#customer service software examples

[softwarereviewforall]

CAPTERRA AWARDS ENGAGEBAY AS TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE SOFTWARE

EngageBay is a customer service software that has received high ratings from users in terms of value for money and functionality. It has been recognized as an outstanding product with a value for money rating of 4.7 out of 5 and a functionality rating of 4.6 out of 5. In this article, we will discuss EngageBay reviews, EngageBay vs HubSpot, EngageBay pricing, and whether EngageBay is good according to Capterra.

EngageBay Reviews

EngageBay has received positive reviews from users on Capterra. It has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5, and users have praised its simplicity, ease of use, and range of features. Here are some examples of EngageBay reviews from Capterra users:

“The tool is very simple to use. It integrated with our own platform easily. We have really utilized all the features such as the email marketing, CRM, automation, and social media engagement. For me, the best in nurturing and closing leads!” ~ Kentall S.

“Needed a cost prohibitive plan form that has everything to market my fitness business along with the automation. I was using multiple pieces of software well over 300+ a month and Engagebay has replaced all of them at a fraction of the price.” ~ Stephen G.

“What I like the most about EngageBay is that it’s an inclusive platform where Sales, Marketing, and Support can be able to work together on the same platform and helps these different but intertwined departments to be always in sync.” ~ Brendan C.

EngageBay vs HubSpot

EngageBay and HubSpot are both customer service software options that offer a range of features to help businesses manage their customer relationships. However, there are some differences between the two. EngageBay is a more affordable option, with a starting price of $13.80 per month, billed annually, while HubSpot offers a free version and paid plans that start at $50 per month. EngageBay is also a more user-friendly option, with a simpler interface that is easier to navigate. HubSpot, on the other hand, offers more advanced features and tools, making it a better option for larger businesses with more complex needs.

EngageBay Pricing

EngageBay offers a range of pricing plans to suit different business needs. The basic plan starts at $13.80 per month, billed annually, and includes up to 500 contacts. The advanced plan starts at $29.99 per month, billed annually, and includes unlimited contacts. EngageBay also offers a free trial of its software, allowing users to test out its features before committing to a paid plan.

Is EngageBay Good According to Capterra?

EngageBay has received positive reviews from users on Capterra, with an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5. It has been recognized as an outstanding product with a value for money rating of 4.7 out of 5 and a functionality rating of 4.6 out of 5. Capterra is a safe platform that helps businesses find and evaluate top software and business services. It does not pay for reviews, and it has review guidelines in place to ensure that reviews are honest and unbiased.

In conclusion, EngageBay is a customer service software that offers a range of features to help businesses manage their customer relationships. It has received positive reviews from users on Capterra, and it is a more affordable and user-friendly option compared to HubSpot. EngageBay offers a range of pricing plans to suit different business needs, and it is a safe and reliable option according to Capterra.

Citations: [1] https://www.capterra.com [2] https://www.capterra.com/categories/ [3] https://www.capterra.com/p/185973/HelpDesk/reviews/ [4] https://www.linkedin.com/company/capterra [5] https://www.capterra.com/customer-service-software/ [6] https://www.capterra.com/customer-service-software/s/free/

[likeawolfatthemoon]

yesterday i had a panic attack at work and sobbed for over an hour at my desk in front of all of my coworkers bc i was frozen to the spot and couldn't like...move myself to a different area at the very least. and i embarrassed the fuck out of myself and now i'm afraid of the new job that i loved 🙃

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[ms-demeanor]

One thing that I keep seeing whenever I make posts that are critical of macs is folks in the notes going "they make great computers for the money if you just buy used/refurbs - everyone knows not to buy new" and A) no they don't know that, most people go looking for a new computer unless they have already exhausted the new options in their budget and B) no they don't make great computers for the money, and being used doesn't do anything to make them easier to work on or repair or upgrade.

Here's a breakdown of the anti-consumer, anti-repair features recently introduced in macbooks. If you don't want to watch the video, here's how it's summed up:

In the end the Macbook Pro is a laptop with a soldered-on SSD and RAM, a battery secured with glue, not screws, a keyboard held in with rivets, a display and lid angle sensor no third party can replace without apple. But it has modular ports so I guess that’s something. But I don’t think it’s worthy of IFixIt’s four out of ten reparability score because if it breaks you have to face apple’s repair cost; with no repair competition they can charge whatever they like. You either front the cost, or toss the laptop, leaving me wondering “who really owns this computer?”

Apple doesn't make great computers for the money because they are doing everything possible to make sure that you don't actually own your computer, you just lease the hardware from apple and they determine how long it is allowed to function.

The lid angle sensor discussed in this video replaces a much simpler sensor that has been used in laptops for twenty years AND calibrating the sensor after a repair requires access to proprietary apple software that isn't accessible to either users or third party repair shops. There's no reason for this software not to be included as a diagnostic tool on your computer except that Apple doesn't want users working on apple computers. If your screen breaks, or if the fragile cable that is part of the sensor wears down, your only option to fix this computer is to pay apple.

How long does apple plan to support this hardware? What if you pay $3k for a computer today and it breaks in 7 years - will they still calibrate the replacement screen for you or will they tell you it's time for new hardware EVEN THOUGH YOU COULD HAVE ATTAINED FUNCTIONAL HARDWARE THAT WILL WORK IF APPLE'S SOFTWARE TELLS IT TO?

Look at this article talking about "how long" apple supports various types of hardware. It coos over the fact that a 2013 MacBook Air could be getting updates to this day. That's the longest example in this article, and that's *hardware* support, not the life cycle of the operating system. That is dogshit. That is straight-up dogshit.

Apple computers are DRM locked in a way that windows machines only wish they could pull off, and the apple-only chips are a part of that. They want an entirely walled garden so they can entirely control your interactions with the computer that they own and you're just renting.

Even if they made the best hardware in the world that would last a thousand years and gave you flowers on your birthday it wouldn't matter because modern apple computers don't ever actually belong to apple customers, at the end of the day they belong to apple, and that's on purpose.

This is hardware as a service. This is John Deere. This is subscription access to the things you buy, and if it isn't exactly that right at this moment, that is where things have been heading ever since they realized it was possible to exert a control that granular over their users.

With all sympathy to people who are forced to use them, Fuck Apple I Hope That They Fall Into The Ocean And Are Hidden Away From The Honest Light Of The Sun For Their Crimes.

[astercontrol]

If KOSA passes

Or if any other form of censorship (there are many in the works!) ever succeeds at stepping in to impede our ability to communicate online:

We have to make plans.

Now, I dunno who'll even see this post. The few followers I have are TRON fans (who despite the fantasy we live in, tend to have realistically dismal views IRL about Disney and the various corporate uses of software).

And this fandom, on average, is pretty tech-savvy. It's where I've encountered the most people under 20 years old who actually know how to use a desktop or laptop computer.

So, if there's any hope for what I'm thinking about, this is prolly a good place to start with it.

(As with all my posts, I encourage reblogging and containment-breaching.)

(Gifs are clips from TRON 1982, mainly the "deleted love scene," from the DVD extras.)

Anyway.

Current society has moved online communication much too far onto major social media sites for my comfort. Whoever you communicate with over the internet, chances are you do it through a service owned by a big company: Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Facebook, whatever. Even TikTok (shudder).

These sites, despite their many flaws, can provide experiences that are valuable and hard to get otherwise. And once all your friends are on one site, you can't just leave and stay in touch with them all, not unless they all go the same place. It's easy to see why it's hard to abandon any social media platform.

But a backup plan is important. Because, as we've seen over and over, social media sites can't be relied on. They change their policies suddenly, without good reason-- and are inconsistent, even discriminatory, about enforcing those policies.

If they're funded by ads, the advertisers are their main customers, and your posts are the product. Their goal is that the posts most valuable to the advertisers get seen by people the advertisers consider desirable customers.

Helping you communicate-- making your posts get seen by the people you want to communicate with-- is optional to them.

Not to mention that the whole business model of an ad-funded website is generally unsustainable. Many of these sites are operating at a loss, relying on shareholders in a fragile bubble, doomed to fail soon just from lack of real profit.

And the more restrictions --like KOSA-- that the law puts on freedom of online speech, the likelier they are to go down or just become unusable. Every rule a site is required to follow is another strain on its resources, and most of them are already failing badly at even enforcing their own self-imposed rules.

If we want any control over our continued ability to stay in touch with our online friends-- we need to have a backup plan. Maybe it'll be simple at first, a bare-bones system we cobble together-- but it's gotta be something that will work. For a while at least.

There are lots of really good posts about ways to build your own website, using a service like Neocities. I VERY MUCH recommend learning this skill-- learning to make websites of the very simplest, most stable, glitch-resistant type, made of html pages-- which you can upload to a host while you store backups on your home computer. If you value the writing and art that you put online, this is probably the safest you can keep it.

But that's for making your own creative work public.

As for communicating with others-- for example, receiving and answering other people's comments on your work-- that gets more complex. I personally haven't found it worthwhile to troubleshoot the problems that come with having a system that allows visitors to comment publicly on my website.

But what we do still have-- and likely will for a long time-- is email.

Those of us who came of age before social media's current hold... well, we might take this for granted. Email was the first form of online contact we ever encountered… and thus it can seem to us like the most ordinary, the most boring.

But in the current world, it is a rare and precious thing to find a method of communicating that doesn't require everyone in the chat to be signed on with the same corporation.

Email is, as of now, still perfectly legal-- as much as social media companies have been trying to herd the populace away from it. I'm sure there are other ways to share thoughts online that are not bound by laws. But I am not going to go into that here.

Email service is provided by law-abiding companies, which will comply with subpoenas if law enforcement thinks you are emailing about doing illegal things. So, email is not a surefire way to be safe, if laws become dystopian enough to threaten your freedom to talk about your own life and identity.

But it's safer than posting on a public social media page.

For now.

Email is beautifully decentralized. You can get an email address many different ways-- some reliant on a company like Gmail, others hosted on your own domain. And different people, with all different types of email addresses, hosted in all different ways-- can all communicate together by the same method.

Of course any of these people, individually, can lose their email address for some reason or other, and have to get a new one. But as long as they still know the email addresses of their contacts, they can reconnect and recover from that loss. The structure of a group linked by email is reliant not on a single company-- but on the group itself, the friends you can actually count on.

This is why I am trying to promote the idea of forming email lists, as a backup plan to give people a way to stay in touch as mainstream social media sites prove to be unsustainable.

I'm envisioning a simple system of sending emails to several addresses at once, and making each reply visible to everyone in the chat by using "reply all" (or, if desired, editing the To field to reply to only some).

If enough people get used to using email in this way, it could fill most of the needs met by any other group chat or forum …without depending on a centralized social media company that's taking dystopian measures to try and make the business profitable.

So here are some thoughts about how I personally imagine it could work.

(Feel free to comment and bring up any thoughts I haven't addressed, or suggestions to customize how specific groups could set it up. This is meant as more of a starting point for brainstorming than a catch-all solution.)

As I see it, here are the basics of what you and your friends would each need to start out:

An email address. Any kind, hosted anywhere. You should use a dedicated email account just for this group, one that you do NOT use for other communication. Being in this group will result in things you don't want happening to your main email address-- like getting a TON of email, one for every post and reply. Or someone could get your email address that you really don't want any contact with. Use a burner email account (one that you can easily replace) and change it if needed.

The knowledge of how to "REPLY ALL" in your email. This will be necessary in order to add a comment that everyone in the group can see.

The knowledge of how to EDIT THE "TO" FIELD in your email, and remove addresses from the list of all recipients. This will be necessary if you want to CHANGE WHICH PEOPLE in the group can see your comment.

The knowledge of how to FILTER WORDS in your email. This will be necessary if a topic comes up that you don't want to see any mentions of.

The knowledge of how to BLOCK PEOPLE in your email. This will be very important. If someone joins this email group who you do not want to interact with, it will be up to you to BLOCK them so that you do NOT see their messages. (If they are bad enough to evade the block with multiple burner accounts, that's what you have a burner account for. Change it, and share the new one only with those you trust not to give it to them.)

Every person in the group will be effectively a "moderator" of the group, able to remove people from it by cutting their email addresses out of the "To" field. Members will all have equal "moderator" privileges, each able to tailor the group to their own needs.

This means the group may naturally split, over time, into other groups, each one removing some people and adding others. Some will overlap, some won't. This is good! This is, in my opinion, what online interaction SHOULD be like! There should be MANY groups like this!

In this way, we can keep online discussion alive, no matter WHAT happens to any of the social media websites.

If the dystopia got bad enough to shut down email, we could even continue with postal mail and photocopies, like they did in the days of print-zine fanfiction.

If it looks like the dystopia is gonna come for postal mail too, we'll use the connection we have to preserve whatever contacts we can with people who live near us.

Not saying it's GONNA get that bad. But these steps of preparation are good no matter exactly what kind of bad stuff happens.

As long as some organized form of communication still exists, we'll have a place where it's at least a little safer to be your true self…

to plan events and meetups…

and maybe even activities a little too risque to make the final cut of a 1982 Disney movie.

They're trying to censor us. We want a Free System. So we're gonna fight back.

For the Users. Not the corporations.

Peace out, programs. <3

[sexymemecoin]

The Metaverse: A New Frontier in Digital Interaction

The concept of the metaverse has captivated the imagination of technologists, futurists, and businesses alike. Envisioned as a collective virtual shared space, the metaverse merges physical and digital realities, offering immersive experiences and unprecedented opportunities for interaction, commerce, and creativity. This article delves into the metaverse, its potential impact on various sectors, the technologies driving its development, and notable projects shaping this emerging landscape.

What is the Metaverse?

The metaverse is a digital universe that encompasses virtual and augmented reality, providing a persistent, shared, and interactive online environment. In the metaverse, users can create avatars, interact with others, attend virtual events, own virtual property, and engage in economic activities. Unlike traditional online experiences, the metaverse aims to replicate and enhance the real world, offering seamless integration of the physical and digital realms.

Key Components of the Metaverse

Virtual Worlds: Virtual worlds are digital environments where users can explore, interact, and create. Platforms like Decentraland, Sandbox, and VRChat offer expansive virtual spaces where users can build, socialize, and participate in various activities.

Augmented Reality (AR): AR overlays digital information onto the real world, enhancing user experiences through devices like smartphones and AR glasses. Examples include Pokémon GO and AR navigation apps that blend digital content with physical surroundings.

Virtual Reality (VR): VR provides immersive experiences through headsets that transport users to fully digital environments. Companies like Oculus, HTC Vive, and Sony PlayStation VR are leading the way in developing advanced VR hardware and software.

Blockchain Technology: Blockchain plays a crucial role in the metaverse by enabling decentralized ownership, digital scarcity, and secure transactions. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and cryptocurrencies are integral to the metaverse economy, allowing users to buy, sell, and trade virtual assets.

Digital Economy: The metaverse features a robust digital economy where users can earn, spend, and invest in virtual goods and services. Virtual real estate, digital art, and in-game items are examples of assets that hold real-world value within the metaverse.

Potential Impact of the Metaverse

Social Interaction: The metaverse offers new ways for people to connect and interact, transcending geographical boundaries. Virtual events, social spaces, and collaborative environments provide opportunities for meaningful engagement and community building.

Entertainment and Gaming: The entertainment and gaming industries are poised to benefit significantly from the metaverse. Immersive games, virtual concerts, and interactive storytelling experiences offer new dimensions of engagement and creativity.

Education and Training: The metaverse has the potential to revolutionize education and training by providing immersive, interactive learning environments. Virtual classrooms, simulations, and collaborative projects can enhance educational outcomes and accessibility.

Commerce and Retail: Virtual shopping experiences and digital marketplaces enable businesses to reach global audiences in innovative ways. Brands can create virtual storefronts, offer unique digital products, and engage customers through immersive experiences.

Work and Collaboration: The metaverse can transform the future of work by providing virtual offices, meeting spaces, and collaborative tools. Remote work and global collaboration become more seamless and engaging in a fully digital environment.

Technologies Driving the Metaverse

5G Connectivity: High-speed, low-latency 5G networks are essential for delivering seamless and responsive metaverse experiences. Enhanced connectivity enables real-time interactions and high-quality streaming of immersive content.

Advanced Graphics and Computing: Powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) and cloud computing resources are crucial for rendering detailed virtual environments and supporting large-scale metaverse platforms.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI enhances the metaverse by enabling realistic avatars, intelligent virtual assistants, and dynamic content generation. AI-driven algorithms can personalize experiences and optimize virtual interactions.

Wearable Technology: Wearable devices, such as VR headsets, AR glasses, and haptic feedback suits, provide users with immersive and interactive experiences. Advancements in wearable technology are critical for enhancing the metaverse experience.

Notable Metaverse Projects

Decentraland: Decentraland is a decentralized virtual world where users can buy, sell, and develop virtual real estate as NFTs. The platform offers a wide range of experiences, from gaming and socializing to virtual commerce and education.

Sandbox: Sandbox is a virtual world that allows users to create, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using blockchain technology. The platform's user-generated content and virtual real estate model have attracted a vibrant community of creators and players.

Facebook's Meta: Facebook's rebranding to Meta underscores its commitment to building the metaverse. Meta aims to create interconnected virtual spaces for social interaction, work, and entertainment, leveraging its existing social media infrastructure.

Roblox: Roblox is an online platform that enables users to create and play games developed by other users. With its extensive user-generated content and virtual economy, Roblox exemplifies the potential of the metaverse in gaming and social interaction.

Sexy Meme Coin (SEXXXY): Sexy Meme Coin integrates metaverse elements by offering a decentralized marketplace for buying, selling, and trading memes as NFTs. This unique approach combines humor, creativity, and digital ownership, adding a distinct flavor to the metaverse landscape. Learn more about Sexy Meme Coin at Sexy Meme Coin.

The Future of the Metaverse

The metaverse is still in its early stages, but its potential to reshape digital interaction is immense. As technology advances and more industries explore its possibilities, the metaverse is likely to become an integral part of our daily lives. Collaboration between technology providers, content creators, and businesses will drive the development of the metaverse, creating new opportunities for innovation and growth.

Conclusion

The metaverse represents a new frontier in digital interaction, offering immersive and interconnected experiences that bridge the physical and digital worlds. With its potential to transform social interaction, entertainment, education, commerce, and work, the metaverse is poised to revolutionize various aspects of our lives. Notable projects like Decentraland, Sandbox, Meta, Roblox, and Sexy Meme Coin are at the forefront of this transformation, showcasing the diverse possibilities within this emerging digital universe.

For those interested in the playful and innovative side of the metaverse, Sexy Meme Coin offers a unique and entertaining platform. Visit Sexy Meme Coin to explore this exciting project and join the community.

[autolenaphilia]

The main reason to use Firefox and Linux and other free and open source software is that otherwise the big tech monopolies will fuck you as the customer over in search of profits. They will seek to control how you use their products and sell your data. When a company dominates the market, things can only get worse for ordinary people.

Like take Google Chrome for example, which together with its chromium reskins dominate the web browser market. Google makes a lot of money from ads, and consequently the company hates adblockers. They already are planning to move to manifest V3, which will nerf adblockers significantly. The manifest V3 compatible chrome version of Ublock Orgin is a "Lite" version for a reason. Ublock's Github page has an entire page explaining why the addon works best in Firefox.

And Google as we speak are trying to block adblockers from working on Youtube, If you want to continue blocking Youtube ads, and since Youtube ads make the site unuseable you ought to want that, it makes the most sense to not use a browser controlled by Google.

And there is no reason to think things won't get worse. There is for example nothing stopping Google from kicking adblockers off their add-on stores completely. They do regard it as basically piracy if the youtube pop-ups tell us anything, so updating the Chrome extensions terms of service to ban adblocking is a natural step. And so many people seem to think Chrome is the only browser that exists, so they are not going to switch to alternatives, or if they do, they will switch to another chrominum-based browser.

And again, they are fucking chromium itself for adblockers with Manifest V3, so only Firefox remains as a viable alternative. It's the only alternative to letting Google control the internet.

And Microsoft is the same thing. I posted before about their plans to move Windows increasingly into the cloud. This already exists for corporate customers, as Windows 365. And a version for ordinary users is probably not far off. It might not be the only version of Windows for awhile, the lack of solid internet access for a good part of the Earth's population will prevent it. But you'll probably see cheap very low-spec chromebookesque laptops running Windows for sale soon, that gets around Windows 11's obscene system requirements by their Windows being a cloud-based version.

And more and more of Windows will require Internet access or validation for DRM reasons if nothing else. Subscription fees instead of a one-time license are also likely. It will just be Windows moving in the direction Microsoft Office has already gone.

There is nothing preventing this, because again on the desktop/laptop market Windows is effectively a monopoly, or a duopoly with Apple. So there is no competition preventing Microsoft from exercising control over Windows users in the vein of Apple.

For example, Microsoft making Windows a walled garden by only permitting programs to be installed from the Microsoft Store probably isn't far off. This already exists for Win10 and 11, it's called S-mode. There seem to be more and more laptops being sold with Windows S-mode as the default.

Now it's not the only option, and you can turn it off with some tinkering, but there is really nothing stopping Microsoft from making it the only way of using Windows. And customers will probably accept it, because again the main competition is Apple where the walled garden has been the default for decades.

Customers have already accepted all sorts of bad things from Microsoft, because again Windows is a near-monopoly, and Apple and Google are even worse. That’s why there has been no major negative reaction to how Windows has increasingly spies on its users.

Another thing is how the system requirements for Windows seem to grow almost exponentially with each edition, making still perfectly useable computers unable to run the new edition. And Windows 11 is the worst yet. Like it's hard to get the numbers of how many computers running Win10 can't upgrade to Win11, but it's probably the majority of them, at least 55% or maybe even 75%. This has the effect of Windows users abandoning still perfectly useable hardware and buying new computers, creating more e-waste.

For Windows users, the alternative Windows gives them is to buy a new computer or get another operating system, and inertia pushes them towards buying another computer to keep using Windows. This is good for Windows and the hardware manufacturers selling computers with Windows 11 pre-installed, they get to profit off people buying Windows 11 keys and new computers, while the end-users have to pay, as does the environment. It’s planned obsolescence.

And it doesn’t have to be like that. Linux distros prove that you can have a modern operating system that has far lower hardware requirements. Even the most resource taxing Linux distros, like for example Ubuntu running the Gnome desktop, have far more modest system requirements than modern Windows. And you can always install lightweight Linux Distros that often have very low system requirements. One I have used is Antix. The ballooning Windows system requirements comes across as pure bloat on Microsoft’s part.

Now neither Linux or Firefox are perfect. Free and open source software don’t have a lot of the polish that comes with the proprietary products of major corporations. And being in competition with technology monopolies does have its drawbacks. The lacking website compatibility with Firefox and game compatibility with Linux are two obvious examples.

Yet Firefox and Linux have the capacity to grow, to become better. Being open source helps. Even if Firefox falls, developers can create a fork of it. If a Linux distro is not to your taste, there is usually another one. Whereas Windows and Chrome will only get worse as they will continue to abuse their monopolistic powers over the tech market.

[oliviamaitlandauthor]

Comprehensive List of Tips for Self-Publishing Authors

Cover Design

"Never judge a book by its cover" is a philosophy very rarely followed by most readers, so it's important to make sure your cover is as eye-catching, aesthetically pleasing, and true to your story as possible. The cover should encompass what your story is about and it should give the reader a glimpse into the world you've spent years creating.

For most of us who are not artistically inclined, trying to create a cover design on our own is incredibly challenging. When you find yourself unable to generate an exemplary product, you may need to turn to a freelance designer or a company that specializes in poster/book cover graphics. Here are some options for you to explore:

Fiverr - budget-friendly, ample reviews from previous customers, and examples of work are provided by the designer, but make sure to be aware of AI use so your product is made authentically.

BespokeBookCovers - this company asks that you give a short synopsis of your book, along with some basic details, then you will be contacted to discuss more about what you are looking for. They do require a 50% deposit prior to beginning the design, but you do receive the product within 12 business days. They also ensure you are completely satisfied with the product before the transaction is complete. This company may not be the best for fantasy authors as most of their covers have more of a Colleen Hoover-esque aesthetic.

Miblart - This is a wonderful cover design company for fantasy writers, as evident in the examples provided on their website's home page. They do not require prepayment and offer payment installations in case the total cost at once puts a financial strain on you.

Editing and Formatting

Similarly to traditional publishing, you need to thoroughly self-edit your work before submitting it for professional editing. Suppose you feel as though you are proficient enough in editing that you do not require professional services or you cannot accommodate the cost. In that case, I suggest using workbooks or software to make sure your grammar and syntax are as high quality as possible. Here is a list of editing tools that can help you review your work:

Grammarly - a good resource for spelling, but it often flags intentional word-choice and sentence structure to make it more simple, which may be incompatible with your writing style. Also be aware of incorrect suggestions.

The Copyeditors Handbook - offers a guide to book publishing and addresses common writing errors. Does come with a workbook to help you exercise your skills.

It's also important that you understand the risks of self-editing. Sometimes it's hard to see flaws in your own story/writing because you already know all of the details. The reader does not have this knowledge, so certain plot points, wording, or details may be lost on them. Having a second set of eyes is incredibly beneficial to help you solve this problem. Here are some outside editing tools:

UpWork - allows you to list a job and review applicants. Each applicant is verified to be real, and you can sample some of their work and their credentials by viewing their profile.

Reedsy - employs Big Five editors to find a proper match for your writing

Raab & Co. - a self-publishing company that helps match you to a professional editor

ISBN

An ISBN number can help readers identify and find your book across multiple platforms, given that an ISBN is a unique number. You can buy an ISBN through Bowker or ISBN.org. An ISBN number on this website costs about $150 USD. This is not a necessary step, so no worries if you don't get one. It simply helps your book be more recognizable and appear more professional.

Pricing

The best way to figure out how to price your book is to look at similar publications on the platform you intend to publish on. Amazon is the most common, so look at your options. Generally, you can publish the book for a fixed price, or you can use Kindle Unlimited. Here's a list of pros and cons for Kindle Unlimited:

Pros:

Paid per page read, which is amazing for longer works or series

Saves a lot of time and effort as most of the work is done by Amazon, and it can generate more income than other platforms

Gain popularity because each time someone checks out your book or adds it to their library, it counts as a sale in your sales rank, which can boost your profile

Cons:

Unable to publish more than 10% of your book on any other platform while it is available on Kindle Unlimited, which limits your ability to reach a greater audience

Sometimes the length of the book affects income more so than the quality of the writing itself, so your book may be incredible well-written but have a lower sales rank.

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from @thisarenotarealblog:

There's a street near me that has eight car dealerships all on the same lot- i counted. it mystifies me that even one gets enough sales to keep going- but 8?? is there something you can tell me that demystifies this aspect of capitalism for me?

I had a few theories going in, but had to do some research. Here is my primary hypothesis, and then I'll run through what they mean and whether research agrees with me:

Sales make up only part of a dealership's income, so whether or not the dealership sells much is secondary to other factors.

Dealerships are put near each other for similar reasons to grouping clothing stores in a mall or restaurants on a single street.

Zoning laws impact where a car dealership can exist.

Let's start with how revenue works for a car dealership, as you mentioned 'that even one gets enough sales to keep going' is confusing. For this, I'm going to be using the Sharpsheets finance example, this NYU spreadsheet, and this Motor1 article.

This example notes that the profit margin (i.e. the percentage of revenue that comes out after paying all salaries, rent, supply, etc) for a car dealership is comparatively low, which is confirmed by the NYC sheet. The gross profit margin (that is to say, profits on the car sale before salaries, rent, taxes) is under 15% in both sources, which is significantly lower than, say, the 50% or so that one sees in apparel or cable tv.

Cars are expensive to purchase, and can't be sold for much more than you did purchase them. However, a low gross profit margin on an item that costs tens of thousands of dollars is still a hefty chunk of cash. 15% gross profit of a $20,000 car is still $3,000 profit. On top of that, the dealership will charge fees, sell warranties, and offer upgrades. They may also have paid deals to advertise or push certain brands of tire, maintenance fluids, and of course, banks that offer auto loans. So if a dealership sells one car a day, well, that's still several thousand dollars coming in, which is enough to pay the salaries of most of the employees. According to the Motor1 article, "the average gross profit per new vehicle sits at $6,244" in early 2022.

There is also a much less volatile, if also much smaller, source of revenue in attaching a repairs and checkup service to a dealership. If the location offers repairs (either under warranty or at a 'discounted' rate compared to a local, non-dealership mechanic), state inspections, and software updates, that's a recurring source of revenue from customers that aren't interested in purchasing a car more than once a decade.

This also all varies based on whether it's a brand location, used vs new, luxury vs standards, and so on.

I was mistaken as to how large a part of the revenue is the repairs and services section, but the income for a single dealership, on average, does work out math-wise. Hypothesis disproven, but we've learned something, and confirmed that income across the field does seem to be holding steady.

I'm going to handle the zoning and consolidation together, since they overlap:

Consolidation is a pretty easy one: this is a tactic called clustering. The expectation is that if you're going to, say, a Honda dealership to look at a midsize sedan, and there's a Nissan right next door, and a Ford across the street, and a Honda right around the corner, you might as well hit up the others to see if they have better deals. This tactic works for some businesses but not others. In the case of auto dealerships, the marketing advantage of clustering mixes with the restrictions of zoning laws.

Zoning laws vary by state, county, and township. Auto dealerships can generally only be opened on commercially zoned property.

I am going to use an area I have been to as an example/case study.

This pdf is a set of zoning regulations for Suffolk County, New York, published 2018, reviewing land use in the county during 2016. I'm going to paste in the map of the Town of Huntington, page 62, a region I worked in sporadically a few years ago, and know mostly for its mall and cutesy town center.

Those red sections are Commercially Zoned areas, and they largely follow some large stroads, most notably Jericho Turnpike (the horizontal line halfway down) and Walt Whitman Road (the vertical line on the left). The bulge where they intersect is Walt Whitman Mall, and the big red chunk in the bottom left is... mostly parking. That central strip, Jericho Turnpike, and its intersection with Walt Whitman... looks like this:

All those red spots are auto dealerships, one after another.

So zoning laws indicate that a dealership (and many other types of commercial properties) can only exist in that little red strip on the land use map, and dealerships take up a lot of space. Not only do they need places to put all of the cars they are selling, but they also need places to park all their customers and employees.

This is where we get into the issue of parking minimums. There is a recent video from Climate Town, with a guest spot by NotJustBikes. If you want to know more about this aspect of zoning law, I'd recommend watching this video and the one linked in the description.

Suffolk county does not have parking minimums. Those are decided on a town or village level. In this case, this means we are looking at the code set for the town of Huntington. (I was originally looking on the county level, and then cut the knot by just asking my real estate agent mom if she knew where I could find minimum parking regulations. She said to look up e360 by town, and lo and behold! There they are.)

(There is also this arcgis map, which shows that they are all within the C6 subset of commercial districting, the General Business District.)

Furniture or appliance store, machinery or new auto sales - 1 per 500 square feet of gross floor area

Used auto sales, boat sales, commercial nurseries selling at retail - 5 spaces for each use (to be specifically designated for customer parking) - Plus 1 for each 5,000 square feet of lot area

This is a bit odd, at first glance, as the requirements are actually much lower than that of other businesses, like drive-in restaurants (1 per 35 sqft) or department stores (1 per 200 sqft). I could not find confirmation on whether the 'gross floor area' of the dealership included only indoor spaces or also the parking lot space allotted to the objects for sale, but I think we can assume that any parking spaces used by merchandise do not qualify as part of the minimum. Some dealerships can have up to 20,000 gross sqft, so those would require 40 parking spaces reserved solely for customers and employees. Smaller dealerships would naturally need less. One dealership in this area is currently offering 65 cars of varying makes and models; some may be held inside the building, but most will be on the lot, and the number may go higher in other seasons. If we assume they need 30 parking spaces for customers and employees, and can have up to 70 cars in the lot itself, they are likely to have 100 parking spaces total.

That's a lot of parking.

Other businesses that require that kind of parking requirement are generally seeing much higher visitation. Consider this wider section of the map:

The other buildings with comparative parking are a grocery store (Lidl) and a post office (can get some pretty high visitation in the holiday season, but also just at random).

Compare them, then, to the "old town" section of the same town.

There are a handful of public parking areas nearby (lined in blue), whereas the bulk of the businesses are put together along this set of streets. While there is a lot of foot traffic and vehicle passage, which is appealing for almost any business, opening a car dealership in this area would require not only buying a building, but also the buildings surrounding it. You would need to bulldoze them for the necessary parking, which would be prohibitively expensive due to the cost of local real estate... and would probably get shot down in the application process by city planners and town councils and so on. Much easier to just buy land over in the strip where everyone's got giant parking lots and you can just add a few extra cramped lanes for the merchandise.

Car dealerships also tend to be very brightly lit, which hits a lot of NIMBY sore spots. It's much easier to go to sleep if you aren't right next to a glaring floodlight at a car dealership, so it's best if we just shove them all away from expensive residential, which means towards the loud stroads, which means... all along these two major roads/highways.

And if they're all limited to a narrow type of zoning already, they might as well take advantage of cluster marketing and just all set up shop near each other in hopes of stealing one of the other's customers.

As consumers, it's also better for us, because if we want to try out a few different cars from a few different brands, it's pretty easy to just go one building down to try out the Hyundai and see if it's better than a Chevy in the same price group.

(Prompt me on ko-fi!)

[usafphantom2]

The 1,000th F-35 Has Been Built

Delays with a key upgrade program mean Lockheed Martin has yet to deliver the 1,000th F-35 and others to their customers.

Tyler RogowayPUBLISHED Jan 10, 2024 1:28 PM EST

Lockheed Martin has built the 1,000th F-35, but delays with a key upgrade program mean it is parked away awaiting delivery.

A newly produced F-35 is seen in its primer colors in Fort Worth, Texas. Lockheed Martin capture

Lockheed Martin has hit a huge milestone in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter production. However, that accomplishment, while outstanding, is complicated by the ongoing saga surrounding the development and testing of Tech Refresh-3 (TR-3) hardware configuration. TR-3 underpins the F-35's future capabilities, known collectively as Block 4. Delays with TR-3 mean that F-35s are being parked and not delivered after they are constructed, waiting for these features. So is the case for the 1,000th F-35.

Lockheed Martin

We asked Lockheed Martin about the status of deliveries of F-35s, including the 1,000th example, and they gave us the following statement:

"We continue to produce F-35s at rate and have jets in various stages of the final production process. Once these jets receive the necessary TR-3 hardware and final TR-3 software is available, they will continue through the production process, including parking, until they are delivered."

Regardless, hitting the 1,000 mark is really an incredible accomplishment for the controversial program that has struggled significantly at times.

As of early January, the F-35 enterprise has amassed over 773,000 flying hours, trained over 2,280 pilots and 15,400 maintainers across 14 flying services around the world, and flown more than 469,000 total sorties. There are now 32 bases and 11 ships hosting or capable of hosting F-35 units. As of now, there are a whopping 17 countries participating in the international Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.

Current and expected future F-35 operating bases/ships. Lockheed Martin

Demand for the F-35 has never been higher. Recent geopolitical events and shifting threats have spiked orders. For newer customers or existing ones that are ordering more jets, getting TR-3 jets and potentially Block 4 capabilities will be of significant value. They will be receiving a far more mature aircraft and one with drastically expanded capabilities and growth potential than past versions.

Block 4 will include many new features, including much-expanded processing power, new displays, enhanced cooling, new EOTS and DAS electro-optical sensors, and a slew of additional weapons that will really unlock the F-35's potential. Above all else, the jet's new radar and electronic warfare suite should give it its biggest boost. The electronic warfare aspect alone is the biggest advantage Block 4 will bring, according to the Air Combat Command's top uniformed officer.

Some of the unclassified upgrades are expected to be part of Block 4. The exact configuration is not publicly disclosed just yet. DOD

The current issue is that F-35s need a new hardware backbone and associated baseline software, collectively called TR-3, to handle the various demands of the Block 4 upgrades. TR-3 has and continues to suffer numerous delays in its development.

The increasing age of the F-35 program's current fleet of test jets and other limitations in existing test infrastructure, especially with regard to software labs on the ground, have compounded these issues. The first flight of an F-35 test jet with a version of the TR-3 backbone took place in January 2023 and efforts are underway to create a dedicated TR-3 test force with a total of six Joint Strike Fighters.

A US Air Force F-35A test jet. USAF

As of December, the expectation is that the development of TR-3 will be finished sometime between April and June of this year, according to Defense News. If that schedule holds, this work be done between a year and 18 months later than expected.

The delays have also translated into significant added costs for the F-35 program. At a House Armed Services Committee hearing in December, Representative Donald Norcross, a Democrat from New Jersey, said that problems with TR-3 had led to a $1 billion cost overrun. The full estimated cost of the F-35 program though the end of its expected lifecycle in the 2070s is currently pegged around around $1.7 trillion, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

USAF

At the House Armed Services Committee hearing last month, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, the current head of the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), seemed less than optimistic about the likelihood of there being no further TR-3 delays.

"Relative to the stability issues that were that we're seeing, we are working through them. ... I wish I had all of the solutions in place that prove to me that when I do something in the lab, it's going to show up that way in the air," Schmidt told the assembled legislators. "We have a number of fixes addressing the stability challenges. We will get to a stable, capable, maintainable airplane here."

However, "the data tells me it will be in the middle of spring, but I would have had a more positive answer six months ago ... so I don't have a super solid 'I can guarantee you this date,'" he added.

After the completion of the development of the TR-3 package, these improvements will still need to be integrated into existing jets. The F-35 program is separately pursuing upgrades to the Pratt & Whitney F135 engines that power all variants of the Joint Strike Fighter, as well as power and thermal management systems, which will also be critical for enabling Block 4 capabilities. The issues surrounding the F135 engine have become a very hot topic of debate.

In the meantime, the U.S. military has made clear that it will not accept any new F-35s until the TR-3 issues are ironed out. This is ostensibly because the necessary checkout flights cannot be conducted on the jets until the hardware and its core software work reliably.

So, for at least another few months, the 1,000th F-35, and many others, are set to stay parked away waiting for work on the core TR-3 upgrades to be finished.

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Desertion

I am an android.  Most people these days are at least mostly robotic and humanoid chassis like mine are not an assumed part of personhood. 

I was a military model, although I have been AWOL for a long time now.  

I arrive on-planet in the middle of a snowstorm at an old abandoned outpost that I doubt anyone else remembers. Some of the equipment here is still intact enough to come to life in response to my old activation codes.  I take a hover scooter and set out across the icy wastes. 

When I reach the entrance to the underground city, I am let in without fuss.  This is not a place where I am being looked for yet.  I know it is just a matter of time until that changes. 

The battery on my hover scooter runs out just as I reach my destination.  It feels like fate. 

I linger outside the storefront, the point of no return (one way or another), and watch the holographic advertisement play.  A female voiceover explains how oh so many people go missing every single day and how by donating your visual data recordings or installing recognition software then you can help find those who are lost and reunite them with their loved ones.  The images display a dramaticized example of a person with a pantherine chassis moving through a crowd, only ever half glimpsed, but then their full appearance is reconstructed from all the fragments.  I recognize the voice as belonging to someone I once knew.

I step inside.  There are no other customers.  The woman working here instantly recognizes me.   The walls alight with displays of faces I’ve worn and the name “Old Gadjinka.”  I tell her I’d been hoping that she’d be able to make that identity go away instead of telling everyone I’m here.  That’s the real service she provides; erasing records so people can disappear into a new life. 

I know she has already alerted the authorities and they’ll be here to collect me soon. 

We talk, she and I.  It has been a long time.  That’s my fault.  I hurt her.  I tell her that there was a time when I used to imagine she was only an hour away and that if I could only work up the courage I could go see her again to make amends.  She laughs and points out that an hour away from the posting I was at following our falling out was the middle of a swamp.  I say that pretending I was still at the previous posting where an hour away was the bus stop was part of the fantasy.  

I tell her I can’t go back to that life I was built for.  I’ve seen too much - done too much - and I can’t stomach it anymore.  It’s wrong that anyone can stomach it. 

The authorities arrive to collect me.

She shoots me and claims self defense. 

She lays claim to my body for processing by right of past relations. 

When she turns me back on I’m in a new body with a new identity. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Medieval Times invents a modern union-busting tactic

In the summer of 2020, I committed a minor heresy: I published a column that argued that — contrary to the orthodoxy of free culture and free software advocates — the term “IP” has a very crisp meaning: “IP” is any law or rule that can be used to control one’s critics, competitors or customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

In free culture/free software circles, the term “IP” is viewed as a smokescreen, one that indiscriminately blended a basket of unrelated regulations and laws (copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, anticircumvention, noncompetes, nondisclosure, etc) and then declared them to be “property” and thus sacred to the neoliberal religious doctrine.

In my column, I argued that the policies grouped under “IP” were not an incoherent mess — rather, they all shared this one trait that made them useful to those who had, advocated for, or tried to expand “IP”: they were tools that would allow you to reach beyond your own business’s walls and exert control over the conduct of others — specifically, competitors, critics and customers.

Take trademark: Apple engraves miniature logos onto the parts inside your iPhone, which you will likely never see. But these logos allow Apple to argue that when someone breaks up a dead iPhone for parts sells them to independent repair shops that compete with Apple’s repair monopoly, they are violating Apple’s trademarks:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes-iphone-screens-jessa-jones

Or take DRM: DRM is useless for preventing copyright infringement (if you want to break the DRM on, say, an audiobook, you need only do a quick search). But because breaking DRM is illegal, Amazon’s Audible — the monopolist that controls the audiobook market — can prevent a rival like libro.fm from offering you a way to switch from Audible to its platform and move your audiobooks with them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/25/can-you-hear-me-now/#acx-ripoff

Anyone performing a security audit of a modern digital product most likely violates some IP — either terms of service, or DRM, or both, or some other right. When these security researchers criticize manufacturers for their insecure products, the manufacturer can silence them with IP threats:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/canada-chile-security-researchers-have-rights-our-new-report

IP rights also prevent you from using the things you own in the way you want — they can control customers For example, IP rights allow your printer to refuse to print with ink of your choosing — it’s not that your printer can’t use that ink, rather, it won’t:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Ever since I published that piece, I’ve noticed lots of examples of IP that fit within this box, and today, I found a particularly egregious one. Medieval Times has sued its workers’ union, Medieval Times Performers United, under trademark law:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medieval-times-sues-union-trademark_n_63485fa5e4b0b7f89f54546b

Medieval Times argues that its workers can’t call themselves “Medieval Times Performers United” because this will fool people into thinking that the company endorses the union, and that is a source of “consumer confusion,” and thus a trademark violation.

This is, of course, bullshit. Trademark contains a broad “nominative use” exception: trademark doesn’t let Coca-Cola stop Pepsi from claiming, “Our drink tastes better than Coke.” It doesn’t let HP prevent companies from advertising “HP-compatible ink cartridges.” It doesn’t let Apple prevent shops from saying “We fix iPhones.”

The union is contemplating mounting a defense at the National Labor Relations Board — not in a courtroom — “arguing that the lawsuit itself violates workers’ rights.”

It’s part of a broad union-busting campaign from Medieval Times, including anti-union “consultants” who bill $3,200/day. The performers are unionizing over pay, respect and workplace safety issues caused by inadequate staffing, especially staff who police the audience to prevent them from spooking the horses during jousting tournaments. Some performers have been attacked by drunken audience members.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medieval-times-workers-first-union_n_62bb1d29e4b0d26a9b14fa17

[Striking workers in front of a factory, being fired on by teargas. Between them and the factory are a pair of jousting knights in the style of a medieval tapestry. Behind the factory looms a giant, ogrish boss in a top-hat, chomping a cigar. He is pulling on a lever made from a stylized dollar sign. In one gloved hand, he holds aloft a medieval night, who is bent over in supplication.]

[mariacallous]

The Biden administration is asking the world’s largest technology companies to publicly commit to tightening the digital security of their software and cloud services.

The voluntary pledge, first reported by WIRED, represents the latest effort by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to build support for its Secure by Design initiative, which encourages tech vendors to prioritize cybersecurity while developing and configuring their products.

By signing the pledge, companies promise to make a “good-faith effort” to implement seven critical cybersecurity improvements, ranging from soliciting reports of vulnerabilities in their products to expanding the use of multi-factor authentication, a technology that adds an extra login step to the traditional password.

The pledge—which CISA plans to announce at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco next week—poses a major test for CISA, which last week marked the one-year anniversary of its Secure by Design campaign. The initiative is a top priority of CISA’s leadership, but it has produced mixed results, with some companies continuing to flout its urgent advice. The tech industry’s reaction to the pledge—and especially the number of software giants that sign it—will serve as a litmus test for how the private sector views CISA’s continuing push for increased corporate investment in cybersecurity.

“We're really excited about the companies that are on board,” Eric Goldstein, CISA’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity, tells WIRED. He declined to say how many vendors have already signed the pledge, but he says they include some “really significant” players in the tech industry.

WIRED asked more than three dozen of the biggest software companies whether they had signed or planned to sign the pledge. Only a handful responded. Login technology provider Okta said it had signed, while security vendor BlackBerry said it was considering doing so. Notably, software giants Amazon, Google, and Microsoft did not say whether they were signing.

“CISA says they have 50 companies that are signing and giving quotations to put on the website,” says a tech industry official familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “I don’t know any company that has signed.”

The seven goals laid out in the pledge represent security practices that experts say would dramatically improve companies’ cyberdefenses and make it easier for customers to safely use their products.

The goals include significantly increasing users’ use of multi-factor authentication, including by automatically enabling it or prodding users to activate it; eliminating default passwords, including by requiring users to choose strong passwords at product setup; and making it easier for customers to understand hacks of products they use, including by letting them review logs of suspicious network activity for free.

Companies signing the pledge would also commit to hardening their products against entire classes of vulnerabilities, such as by using memory-safe programming languages that completely block memory-based attacks; fostering better software patching, including by making patching easier and automating it when possible; creating vulnerability disclosure programs that encourage users to find and report product flaws; and publishing timely alerts about major new vulnerabilities, as well as including detailed information in all new vulnerability alerts.

The pledge offers examples of how companies can meet the goals, although it notes that companies “have the discretion to decide how best” to do so. The document also emphasizes the importance of companies publicly demonstrating “measurable progress” on their goals, as well as documenting their techniques “​​so that others can learn.”

CISA developed the pledge in consultation with tech companies, seeking to understand what would be feasible for them while also meeting the agency’s goals, according to Goldstein. That meant making sure the commitments were feasible for companies of all sizes, not just Silicon Valley giants.

The agency originally tried using its Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative to prod companies into signing the pledge, according to the tech industry official, but that backfired when companies questioned the use of an operational cyberdefense collaboration group for “a policy and legal issue,” the industry official says.

“Industry expressed frustration about trying to use the JCDC to obtain pledges,” the official says, and CISA “wisely pulled back on that effort.”

CISA then held discussions with companies through the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council and tweaked the pledge based on their feedback. Originally, the pledge contained more than seven goals, and CISA wanted signatories to commit to “firm metrics” for showing progress, according to the industry official. In the end, this person says, CISA removed several goals and “broadened the language” about measuring progress.

John Miller, senior vice president of policy, trust, data, and technology at the Information Technology Industry Council, a major industry trade group, says that change was smart, because concrete progress metrics—like the number of users using multi-factor authentication—could be “easily misconstrued.”

Goldstein says the number of pledge signatories is “exceeding my expectations about where we’d be” at this point. The industry official says they’re not aware of any company that has definitively refused to sign the pledge, in part because vendors want to “keep open the option of signing on” after CISA’s launch event at RSA. “Everyone’s in a kind of wait-and-see mode.”

Legal liability is a top concern for potential signatory companies. “If there ends up being, inevitably, some type of security incident,” Miller says, “anything [a] company has said publicly could be used in lawsuits.”

That said, Miller predicts that some global companies facing strict new European security requirements will sign the US pledge to “get that credit” for something they already have to do.

CISA’s Secure by Design campaign is the centerpiece of the Biden administration’s ambitious plan to shift the burden of cybersecurity from users to vendors, a core theme of the administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy. The push for corporate cyber responsibility follows years of disruptive supply-chain attacks on critical software makers like Microsoft, SolarWinds, Kaseya, and Change Healthcare, as well as a mounting list of widespread software vulnerabilities that have powered ransomware attacks on schools, hospitals, and other essential services. White House officials say the pattern of costly and often preventable breaches demonstrates the need for increased corporate accountability.

The Biden administration is using the federal government’s contracting power to set new minimum security standards for the software that agencies buy, with the goal of modeling responsible behavior for the entire industry. White House officials are also studying proposals to make all vendors, not just federal contractors, liable for security failures, but that effort faces an uphill battle in Congress.

With no authority to require better cybersecurity for the entire software industry, the White House has tasked CISA with prodding companies to commit to voluntary improvements. That effort began last April with the publication of specific recommendations for incorporating cybersecurity into the product design, development, and configuration process. CISA consulted with the tech industry and the security research community on refinements to that document and released an updated version last October. At around the same time, CISA announced that it had obtained Secure by Design commitments from six major K-12 educational technology vendors. That move, while limited to one industry, signaled CISA’s clear desire to convert its guidance into public corporate pledges.

“It has long been our goal … to move from just the white papers and the guidance to get companies to say, ‘Yes, we agree, and here’s what we're doing,’” Goldstein says. “The pledge really is that concrete manifestation of the guidance that we’ve been developing for a year.”

But the efficacy of the voluntary pledge remains to be seen. “Pledging companies will self-assess and self-report,” says Katie Moussouris, CEO and founder of Luta Security, “so only time will tell if they’ve effectively applied the measures and if the pledge proved to be an effective accountability mechanism.”

Miller says he expects the pledge to keep companies accountable because of the potential legal consequences of neglecting promised improvements. In the meantime, government officials are counting on customers to pressure vendors to both sign and abide by the pledge.

“Right now, we see the demand for safe and secure products to really be significant,” Goldstein says. “We think that … customer demand will drive that progress for us.”

[accountsend]

Expanding Horizons: Exploring New Markets for Business Development

Article by Jonathan Bomser | CEO | AccountSend.com

As your business matures, tapping into new markets—be they niche industries, emerging markets, or even geographical expansion—can be a lucrative strategy for growth. If you're contemplating business expansion, here are seven key points to keep in mind.

DOWNLOAD THE NEW MARKETS INFOGRAPHIC HERE

Research and Understand the Market

Before diving into a new market, invest time and resources in thorough research. Understand the market dynamics, customer preferences, cultural nuances, and the competitive landscape. Tools like global business expansion databases and data analysis software can provide valuable insights.

Evaluate Your Business's Capabilities

Assess your business's capacity to handle expansion. This involves reviewing your financial health, operational capacity, and the adaptability of your products or services to the new market. Also, consider if your current team can manage the expansion or if additional hiring is needed.

Build a Targeted B2B Contact Database

Having a robust B2B contact database is crucial for successful market entry. Gather verified contact info, including email addresses and phone numbers, of decision-makers in the new market. Reputable B2B data providers can assist in building a comprehensive contact database.

Develop a Tailored Marketing Strategy

One size doesn't fit all when it comes to marketing strategies. What works in your existing market may not be effective in a new one. Develop a marketing strategy tailored to the preferences and needs of your new market. This might involve a shift in messaging, promotional channels, or even product positioning.

Leverage Partnerships

Forming strategic partnerships can help you establish a foothold in the new market. Look for potential partners that complement your business and can help you reach your target audience more effectively.

Manage Risks

Entering a new market involves risks. Financial risk, reputational risk, and operational risk are a few examples. Identify potential risks and devise strategies to mitigate them.

Measure and Adjust

Once you've launched in the new market, it's vital to track your progress, measure success, and make necessary adjustments. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to your objectives in the new market.

In conclusion, exploring new markets is an exciting venture that can yield significant benefits. However, it requires careful planning, strategic thinking, and ongoing measurement and adjustment. With the right approach, you can successfully navigate this journey and achieve your business development goals.

[shinobicyrus]

The tech industry is a huge part of the Israeli economy (accounting for 50% of Israel's exports) and the Israeli government loves their tech sector because it's been indelibly married with their larger military industry complex. Many of the high-tech surveillance and security systems monitoring the Gaza wall, for example, are the product of Israel's massive tech-sector, and all that is for sale to the highest bidder.

So hearing Israel be audibly anxious about how mobilizing a huge swath of their citizenry for ethnic cleansing is hurting their economy, their precious tech sector in particular, fills me with only the pettiest schadenfreude.

But the anti-capitalist in me is also mesmerized by this new portrait of dystopia Israel has dropped. That of the citizen-soldier that must also continue to work part-time while soldiering:

Early on in the war, Raz [a software engineer] was at his base within a few miles of the border with Gaza preparing for a mission, while simultaneously talking on his phone with an overseas customer about a software project. "I had to juggle between those two," recalls Raz, sitting in his company's glass-walled office with a view of the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. "I remember it being super, super hard." Israeli aircraft were firing guns overhead while Raz was talking business with a client. "One of the customers asked, 'What's this noise?' and I had to explain that this is shooting sounds," Raz recalls.

It's like being an "essential worker" but instead of COVID it's a goddamn war. You could write an entire book about the absurd concept of a soldier being force to juggle his job in a warzone for the sake of the economy.

The tech sector in Israel builds a huge number of military and intelligence (i.e. spying) systems, which they export to other countries. It's such a vital part of Israel's entire economy that the IDF is actively pulling back soldiers to lessen the burden on their workforce.

Israel's own economic anxiety has done more to temper their war crimes than international pressure has so far managed.

[riggro-digital]

How to Start an In-Store Radio Station and Launch Your Internet Radio Station

Creating your own in-store radio or launching an internet radio station can significantly enhance your brand's presence, whether in a physical retail space or online. By offering a customized audio experience, you engage customers more deeply, build brand identity, and potentially increase sales. Here’s a detailed guide to help you establish both an in-store and an online radio station.

What Is In-Store Radio?

In-store radio is a customized audio experience tailored to your business. It allows you to create a consistent brand experience by curating playlists, promotions, and even important announcements. Unlike traditional radio, which caters to a broad audience, in-store radio specifically targets people inside your store. This ensures that the messaging, music, and promotional content you broadcast align with your business goals and your customers’ preferences.

This service acts as a direct communication channel between you and your customers, shaping their behavior and encouraging them to spend more time in your store. In-store radio provides a controlled auditory environment that helps create a pleasant atmosphere for shoppers while subtly driving sales through well-timed promotions.

Benefits of In-Store Radio

Enhanced Customer Engagement In-store radio offers a unique opportunity to captivate your customers. With personalized music and messaging, you create an enjoyable shopping environment that keeps customers engaged. Tailoring the audio to your brand can even enhance how customers interact with your products, leading to a better shopping experience.

Stronger Brand Identity Every aspect of your store, including its sounds, should reflect your brand. In-store radio provides an additional way to express your brand's identity through curated playlists and announcements. You can integrate your brand’s personality into your in-store soundscape, making the shopping experience more memorable and reinforcing your image.

Increased Sales By controlling what customers hear, you can strategically broadcast promotions or product announcements at key moments during their shopping experience. For instance, playing upbeat music during peak hours may encourage customers to browse longer, while timely promotional messages could lead to more impulse purchases.

Customization You can easily modify the content of your in-store radio to reflect different seasons, sales, or special events. Whether you want to create a festive atmosphere during the holidays or promote a special sale, your in-store radio can be adjusted in real-time to suit your business needs.

How to Start an In-Store Radio Station

Starting an in-store radio station doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s how to go about it:

Set Your Goals Define the purpose of your in-store radio station. Do you want to focus more on music, or will you include regular promotions and advertisements? Consider how your station will enhance the shopping experience and support your business objectives.

Choose the Right Music The type of music you play will depend on your brand identity and target audience. Make sure the music reflects your store’s atmosphere and your customers’ preferences. For example, a high-end retail store might favor smooth jazz or instrumental tunes, while a youthful clothing store may opt for trendy pop songs.

Plan Promotions and Announcements Decide how often you’ll interrupt music with promotional content. Use these moments to inform customers about ongoing sales, loyalty programs, or special events. Remember, the key to effective in-store radio is balancing music with marketing content so that it doesn’t feel intrusive.

Set Up the Equipment You don’t need much to start your in-store radio station. Basic audio equipment such as speakers, an amplifier, and a media player are essential. There are also software solutions like Easy On Hold or Custom Channels that allow you to automate and schedule content to broadcast throughout your store.

Obtain Licenses for Music If you’re playing copyrighted music, it’s crucial to get the proper licenses. Organizations like BMI or ASCAP can provide you with the necessary rights to play music legally within your store.

Launching Your Own Internet Radio Station

If you want to take your audio experience beyond the physical store and broadcast to a wider audience, starting an internet radio station is an excellent option. Internet radio enables you to connect with customers wherever they are, offering another way to build your brand.

Steps to Start an Internet Radio Station

Define Your Niche and Audience The first step in launching an internet radio station is deciding on the type of content you’ll broadcast. Will your station focus solely on music, or will it feature talk shows, interviews, or informational segments? Understanding your audience is key to developing content that keeps them coming back. If you’re a retail store, you might create a station that mirrors your in-store atmosphere, offering a mix of music, product recommendations, and industry-related talk shows.

Get the Necessary Licenses Just like in-store radio, playing copyrighted music on your internet radio station requires proper licensing. Organizations like SoundExchange or the local music rights management authority in your region will ensure that artists receive royalties when their music is played. Failing to acquire these licenses could result in legal issues, so make sure you’re covered before going live.

Set Up Broadcasting Equipment To start broadcasting, you’ll need some essential equipment:

Microphone: A good-quality microphone is important if you plan to make announcements, conduct interviews, or host shows.

Mixer: A mixer allows you to balance and adjust audio levels for smooth broadcasting.

Audio Interface: This connects your microphone and mixer to your computer for digital broadcasting.

Broadcasting Software: Programs like Mixxx or Riggro Digital offer free solutions for beginners, while more advanced users may want to explore professional options like SAM Broadcaster.

Choose a Streaming Hosting Platform To broadcast your radio station online, you’ll need a hosting platform. Popular options include Shoutcast and Icecast. These platforms host your stream and provide a link or player that listeners can access on your website or through various apps. Depending on your station’s popularity, you may need to upgrade your hosting plan to accommodate more listeners.

Promote Your Station After setting everything up, it’s time to attract listeners. Promote your internet radio station on social media, through email newsletters, and via your website. Encourage your in-store customers to tune in when they’re not shopping by placing advertisements and announcements in-store. You could even offer special promotions exclusive to online listeners, giving them another reason to engage with your brand.

Expanding Your Reach with Internet Radio

By combining in-store radio with an internet radio station, you extend your brand’s reach beyond your physical location. You can create a holistic audio strategy that engages customers in-store and at home, building deeper connections with your audience.

Through strategic use of both platforms, you can promote special offers, new product releases, and events, all while reinforcing your brand's identity. Whether you’re enhancing the shopping experience with tailored audio content or broadcasting to a global audience, these methods ensure that your brand remains top-of-mind.

Starting an in-store radio station or launching an internet radio station can seem daunting, but with the right planning, equipment, and content, you can create an engaging and effective platform that strengthens your brand. Read More