#What Is Gustafsons Method

[forensicfield]

What is Gustafson’s Method?

The evaluation of ground sections of teeth serves as the foundation for Gustafson's method for age estimation from teeth. In the ground section, six age-related parameters are assessed, and their changes are contrasted using an age versus regression...

Continue reading What is Gustafson’s Method?

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

HALLMARK CHANNEL'S "FALL HARVEST" All premieres are 9 p.m. ET/PT. 

Roadhouse Romance Starring: Lauren Alaina, Tyler Hynes Premieres: Saturday, Sept. 11 Country music fan Callie (Alaina) is determined to continue her late grandfather’s legacy, but TV director Luke (Hynes) teaches her that sometimes it’s best to look forward instead of back.

Raise a Glass to Love Starring: Laura Osnes, Juan Pablo Di Pace Premieres: Saturday, Sept. 18 Aspiring Master Sommelier Jenna (Osnes) returns to her family vineyard to study and is intrigued by the natural methods of the handsome new Argentinian winemaker, Marcelo (Di Pace). Master Sommelier Jennifer Huether consults and appears as herself in a cameo role.

Taking the Reins (working title) Starring: Nikki DeLoach, Scott Porter, Corbin Bernsen, Janine Turner Premieres: Saturday, Sept. 25 A writer (DeLoach) goes back to the family ranch to write an article about her passion for horses and discovers what ended her marriage and why she stopped riding horses.

Love Strikes Twice Starring: Katie Findlay, Wyatt Nash Premieres: Saturday, Oct. 2 Maggie (Findlay) and Josh (Nash) are an out-of-sync married couple. Maggie wishes for a do-over and wakes up 15 years earlier. Will she choose Josh again or is an ex-boyfriend her happily ever after?

South Beach Love Starring: Taylor Cole, William Levy Premieres: Saturday, Oct. 9 From New York Times Bestselling Author Caridad Piñeiro and Hallmark Publishing comes a story about rival quinceañeras, glorious Cuban cooking, friendship, family ties –- and romance.

Flirting With Romance (working title) Starring: Erinn Westbrook, Brooks Darnel Premieres: Saturday, Oct. 16 When a “love advice” author (Westbrook) crosses paths with a dating columnist (Darnell), an attraction begins to blossom into more. As both use strategies from their own playbooks to win over the other, is it possible that they’ve both met their match? 

HALLMARK MOVIES & MYSTERIES All premieres are at 9 p.m. PT/ET.

Redemption in Cherry Springs Starring: Rochelle Aytes, Keith Robinson, Frankie Faison Premieres: Sunday, Sept. 12 After fallout from a story, reporter Melanie (Aytes) goes home to Cherry Springs for a break. When a friend disappears, she uses her skills to get to the truth, to the local detective’s (Robinson) dismay. From executive producer Judy Smith (Scandal).

Finding Love in Mountain View Starring: Danielle C. Ryan, Myko Olivier Premieres: Sunday, Sept. 19 After learning that she’s been entrusted to take care of her deceased cousin’s children, an architect (Ryan) is torn between focusing on her career and honoring her cousin’s wish.

One Summer Starring: Sam Page, Sarah Drew, Amanda Schull Premieres: Sunday, Sept. 26 Jack (Page) takes his son and daughter to his late wife’s (Schull) beachside hometown hoping to heal and become closer. The summer brings visions of the past that could forge a new path forward. Based on the New York Times-bestselling book by David Baldacci. 

Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone Starring: Tom Everett Scott, Mia Maestro, Ella Ballentine Premieres: Sunday, Oct. 3 Benedict Stone’s (Scott) life is turned upside-down when his teenage niece (Ballentine) arrives on his doorstep -- except she might be the change that Benedict desperately needs.

The Vows We Keep Starring: Fiona Gubelmann, Antonio Cayonne, Linda Thorson Premieres: Sunday, Oct. 10 An event planner (Gubelmann) must organize the perfect wedding for her sister in less than a month when she finds out that the Rosewood, a historic inn and beloved wedding venue, is being sold.

Untitled Signed, Sealed, Delivered Starring: Eric Mabius, Kristin Booth, Crystal Lowe, Geoff Gustafson Premieres: Sunday, Oct. 17 As Shane (Booth) and Oliver (Mabius) prepare for their wedding, they must pause to help a young boy fighting leukemia reunite with his long-lost friend. Their search is complicated by Shane’s mother who arrives with her own plan for their wedding. Meanwhile, Rita (Lowe) and Norman (Gustafson) navigate the challenges of trying to start a family, but a new employee in the Dead Letter Office may deliver the answer.

[miles-was-taken]

Reflective Journal: Data Objects

 Experience Description:

The CT experience I decided to reflect on is our studio assignment of data objects (which I know is still an ongoing assignment kind of we're on our last day but this is the assignment that has stood out to me the most so far as its the assignment that I've had the most interest in and put in the most work for)

the project involved finding a data set and mapping it to an object by changing the object in some way to convey the data set we had. At the beginning of the assignment I had my heart set on doing something with music and as we were forming groups I quickly found myself in a group of people who were interested in the same subject

which made deciding what we wanted to do incredibly easy as we already had set ideas of what data we wanted to use and how we wanted to show it, using the techniques of brainstorming we learnt from ICT we very quickly decided on an object and the data set and moved on to organizing our data working on our final object.

Concepts/Prototyping:

One problem we faced or at least a problem that I've come to realize was actually a big problem in hindsight was not really doing many iterations or prototyping as we already had a final object and idea in mind we just went straight into formalizing what we wanted our final to be which was a record player and vinyl but as the project went on I soon realized the problems that came with not conceptualizing and prototyping especially when it came to wanting to add certain features into the record player it became an issue as we had no prototypes to test on so we had to test on the actual final product luckily, in my opinion, it worked out, but this moment of realization stood out to me because of what we learnt in classes about conceptualization and iteration and how important it is when working towards a final product we were incredibly fortunate enough to have most of our idea's end up working in the long run but we definitely ran into problems that could have been easily fixed by having multiple concepts and prototypes.  

Investigation:

In the book Design Approaches and Tools in Education and training by Nienke Nieveen he states how in order to reach product quality, prototyping is seen as the best method to getting to a high degree of quality using extensive prototypes, iteration and formative evaluation. Nieveen also states how important user involvement is he illustrates how prototyping helps to enhance the transparency of the entire conceptual process. 

Conclude with different ways of doing things, the most important thing I took out of this book was that prototyping is the preliminary version of a product before full commitment to develop it and how a prototype will continually be refined to eventually form a final product I’ve come to the conclusion that his is incredibly important as jumping to working on the final product as stated above indefinitely causes problems also from reading the book I realized that there could possibly still be issues with the final product as we haven’t gone through the prototyping cycle to see what does and does not work, what would have helped would have been using throw-away prototypes, According to Nieveen “throw-away prototypes clarify possible consequences of specific design ideas” this would obviously help weed out most if not all problems without final design.

Another problem our group faced was Time Management and Communication as the days went on especially during the study break I realized that my group had gone radio silent and weren’t generating more ideas I was unsure whether or not they were working on our project or not during our break, I decided it would be best to trust our team and continue on with what I was appointed to do, a lot of what I did I won't lie was definitely last minute and possibly a little rushed and the result of which caused some of the work I produced to be sloppy and i would consider unfinished although finished enough to be acceptable Time Management was definitely one of my biggest downfalls and after researching and stumbling upon the book “The Time Trap” by Alec Mackenzie and Pat Nickerson I’ve learnt how important it is to have open communication in group work and how to manage my time efficiently, not to fall into “Time Traps” and how to set and stick with priorities one quote from the book about communication was “Despite its challenges, we take for granted that communication is simply a natural activity, a skill or gift we are born with. It starts with our first wails in the delivery room—with parents and infant taking turns! Through a lifetime of encounters, we ascend to more and more convoluted conflicts in conference rooms, classrooms, or courtrooms—communicating every waking hour.” this quote alone helped me realize that communication is something we’re born to be able to do so why did we find it so difficult to have communication with each other throughout the project, this leads me to my next subject; time management Mackenzie and Nickerson touch on Escaping distracting and focusing on goals, escaping expectations and pull into reality instead these are all incredibly valuable life lessons I will try my very best to put into my work.

Conclusion:

in conclusion reflecting back on this project has made me realize how crucial Prototyping can be especially to unveil potential consequences with your project It’s also helped me notice how bad I am with time management and communicating with groups I hope to rectify these issues with myself in future projects and strive to be an important asset for the groups I work within the next projects I take on and continue to be that way for when I leave university looking back on our project I feel some regret for not being able to use the knowledge I have now on the project but I also feel grateful as without this experience I would have never learnt what I could have done better.

References:

Nieveen N. (1999) Prototyping to Reach Product Quality. In: van den Akker J., Branch R.M., Gustafson K., Nieveen N., Plomp T. (eds) Design Approaches and Tools in Education and Training. Springer, Dordrecht 

Mackenzie, A., & Nickerson, P. (2009). The time trap: The classic book on time management. Amacom.

[pittrarebooks]

Pulp: Cover Art by Distinguished Artists

Last semester, Professor Jessica FitzPatrick’s class, Narrative & Technology, visited Archives & Special Collections to work with an array of materials including science fiction pulp magazines, science fiction fanzines, comic books, and artists’ books (just to name a few). For extra credit, students had the opportunity to submit a blog post to be featured on our Tumblr. What a perfect fit for #scififriday!

Figure 1: The artwork of Virgil Finlay for Fate Magazine

We often emphasize the importance of first impressions. The very first time that we meet someone or see something makes all the difference. I experienced this phenomenon when encountering science fiction pulp magazines for the first time. My eyes were first drawn in by the vibrant colors on the front page and then my gaze lingered as I glanced over the provocative headlines and the female on the front cover. This visual experience made me eager to learn more about these cover artists and their contributions to the production of pulp magazines.                                                

After doing some research, I found that many cover artists became as popular as the authors of the pieces within. While the editors of these magazines made decisions about the glossy paper to print the covers on, the artists used these choices to their advantage. They utilized sleek, higher quality paper for their artwork that contrasted with the cheap and rugged pulp paper inside. Interestingly, these covers would sometimes be designed before any content of the magazine was written (“Pulp Magazine”). In other words, artists would look to the cover art for inspiration. For this project, I focused specifically on the artwork of Virgil Finlay for Fate Magazine and the artwork of Richard Van Dongen for Astounding Science Fiction. I will be commenting on visual techniques and themes used on these covers that served the purpose of gaining the readership of their intended audiences as well as fueling the content written within.                                       

The first pulp cover that I examined was by a well-known cover artist at the time, Virgil Finlay. An obvious feature of this cover is the portrayal of the typical damsel in distress female. To go along with this are the words, “sex and hypnotism”, which indicate the provocative and exploitative nature of this pulp. This sexualized depiction of women was a common feature of sci-fi pulps that were targeted toward a largely male audience. Finlay’s style for this particular art piece is one of very bright, contrasting colors. This differs from much of his work in which he used black ink with a scratchboard technique. For these black and white illustrations, Finlay used a sharp blade to scratch away white lines from a clay board covered in black ink (Parker). While black and white ink creates an obvious contrast, Finlay chose to use the colors red and green to create a similar effect in this cover art. He cleverly chose to color the woman’s dress green to make her stand out against the swirling red background. Another indicator of her importance to the interest of perspective pulp readers is that we get to see her full face, while we only get to see the side profile of the hypnotist.

Figure 2: Psychiatry Looks at Hypnosis by John C. Ross

As you can see from Figure 2, the cover serves as a good indication of what is published within. In the piece, “Psychiatry looks at Hypnosis,” there is an illustration depicting a male psychiatrist conducting an evaluation on a troubled female figure. While she is not portrayed as provocatively as the female on the front cover, she is positioned in the foreground of the image. The focus remains on the female, while the psychiatrist remains in the background. While I am uncertain if Finlay’s cover art for this pulp was produced before the written content, that is my speculation based on this connection between the female figures in each.

Figure 3: The artwork of Van Dongen for Astounding Science Fiction 

The other pulp artist that I came across offered a contrasting style with the art of Finlay. Van Dongen used a different method than the female physique to appeal to the largely male readership. He relied instead on a realistic style that matched the pulp editor, John W Campbell’s  vision of a “more dignified” looking science fiction pulp (Gustafson, Nicholls, Westfahl, & Langford). Rather than illustrating a female in bright colors, he relied on the oddity of an alien creature sharing some brews with the captain of a ship (Figure 3). His colors are more dull and there is not one thing that sticks out more than others. This cover did not catch my eye in the same way, but it still serves a purpose. It is far less provocative than the cover of Fate Magazine which may suggest that the authors of Astounding Science Fiction (and its artists) made the effort appeal to those who are more interested in genre of Science Fiction itself.

Figure 4: An article found withing Astounding Science Fiction

As the front page had led me to guess, one of the pieces inside of this pulp seemed to be targeted toward those interested in the subject of science itself. On one of the first pages of this pulp, there was an article about an electric kit for “brainiacs” (Figure 4). There is an illustration of a male to go along with this, of course.

Virgil Finlay and Van Dongen were two distinguished pulp artists with very different styles. Finlay began his career in 1935 where he began doing interior magazine illustrations. In addition to this, he also illustrated the cover art of upwards of 60 magazine covers. He is well-known for both his mentioned black-and-white style as well as the color illustrations such as the one for Fate Magazine. He was nominated for seven Hugo Awards (science fiction literary awards) and inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012. (Gustafson, Nicholls, & Westfahl). Van Dongen on the other hand, entered the science fiction field in 1950 after going to school and training in retouching photographs. During his career, he painted over 40 covers for Astounding Science Fiction as well as Worlds Beyond, Space Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Adventures. Van Dongen received the Hugo Best Artist award in 1959 for his work in Astounding Science Fiction (Gustafson, Nicholls, Westfahl, & Langford). Finlay and Van Dongen each made a name for themselves in the field of science fiction pulp. The similarity that they share is the ability of their artwork to draw in readers and to fuel the content of what lies on the pages within.                                       

Works Cited:

Gustafson, Jon, Peter Nicholls and Gary Westfahl. “Finlay, Virgil.” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight. Gollancz, 18 Jan. 2017. Web. 19 Mar. 2018.

Gustafson, Jon, Peter Nicholls, Gary Westfahl and David Langford. “van Dongen.” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight. Gollancz, 2 Apr. 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2018.

Parker, Charley. “The Dark and Light of Virgil Finlay.” Tor.com. N.p., 31 July 2013. Web.

“Pulp Magazine.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2018.

-Lydia Belezos, undergraduate, University of Pittsburgh 

[forensicfield]

What is Gustafson’s Method?

The evaluation of ground sections of teeth serves as the foundation for Gustafson's method for age estimation from teeth. In the ground section, six age-related parameters are assessed, and their changes are contrasted using an age versus regression...

(more…)

[ramonaillustrationtwo]

Gustafson, K. (2014). Raw Onion. [Sepia ink on watercolour paper].          Gustafson, K. (2014). Onion Ring. [Sepia ink on watercolour paper].                 Gustafson, K. (2014). Raw Ginger. [Sepia ink on watercolour paper].        Gustafson, K. (2014). Crystalised Ginger. [Sepia ink on watercolour paper].

Research: Working with New Technology

Karen Gustafson

https://wellcomecollection.org/works?query=Illustration&page=2

In her series of illustration on the subject of ‘The Raw to Processed’ Gustafson uses a scanning electron microscope to capture images of raw and processed food and recreates the images 600x with fairly traditional methods of Sepia ink on watercolour paper.

Unsure of what exactly the difference was between a SEM and a traditional Light Microscope I asked for help from my friend Sharon D’Costa who is a Specialist Biomedical Scientist, she explained: 

‘Light microscopes require the specimin to be cut extremely thin, about 3 micrometers, put on a slide and stained so that the light from underneath can pass through allowing you to look at the structure. It's suited to cellular structures. A Stereo microscope the light source reflects light off the surface of the specimen rather than through it and is suited to small samples.

SEM removes the obstacle of needing to have such a thin preparation, and widens the range of things you can look at. You can look at the specimen in its entirety and in 3D. The specimen is coated in a fine layer of gold dust which allows the microscope to scan and create an image of the thing you're trying to look at. There is no light as the sample is bombarded with electrons which scatter of the gold particles coating the sample, forming the image. This process is carried out within a vacuum. You end up with a much more detailed image than you could ever get with a standard microscope. They come out black and white, but can and are colourised. SEM is much more expensive.

Stereo is used for specimen manipulation and dissection. Light is used to properly look at a specimen and SEM is for higher resolution images. ‘

Gustafson has used this technology in order to highlight the change that happens on a molecular level when food is processed. 

Gustafson, K. (2014). Raw Potato. [Sepia ink on watercolour paper].

Gustafson, K. (2014). French Fry. [Sepia ink on watercolour paper].

A scanning electron microscope D'Costa, S. (2019). [Photograph].

A hair sample under a SEM D'Costa, S. (2019). [Photograph].

Photo of nerve sample taken with a Stereo Microscope D'Costa, S. (2019). [Photograph].

Wellcomecollection.org. (2020). [online] Available at: https://wellcomecollection.org/works?query=%22Karen%20Gustafson%22 [Accessed 9 Feb. 2020].

[suzanneshannon]

Weekly Platform News: Preventing Image Loads with the Picture Element, the Web We Want, Svg Styles Are Not Scoped

In this week's week roundup of browser news, a trick for loading images conditionally using the picture element, your chance to tell bowser vendors about the web you want, and the styles applied to inline SVG elements are, well, not scoped only to that SVG.

Let's turn to the headlines...

Preventing image loads with the picture element

You can use the <picture> element to prevent an image from loading if a specific media query matches the user’s environment (e.g., if the viewport width is larger or smaller than a certain length value). [Try out the demo:

See the Pen voZENR by Šime Vidas (@simevidas) on CodePen.

<picture> <!-- show 1⨯1 transparent image if viewport width ≤ 40em --> <source media="(max-width: 40em)" srcset="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" /> <!-- load only image if viewport width > 40em --> <img src="product-large-screen.png" /> </picture>

(via Scott Jehl)

The Web We Want

The Web We Want (webwewant.fyi) is a new collaboration between browser vendors that aims to collect feedback from web developers about the current state of the web. You can submit a feature request on the website ("What do you want?"") and get a chance to present it at an event (An Event Apart, Smashing Conference, etc.).

(via Aaron Gustafson)

In other news

Firefox supports a non-standard Boolean parameter for the location.reload method that can be used to hard-reload the page (bypassing the browser’s HTTP cache) [via Wilson Page]

If you use inline <svg> elements that itself have inline CSS code (in <style> elements), be aware that those styles are not scoped to the SVG element but global, so they affect other SVG elements as well [via Sara Soueidan]

XSS Auditor, a Chrome feature that detects cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, has been deemed ineffective and will be removed from Chrome in a future version. You may still want to set the HTTP X-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=block header for legacy browsers [via Scott Helme]

Read more news in my new, weekly Sunday issue. Visit webplatform.news for more information.

The post Weekly Platform News: Preventing Image Loads with the Picture Element, the Web We Want, Svg Styles Are Not Scoped appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Weekly Platform News: Preventing Image Loads with the Picture Element, the Web We Want, Svg Styles Are Not Scoped published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[ebizworldwide]

Struggle Continues to Reform the Small Business Administration

Funding is a particular obstacle for local business, specifically those had by socially and financially deprived entrepreneurs. In 1953, Congress developed the Small Business Management to mitigate the problem, but scams as well as blew up reporting methods have tormented the firm for years.

Instead of giving a mandated minimum 23 percent of lendings to accredited small companies, the SBA has been reporting numbers simply shy of the objective-- 21.65 percent in 2011 and 22.25 percent in 2012.

Audits, however, have actually discovered the figures really are inflated a little. As a matter of fact, a record from the American Small company League revealed that 57 percent of lendings booked for local business in fact went to Lot of money 100 business such as General Electric, Apple as well as Citigroup.

In 2012, nearly $500 million in financings that had been alloted for small companies went to those huge firms instead.

Causes for the SBA's Problems

There are a number of factors the cash is missing its desired target. One is human error.

The SBA is required by Congress to reserve contracts between $3,000 and also $150,000 for tiny jobs that offer a service or product at a reasonable market value. Staff members in cost of carrying out the financings don't constantly do the ideal study to discover competitive financing qualifiers. Rather, larger companies load the space by default. In 2012, just 68 percent of these reserved lendings went to little businesses.

Another concern is deception-- huge companies that impersonate as little ones, generally through shell business or subsidiaries. Oh, it's not always deception. In some cases, a huge business gets a small company while it is still receiving SBA financing. In either case, real small companies lose on funding.

Misreporting at the SBA is one more major contributing element regularly identified by SBA Assessor General Peg Gustafson. The firm purchased computers made use of to analyze data for anomalies as well as flag errors in coverage. That includes seeking missing out on details and also names connected to Fortune 100 business. If an application is flagged, the company is called for to review the information and also make the proper corrections.

What to Do Next?

The proceeding problems have actually prompted Head of state Obama to recommend settling the SBA with the Department of Trade, a company dedicated to large companies. The president says this will save $300 million each year-- mostly since it will properly turn off the SBA.

Supporters of SBA hate that suggestion since, they say, tiny companies would lose the only agency devoted to aiding them obtain established.

Instead, the supporters claim, the president needs to concentrate on finding a way to a lot more efficiently monitor SBA loans to guarantee qualified small companies are obtaining a minimum of 23 percent of the company's loans.

It's worth discovering a method to make the SBA job. Tiny businesses provide 90 percent of new, internet works and 50 percent of exclusive sector employment. Little job owners are entitled to the country's support.

[t-baba]

10 years of Chrome, Firefox 62 ships and a look at CSS Shapes

#356 — September 5, 2018

Read on the Web

Frontend Focus

Chrome Turns 10 Years Old as Chrome 69 Released — There’s a higher level celebration of the ten anniversary here, but what’s new for Web developers? CSS Scroll Snap, display cutouts, and the Web Locks API for starters.

Google

Take a New Look at 'CSS Shapes' — Firefox 62 (out today) joins Chrome and Safari in supporting CSS Shapes, a way to define shapes within CSS for content to flow around. See how they work here, along with the new tools in Firefox to make editing such shapes easier.

Rachel Andrew

New Course: 👩‍💻 Intro to Data Structures for Interviews — Bianca teaches you how to pass technical interviews by learning the data structures you need to store and retrieve data more efficiently.

Frontend Masters sponsor

The Web Design Museum: The First Decade of Web Design — Web Design Museum exhibits over 900 unique designs from the years 1995 to 2005. Discover forgotten trends in web design.

Web Design Museum

The Complete CSS Demo for OpenType Features — A lengthy single page demo of many font-feature-settings settings upon a variety of fonts. If you’re using the right fonts to support these settings you can get a lot more control over how your text looks.

Tunghsiao Liu

What's New in Chrome 70's DevTools — The latest dev channel release of Chrome has several DevTools improvements including being able to create ‘live expressions’ (real-time monitoring, essentially) and the highlighting of DOM elements while still typing an expression.

Google Developers

Conversational Semantics with HTML and ARIA — With voice and other ‘headless’ interfaces becoming more commonplace, semantic markup is more important than ever. Learn how to leverage HTML and ARIA to improve experiences.

Aaron Gustafson

Firefox 62 Ships Today; Here's What's New for Developers

Mozilla

💻 Jobs

Frontend Developer at X-Team (Remote) — We help our developers keep learning and growing every day. Unleash your potential. Work from anywhere. Join X-Team.

x-team

React & Redux Frontend Engineer (New York, Paris, Remote) — We transform complex datasets into beautiful visualizations and implement innovative browser-app UIs. Apply to join us here.

Datadog

Find A FrontEnd Job Through Vettery — Create a profile to connect with inspiring companies seeking FrontEnd devs.

Vettery

📘 Tutorials & Opinion

How Do You Mark Up An Accordion? — Here are your options for possible markup approaches plus some useful resources.

Sara Soueidan

A Tour of Defining Colors in CSS — Whether though predefined values, currentColor, hex values, and more.

Adam Laki

▶  CSS Grid in 45 Minutes — Associated slidedeck here.

Wes Bos

How to Do Functional Programming with JavaScript? — A handy cheat sheet used by JavaScript developers interested in writing functional style code. Check it out.

Progress Kendo UI sponsor

How to Use Media Queries from JavaScript — The matchMedia method is the key.

Craig Buckler

How to Use Gulp.js to Automate Your CSS Tasks — Such as optimizing images, compiling Sass files, and handling and inlining assets.

Craig Buckler

13 Speakers on Design, UX and Code. Two Amazing Days. Get 100 USD Off

SMASHINGCONF NYC sponsor

Making Calls from a Browser with Vue.js & Nexmo In-App Voice

Phil Leggetter

How Many Sites Are Still Using AppCache? — Too many, given it’s been deprecated, removed from the web standards, and support is rapidly disappearing.

HTTP Archive

What Makes a Good Front-End Developer?

Zell Liew

🔧 Code and Tools

MailMason: A Complete Toolset for Building Email Templates — Uses other common frontend tooling to streamline the generation of both HTML and plain text emails.

Postmark

Making a Progressive Web App with Webpack Just Got Easier — webpack-web-app-manifest-plugins generates a PWA manifest and integrates with the assets JSON.

Tumblr

Create a Serverless Powered API in 10 Minutes

Cloudflare sponsor

Svgurt: An Image to SVG Transformation Tool — A tracing tool, of sorts, that has a style of its own. Play with the live demo.

Rhys Howell

Is 'Houdini' Ready Yet? — A regularly updated rundown of browser support for various Houdini APIs. (Houdini is a collection of proposed and under-development CSS engine manipulation specs.)

Surma

Siema: Simple, Lightweight Carousel with No Dependencies

Pawel Grzybek

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[tianqichen17055127-blog]

Critical Analysis

Micheal Foucault was a very critical philosopher as he tended to include writing works in all subjects, including scientific and literary ones. He even said he should have spoken of the 'author-function' in painting, music technical fields and so forth. I believe it is true that there are many common things in creative work and their 'author'. The essay is the text of a lecture presented to the Societé Francais de philosophy on 22 February 1969 (Foucault gave a modified form of the lecture in the United States in 1970).

When I first ask myself this question, I feel it quite easy to be answered. ‘An the author is the person who creates literature or artwork.’ I answered myself. But when I think deeply about this topic I felt a little bit confused as there are lots of restrictions for a writer to become an author. Maybe someone who published his or her own idea? But not all of them are willing to show their identities to the public. What about those who stand behind their thoughts?

As an art student, one of the most significant parts of our study is to identify the ‘author’ and to give some critical ideas upon them. Indeed, we are not that sure who the real author is but we need to give them a name as they are definitely the target of our study. Thus, the author in my perspective is more like a person who takes the responsibility of ideas or works. After reading this article about the identification of the ‘author’, I found more new perspectives in understanding this question.

First of all, the author's function is related to legitimacy and how it is constrained in an institutional system. In the past, people in the ruling class care about what they are written in historical records since even after they die, the future generation will discuss them, in other words, the writing records of their life determine how they 'live' eternally after they die. Therefore, authenticity was a big issue in the past and there were institutional systems to ensure authenticity and to ensure their ruling with 'the legitimate ideology' and to exclude other opinions such as heresy and slanders. Nowadays, in the capitalist world, works of writing become the property that someone can possess. As we do academic writing, if we forget to affix the original author in our writing, we may be recognized as plagiarism. The author's name here presents possession and authenticity.

The second point is arguing that the function of an author is not universal or constant. For example, the three texts with the same Greek myth. They are telling the same story King Midas and the Golden Touch, but usually no one would look for the author and just pass down the story to the next generations till now. But when it came to the Middle Ages, the words or writing could only have credibility when it is from an authority with enough. For example, 'Walking is men’s best medicine.' This simple opinion doesn’t need much unpinning evidence but the name of the author, Hippocrate, could earn much trust, who is considered an outstanding figure of medicine at that time. When it came to the time that people value science, the theory work becomes the author's other name in return. That's why Foucault said the function of an author is not universal or constant across different subjects and ages.

Besides, he talks about the fact that in recent times ‘literary discourse’ is only accepted if it had the author's name attached to it. It had to ‘state its author and the date, place, and circumstance of its writing’. This enables the writing to have meaning and value placed on it. In the text, Foucault describes ‘the the author as a unifying construction’, allowing seemingly very different texts to be unified under a single concept and allowing new texts to be ‘evaluated against old texts for consistency of quality’. He goes on to observe that in ‘modern criticism there is a desire to recover the author from the work’. He talks about the authors name not being enough to describe a piece of work to an author and compares the author construction to the method Saint Jerome used to authenticate the work of an author using four decisive factors: texts which are inferior must be eliminated; ideas that conflict with those expressed in other texts; a different style of writing and the author is the historical figure in the scheme of things.

The the third point is that the function is not formed spontaneously but is constructed through a ‘complex operation’. The social environment would influence the function of the author, without a doubt. If we hind the name of an author, we can recover them from the details, for example, writing the date, where it was done and what was his or her opinion on a certain issue. This is especially true in literary articles since they are more subjective. People would like to classify work by its author, which becomes a label for people to remember. Some well-known authors even became a brand that encourages people to consume their time or money, which also became a kind of topic for higher classes.

The the fourth point, from my understanding, is taking an author as a normal person, who can write and can play different roles when they are writing different kinds of content. It is a little bit like a man in life can be a father, a husband and a son simultaneously. So as a writer or an author, something they play as editors, inviting people to write something within the same theme and publish the articles together as a book. However, they usually are also a writer. They, at the same time, can do criticism work. This example may be over figurative. I am trying to explain their 'multiple egos' may arise because of the different audiences they are facing. Then you cannot deny the audience has not a participant in their writing.

Foucault refers to writing as an action or a gesture as opposed to a ‘thing’. He sees it as being tied up in an institutional system and talks about ‘the form of property they have become’. Since the 18th century, it has been caught up in systems that determine a violation of social and moral boundaries. Foucault uses the phrase ‘the danger of writing’ which sums it up well. He goes on to say that scientific texts were only considered authentic in the middle ages if the name of the author was clear. Today ‘Authentication no longer requires reference to the individual who had produced them; the role of the author disappeared as an index of truthfulness’. Instead of a body of theories and hypotheses that are credible due to the process of ‘Empirical knowledge’– knowledge acquired by the means of observation and experimentation.

Gerard Byrne, an Irish artist born 1969 who uses lens-based media to produce large scale installations which reconstruct imagery found in magazines from The 1960s–80s. He produces ‘carefully reconstructed images of particular historically charged conversations originally published in popular magazines from the 1960s -1980’. From which I noticed similarities to the work of Michel Foucault.

In conclusion, the name of an author is more like a slogan of the theory. Sometimes it may look like a brand. It is quite ironic that no one can tell the author of an old famous book without knowing from others. It is to say we are not that sure if the author is ‘the author’. By reading this text, I started to think about the concept of the artist and their artworks. And started to develop a consciousness of understanding the artists and stories behind the images.

Foucault, M., 1969, What is an author.

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/foucault.author.pdf

[computacionalblog]

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-hot-college-gig-online-brand-promoter/

Nature

Image

Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University, is asked to promote a variety of products on her social media accounts.CreditCreditMichelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Noah Lamfers, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, had never tried a 5-Hour Energy drink. But he still signed up to promote the brand online, getting paid to post images of himself and bottles of the product on his personal Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. He tagged each one with #5houruintern.

Elizabeth Gabriel, a recent graduate of the University of Texas, posted a photo on Instagram of herself relaxing in her last year with a glass of wine and gazing at the latest Samsung tablet. It was one of 12 similar photos she posted for AT&T over 12 weeks. Her payment: a Samsung Galaxy smart watch and an Apple TV.

Alana Clark, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, is one of more than 200 college students across the country using their Instagram accounts to promote Victoria’s Secret Pink sportswear and undergarments. She also hands out free underwear on the quad.

Paying college students to push products is nothing new for companies. The exuberant undergraduate wearing a Nike cap and giving out samples is as common on American campuses as football fans tailgating at homecoming.

But now, like so much in the advertising world, the big action is online. As students return to campuses, they’re constantly checking their Instagram, Snapchat and other social media accounts — so companies are turning to many of them to promote products right alongside photos of family, friends and the new puppy.

For busy students, it is an easy, low-pressure way to make extra money or get free products. For marketers, it is a simple way to reach young people — a supplement to their other social media efforts, including hiring full-time promoters.

Image

The Virginia Tech senior Alana Clark is one of more than 200 college students across the country whom Victoria’s Secret uses to promote its Pink sportswear and underwear.

Though there are no comprehensive data for how many college students promote brands online, interviews with university officials, marketing consultants, brand representatives and students make it clear that the social media platform is big business on campus. Many of the deals are for Instagram posts, but some brands also have students posting on other services, like Twitter and Facebook.

Riddle & Bloom, a marketing agency specializing in building “meaningful relationships with millennial and Gen Z consumers,” employs students from more than 500 schools in all 50 states, according to its website.

On the Victoria’s Secret website, you can search for the names of its representatives at 100 campuses, in schools from Columbia University to Grand Valley State University.

At Virginia Tech, as many as 1,000 of the 30,000 undergrads are being paid to promote products as varied as mascara and storage bins, according to an estimate by Donna Wertalik, director of marketing for the university’s Pamplin College of Business.

“We see so many brands that have it,” Ms. Wertalik said. “A lot of start-up brands will do it. They’ll look for students with credibility and influence to give them credibility and influence.”

Ms. Wertalik oversees a student-run ad agency called Prism. Of the 45 undergrads employed there, she estimated, half are paid to promote products on Instagram.

Companies outline expectations for what the sponsored posts should include, such as specific hashtags or promotions for particular items. Many also ask students to hold or attend events on campus.

Isabel Senior, a student at Duke University, worked for LaCroix, the sparkling water company. Each week for six weeks, she had to post one Instagram photo, one Instagram story and one post on a platform like Facebook or Snapchat. She also gave out cans of LaCroix at campus events like five-kilometer races and university-sponsored concerts.

Every Sunday, Ms. Senior had to send in a form with three photos from her weekly sampling event, along with screenshots of her posts. The company paid her in money and LaCroix products, and if she didn’t complete a task, she said, it docked some of the pay.

The job isn’t always as simple as it may sound.

“I think the time commitment was what I expected,” said Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University this fall, “but how hard it was I did not expect.”

Ms. Schmitt worked for Aerie, a lingerie retailer, along with three other Penn State students during the last school year. The company required that she post at least one Instagram photo, Instagram story and Snapchat post each week using the products, like sweatshirts and lounge pants, sent by the company.

Ms. Schmitt also hosted events like a swimsuit promotion that helped women find the best suit for their bodies, and a screening of a documentary about the singer Demi Lovato followed by a discussion about self-love.

Image

Ms. Schmitt said fulfilling her obligations to brands was harder than she expected. Besides posting on social media, she has hosted in-person events.

Creating the images took Ms. Schmitt at least two hours each week. She was paid with money and company products.

“Because I take my branding seriously for my personal blog,” she said, “I try to work with photographers to get really high quality.”

The payments to the so-called campus influencers appear to vary widely, from cash to merchandise, and brands say little about them.

Riddle & Bloom’s website says it pays out a total of $2 million to its campus representatives, but during an interview its president, Darren Ross, would not go into detail or confirm the website’s numbers.

Azita Peters’s work as a brand ambassador for Alex and Ani, a jewelry company, started off with a perk. Ms. Peters, a student at Virginia Tech, enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Rhode Island, complete with free jewelry.

She and 12 other women from colleges like the University of Alabama and Ohio State University — “big state schools with football programs,” she said — spent three days at Alex and Ani headquarters there. They toured the work space and received instructions on curating their Instagram feeds.

Under Federal Trade Commission rules, people using their personal social media accounts to advertise products are supposed to disclose on their accounts the brands they represent. For instance, Ms. Gabriel tags AT&T in her posts while also including the hashtags #sponsored, #ad and #att.

But these guidelines are often ignored. In April 2017, the trade commission sent more than 90 letters to influencers and brands reminding them of the guidelines.

Image

Azita Peters of Virginia Tech was invited to visit the Rhode Island headquarters of the jewelry maker Alex and Ani when she started working for the company as a brand ambassador.

Companies use numerous methods to select campus influencers. Sometimes the students apply directly to the marketing agencies; sometimes the marketers identify the students.

Students can go to the Riddle & Bloom website and apply for one of the 2,000 “internships,” which last for a semester.

Some students land the job through old-fashioned networking. Ms. Senior, the student at Duke, heard about Riddle & Bloom through a sorority sister, who had posted a link to the online application in their sorority group chat.

And sometimes, students have no idea how they were selected.

Advertisers hire Riddle & Bloom for access to its database of student applicants. The company says it has a close working relationship with university officials through the National Association for Campus Activities, a trade association, noting that they even share an office in Columbia, S.C.

Representatives from the association say that they do not give out either personal or contact information about students without permission, but that they do steer campus leaders toward Riddle & Bloom.

Ms. Gabriel said she hadn’t considered being a brand ambassador until, out of the blue, AT&T reached out to her via direct message on Instagram. She attributed the company’s interest to the down-to-earth photos she posts and the number of comments she gets.

“My follower-to-like ratio is probably something that caught their eye,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

B

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

Their Homework: Pushing Brands Online

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/technology/college-students-online-influencers.html |

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

[captainblogger100posts]

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-hot-college-gig-online-brand-promoter/

Nature

Image

Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University, is asked to promote a variety of products on her social media accounts.CreditCreditMichelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Noah Lamfers, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, had never tried a 5-Hour Energy drink. But he still signed up to promote the brand online, getting paid to post images of himself and bottles of the product on his personal Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. He tagged each one with #5houruintern.

Elizabeth Gabriel, a recent graduate of the University of Texas, posted a photo on Instagram of herself relaxing in her last year with a glass of wine and gazing at the latest Samsung tablet. It was one of 12 similar photos she posted for AT&T over 12 weeks. Her payment: a Samsung Galaxy smart watch and an Apple TV.

Alana Clark, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, is one of more than 200 college students across the country using their Instagram accounts to promote Victoria’s Secret Pink sportswear and undergarments. She also hands out free underwear on the quad.

Paying college students to push products is nothing new for companies. The exuberant undergraduate wearing a Nike cap and giving out samples is as common on American campuses as football fans tailgating at homecoming.

But now, like so much in the advertising world, the big action is online. As students return to campuses, they’re constantly checking their Instagram, Snapchat and other social media accounts — so companies are turning to many of them to promote products right alongside photos of family, friends and the new puppy.

For busy students, it is an easy, low-pressure way to make extra money or get free products. For marketers, it is a simple way to reach young people — a supplement to their other social media efforts, including hiring full-time promoters.

Image

The Virginia Tech senior Alana Clark is one of more than 200 college students across the country whom Victoria’s Secret uses to promote its Pink sportswear and underwear.

Though there are no comprehensive data for how many college students promote brands online, interviews with university officials, marketing consultants, brand representatives and students make it clear that the social media platform is big business on campus. Many of the deals are for Instagram posts, but some brands also have students posting on other services, like Twitter and Facebook.

Riddle & Bloom, a marketing agency specializing in building “meaningful relationships with millennial and Gen Z consumers,” employs students from more than 500 schools in all 50 states, according to its website.

On the Victoria’s Secret website, you can search for the names of its representatives at 100 campuses, in schools from Columbia University to Grand Valley State University.

At Virginia Tech, as many as 1,000 of the 30,000 undergrads are being paid to promote products as varied as mascara and storage bins, according to an estimate by Donna Wertalik, director of marketing for the university’s Pamplin College of Business.

“We see so many brands that have it,” Ms. Wertalik said. “A lot of start-up brands will do it. They’ll look for students with credibility and influence to give them credibility and influence.”

Ms. Wertalik oversees a student-run ad agency called Prism. Of the 45 undergrads employed there, she estimated, half are paid to promote products on Instagram.

Companies outline expectations for what the sponsored posts should include, such as specific hashtags or promotions for particular items. Many also ask students to hold or attend events on campus.

Isabel Senior, a student at Duke University, worked for LaCroix, the sparkling water company. Each week for six weeks, she had to post one Instagram photo, one Instagram story and one post on a platform like Facebook or Snapchat. She also gave out cans of LaCroix at campus events like five-kilometer races and university-sponsored concerts.

Every Sunday, Ms. Senior had to send in a form with three photos from her weekly sampling event, along with screenshots of her posts. The company paid her in money and LaCroix products, and if she didn’t complete a task, she said, it docked some of the pay.

The job isn’t always as simple as it may sound.

“I think the time commitment was what I expected,” said Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University this fall, “but how hard it was I did not expect.”

Ms. Schmitt worked for Aerie, a lingerie retailer, along with three other Penn State students during the last school year. The company required that she post at least one Instagram photo, Instagram story and Snapchat post each week using the products, like sweatshirts and lounge pants, sent by the company.

Ms. Schmitt also hosted events like a swimsuit promotion that helped women find the best suit for their bodies, and a screening of a documentary about the singer Demi Lovato followed by a discussion about self-love.

Image

Ms. Schmitt said fulfilling her obligations to brands was harder than she expected. Besides posting on social media, she has hosted in-person events.

Creating the images took Ms. Schmitt at least two hours each week. She was paid with money and company products.

“Because I take my branding seriously for my personal blog,” she said, “I try to work with photographers to get really high quality.”

The payments to the so-called campus influencers appear to vary widely, from cash to merchandise, and brands say little about them.

Riddle & Bloom’s website says it pays out a total of $2 million to its campus representatives, but during an interview its president, Darren Ross, would not go into detail or confirm the website’s numbers.

Azita Peters’s work as a brand ambassador for Alex and Ani, a jewelry company, started off with a perk. Ms. Peters, a student at Virginia Tech, enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Rhode Island, complete with free jewelry.

She and 12 other women from colleges like the University of Alabama and Ohio State University — “big state schools with football programs,” she said — spent three days at Alex and Ani headquarters there. They toured the work space and received instructions on curating their Instagram feeds.

Under Federal Trade Commission rules, people using their personal social media accounts to advertise products are supposed to disclose on their accounts the brands they represent. For instance, Ms. Gabriel tags AT&T in her posts while also including the hashtags #sponsored, #ad and #att.

But these guidelines are often ignored. In April 2017, the trade commission sent more than 90 letters to influencers and brands reminding them of the guidelines.

Image

Azita Peters of Virginia Tech was invited to visit the Rhode Island headquarters of the jewelry maker Alex and Ani when she started working for the company as a brand ambassador.

Companies use numerous methods to select campus influencers. Sometimes the students apply directly to the marketing agencies; sometimes the marketers identify the students.

Students can go to the Riddle & Bloom website and apply for one of the 2,000 “internships,” which last for a semester.

Some students land the job through old-fashioned networking. Ms. Senior, the student at Duke, heard about Riddle & Bloom through a sorority sister, who had posted a link to the online application in their sorority group chat.

And sometimes, students have no idea how they were selected.

Advertisers hire Riddle & Bloom for access to its database of student applicants. The company says it has a close working relationship with university officials through the National Association for Campus Activities, a trade association, noting that they even share an office in Columbia, S.C.

Representatives from the association say that they do not give out either personal or contact information about students without permission, but that they do steer campus leaders toward Riddle & Bloom.

Ms. Gabriel said she hadn’t considered being a brand ambassador until, out of the blue, AT&T reached out to her via direct message on Instagram. She attributed the company’s interest to the down-to-earth photos she posts and the number of comments she gets.

“My follower-to-like ratio is probably something that caught their eye,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

B

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

Their Homework: Pushing Brands Online

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/technology/college-students-online-influencers.html |

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

[blogwonderwebsites]

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-hot-college-gig-online-brand-promoter/

Nature

Image

Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University, is asked to promote a variety of products on her social media accounts.CreditCreditMichelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Noah Lamfers, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, had never tried a 5-Hour Energy drink. But he still signed up to promote the brand online, getting paid to post images of himself and bottles of the product on his personal Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. He tagged each one with #5houruintern.

Elizabeth Gabriel, a recent graduate of the University of Texas, posted a photo on Instagram of herself relaxing in her last year with a glass of wine and gazing at the latest Samsung tablet. It was one of 12 similar photos she posted for AT&T over 12 weeks. Her payment: a Samsung Galaxy smart watch and an Apple TV.

Alana Clark, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, is one of more than 200 college students across the country using their Instagram accounts to promote Victoria’s Secret Pink sportswear and undergarments. She also hands out free underwear on the quad.

Paying college students to push products is nothing new for companies. The exuberant undergraduate wearing a Nike cap and giving out samples is as common on American campuses as football fans tailgating at homecoming.

But now, like so much in the advertising world, the big action is online. As students return to campuses, they’re constantly checking their Instagram, Snapchat and other social media accounts — so companies are turning to many of them to promote products right alongside photos of family, friends and the new puppy.

For busy students, it is an easy, low-pressure way to make extra money or get free products. For marketers, it is a simple way to reach young people — a supplement to their other social media efforts, including hiring full-time promoters.

Image

The Virginia Tech senior Alana Clark is one of more than 200 college students across the country whom Victoria’s Secret uses to promote its Pink sportswear and underwear.

Though there are no comprehensive data for how many college students promote brands online, interviews with university officials, marketing consultants, brand representatives and students make it clear that the social media platform is big business on campus. Many of the deals are for Instagram posts, but some brands also have students posting on other services, like Twitter and Facebook.

Riddle & Bloom, a marketing agency specializing in building “meaningful relationships with millennial and Gen Z consumers,” employs students from more than 500 schools in all 50 states, according to its website.

On the Victoria’s Secret website, you can search for the names of its representatives at 100 campuses, in schools from Columbia University to Grand Valley State University.

At Virginia Tech, as many as 1,000 of the 30,000 undergrads are being paid to promote products as varied as mascara and storage bins, according to an estimate by Donna Wertalik, director of marketing for the university’s Pamplin College of Business.

“We see so many brands that have it,” Ms. Wertalik said. “A lot of start-up brands will do it. They’ll look for students with credibility and influence to give them credibility and influence.”

Ms. Wertalik oversees a student-run ad agency called Prism. Of the 45 undergrads employed there, she estimated, half are paid to promote products on Instagram.

Companies outline expectations for what the sponsored posts should include, such as specific hashtags or promotions for particular items. Many also ask students to hold or attend events on campus.

Isabel Senior, a student at Duke University, worked for LaCroix, the sparkling water company. Each week for six weeks, she had to post one Instagram photo, one Instagram story and one post on a platform like Facebook or Snapchat. She also gave out cans of LaCroix at campus events like five-kilometer races and university-sponsored concerts.

Every Sunday, Ms. Senior had to send in a form with three photos from her weekly sampling event, along with screenshots of her posts. The company paid her in money and LaCroix products, and if she didn’t complete a task, she said, it docked some of the pay.

The job isn’t always as simple as it may sound.

“I think the time commitment was what I expected,” said Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University this fall, “but how hard it was I did not expect.”

Ms. Schmitt worked for Aerie, a lingerie retailer, along with three other Penn State students during the last school year. The company required that she post at least one Instagram photo, Instagram story and Snapchat post each week using the products, like sweatshirts and lounge pants, sent by the company.

Ms. Schmitt also hosted events like a swimsuit promotion that helped women find the best suit for their bodies, and a screening of a documentary about the singer Demi Lovato followed by a discussion about self-love.

Image

Ms. Schmitt said fulfilling her obligations to brands was harder than she expected. Besides posting on social media, she has hosted in-person events.

Creating the images took Ms. Schmitt at least two hours each week. She was paid with money and company products.

“Because I take my branding seriously for my personal blog,” she said, “I try to work with photographers to get really high quality.”

The payments to the so-called campus influencers appear to vary widely, from cash to merchandise, and brands say little about them.

Riddle & Bloom’s website says it pays out a total of $2 million to its campus representatives, but during an interview its president, Darren Ross, would not go into detail or confirm the website’s numbers.

Azita Peters’s work as a brand ambassador for Alex and Ani, a jewelry company, started off with a perk. Ms. Peters, a student at Virginia Tech, enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Rhode Island, complete with free jewelry.

She and 12 other women from colleges like the University of Alabama and Ohio State University — “big state schools with football programs,” she said — spent three days at Alex and Ani headquarters there. They toured the work space and received instructions on curating their Instagram feeds.

Under Federal Trade Commission rules, people using their personal social media accounts to advertise products are supposed to disclose on their accounts the brands they represent. For instance, Ms. Gabriel tags AT&T in her posts while also including the hashtags #sponsored, #ad and #att.

But these guidelines are often ignored. In April 2017, the trade commission sent more than 90 letters to influencers and brands reminding them of the guidelines.

Image

Azita Peters of Virginia Tech was invited to visit the Rhode Island headquarters of the jewelry maker Alex and Ani when she started working for the company as a brand ambassador.

Companies use numerous methods to select campus influencers. Sometimes the students apply directly to the marketing agencies; sometimes the marketers identify the students.

Students can go to the Riddle & Bloom website and apply for one of the 2,000 “internships,” which last for a semester.

Some students land the job through old-fashioned networking. Ms. Senior, the student at Duke, heard about Riddle & Bloom through a sorority sister, who had posted a link to the online application in their sorority group chat.

And sometimes, students have no idea how they were selected.

Advertisers hire Riddle & Bloom for access to its database of student applicants. The company says it has a close working relationship with university officials through the National Association for Campus Activities, a trade association, noting that they even share an office in Columbia, S.C.

Representatives from the association say that they do not give out either personal or contact information about students without permission, but that they do steer campus leaders toward Riddle & Bloom.

Ms. Gabriel said she hadn’t considered being a brand ambassador until, out of the blue, AT&T reached out to her via direct message on Instagram. She attributed the company’s interest to the down-to-earth photos she posts and the number of comments she gets.

“My follower-to-like ratio is probably something that caught their eye,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

B

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

Their Homework: Pushing Brands Online

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/technology/college-students-online-influencers.html |

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

[blogcompetnetall]

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-hot-college-gig-online-brand-promoter/

Nature

Image

Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University, is asked to promote a variety of products on her social media accounts.CreditCreditMichelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Noah Lamfers, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, had never tried a 5-Hour Energy drink. But he still signed up to promote the brand online, getting paid to post images of himself and bottles of the product on his personal Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. He tagged each one with #5houruintern.

Elizabeth Gabriel, a recent graduate of the University of Texas, posted a photo on Instagram of herself relaxing in her last year with a glass of wine and gazing at the latest Samsung tablet. It was one of 12 similar photos she posted for AT&T over 12 weeks. Her payment: a Samsung Galaxy smart watch and an Apple TV.

Alana Clark, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, is one of more than 200 college students across the country using their Instagram accounts to promote Victoria’s Secret Pink sportswear and undergarments. She also hands out free underwear on the quad.

Paying college students to push products is nothing new for companies. The exuberant undergraduate wearing a Nike cap and giving out samples is as common on American campuses as football fans tailgating at homecoming.

But now, like so much in the advertising world, the big action is online. As students return to campuses, they’re constantly checking their Instagram, Snapchat and other social media accounts — so companies are turning to many of them to promote products right alongside photos of family, friends and the new puppy.

For busy students, it is an easy, low-pressure way to make extra money or get free products. For marketers, it is a simple way to reach young people — a supplement to their other social media efforts, including hiring full-time promoters.

Image

The Virginia Tech senior Alana Clark is one of more than 200 college students across the country whom Victoria’s Secret uses to promote its Pink sportswear and underwear.

Though there are no comprehensive data for how many college students promote brands online, interviews with university officials, marketing consultants, brand representatives and students make it clear that the social media platform is big business on campus. Many of the deals are for Instagram posts, but some brands also have students posting on other services, like Twitter and Facebook.

Riddle & Bloom, a marketing agency specializing in building “meaningful relationships with millennial and Gen Z consumers,” employs students from more than 500 schools in all 50 states, according to its website.

On the Victoria’s Secret website, you can search for the names of its representatives at 100 campuses, in schools from Columbia University to Grand Valley State University.

At Virginia Tech, as many as 1,000 of the 30,000 undergrads are being paid to promote products as varied as mascara and storage bins, according to an estimate by Donna Wertalik, director of marketing for the university’s Pamplin College of Business.

“We see so many brands that have it,” Ms. Wertalik said. “A lot of start-up brands will do it. They’ll look for students with credibility and influence to give them credibility and influence.”

Ms. Wertalik oversees a student-run ad agency called Prism. Of the 45 undergrads employed there, she estimated, half are paid to promote products on Instagram.

Companies outline expectations for what the sponsored posts should include, such as specific hashtags or promotions for particular items. Many also ask students to hold or attend events on campus.

Isabel Senior, a student at Duke University, worked for LaCroix, the sparkling water company. Each week for six weeks, she had to post one Instagram photo, one Instagram story and one post on a platform like Facebook or Snapchat. She also gave out cans of LaCroix at campus events like five-kilometer races and university-sponsored concerts.

Every Sunday, Ms. Senior had to send in a form with three photos from her weekly sampling event, along with screenshots of her posts. The company paid her in money and LaCroix products, and if she didn’t complete a task, she said, it docked some of the pay.

The job isn’t always as simple as it may sound.

“I think the time commitment was what I expected,” said Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University this fall, “but how hard it was I did not expect.”

Ms. Schmitt worked for Aerie, a lingerie retailer, along with three other Penn State students during the last school year. The company required that she post at least one Instagram photo, Instagram story and Snapchat post each week using the products, like sweatshirts and lounge pants, sent by the company.

Ms. Schmitt also hosted events like a swimsuit promotion that helped women find the best suit for their bodies, and a screening of a documentary about the singer Demi Lovato followed by a discussion about self-love.

Image

Ms. Schmitt said fulfilling her obligations to brands was harder than she expected. Besides posting on social media, she has hosted in-person events.

Creating the images took Ms. Schmitt at least two hours each week. She was paid with money and company products.

“Because I take my branding seriously for my personal blog,” she said, “I try to work with photographers to get really high quality.”

The payments to the so-called campus influencers appear to vary widely, from cash to merchandise, and brands say little about them.

Riddle & Bloom’s website says it pays out a total of $2 million to its campus representatives, but during an interview its president, Darren Ross, would not go into detail or confirm the website’s numbers.

Azita Peters’s work as a brand ambassador for Alex and Ani, a jewelry company, started off with a perk. Ms. Peters, a student at Virginia Tech, enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Rhode Island, complete with free jewelry.

She and 12 other women from colleges like the University of Alabama and Ohio State University — “big state schools with football programs,” she said — spent three days at Alex and Ani headquarters there. They toured the work space and received instructions on curating their Instagram feeds.

Under Federal Trade Commission rules, people using their personal social media accounts to advertise products are supposed to disclose on their accounts the brands they represent. For instance, Ms. Gabriel tags AT&T in her posts while also including the hashtags #sponsored, #ad and #att.

But these guidelines are often ignored. In April 2017, the trade commission sent more than 90 letters to influencers and brands reminding them of the guidelines.

Image

Azita Peters of Virginia Tech was invited to visit the Rhode Island headquarters of the jewelry maker Alex and Ani when she started working for the company as a brand ambassador.

Companies use numerous methods to select campus influencers. Sometimes the students apply directly to the marketing agencies; sometimes the marketers identify the students.

Students can go to the Riddle & Bloom website and apply for one of the 2,000 “internships,” which last for a semester.

Some students land the job through old-fashioned networking. Ms. Senior, the student at Duke, heard about Riddle & Bloom through a sorority sister, who had posted a link to the online application in their sorority group chat.

And sometimes, students have no idea how they were selected.

Advertisers hire Riddle & Bloom for access to its database of student applicants. The company says it has a close working relationship with university officials through the National Association for Campus Activities, a trade association, noting that they even share an office in Columbia, S.C.

Representatives from the association say that they do not give out either personal or contact information about students without permission, but that they do steer campus leaders toward Riddle & Bloom.

Ms. Gabriel said she hadn’t considered being a brand ambassador until, out of the blue, AT&T reached out to her via direct message on Instagram. She attributed the company’s interest to the down-to-earth photos she posts and the number of comments she gets.

“My follower-to-like ratio is probably something that caught their eye,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

B

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

Their Homework: Pushing Brands Online

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/technology/college-students-online-influencers.html |

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

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Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter http://www.nature-business.com/nature-the-hot-college-gig-online-brand-promoter/

Nature

Image

Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University, is asked to promote a variety of products on her social media accounts.CreditCreditMichelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Noah Lamfers, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, had never tried a 5-Hour Energy drink. But he still signed up to promote the brand online, getting paid to post images of himself and bottles of the product on his personal Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. He tagged each one with #5houruintern.

Elizabeth Gabriel, a recent graduate of the University of Texas, posted a photo on Instagram of herself relaxing in her last year with a glass of wine and gazing at the latest Samsung tablet. It was one of 12 similar photos she posted for AT&T over 12 weeks. Her payment: a Samsung Galaxy smart watch and an Apple TV.

Alana Clark, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, is one of more than 200 college students across the country using their Instagram accounts to promote Victoria’s Secret Pink sportswear and undergarments. She also hands out free underwear on the quad.

Paying college students to push products is nothing new for companies. The exuberant undergraduate wearing a Nike cap and giving out samples is as common on American campuses as football fans tailgating at homecoming.

But now, like so much in the advertising world, the big action is online. As students return to campuses, they’re constantly checking their Instagram, Snapchat and other social media accounts — so companies are turning to many of them to promote products right alongside photos of family, friends and the new puppy.

For busy students, it is an easy, low-pressure way to make extra money or get free products. For marketers, it is a simple way to reach young people — a supplement to their other social media efforts, including hiring full-time promoters.

Image

The Virginia Tech senior Alana Clark is one of more than 200 college students across the country whom Victoria’s Secret uses to promote its Pink sportswear and underwear.

Though there are no comprehensive data for how many college students promote brands online, interviews with university officials, marketing consultants, brand representatives and students make it clear that the social media platform is big business on campus. Many of the deals are for Instagram posts, but some brands also have students posting on other services, like Twitter and Facebook.

Riddle & Bloom, a marketing agency specializing in building “meaningful relationships with millennial and Gen Z consumers,” employs students from more than 500 schools in all 50 states, according to its website.

On the Victoria’s Secret website, you can search for the names of its representatives at 100 campuses, in schools from Columbia University to Grand Valley State University.

At Virginia Tech, as many as 1,000 of the 30,000 undergrads are being paid to promote products as varied as mascara and storage bins, according to an estimate by Donna Wertalik, director of marketing for the university’s Pamplin College of Business.

“We see so many brands that have it,” Ms. Wertalik said. “A lot of start-up brands will do it. They’ll look for students with credibility and influence to give them credibility and influence.”

Ms. Wertalik oversees a student-run ad agency called Prism. Of the 45 undergrads employed there, she estimated, half are paid to promote products on Instagram.

Companies outline expectations for what the sponsored posts should include, such as specific hashtags or promotions for particular items. Many also ask students to hold or attend events on campus.

Isabel Senior, a student at Duke University, worked for LaCroix, the sparkling water company. Each week for six weeks, she had to post one Instagram photo, one Instagram story and one post on a platform like Facebook or Snapchat. She also gave out cans of LaCroix at campus events like five-kilometer races and university-sponsored concerts.

Every Sunday, Ms. Senior had to send in a form with three photos from her weekly sampling event, along with screenshots of her posts. The company paid her in money and LaCroix products, and if she didn’t complete a task, she said, it docked some of the pay.

The job isn’t always as simple as it may sound.

“I think the time commitment was what I expected,” said Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University this fall, “but how hard it was I did not expect.”

Ms. Schmitt worked for Aerie, a lingerie retailer, along with three other Penn State students during the last school year. The company required that she post at least one Instagram photo, Instagram story and Snapchat post each week using the products, like sweatshirts and lounge pants, sent by the company.

Ms. Schmitt also hosted events like a swimsuit promotion that helped women find the best suit for their bodies, and a screening of a documentary about the singer Demi Lovato followed by a discussion about self-love.

Image

Ms. Schmitt said fulfilling her obligations to brands was harder than she expected. Besides posting on social media, she has hosted in-person events.

Creating the images took Ms. Schmitt at least two hours each week. She was paid with money and company products.

“Because I take my branding seriously for my personal blog,” she said, “I try to work with photographers to get really high quality.”

The payments to the so-called campus influencers appear to vary widely, from cash to merchandise, and brands say little about them.

Riddle & Bloom’s website says it pays out a total of $2 million to its campus representatives, but during an interview its president, Darren Ross, would not go into detail or confirm the website’s numbers.

Azita Peters’s work as a brand ambassador for Alex and Ani, a jewelry company, started off with a perk. Ms. Peters, a student at Virginia Tech, enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Rhode Island, complete with free jewelry.

She and 12 other women from colleges like the University of Alabama and Ohio State University — “big state schools with football programs,” she said — spent three days at Alex and Ani headquarters there. They toured the work space and received instructions on curating their Instagram feeds.

Under Federal Trade Commission rules, people using their personal social media accounts to advertise products are supposed to disclose on their accounts the brands they represent. For instance, Ms. Gabriel tags AT&T in her posts while also including the hashtags #sponsored, #ad and #att.

But these guidelines are often ignored. In April 2017, the trade commission sent more than 90 letters to influencers and brands reminding them of the guidelines.

Image

Azita Peters of Virginia Tech was invited to visit the Rhode Island headquarters of the jewelry maker Alex and Ani when she started working for the company as a brand ambassador.

Companies use numerous methods to select campus influencers. Sometimes the students apply directly to the marketing agencies; sometimes the marketers identify the students.

Students can go to the Riddle & Bloom website and apply for one of the 2,000 “internships,” which last for a semester.

Some students land the job through old-fashioned networking. Ms. Senior, the student at Duke, heard about Riddle & Bloom through a sorority sister, who had posted a link to the online application in their sorority group chat.

And sometimes, students have no idea how they were selected.

Advertisers hire Riddle & Bloom for access to its database of student applicants. The company says it has a close working relationship with university officials through the National Association for Campus Activities, a trade association, noting that they even share an office in Columbia, S.C.

Representatives from the association say that they do not give out either personal or contact information about students without permission, but that they do steer campus leaders toward Riddle & Bloom.

Ms. Gabriel said she hadn’t considered being a brand ambassador until, out of the blue, AT&T reached out to her via direct message on Instagram. She attributed the company’s interest to the down-to-earth photos she posts and the number of comments she gets.

“My follower-to-like ratio is probably something that caught their eye,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

B

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

Their Homework: Pushing Brands Online

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/technology/college-students-online-influencers.html |

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

[internetbasic9]

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter https://ift.tt/2oudnuY

Nature

Image

Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University, is asked to promote a variety of products on her social media accounts.CreditCreditMichelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Noah Lamfers, a senior at the University of Northern Iowa, had never tried a 5-Hour Energy drink. But he still signed up to promote the brand online, getting paid to post images of himself and bottles of the product on his personal Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. He tagged each one with #5houruintern.

Elizabeth Gabriel, a recent graduate of the University of Texas, posted a photo on Instagram of herself relaxing in her last year with a glass of wine and gazing at the latest Samsung tablet. It was one of 12 similar photos she posted for AT&T over 12 weeks. Her payment: a Samsung Galaxy smart watch and an Apple TV.

Alana Clark, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, is one of more than 200 college students across the country using their Instagram accounts to promote Victoria’s Secret Pink sportswear and undergarments. She also hands out free underwear on the quad.

Paying college students to push products is nothing new for companies. The exuberant undergraduate wearing a Nike cap and giving out samples is as common on American campuses as football fans tailgating at homecoming.

But now, like so much in the advertising world, the big action is online. As students return to campuses, they’re constantly checking their Instagram, Snapchat and other social media accounts — so companies are turning to many of them to promote products right alongside photos of family, friends and the new puppy.

For busy students, it is an easy, low-pressure way to make extra money or get free products. For marketers, it is a simple way to reach young people — a supplement to their other social media efforts, including hiring full-time promoters.

Image

The Virginia Tech senior Alana Clark is one of more than 200 college students across the country whom Victoria’s Secret uses to promote its Pink sportswear and underwear.

Though there are no comprehensive data for how many college students promote brands online, interviews with university officials, marketing consultants, brand representatives and students make it clear that the social media platform is big business on campus. Many of the deals are for Instagram posts, but some brands also have students posting on other services, like Twitter and Facebook.

Riddle & Bloom, a marketing agency specializing in building “meaningful relationships with millennial and Gen Z consumers,” employs students from more than 500 schools in all 50 states, according to its website.

On the Victoria’s Secret website, you can search for the names of its representatives at 100 campuses, in schools from Columbia University to Grand Valley State University.

At Virginia Tech, as many as 1,000 of the 30,000 undergrads are being paid to promote products as varied as mascara and storage bins, according to an estimate by Donna Wertalik, director of marketing for the university’s Pamplin College of Business.

“We see so many brands that have it,” Ms. Wertalik said. “A lot of start-up brands will do it. They’ll look for students with credibility and influence to give them credibility and influence.”

Ms. Wertalik oversees a student-run ad agency called Prism. Of the 45 undergrads employed there, she estimated, half are paid to promote products on Instagram.

Companies outline expectations for what the sponsored posts should include, such as specific hashtags or promotions for particular items. Many also ask students to hold or attend events on campus.

Isabel Senior, a student at Duke University, worked for LaCroix, the sparkling water company. Each week for six weeks, she had to post one Instagram photo, one Instagram story and one post on a platform like Facebook or Snapchat. She also gave out cans of LaCroix at campus events like five-kilometer races and university-sponsored concerts.

Every Sunday, Ms. Senior had to send in a form with three photos from her weekly sampling event, along with screenshots of her posts. The company paid her in money and LaCroix products, and if she didn’t complete a task, she said, it docked some of the pay.

The job isn’t always as simple as it may sound.

“I think the time commitment was what I expected,” said Annabelle Schmitt, a senior at Pennsylvania State University this fall, “but how hard it was I did not expect.”

Ms. Schmitt worked for Aerie, a lingerie retailer, along with three other Penn State students during the last school year. The company required that she post at least one Instagram photo, Instagram story and Snapchat post each week using the products, like sweatshirts and lounge pants, sent by the company.

Ms. Schmitt also hosted events like a swimsuit promotion that helped women find the best suit for their bodies, and a screening of a documentary about the singer Demi Lovato followed by a discussion about self-love.

Image

Ms. Schmitt said fulfilling her obligations to brands was harder than she expected. Besides posting on social media, she has hosted in-person events.

Creating the images took Ms. Schmitt at least two hours each week. She was paid with money and company products.

“Because I take my branding seriously for my personal blog,” she said, “I try to work with photographers to get really high quality.”

The payments to the so-called campus influencers appear to vary widely, from cash to merchandise, and brands say little about them.

Riddle & Bloom’s website says it pays out a total of $2 million to its campus representatives, but during an interview its president, Darren Ross, would not go into detail or confirm the website’s numbers.

Azita Peters’s work as a brand ambassador for Alex and Ani, a jewelry company, started off with a perk. Ms. Peters, a student at Virginia Tech, enjoyed an all-expenses-paid trip to Rhode Island, complete with free jewelry.

She and 12 other women from colleges like the University of Alabama and Ohio State University — “big state schools with football programs,” she said — spent three days at Alex and Ani headquarters there. They toured the work space and received instructions on curating their Instagram feeds.

Under Federal Trade Commission rules, people using their personal social media accounts to advertise products are supposed to disclose on their accounts the brands they represent. For instance, Ms. Gabriel tags AT&T in her posts while also including the hashtags #sponsored, #ad and #att.

But these guidelines are often ignored. In April 2017, the trade commission sent more than 90 letters to influencers and brands reminding them of the guidelines.

Image

Azita Peters of Virginia Tech was invited to visit the Rhode Island headquarters of the jewelry maker Alex and Ani when she started working for the company as a brand ambassador.

Companies use numerous methods to select campus influencers. Sometimes the students apply directly to the marketing agencies; sometimes the marketers identify the students.

Students can go to the Riddle & Bloom website and apply for one of the 2,000 “internships,” which last for a semester.

Some students land the job through old-fashioned networking. Ms. Senior, the student at Duke, heard about Riddle & Bloom through a sorority sister, who had posted a link to the online application in their sorority group chat.

And sometimes, students have no idea how they were selected.

Advertisers hire Riddle & Bloom for access to its database of student applicants. The company says it has a close working relationship with university officials through the National Association for Campus Activities, a trade association, noting that they even share an office in Columbia, S.C.

Representatives from the association say that they do not give out either personal or contact information about students without permission, but that they do steer campus leaders toward Riddle & Bloom.

Ms. Gabriel said she hadn’t considered being a brand ambassador until, out of the blue, AT&T reached out to her via direct message on Instagram. She attributed the company’s interest to the down-to-earth photos she posts and the number of comments she gets.

“My follower-to-like ratio is probably something that caught their eye,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

B

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

Their Homework: Pushing Brands Online

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://ift.tt/2MHFs0v |

Nature The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58