen”, where Facebook encourages rapid scrolling to keep up with your many friends and family, a great display ad placed next to content that will be stared at for minutes at a time could be significantly more impactful.

Black Metrics

Within the Facebook platform, there are several metrics and targeting objectives available that are specific to their proprietary algorithm. Meaning they’ll use an algorithm to optimize for the kinds of impressions and clicks that show the highest likelihood of delivering your desired action for a particular campaign, but you can’t take that optimization with you to other channels.

For example, the metric “Brand Awareness” is based on user feedback, relevancy, and historical brand surveys conducted by Facebook. They also specify that this metric can be imprecise, and give a relatively vague explanation when pressed further. As a marketer if can be incredibly frustrating, if not dangerous, to evaluate a campaign on a metric that does not have a concrete description, or industry-wide standard. If you’re working at a DSP or you’re an advertiser working with a team at that technology partner, metrics used to measure success of a campaign are relatively similar across the industry.

Fraud

Fraud within programmatic advertising (really any large-scale digital display advertising) has been cause for great concern and plenty of industry hand-wringing in the past few months. Social platforms certainly have an issue with fake or inactive profiles by contrast, but the number of bots or crawlers being served worthless impressions is significantly lower. Facebook has an advantage here as a user must actually log in to the platform and complete a series of questions to verify their identity before consuming the content and ultimately viewing any ads.

Misconceptions About Programmatic Advertising

”Every Digital Strategy Needs Programmatic” Programmatic is not a one size fits all approach. Given the huge scale and reach of most platforms, it is scarily easy to spend an

incredible

amount of money on a programmatic platform without a justifiable ROI. It’s on you and your team to set clear goals, and make sure the investment is paying off at every step.

If your company or your client is only spending a minimal amount of ad dollars at present through Facebook, PPC, etc., it may not be necessary or wise to include an additional channel if you are not maximizing the ones you’re already using.

Caveat: this advice applies differently to a long-term sustained programmatic ad buy vs. a one-time programmatic direct campaign.

“Fraud Is Guaranteed In Your Ad Buy”

Although I just discussed how fraud is a key difference between programmatic and social media, the truth is that you’re not realistically going to have a huge portion of your ad buy eaten by evil bots (great mental image) as some alarmist reports would have you believe.

My mental image of evil fraud bots destroying all of the ad budgets.

As with any product, the choice exists between premium vs. value alternatives, and quality control is a known issue and an ongoing effort. (News-flash: your pant-legs aren’t the same length by accident. Someone periodically checks.) Programmatic advertising is no different, and you’ll see outliers on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. It’s the marketer’s job to weigh all factors (fraud, viewability, targeting, price) when developing a programmatic strategy. If your team wants the best inventory, you must be willing to pay for that quality.

”Your Social Strategy Will Work For Programmatic”

Social media offers a robust set of targeting and ad serving options, while programmatic has its own. User behavior (read interaction with ads) on a social media platform is different than behavior while browsing the wider internet. Use your brain and your data to tailor a strategy that fits the context of the moment you’re trying to reach a new potential customer.

Observations in My Own Move From Programmatic to Paid Social Advertising Facebook Has Enormous Market Share For Good Reason

Before even accounting for the enormous consumer appeal of Instagram, I’d argue that Facebook’s giant and rapidly growing share of wallet with advertisers is warranted. Facebook makes nearly all of their revenue from on-platform advertising, so it is critical that their platform be easy to use for advertisers as well as end-user consumers.

The Facebook content team dedicated to their ad platform has created an incredible amount of literature that addresses both the goals and specific issues a marketer would have in using the platform. Their interface is easy to use, and their reporting is easy to understand. With the exception of Google and its several-year head start, any individual software company or individual platform (looking at you Twitter, LinkedIn) looking to create something that can compete on simplicity and utility for advertisers clearly has tough hill to climb.

Amount of Data Being Collected on Users Is Outstanding. And Yeah, Creepy

Because programmatic ad servers collect data via cookies (and sometimes device IDs) people can clear their cache and easily erase part of their online history, making it potentially challenging to serve an ad that’s most relevant. By contrast the data collected by social networks is tremendous compared to a typical programmatic lookback window.

Issues With Conversion Attribution

Every platform, whether its Google, Facebook, or a standalone ad server has issues with conversion attribution. “Last-click” is the standard model that many digital platforms still use, but most of the industry is in agreement that this model is inadequate for explaining what’s really working in your ad mix.

At their annual conference Google announced an initiative to better model the impact of each individual impression on a final conversion, which is great. My $0.02: after working in both social and in programmatic, I believe there will be no way for marketers to determine the accuracy of this attribution until all digital advertising platforms find a better way to share anonymized user data.

Where to From Here? I’ll withhold comment on where we’re heading, but if the recent AdWeek conference is any indication, the points here are not lost on the leaders of the programmatic and digital display advertising side of the industry. For now, we’re extremely happy with the scale, granularity, and dependability of platforms like Facebook in achieving reach and frequency, but we’ll continue to watch both sides closely.

http://ift.tt/2wBQkRp

[realestate63141]

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

In the (relatively) short time I’ve been in digital advertising, I’ve had the good fortune to work on what a lot of the industry would call “both sides” of paid media – social and programmatic. In truth, paid media sports more options than a Crayola starter-pack, but these two broader categories frequently make up the opposing sides of an ongoing argument that revolves around granularity of targeting vs. scale. It’s also understandable that social and programmatic would take up such a large portion of the digital conversation with the duopoly that is Facebook and Google.

If you’re anything like I was before I came to Portent, you may be curious about the pros and cons of “the other side,” whichever that is for you.

Here, I’ll offer my impressions as a young, front-line advertiser, who’s worked in-house at a programmatic DSP (demand side platform), and at Portent where we do a lot of advanced paid social targeting and advertising.

How are Social and Programmatic Alike? Data is Key

The greatest advantage in paid media is the wealth of data that comes with it, and the ability to refine both messaging and targeting as a result. As with nearly all forms of digital, one of the biggest advantages is the immediate feedback from click-stream and conversion data.

Marketers have an immediate, quantifiable response to the content they deliver to users, whether that’s a display ad, a piece of native content, an in-line social post, etc. Industry-standard metrics like click-through, cost-per-acquisition, and engagement are available through both programmatic and social and allow marketers to change their targeting and creative strategy within minutes.

And although much of this will change as a la carte digital delivery becomes more of a reality for traditional formats, unlike traditional ad mediums like print, TV, and radio, with programmatic and social advertisers can see exactly who their ad is served to and at exactly what cost. Where collecting user feedback may have previously taken a lot of legwork, these platforms provide it in real time.

Audience Optimization

With all this data comes the opportunity to customize content directly to new or expanded target audiences of your choosing.

Social media platforms segment their audience based on what you engage with inside their platforms (or the external networks they own). Ad servers segment their audiences based on cookies or device IDs. Both vehicles give the marketer an opportunity to look at a group of behaviors and customize their content to appeal to that group. Or to find a new audience where their offer is most likely to resonate.

Constantly Changing Environment and Targeting Options

As digital media continues to mature and to steal share from traditional media, technology must change to keep pace with rising advertiser expectations of accountability and dependability. Both ad servers and social platforms are constantly working on technology to fix issues that keep clients up at night. Increasing brand safety, increasing viewability, audience targeting, all require that these platforms up their game to meet advertiser expectations.

How Are Social and Programmatic Different? Variance in the Quality of Your Ad Placement

Running an advertisement through a Facebook Newsfeed and running a similar advertisement through a programmatic network may have drastically different results.

For most publishers (think news sites, sports, Flute Enthusiast Magazine online, etc.) the layout of a page necessarily creates different places to show ads which are of higher and lower quality or value. Top of page vs. right rail vs. further down the page. When you’re making a programmatic ad buy through a DSP, or even directly with the publisher site, you have to specify the type of placement that you expect, and hope that you’ve picked the right partner who will monitor your placements’ position on the page, its proximity to relevant content, distance from irrelevant or audience-unsuitable content, etc.

With a Facebook Newsfeed ad by contrast, content and ads are loaded only as a user scrolls, so there’s a lot less variance in viewability and engagement based on page placement.

Take a moment to realize this doesn’t mean programmatic display is evil, or lower quality. It simply means there’s more variability in the quality and viewability of placements, both good and bad.

Even though it’s got an edge in the phrase “Yes, but we know your ad showed up on screen”, where Facebook encourages rapid scrolling to keep up with your many friends and family, a great display ad placed next to content that will be stared at for minutes at a time could be significantly more impactful.

Black Metrics

Within the Facebook platform, there are several metrics and targeting objectives available that are specific to their proprietary algorithm. Meaning they’ll use an algorithm to optimize for the kinds of impressions and clicks that show the highest likelihood of delivering your desired action for a particular campaign, but you can’t take that optimization with you to other channels.

For example, the metric “Brand Awareness” is based on user feedback, relevancy, and historical brand surveys conducted by Facebook. They also specify that this metric can be imprecise, and give a relatively vague explanation when pressed further. As a marketer if can be incredibly frustrating, if not dangerous, to evaluate a campaign on a metric that does not have a concrete description, or industry-wide standard. If you’re working at a DSP or you’re an advertiser working with a team at that technology partner, metrics used to measure success of a campaign are relatively similar across the industry.

Fraud

Fraud within programmatic advertising (really any large-scale digital display advertising) has been cause for great concern and plenty of industry hand-wringing in the past few months. Social platforms certainly have an issue with fake or inactive profiles by contrast, but the number of bots or crawlers being served worthless impressions is significantly lower. Facebook has an advantage here as a user must actually log in to the platform and complete a series of questions to verify their identity before consuming the content and ultimately viewing any ads.

Misconceptions About Programmatic Advertising

”Every Digital Strategy Needs Programmatic” Programmatic is not a one size fits all approach. Given the huge scale and reach of most platforms, it is scarily easy to spend an

incredible

amount of money on a programmatic platform without a justifiable ROI. It’s on you and your team to set clear goals, and make sure the investment is paying off at every step.

If your company or your client is only spending a minimal amount of ad dollars at present through Facebook, PPC, etc., it may not be necessary or wise to include an additional channel if you are not maximizing the ones you’re already using.

Caveat: this advice applies differently to a long-term sustained programmatic ad buy vs. a one-time programmatic direct campaign.

“Fraud Is Guaranteed In Your Ad Buy”

Although I just discussed how fraud is a key difference between programmatic and social media, the truth is that you’re not realistically going to have a huge portion of your ad buy eaten by evil bots (great mental image) as some alarmist reports would have you believe.

My mental image of evil fraud bots destroying all of the ad budgets.

As with any product, the choice exists between premium vs. value alternatives, and quality control is a known issue and an ongoing effort. (News-flash: your pant-legs aren’t the same length by accident. Someone periodically checks.) Programmatic advertising is no different, and you’ll see outliers on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. It’s the marketer’s job to weigh all factors (fraud, viewability, targeting, price) when developing a programmatic strategy. If your team wants the best inventory, you must be willing to pay for that quality.

”Your Social Strategy Will Work For Programmatic”

Social media offers a robust set of targeting and ad serving options, while programmatic has its own. User behavior (read interaction with ads) on a social media platform is different than behavior while browsing the wider internet. Use your brain and your data to tailor a strategy that fits the context of the moment you’re trying to reach a new potential customer.

Observations in My Own Move From Programmatic to Paid Social Advertising Facebook Has Enormous Market Share For Good Reason

Before even accounting for the enormous consumer appeal of Instagram, I’d argue that Facebook’s giant and rapidly growing share of wallet with advertisers is warranted. Facebook makes nearly all of their revenue from on-platform advertising, so it is critical that their platform be easy to use for advertisers as well as end-user consumers.

The Facebook content team dedicated to their ad platform has created an incredible amount of literature that addresses both the goals and specific issues a marketer would have in using the platform. Their interface is easy to use, and their reporting is easy to understand. With the exception of Google and its several-year head start, any individual software company or individual platform (looking at you Twitter, LinkedIn) looking to create something that can compete on simplicity and utility for advertisers clearly has tough hill to climb.

Amount of Data Being Collected on Users Is Outstanding. And Yeah, Creepy

Because programmatic ad servers collect data via cookies (and sometimes device IDs) people can clear their cache and easily erase part of their online history, making it potentially challenging to serve an ad that’s most relevant. By contrast the data collected by social networks is tremendous compared to a typical programmatic lookback window.

Issues With Conversion Attribution

Every platform, whether its Google, Facebook, or a standalone ad server has issues with conversion attribution. “Last-click” is the standard model that many digital platforms still use, but most of the industry is in agreement that this model is inadequate for explaining what’s really working in your ad mix.

At their annual conference Google announced an initiative to better model the impact of each individual impression on a final conversion, which is great. My $0.02: after working in both social and in programmatic, I believe there will be no way for marketers to determine the accuracy of this attribution until all digital advertising platforms find a better way to share anonymized user data.

Where to From Here? I’ll withhold comment on where we’re heading, but if the recent AdWeek conference is any indication, the points here are not lost on the leaders of the programmatic and digital display advertising side of the industry. For now, we’re extremely happy with the scale, granularity, and dependability of platforms like Facebook in achieving reach and frequency, but we’ll continue to watch both sides closely.

http://ift.tt/2wBQkRp

[mortlend40507]

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

In the (relatively) short time I’ve been in digital advertising, I’ve had the good fortune to work on what a lot of the industry would call “both sides” of paid media – social and programmatic. In truth, paid media sports more options than a Crayola starter-pack, but these two broader categories frequently make up the opposing sides of an ongoing argument that revolves around granularity of targeting vs. scale. It’s also understandable that social and programmatic would take up such a large portion of the digital conversation with the duopoly that is Facebook and Google.

If you’re anything like I was before I came to Portent, you may be curious about the pros and cons of “the other side,” whichever that is for you.

Here, I’ll offer my impressions as a young, front-line advertiser, who’s worked in-house at a programmatic DSP (demand side platform), and at Portent where we do a lot of advanced paid social targeting and advertising.

How are Social and Programmatic Alike? Data is Key

The greatest advantage in paid media is the wealth of data that comes with it, and the ability to refine both messaging and targeting as a result. As with nearly all forms of digital, one of the biggest advantages is the immediate feedback from click-stream and conversion data.

Marketers have an immediate, quantifiable response to the content they deliver to users, whether that’s a display ad, a piece of native content, an in-line social post, etc. Industry-standard metrics like click-through, cost-per-acquisition, and engagement are available through both programmatic and social and allow marketers to change their targeting and creative strategy within minutes.

And although much of this will change as a la carte digital delivery becomes more of a reality for traditional formats, unlike traditional ad mediums like print, TV, and radio, with programmatic and social advertisers can see exactly who their ad is served to and at exactly what cost. Where collecting user feedback may have previously taken a lot of legwork, these platforms provide it in real time.

Audience Optimization

With all this data comes the opportunity to customize content directly to new or expanded target audiences of your choosing.

Social media platforms segment their audience based on what you engage with inside their platforms (or the external networks they own). Ad servers segment their audiences based on cookies or device IDs. Both vehicles give the marketer an opportunity to look at a group of behaviors and customize their content to appeal to that group. Or to find a new audience where their offer is most likely to resonate.

Constantly Changing Environment and Targeting Options

As digital media continues to mature and to steal share from traditional media, technology must change to keep pace with rising advertiser expectations of accountability and dependability. Both ad servers and social platforms are constantly working on technology to fix issues that keep clients up at night. Increasing brand safety, increasing viewability, audience targeting, all require that these platforms up their game to meet advertiser expectations.

How Are Social and Programmatic Different? Variance in the Quality of Your Ad Placement

Running an advertisement through a Facebook Newsfeed and running a similar advertisement through a programmatic network may have drastically different results.

For most publishers (think news sites, sports, Flute Enthusiast Magazine online, etc.) the layout of a page necessarily creates different places to show ads which are of higher and lower quality or value. Top of page vs. right rail vs. further down the page. When you’re making a programmatic ad buy through a DSP, or even directly with the publisher site, you have to specify the type of placement that you expect, and hope that you’ve picked the right partner who will monitor your placements’ position on the page, its proximity to relevant content, distance from irrelevant or audience-unsuitable content, etc.

With a Facebook Newsfeed ad by contrast, content and ads are loaded only as a user scrolls, so there’s a lot less variance in viewability and engagement based on page placement.

Take a moment to realize this doesn’t mean programmatic display is evil, or lower quality. It simply means there’s more variability in the quality and viewability of placements, both good and bad.

Even though it’s got an edge in the phrase “Yes, but we know your ad showed up on screen”, where Facebook encourages rapid scrolling to keep up with your many friends and family, a great display ad placed next to content that will be stared at for minutes at a time could be significantly more impactful.

Black Metrics

Within the Facebook platform, there are several metrics and targeting objectives available that are specific to their proprietary algorithm. Meaning they’ll use an algorithm to optimize for the kinds of impressions and clicks that show the highest likelihood of delivering your desired action for a particular campaign, but you can’t take that optimization with you to other channels.

For example, the metric “Brand Awareness” is based on user feedback, relevancy, and historical brand surveys conducted by Facebook. They also specify that this metric can be imprecise, and give a relatively vague explanation when pressed further. As a marketer if can be incredibly frustrating, if not dangerous, to evaluate a campaign on a metric that does not have a concrete description, or industry-wide standard. If you’re working at a DSP or you’re an advertiser working with a team at that technology partner, metrics used to measure success of a campaign are relatively similar across the industry.

Fraud

Fraud within programmatic advertising (really any large-scale digital display advertising) has been cause for great concern and plenty of industry hand-wringing in the past few months. Social platforms certainly have an issue with fake or inactive profiles by contrast, but the number of bots or crawlers being served worthless impressions is significantly lower. Facebook has an advantage here as a user must actually log in to the platform and complete a series of questions to verify their identity before consuming the content and ultimately viewing any ads.

Misconceptions About Programmatic Advertising

”Every Digital Strategy Needs Programmatic” Programmatic is not a one size fits all approach. Given the huge scale and reach of most platforms, it is scarily easy to spend an

incredible

amount of money on a programmatic platform without a justifiable ROI. It’s on you and your team to set clear goals, and make sure the investment is paying off at every step.

If your company or your client is only spending a minimal amount of ad dollars at present through Facebook, PPC, etc., it may not be necessary or wise to include an additional channel if you are not maximizing the ones you’re already using.

Caveat: this advice applies differently to a long-term sustained programmatic ad buy vs. a one-time programmatic direct campaign.

“Fraud Is Guaranteed In Your Ad Buy”

Although I just discussed how fraud is a key difference between programmatic and social media, the truth is that you’re not realistically going to have a huge portion of your ad buy eaten by evil bots (great mental image) as some alarmist reports would have you believe.

My mental image of evil fraud bots destroying all of the ad budgets.

As with any product, the choice exists between premium vs. value alternatives, and quality control is a known issue and an ongoing effort. (News-flash: your pant-legs aren’t the same length by accident. Someone periodically checks.) Programmatic advertising is no different, and you’ll see outliers on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. It’s the marketer’s job to weigh all factors (fraud, viewability, targeting, price) when developing a programmatic strategy. If your team wants the best inventory, you must be willing to pay for that quality.

”Your Social Strategy Will Work For Programmatic”

Social media offers a robust set of targeting and ad serving options, while programmatic has its own. User behavior (read interaction with ads) on a social media platform is different than behavior while browsing the wider internet. Use your brain and your data to tailor a strategy that fits the context of the moment you’re trying to reach a new potential customer.

Observations in My Own Move From Programmatic to Paid Social Advertising Facebook Has Enormous Market Share For Good Reason

Before even accounting for the enormous consumer appeal of Instagram, I’d argue that Facebook’s giant and rapidly growing share of wallet with advertisers is warranted. Facebook makes nearly all of their revenue from on-platform advertising, so it is critical that their platform be easy to use for advertisers as well as end-user consumers.

The Facebook content team dedicated to their ad platform has created an incredible amount of literature that addresses both the goals and specific issues a marketer would have in using the platform. Their interface is easy to use, and their reporting is easy to understand. With the exception of Google and its several-year head start, any individual software company or individual platform (looking at you Twitter, LinkedIn) looking to create something that can compete on simplicity and utility for advertisers clearly has tough hill to climb.

Amount of Data Being Collected on Users Is Outstanding. And Yeah, Creepy

Because programmatic ad servers collect data via cookies (and sometimes device IDs) people can clear their cache and easily erase part of their online history, making it potentially challenging to serve an ad that’s most relevant. By contrast the data collected by social networks is tremendous compared to a typical programmatic lookback window.

Issues With Conversion Attribution

Every platform, whether its Google, Facebook, or a standalone ad server has issues with conversion attribution. “Last-click” is the standard model that many digital platforms still use, but most of the industry is in agreement that this model is inadequate for explaining what’s really working in your ad mix.

At their annual conference Google announced an initiative to better model the impact of each individual impression on a final conversion, which is great. My $0.02: after working in both social and in programmatic, I believe there will be no way for marketers to determine the accuracy of this attribution until all digital advertising platforms find a better way to share anonymized user data.

Where to From Here? I’ll withhold comment on where we’re heading, but if the recent AdWeek conference is any indication, the points here are not lost on the leaders of the programmatic and digital display advertising side of the industry. For now, we’re extremely happy with the scale, granularity, and dependability of platforms like Facebook in achieving reach and frequency, but we’ll continue to watch both sides closely.

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Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

Memoirs On the Move From Programmatic to Paid Social

In the (relatively) short time I’ve been in digital advertising, I’ve had the good fortune to work on what a lot of the industry would call “both sides” of paid media – social and programmatic. In truth, paid media sports more options than a Crayola starter-pack, but these two broader categories frequently make up the opposing sides of an ongoing argument that revolves around granularity of targeting vs. scale. It’s also understandable that social and programmatic would take up such a large portion of the digital conversation with the duopoly that is Facebook and Google.

If you’re anything like I was before I came to Portent, you may be curious about the pros and cons of “the other side,” whichever that is for you.

Here, I’ll offer my impressions as a young, front-line advertiser, who’s worked in-house at a programmatic DSP (demand side platform), and at Portent where we do a lot of advanced paid social targeting and advertising.

How are Social and Programmatic Alike? Data is Key

The greatest advantage in paid media is the wealth of data that comes with it, and the ability to refine both messaging and targeting as a result. As with nearly all forms of digital, one of the biggest advantages is the immediate feedback from click-stream and conversion data.

Marketers have an immediate, quantifiable response to the content they deliver to users, whether that’s a display ad, a piece of native content, an in-line social post, etc. Industry-standard metrics like click-through, cost-per-acquisition, and engagement are available through both programmatic and social and allow marketers to change their targeting and creative strategy within minutes.

And although much of this will change as a la carte digital delivery becomes more of a reality for traditional formats, unlike traditional ad mediums like print, TV, and radio, with programmatic and social advertisers can see exactly who their ad is served to and at exactly what cost. Where collecting user feedback may have previously taken a lot of legwork, these platforms provide it in real time.

Audience Optimization

With all this data comes the opportunity to customize content directly to new or expanded target audiences of your choosing.

Social media platforms segment their audience based on what you engage with inside their platforms (or the external networks they own). Ad servers segment their audiences based on cookies or device IDs. Both vehicles give the marketer an opportunity to look at a group of behaviors and customize their content to appeal to that group. Or to find a new audience where their offer is most likely to resonate.

Constantly Changing Environment and Targeting Options

As digital media continues to mature and to steal share from traditional media, technology must change to keep pace with rising advertiser expectations of accountability and dependability. Both ad servers and social platforms are constantly working on technology to fix issues that keep clients up at night. Increasing brand safety, increasing viewability, audience targeting, all require that these platforms up their game to meet advertiser expectations.

How Are Social and Programmatic Different? Variance in the Quality of Your Ad Placement

Running an advertisement through a Facebook Newsfeed and running a similar advertisement through a programmatic network may have drastically different results.

For most publishers (think news sites, sports, Flute Enthusiast Magazine online, etc.) the layout of a page necessarily creates different places to show ads which are of higher and lower quality or value. Top of page vs. right rail vs. further down the page. When you’re making a programmatic ad buy through a DSP, or even directly with the publisher site, you have to specify the type of placement that you expect, and hope that you’ve picked the right partner who will monitor your placements’ position on the page, its proximity to relevant content, distance from irrelevant or audience-unsuitable content, etc.

With a Facebook Newsfeed ad by contrast, content and ads are loaded only as a user scrolls, so there’s a lot less variance in viewability and engagement based on page placement.

Take a moment to realize this doesn’t mean programmatic display is evil, or lower quality. It simply means there’s more variability in the quality and viewability of placements, both good and bad.

Even though it’s got an edge in the phrase “Yes, but we know your ad showed up on screen”, where Facebook encourages rapid scrolling to keep up with your many friends and family, a great display ad placed next to content that will be stared at for minutes at a time could be significantly more impactful.

Black Metrics

Within the Facebook platform, there are several metrics and targeting objectives available that are specific to their proprietary algorithm. Meaning they’ll use an algorithm to optimize for the kinds of impressions and clicks that show the highest likelihood of delivering your desired action for a particular campaign, but you can’t take that optimization with you to other channels.

For example, the metric “Brand Awareness” is based on user feedback, relevancy, and historical brand surveys conducted by Facebook. They also specify that this metric can be imprecise, and give a relatively vague explanation when pressed further. As a marketer if can be incredibly frustrating, if not dangerous, to evaluate a campaign on a metric that does not have a concrete description, or industry-wide standard. If you’re working at a DSP or you’re an advertiser working with a team at that technology partner, metrics used to measure success of a campaign are relatively similar across the industry.

Fraud

Fraud within programmatic advertising (really any large-scale digital display advertising) has been cause for great concern and plenty of industry hand-wringing in the past few months. Social platforms certainly have an issue with fake or inactive profiles by contrast, but the number of bots or crawlers being served worthless impressions is significantly lower. Facebook has an advantage here as a user must actually log in to the platform and complete a series of questions to verify their identity before consuming the content and ultimately viewing any ads.

Misconceptions About Programmatic Advertising

”Every Digital Strategy Needs Programmatic” Programmatic is not a one size fits all approach. Given the huge scale and reach of most platforms, it is scarily easy to spend an

incredible

amount of money on a programmatic platform without a justifiable ROI. It’s on you and your team to set clear goals, and make sure the investment is paying off at every step.

If your company or your client is only spending a minimal amount of ad dollars at present through Facebook, PPC, etc., it may not be necessary or wise to include an additional channel if you are not maximizing the ones you’re already using.

Caveat: this advice applies differently to a long-term sustained programmatic ad buy vs. a one-time programmatic direct campaign.

“Fraud Is Guaranteed In Your Ad Buy”

Although I just discussed how fraud is a key difference between programmatic and social media, the truth is that you’re not realistically going to have a huge portion of your ad buy eaten by evil bots (great mental image) as some alarmist reports would have you believe.

My mental image of evil fraud bots destroying all of the ad budgets.

As with any product, the choice exists between premium vs. value alternatives, and quality control is a known issue and an ongoing effort. (News-flash: your pant-legs aren’t the same length by accident. Someone periodically checks.) Programmatic advertising is no different, and you’ll see outliers on both the good and bad end of the spectrum. It’s the marketer’s job to weigh all factors (fraud, viewability, targeting, price) when developing a programmatic strategy. If your team wants the best inventory, you must be willing to pay for that quality.

”Your Social Strategy Will Work For Programmatic”

Social media offers a robust set of targeting and ad serving options, while programmatic has its own. User behavior (read interaction with ads) on a social media platform is different than behavior while browsing the wider internet. Use your brain and your data to tailor a strategy that fits the context of the moment you’re trying to reach a new potential customer.

Observations in My Own Move From Programmatic to Paid Social Advertising Facebook Has Enormous Market Share For Good Reason

Before even accounting for the enormous consumer appeal of Instagram, I’d argue that Facebook’s giant and rapidly growing share of wallet with advertisers is warranted. Facebook makes nearly all of their revenue from on-platform advertising, so it is critical that their platform be easy to use for advertisers as well as end-user consumers.

The Facebook content team dedicated to their ad platform has created an incredible amount of literature that addresses both the goals and specific issues a marketer would have in using the platform. Their interface is easy to use, and their reporting is easy to understand. With the exception of Google and its several-year head start, any individual software company or individual platform (looking at you Twitter, LinkedIn) looking to create something that can compete on simplicity and utility for advertisers clearly has tough hill to climb.

Amount of Data Being Collected on Users Is Outstanding. And Yeah, Creepy

Because programmatic ad servers collect data via cookies (and sometimes device IDs) people can clear their cache and easily erase part of their online history, making it potentially challenging to serve an ad that’s most relevant. By contrast the data collected by social networks is tremendous compared to a typical programmatic lookback window.

Issues With Conversion Attribution

Every platform, whether its Google, Facebook, or a standalone ad server has issues with conversion attribution. “Last-click” is the standard model that many digital platforms still use, but most of the industry is in agreement that this model is inadequate for explaining what’s really working in your ad mix.

At their annual conference Google announced an initiative to better model the impact of each individual impression on a final conversion, which is great. My $0.02: after working in both social and in programmatic, I believe there will be no way for marketers to determine the accuracy of this attribution until all digital advertising platforms find a better way to share anonymized user data.

Where to From Here? I’ll withhold comment on where we’re heading, but if the recent AdWeek conference is any indication, the points here are not lost on the leaders of the programmatic and digital display advertising side of the industry. For now, we’re extremely happy with the scale, granularity, and dependability of platforms like Facebook in achieving reach and frequency, but we’ll continue to watch both sides closely.

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