#hire software developers in Liverpool

[sapphiresoftware]

Top Software Development Company in Liverpool, UK

As a leading software development company in Liverpool, well-known for providing custom-tailored software solutions. We specialize in developing custom software, mobile apps, and online applications tailored to the specific requirements of companies across various industries. Our team comprises skilled developers and industry experts.

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[rohit-69]

Unveiling Course Offerings, Career Tracks, Learning Formats, Fees, and User Feedback

Introduction:

In the era of swift technological advancements and ever-shifting industries, staying ahead is paramount. UpGrad takes the lead in transformative education, offering a plethora of courses aimed at empowering both individuals and companies. This article delves into the core principles of UpGrad, unraveling its goals, methodologies, and a curated selection of courses synonymous with quality.

Understanding UpGrad:

Undrestand with UpGrad reviews, UpGrad is an Indian edtech company, globalizes online courses with a vision to elevate education and skills. Founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, and Phalgun Kompalli, UpGrad aspires to enhance the lives of working professionals by facilitating upskilling opportunities. Operating in 31 offices across India, USA, UK, Middle East, Singapore, and Vietnam, UpGrad positions itself as an innovator in accessible and practically applicable learning.

Overview of UpGrad Reviews - Career Tracks, Institutional Affiliations, and Certifications Offered:

UpGrad’s online education platform encompasses a spectrum of courses and programs designed to pave the way for diverse career opportunities and anaytics jobs. The platform stands out with features like:

Online Learning Platform: Collaborating with academic institutions and professionals, UpGrad provides courses in diverse fields, fostering skill enhancement in technology, business management, digital marketing, data science, and more.

Professional Development: Tailored for working professionals, UpGrad's courses seamlessly integrate into busy schedules, allowing continuous education alongside job responsibilities.

Certification Programs: Completing a course culminates in certifications from UpGrad and, in some instances, partner institutions, enhancing candidates' resumes and reflecting a commitment to lifelong learning.

Technology and Learning Experience: Leveraging technology, UpGrad crafts dynamic educational content, including discussion boards, quizzes, assignments, video lectures, and more, ensuring a robust learning experience.

Global Reach: With courses accessible worldwide, UpGrad provides a platform for learners globally.

Student Support and Industry Mentors: The platform offers 24/7 student support through various channels, along with guidance from industry mentors, teaching assistants, and graders, fostering one-on-one feedback and personalized improvement insights.

Courses Offered by UpGrad:

UpGrad's course offerings span diverse domains, featuring prominent collaborations with institutions such as Liverpool Business School, Deakin Business School, and Golden Gate University. Noteworthy courses include:

MBA

Data Science & Analytics

Management

Marketing

Software and Tech

AI & ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning)

Detailed Analysis of UpGrad's Website:

UpGrad's website design stands out with:

Layout and Design: A well-organized, user-friendly homepage with visually engaging banners highlighting featured courses and promotions.

Features for Easy Navigation: An intuitive menu, robust search functionality, and easy-to-navigate category sections.

Mobile Compatibility and App Functionality: A responsive design for smooth user experiences on various devices, complemented by a dedicated mobile app available on both Android and iOS platforms.

UpGrad Data Science Course Review:

Delving into UpGrad's Data Science course, it offers:

20+ Case Studies: Providing practical insights to enhance understanding.

100 Hours of Learning: Offering comprehensive coverage of topics.

Key Highlights of UpGrad Data Science Course:

Python Programming Essentials

Industry Projects and Assignments

1:1 Career Mentorship Sessions

UpGrad Data Science Placement Review:

The platform boasts:

300+ Hiring Partners

57% Average Salary Increase

200+ Career Transition Opportunities

UpGrad Faculty Reviews:

Highlighted faculty members include Anil Gupta, a professor and Michael D. Dingman Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, and P.K. Kannan, the Dean's Chair in Marketing Science.

How UpGrad Supports Learners:

Student Support: Dedicated support for queries and timely doubt resolution.

Expert Feedback: Personalized feedback on assignments and projects.

Industry Networking: Live sessions and one-on-one discussions with industry mentors.

Drawbacks of UpGrad:

No Job Placement Guarantee: UpGrad lacks a job placement guarantee, posing a concern for learners.

High Course Fees: The cost of courses, especially in Data Science, is deemed expensive, limiting accessibility.

Conclusion:

UpGrad emerges as a reputable online education platform, delivering high-quality, industry-relevant courses. Despite some drawbacks, its innovative approach positions learners for success in the dynamic job market. This article serves as a comprehensive guide, shedding light on UpGrad's principles, offerings, and user reviews, with a focus on the Data Science course and placements.

If you want to know more UpGrad Reviews or courses then do visit - analyticsjobs

[virtual-lara]

Irish Times - Cyberbabe Gets Real

Article appeared on the Irish Times website, dated to 23rd June 2001, and was written by Steven Poole, author of 'Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames'. Article features a look into the history of Lara and what she is as a character.

It's Valentine's Day, 1968. In a hospital in the south London neighbourhood of Wimbledon, a daughter is born to Lord and Lady Henshingly-Croft. The girl has a drawerful of silver spoons in her mouth. Between the ages of three and 11, she is privately tutored at home; she then attends Wimbledon High School for Girls and Gordonstoun.

At the latter, she discovers a passion for rock climbing in the mountains of Scotland. (She also takes up shooting, but is soon banned for showing "too keen an interest".) By the time she is 18, everyone can see she has a wild streak, but her parents believe she can be thoroughly civilised - and eventually married off to the Earl of Farringdon - after three years at a Swiss finishing school.

While in Switzerland, however, the young woman takes to extreme skiing and spends a holiday pursuing the sport in the Himalayas.

On the return journey, her plane crashes deep in the mountains, and she is the only passenger left alive. Somehow she survives and, two weeks later, staggers into a mountain village. By this time, the course of her life has changed. She feels truly alive only when travelling alone. Lara Croft has decided to become an adventurer.

Or you could look at it this way: Lara Croft was born on the screen of a computer in an English video-game studio in 1995. First, she was a pencil sketch on paper, then a series of more detailed illustrations. Next, her vital statistics were plotted on a VDU screen. Thousands of triangles meshed together to build a computerised outline of a female form.

At this stage, Lara would have looked like a sculpture in chicken wire. Then the figure was "skinned" - wrapped in shaded, coloured surfaces to approximate a clothed human being. Lastly, she was animated: taught to walk, somersault, run and pull herself up on rocky ledges. Virtual worlds were also built around her to test her physical abilities to the limit.

Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise are the products of Core Design - the game-development studio where Lara was born - and Eidos Interactive, its British parent. The man who fathered her was an artist in his early 20s called Toby Gard.

"When I came up with the idea for Tomb Raider," he says, "it wasn't necessarily going to be a female character. We wanted a real-time cinematic game, and I designed a couple of characters; one was a girl, one was a bloke. Eventually, we realised there was going to be a lot of story element in the game and we couldn't keep both the characters, so it was back down to one." So which should they choose? At the time, a female lead in a game was almost unheard of, Gard says. "There was resistance from marketing quarters, saying that female characters never sold."

Eventually, Core chose Lara as a refreshing antidote to the muscled meatheads that usually populated video games. And boy, did she sell: 26 million units, and counting, earning about $1 billion gross in retail sales.

Having turned her back on the upper-class society of her parents, who terminated her monthly allowance in disgust, Lara metamorphosed into a modern-day Indiana Jones.

For her first commission as a professional tomb raider, she was hired to retrieve the three parts of a mysterious artefact known as the Atlantean Scion. Hurtling through Peru, Rome and the lost city of Atlantis (well, it wasn't lost any more), Lara negotiated booby traps and shot a variety of wildlife, including rats, tigers and, alarmingly, a tyrannosaur.

In later quests, she travelled to Venice, Tibet and the Great Wall of China, snuck around the US military institute Area 51 and battled goons in the London Underground. Along the way, Lara was constantly learning. On the trail of a weird dagger that could turn you into a dragon, Lara discovered that she could climb walls, flip through 180 degrees while jumping or swimming, and wade into shallow pools of water.

By the time of her next adventure she could even get down on her hands and knees - in order to negotiate low tunnels and ventilation ducts - as well as monkey-swing from walkways and run much faster than she ever had. She could even blink. The programmers at Core extended Lara's capabilities with each new game, exploiting the fact that she had become a star.

Every year, another sequel popped up just before Christmas and went straight to the top of the video-game charts. Meanwhile, Eidos, Lara's parent company, was becoming a stock-market darling. In 1998, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, named the British firm the world's fastest-growing company, and in the summer of 1999 Eidos's share price was trading at a delirious high of $18.20.

Lara Croft, we must note, has brains as well as beauty. She is said by her biographers to have penned several travel books, including A Tyrannosaurus Is Jawing At My Head and the follow-up, Slaying Bigfoot. But she clearly does not read the newspapers or watch television, for in none of her adventures do we see any awareness on Lara's part that she has become an international media darling.

The first wave of Lara coverage came shortly after the game's 1996 release, with David James, the Liverpool goalkeeper, explaining to the London Times that he was playing badly because he had been staying up late playing Tomb Raider. In 1997, U2 used specially commissioned digital footage of Lara in action on their Popmart tour.

Lara appeared in comics, and plastic action figures of Lara sold like hot cakes. The original game had appeared on both the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation consoles, but Sony soon signed an exclusivity deal that meant episodes two and three would appear only on PlayStation.

Then came the acme of media acceptance: Lara on the cover of the Face in June 1997. Not only was this the first time the style magazine had used a digital person on its cover, it was the first time it had allowed an image to interrupt its red masthead. Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Time soon followed suit, and a video for the German pop outfit Die Artze, featuring Lara fighting with members of the band, went heavy-rotation on MTV.

Marks & Spencer produced a range of Tomb Raider III merchandise. Douglas Coupland, the writer of Generation X, contributed to a fey devotional tome entitled Lara's Book. In November, 1998, Tomb Raider and its first sequel were awarded Millennium Product status by the British Design Council.

In 1999, Lara - or rather Core Design, won a BAFTA for her "outstanding contribution to the interactive industry". In 2000, filming began in England on the imminent Tomb Raider feature film, budgeted at $100 million and starring Angelina Jolie. You can now, if you wish, clothe your children in nattily miniature Tomb Raider threads.

Perhaps the cleverest marketing coup was the association, begun in 1999, between Lara Croft and Lucozade, the orange liquid that used to be thought of as medicine for the sick but reinvented itself through the 1990s as a sports drink.

The latest advert has Lara pausing for a friendly Lucozade with her enemies while the player's back is turned. This summer, in order to tie in with the feature film's release, Lucozade will be labelled "Larazade".

They probably call this "synergy", but it works because Lucozade is a product one can imagine Lara using, even if it is unclear where she might find a bottle in a dusty tomb. Jeremy Heath-Smith, the managing director of Core Design and head of global development at Eidos - who, despite Eidos's financial difficulties, was last year paid $3.5 million thanks to a long-standing royalty agreement - says: "The fact that it's a health-giving energy drink matched Lara's profile exactly. I'm not sure Irn-Bru could have the same effect, as nice as Irn-Bru is."

Lara is careful about who she's seen with, for obvious reasons. We can be confident that she would never endorse fruit-flavoured alco-pops, or depilatory creams. But the Lucozade partnership is a marvel of mutual reinforcement: association with Tomb Raider and Lara helps to sell Lucozade.

In his novel Idoru, cyberpunk writer William Gibson imagines Rei Toei, a Japanese-engineered virtual celebrity who rebels against her makers and plots to find herself a physical body. In fact, the Japanese did have a virtual media star in 1997. Software programmers collaborating with Japan's leading modelling agency, Horipro, created Kyoko Date, the world's first digital pop singer. But sales of her debut CD did not live up to expectations. Why? Her face was a combination of features mapped from photographs of famous models; her singing voice was taken from one woman, her speaking voice from another; and her dance moves were digitised from the performances of real dancers. She was far more detailed and "realistic" than Lara Croft was at the time - but in a sense, Kyoko Date looked too real.

Our idoru does not fall into this trap. Lara Croft is attractive because of, not despite, her glossy blankness - that hyper-perfect, shiny computer look. She is an abstraction, an animated conglomeration of sexual and attitudinal signs - breasts, hot pants, shades, thigh holsters - whose blankness encourages the viewer's psychological projection.

Beyond the bare facts of her biography, her perfect vacuity means we can make Lara Croft into whoever we want her to be. If the computer-generated Lara Croft ever became too photo-realistic, too much like an individual woman, says Heath-Smith, "you'd lose some of that feel for her". The plans to finesse the character design for the next-generation Tomb Raider game, coming to Sony's far more visually powerful PlayStation2 some time next year, are "to smooth her off without changing the aesthetics that work".

But will these aesthetics be influenced by the performance of Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider film? Lara's creator, Toby Gard, rather approves of the casting. "Yeah, Angelina Jolie certainly looks the part," he says. "She has that certain wild quality which is important - that's what I had in mind." Jolie, we are told, performed most of her stunts; emulating the acrobatic, gravity-defying grace of her digital counterpart in the unforgiving real world resulted in injuries to her knee and shoulder and torn ligaments in her foot.

Bear in mind Lara has already been impersonated by several flesh-and-blood women without danger to her virtual hegemony - the models and actresses Rhona Mitra, Nell McAndrew, Lara Weller, Lucy Clarkson and Vanessa Demouy have all stepped into the boots for promotional appearances. Lara Croft, the virtual character, is the Platonic ideal: a human actress can give a better or worse account of that ideal, but she can never embody it fully, still less outstrip it. In that sense Lara is more like a creature of time-fogged legend than a contemporary "personality".

The rise to ubiquity of Lara Croft came as a surprise to her digital dad. "I never expected to have that happen," Gard says. "You know, as a designer, I'd gone through my life making sketches for these characters, and you think they're yours - then you realise they're not yours at all."

It was the massive success of Lara, in fact, that prompted Gard to leave Core Design and set up his own company, Confounding Factor, before the second Tomb Raider game appeared. "Other people were just doing things with her I didn't agree with," he says, guardedly.

He is working on Galleon, a game he promises "will have the same effect as Tomb Raider had in terms of how far ahead of everything else it's going to be".

It will be interesting to observe how Lara Croft ages. If the franchise is still going in 2020, will she be raiding tombs at the age of 42? There seems no reason why not. What allowed Lara's extraordinary success, after all, was the fact that Gard had created not a singular female character but a new archetype: an image so fluid and malleable that she can cross media barriers without appearing to whore herself.

Odd as it may seem, Lara has never been a primarily sexual being. In the immature world of video games, Lara was a revelation. In contrast to the standard near-pornographic portrayal of helpless women characters, Lara was a Germaine Greer of video games. Sure, she showed some skin, but her wardrobe was practical, rock-climbing, tomb-raiding stuff: shorts, hiking boots, vest, backpack. Gard says this was a deliberate reaction to the digital representations of women around him at the time, which persist today: spangly thongs, S&M corsets, strange spirally metal bras.

"I wanted to make sure it wasn't the thigh-length boot-style stuff," he says. "You can't get emotionally involved with a character like that because it has been objectified. Lara, I felt, had more dignity." It wouldn't make any sense, you understand, to describe the dignified Lara as a sex symbol.

Because "sex symbol", if that overused phrase means anything at all, must mean a person with whom you can imagine having sex - however improbable that may be. Angelina Jolie may be a sex symbol. But Lara can't be. It is in principle impossible to have sex with Lara Croft: she is always and forever unattainable.

And, as we have seen, there are far more overtly sexual depictions of women in video games. So all the prurient fans' artwork - the notorious "Nude Raider" images created by boys disturbingly skilled in computer-aided imaging and posted on the net, and all the leering over Croft's breasts in the chat rooms - these are incidental, a predictably perverse subculture of the fan base, not its raison d'etre.

It seems probable that men who like Lara don't want to have her; they want to be her. That's why they play the game. Lara is a symbol, if anything, of aspirational gender reassignment. In both directions. Men who like trying on a female persona, or women, such as Jolie, who like doing what is usually thought to be men's stuff. To paraphrase Damon Albarn of Blur, Lara works for boys who do girls, or boys who like girls who do boys, or girls who do boys.

And perhaps it is this all-things-to-all-people, don't-you-dare-try-to-pin-me-down quality that has ensured her longevity. For it is axiomatic that the jumping, rolling, sprinting Lara Croft is physically inexhaustible. What is surprising is that over the five years of her career so far, she has also proven inexhaustible as an icon.

All rights belong to Irish Times and/or their affiliated companies. I only intend to introduce people to old articles and preserve them before they are lost.

[liverpooltutor-blog]

Liverpool Tutoring

Liverpool Tutoring offers world-class tutoring for students

Tutors are available in practically any topic that you or your child may need aid in. Discovering one on one tutors is less complicated than you assume. They are very budget-friendly, and you have several alternatives offered. If college work is a trouble for you or your youngsters, then check out the other options readily available to you today. Choose Liverpool Tutoring service for your children's bright future.

By beginning now you can be sure that you will not merely drop additionally behind. The longer you wait, the more you will require help with when you do speak to a tutor In most cases, you qualities may even influence potential task offers; do not be left behind when aid is a few clicks away.

Tutoring centers may be located right in your area. These use specific assistance in all topics yet satisfy mainly those in senior high school and below. This can be a fantastic means for your children to get the aid they require in their school job while having the tutor there with them to discuss any trouble areas.

Does your youngster need a tutor?

Dropping qualities and homework struggles are typically indications that your kid needs a tutor. Not always. There can be numerous factors that influence your child's performance at the institution and locating the reason and remedy may take a microscopic examination.

If your family has moved to a brand-new location, your youngster might feel unconfident about being "the brand-new child" in school, or if your youngster has progressed to middle or senior high school, he/she may feel not sure about carrying out well in new subjects. These sort of insecurities must pass with time and experience.

There may also be various other reasons your youngster is having issues with his schoolwork: There may be a personality problem with an educator, experiences with schoolyard harasses, or your kid might be feeling stress to succeed since his/her buddies seem to realize brand-new ideas conveniently.

You are searching for a tutor.

If you take into consideration using an automated tutoring program, ask about the qualifications of the tutors they employ and exactly how they conduct their tutoring sessions. Some centers might appoint a different tutor for every course or kids might spend the majority of their time dealing with the tutoring software program. If you're most likely to make a financial commitment, make sure you're getting your money's worth. Below are some specific questions you ought to consider in your search:

Does your kid require a tutor for every single topic or just a couple of? Ask possible tutors if they have competence in every item or do they concentrate on specific subjects?

. What are the tutor's qualifications? A tutor must be a certified educator with experience or at the very least a college student working in the direction of a teaching level.

. Are the tutor's training methods and curriculum by your state's requirements?

. Exist any unique factors to consider that a tutor should understand about your kid's understanding style or temperament?

Keep in mind there are lots of kinds of instructional resources. Recognizing what your kid's understanding troubles are will undoubtedly ensure you choose the appropriate program. Take into consideration speaking with your youngster's instructor to see what they feel is the best course of action. A browse through to your child's pediatrician can assist you to figure out or eliminate any discovering handicap concerns. They might have the ability to help you categorize the type of help your youngster needs. Here are a few of the groups:

1. Fundamental Knowing: Grasping the necessary skills and concepts. 2. Cognitive Discovering: Understanding the techniques of discovering. 3. Life Skills Development Program: Developing a self-adequate and determined student. 4. Enrichment: Continuing the finding out the procedure to remain ahead. 5. Homework Assistance: Supplemental assistance to eliminate research troubles and plan for examinations.

Tutors are also offered online. Much of this offer assistance with any grade degree including university and even masters degree material. Liverpool Tutoring Centre/Center tutor can check out a term paper or deal face to face assistance with mathematics or English. They are generally offered twenty-four hrs a day seven days a week.

Tutoring has become exceptionally usual over the previous few years, with trainees as young as kindergarteners registering for tutoring services. Its sudden surge in an appeal can be credited to several elements. Boosting course room sizes and a scarcity of qualified staff makes it hard for trainers to provide each appropriate trainee interest.

This usually brings about one group of trainees dragging the others. We likewise need to think about that students have different aptitudes and rate of interest degrees; so while some students discover mathematics interesting, others may locate similar happiness in literary works or scientific research or background.

Working with face to face Liverpool Tutor can assist you, or your youngster enhances your grades and may make a substantial effect on your academic success. Don't wait to locate help, if you are struggling in college after that help is readily available today. You can be more satisfied with your research studies if you know that support exists when you need it most. Hire Liverpool Primary Tutoring services for your child that help him/her at their first educational age.

Visit To The Website for getting more information related to Liverpool Tutoring.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #544

Top Ten Psygnosis Games

Okay, there was a lot I was going to talk about this week – something DC-related would have been nice – but I can’t quite articulate my frustrations over the Batgirl cancellation, and my surprise at how much I enjoyed DC League of Superpets into a coherent list. So instead we’re relaxing by wallowing in nostalgia. It does mean two game-related lists two weeks in a row, but never mind.

When I was a wee lad, I didn’t know as much about the videogames industry as I do now, and so recognisable names became a much bigger deal. Ocean Software, US Gold, Team 17, Lucasfilm Games, were all imbued with a sense of power and mystique because I’d played games by them before. Even if a company like Ocean got a bit of a bad rap for its succession of film adaptations – sometimes fairly shonky ones – I always had a big soft spot for them because their glorious chromium logo adorned some of the earliest games I ever owned for my Amiga. And RoboCop 3 was the business; has there ever been a bigger gulf in quality between a great game and a shit film?

Anyway, one of the first companies I would get ridiculously excited about if their logo popped up whilst a game was loading was Psygnosis. A Liverpool-based developer, they were responsible for one of first games I ever played on an Amiga, Shadow of the Beast II, a deliriously difficult side-scrolling platform/adventure game that I thoroughly enjoyed to bits once I’d put the cheat on and couldn’t die anymore (you walk up to a bloke very early on and say to him “ten pints” – go on, try it out; I haven’t played the game for thirty years so it’s possible I’m mistaken, but I don’t think I am). Psygnosis became well-known for their gorgeous airbrushed cover art, often by Roger Dean, who also created their chrome-plated creepy owl logo. They were beautiful sci-fi vistas or horrific imagery, stuff that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a premium genre hardback, or possibly adorning the side of a VW van. These boxes – and remember, they were whacking great boxes back then – really stood out on the shelves of Electronics Boutique or, er, Chips in Middlesbrough (were there any other real game chains back then?).

Psygnosis ended up being bought by Sony and folded into the whole PlayStation Empire, becoming Studio Liverpool and turning into something of a Wipeout factory before getting shut down ten years ago. It was a sad end to one of the giants of 16-bit home computing, but that’s how these things go I guess; outside of huge American or Japanese companies, how many developers from the eighties are still really kicking around? Regardless, Psygnosis has a tremendous legacy and – of course – one game series in particular that transcends everything else. You know what I’m talking about. Let’s go!

Lemmings 2: The Tribes (Amiga, 1993): what else could it be? Lemmings is one of the greatest games and franchises of all time. Puzzling, hilarious, funny, addictive; one for the ages. And I do prefer the sequel as it’s more varied and colourful and user-friendly, but really either of the first two games (and their spin-offs and add-ons) could take this spot, masterpieces that they are.

Shadow of the Beast II (Amiga, 1990): an intriguing adventure game, with its puzzles and quests, that really taught me a lot about adventure games. Defining, for me, the early days of the Amiga, it helped me figure out what sort of games I liked. And whilst its difficulty is a bit bonkers it also helps that it’s gorgeous.

Hired Guns (Amiga, 1993): a unique first-person team-based RPG in which you control four characters at once via split-screen. This gameplay quirk made it really interesting, and technically it was impressive way back when, plus it had a really cool techno-western aesthetic. I think they remade it but no one cared.

Walker (Amiga, 1993): like a lot of games on this list, Walker had an interesting gameplay hook and visual aesthetic (and was also developed by DMA Design – funny that). This one saw you controlling a giant AT-ST-type vehicle, mooching around the level whilst strafing tiny soldiers. The micro-men, mere pixels in height, inspired a whole other game (Lemmings, you may have heard of it), but Walker is still dead good fun.

Agony (Amiga, 1992): I was never too much of a fan of those side-scrolling shoot-em-ups where you fly from left to right and, y’know, shoot things. Agony was a good example of the genre, though, and I enjoyed it. What I thought was really cool – apart from the typically good graphics – was that you essentially played as the Psygnosis owl. The one from the logo. Crazy, right?

Leander (Amiga, 1991): this feels like a much more obscure title but one that I had and really enjoyed as a kid, even if I was typically crap at it and almost certainly never progressed beyond the first level. Coming across like a more mainstream Beast, it’s a sprawling platform-adventure with an interesting mix of Japanese and Western influences. I remember getting sucked in to its more forgiving gameplay and relatively slow-paced action.

Puggsy (Amiga, 1993): I think this gained a bit more favour as a Mega Drive title but – obviously – I only had it on the Amiga. An intriguing adventure that was built around acquiring objects and using them correctly, my memories of it are of a bigger budget Dizzy with its own quirky style.

Bill’s Tomato Game (Amiga, 1992): now maybe this is the really obscure title. A colourful puzzle game about, er, tomatoes, named after its developer, as you try to rescue your girlfriend (a tomato, natch) from a squirrel by finding the right route out of tricksy levels. I remember it being a surprising delight and having a sense of humour right out of Lemmings.

Destruction Derby (PC, 1995): oh my god, a PC game! Although most people probably think of it as a PlayStation game or something. Anyway, in the infancy of 3D graphics, there were lots of driving games (good for showing off fancy visuals) but one thing I’d always wanted was just to properly knacker the cars. This game – although I remember it as being rather slight – scratched that itch, really letting you bash and smash to your heart’s content. Not quite Carmageddon in its vehicular violence but a pleasing diversion nonetheless.

Benefactor (Amiga, 1994): another sort-of puzzle game that required you to save a host of anonymous plebs, this differentiates itself from the Lemmings mould by having you control a bigger guy who has to essentially prepare the level to let your mini-mates pass safely. Carved out its own unique niche in my psyche with enough style and difference to get its hooks in.

What no Wipeout? I guess not having a PlayStation in the mid-to-late-nineties meant a sexy futuristic hovercar racer just didn’t have a fair chance of getting its claws into me when I could just, I dunno, keep playing Quake or something. Anyway, I think we can all agree that Psygnosis put out some cracking games in the Amiga era and beyond, and I really, really wish that Sony would do some kind of remaster of the first two Lemmings games and release it on Steam.

[adsthumbsblog]

IT Services Help Your Business

Need and importance of IT Infrastructure

Today, a robust and highly effective IT infrastructure is crucial for the success of any business. Business environment is dynamic and very demanding. You need to be fast, efficient and flexible to adapt your business in tune with the changes in the business environment. Therefore, IT services have gained much prominence for the growth and survival of your business.They enable you to discover the right technologies so that you can easily fulfill your business requirements. IT is known to have better efficiency as compared to other economic areas. IT services are an important facet of operations and functions of prime global markets.

Meet your business goals with IT Consulting Services

IT services are wide-ranging and comprise testing, system integration, application development as well as management services and solutions. They are cost-effective, productive and energy-efficient. Among them, one of the most important service offering relates to IT consulting services. Here, your business can easily adapt to the new and advanced systems of infrastructure and ultra-modern technologies you want to employ for it. IT consulting firms are specialized in helping businesses attain their business goals cost-effectively and productively.

Indeed, hiring a good consulting firm assists you to minimize your IT costs, improve business productivity, bring in centralization for better team coordination and disaster recovery. Your business becomes robust and safe with these tech-savvy and expert IT consultants. Majority of the IT consulting service providers offer corporate innovation, IT infrastructure planning and design, business transformation consulting, software architecture, system integration, technology migration, applications management, strategic sourcing consulting, enterprise resource management, database development and integration services. They also provide you with wonderful software applications and solutions.

Improve and manage your IT infrastructure

In addition to IT consultancy, there are firms offering infrastructure services in the field of information technology. They have expertise in providing solutions right from virtualization, storage, management to business continuity in order to fulfill individual customer needs. They are best at improving your existing IT infrastructure. Infrastructure services comprise end-user computing services, data center built, IT service desk, server room built, network built services,structured cabling, messaging solutions, enterprise system management, backup solution built and managed security services.

Significance of IT Managed Services

With regard to IT managed services, they help companies to enhance their laptop and desktop infrastructure, minimize risks and offer suitable resources for both laptop and desktop management. RIMS (Remote infrastructure management services) have become too common these days. Companies provide their clients with end-to-end solutions for managing their IT infrastructure. They ensure that IT strategies align your business objectives.

Providers of remote IT managed services help in managing your mails, database, server, desktop, network and power. They also offer remote help desk services. They customize these services according to your business requirements. With your service provider, your business uptime gets increased. He helps in trimming your business IT support costs and enhance its efficiency level. For this, he employs the right tools, processes, techniques, software and skilled IT professionals.

Materials and Equipment Pro  London

Materials and Equipment Pro  Birmingham

Materials and Equipment Pro  Liverpool

Materials and Equipment Pro  Sheffield

Materials and Equipment Pro  Bristol

Materials and Equipment Pro  Glasgow

Materials and Equipment Pro  Leicester

Materials and Equipment Pro  Edinburgh

Materials and Equipment Pro  Leeds

Materials and Equipment Pro  Cardiff

Materials and Equipment Pro  Manchester

Materials and Equipment Pro  Stoke-on-Trent

Materials and Equipment Pro  Coventry

Materials and Equipment Pro  Sunderland

Materials and Equipment Pro  Brent

Materials and Equipment Pro  Birkenhead

Materials and Equipment Pro  Nottingham

Materials and Equipment Pro  Islington

Materials and Equipment Pro  Reading

Materials and Equipment Pro  Kingston upon Hull

Materials and Equipment Pro  Preston

Materials and Equipment Pro  Newport

Materials and Equipment Pro  Swansea

Materials and Equipment Pro  Bradford

Materials and Equipment Pro  Southend-on-Sea

Materials and Equipment Pro  Belfast

Materials and Equipment Pro  Derby

Materials and Equipment Pro  Plymouth

Materials and Equipment Pro  Luton

Materials and Equipment Pro  Wolverhampton

Materials and Equipment Pro  City of Westminster

Materials and Equipment Pro  Southampton

Materials and Equipment Pro  Blackpool

Materials and Equipment Pro  Milton Keynes

Materials and Equipment Pro  Bexley

Materials and Equipment Pro  Northampton

Materials and Equipment Pro  Archway

Materials and Equipment Pro  Norwich

Materials and Equipment Pro  Dudley

Materials and Equipment Pro  Aberdeen

Materials and Equipment Pro  Portsmouth

Materials and Equipment Pro  Newcastle upon Tyne

Materials and Equipment Pro  Sutton

Materials and Equipment Pro  Swindon

Materials and Equipment Pro  Crawley

Materials and Equipment Pro  Ipswich

Materials and Equipment Pro  Wigan

Materials and Equipment Pro  Croydon

Materials and Equipment Pro  Walsall

Materials and Equipment Pro  Mansfield

Materials and Equipment Pro  Oxford

Materials and Equipment Pro  Warrington

Materials and Equipment Pro  Slough

Materials and Equipment Pro  Bournemouth

Materials and Equipment Pro  Peterborough

Materials and Equipment Pro  Cambridge

Materials and Equipment Pro  Doncaster

Materials and Equipment Pro  York

Materials and Equipment Pro  Poole

Materials and Equipment Pro  Gloucester

Materials and Equipment Pro  Burnley

Materials and Equipment Pro  Huddersfield

Materials and Equipment Pro  Telford

Materials and Equipment Pro  Dundee

Materials and Equipment Pro  Blackburn

Materials and Equipment Pro  Basildon

Materials and Equipment Pro  Middlesbrough

Materials and Equipment Pro  Bolton

Materials and Equipment Pro  Stockport

Materials and Equipment Pro  Brighton

Materials and Equipment Pro  West Bromwich

Materials and Equipment Pro  Grimsby

Materials and Equipment Pro  Hastings

Materials and Equipment Pro  High Wycombe

Materials and Equipment Pro  Watford

Materials and Equipment Pro  Saint Peters

Materials and Equipment Pro  Burton upon Trent

Materials and Equipment Pro  Colchester

Materials and Equipment Pro  Eastbourne

Materials and Equipment Pro  Exeter

Materials and Equipment Pro  Rotherham

Materials and Equipment Pro  Cheltenham

Materials and Equipment Pro  Lincoln

Materials and Equipment Pro  Chesterfield

Materials and Equipment Pro  Chelmsford

Materials and Equipment Pro  Mendip

Materials and Equipment Pro  Dagenham

Materials and Equipment Pro  Basingstoke

Materials and Equipment Pro  Maidstone

Materials and Equipment Pro  Sutton Coldfield

Materials and Equipment Pro  Bedford

Materials and Equipment Pro  Oldham

Materials and Equipment Pro  Enfield Town

Materials and Equipment Pro  Woking

Materials and Equipment Pro  St Helens

Materials and Equipment Pro  Worcester

Materials and Equipment Pro  Gillingham

Materials and Equipment Pro  Becontree

Materials and Equipment Pro  Worthing

Materials and Equipment Pro  Rochdale

[benziforcentizen]

Developers’ hourly pay in India vs other nations

With the recent technological advancements, businesses no longer need to limit themselves to borders whether it be learning, consumption or hiring. Instead, they can expand their horizons to amazing talents globally. This will not only reduce their operational cost but would also bring a diverse perspective to approach any given project. But before deciding on hiring offshore developers, knowing the true cost of hiring developers is the need of the hour. This article will guide through developers’ hourly pay costs of developers in various countries like the US, UK, Germany, the Netherlands and India. It also gives an insight into how hiring from India would save organizations a fortune. There may be various factors that affect hourly rates. They include location and size of the company, soft skills and tech expertise of the developer, complexity and the time frame of the project. Now let’s see how the above-mentioned countries differ in their developer hourly rates. The rates may differ based on the expertise and scope of work.

Developer’s Hourly Pay Comparison in India with the US, UK, Germany & Netherlands

1. The USA

Developers' hourly pay in the States is the highest, ranging between $38 to $63. Although it is more expensive there are many reasons to hire US developers. The United States is home to the most dominant Tech Giants namely Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft. They account for 32% of the total techies globally. In the U.S. the tech sector supports other sectors to increase revenue and bring innovation. The total cost of a US developer ranges between $137k to $173k including taxes and other benefits. Taxes vary from state to state but on average it’s 29.7%. Below is the developer hourly rate in the US, citywide.

2. The United Kingdom

Like the US, the hourly rate of developers is expensive for their skills and benefits. The UK is a world leader in producing tech unicorns — it’s 3rd in the world, following the US and China. Digital tech grew 6 times faster than any other industry according to the Tech Nation Report 2020. The UK is home to 77 tech unicorns — companies valued at over $1bn. In Spite of the pandemic, the tech sector has demonstrated resilience through creating new opportunities and new investments. Three major IT hubs that provide opportunities to developers include London, Manchester, and Liverpool. According to sources like Neuvoo, Totaljobs, and Cwjobs, the developers’ hourly pay in the above-mentioned regions are as follows:

3. Germany

Germany is one of the largest software markets in Europe for good reasons. With cutting-edge technology, the German IT industry’s revenue grew steadily during the last decade, amounting to almost 95 billion euros in 2020. For 2021, the forecast thus far predicts 98.6 billion euros. Germany ranks second in having a large number of unicorn companies only after the United Kingdom. In Berlin, the developers’ hourly pay is high salaries with a low cost of living. However, in Germany, the pay of a developer varies with the size of the company and the experience of the developer. According to Payscale and Glassdoor resources, an average developer salary per hour is:

4. The Netherlands

The Netherlands is considered Europe’s favorite tech hot spot. A report states that the average salary of the developers raised rapidly from 2016 to 2020 ranging from €50k to €56k. Netherland has around 60% of the companies mentioned on the Forbes 2000 list including Cisco, Oracle, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Verizon, Huawei, and many other global players. Amsterdam has around 800 startups and is responsible for generating thousands of job opportunities accounting for 14 % of the local workforce. But in the Netherlands, the full-stack developer earns less than the average frontend or backend developer. The hourly salaries for Software developers in the Netherland city-wise are as follows:

5. India

The IT industry contributed to 8% of India’s GDP in 2020. A report from Nasscom states that India will achieve $300–350 billion in annual revenue by 2025. India is one of the best countries to hire offshore software developers. Wherever your business is if you want to build top-notch solutions at affordable rates with high tech skills, technological infrastructure, professionals and emerging engineers consider Indian developers.

As per A.T Kearney Global Service Location Index 2021, India is the top for the most attractive outsourcing destinations.

The IT market in India is on the rise and changing the face of the Indian economy. More than 2,00,000 IT graduates join the Indian workforce annually and it has the youngest employable population globally. 40% of professions advanced themselves according to the latest technologies to meet upgraded industry requirements. This makes India a desirable offshore destination for IT services. The developers’ hourly pay in India is seemingly lower than their counterparts in other countries.

Final Thoughts

From the above comparisons, you might be aware of the developers’ hourly pay. It is evident that Indian developers demand low salaries with high technical skills when compared to other countries. At Centizen Talent Hub, we help you find the top-notch developers in India based on your job position. We provide highly skilled and trained developers who are pre-screened and ready to work as soon as the recruitment is done. The onboarding process is completely taken care of and our consultant care team would take care of the talent while they are on the assignments in case they face any issues.

[ukdigitalcompany]

Educational Apps Development

Education App that’s Equipped for the Future

In these trying and changing times, students are more driven towards using their smartphones to do things on purpose. Through mobile phones and the internet, you can do one too many things. This reduces the stress of today’s problems by having the world at the tips of your fingertips. This also means that knowledge comes in handy because you can access information from anywhere.

UK Digital Company is an Educational Apps Development in London and the UK and the best Education App Development Company in the United Kingdom. Additionally, we are a top Education iOS and Android Mobile Apps Expert in London, Bath, Oxford, Bristol, Cambridge, and Liverpool. Thus, if interested, hire the best Educational Software Developers in the UK.

Furthermore, the use of educational apps has drastically increased because of their unique features and engagement among teachers and students. The education apps allow students to engage in questions and epic answer discussions and earn in-game rewards. This also allows students to visualize students’ progress, align in-game questions, and motivate learning among students with powerful tools that teachers and parents can also use.

The advantages of education apps go a long way and are taking the scene by storm. It’s no secret that it is a new learning method, especially these days when we are all in isolation. But there’s also much more than that. It’s an enhanced parent-teacher communication that helps in building parent-teacher relationships beyond the walls of educational institutes and the availability of eBooks and online study that keeps them closer to the study material, etc. Other advantages include miscellaneous functions and decreased communication gap between students and the institutes. Moreover, UK Digital Company is here to support you. We mean you teachers, parents, and school leaders. We made everything simple and customizable for you to use, learn, and engage with.

Get yourself, educators, students, and parents future-ready with our educational apps that are equipped to make learning more fun and more engaging again. You can also visit our website to learn and discover more about our educational apps development.

[webdesign544]

Web Design Liverpool

Looking for a professional web design agency in Liverpool? Search on Google "web design Liverpool" to find a good list of local designers. Evaluate their portfolios and hire the one that looks best suited to your needs. In Liverpool there are many companies who specialize in web development, ecommerce, graphic design, social media marketing, search engine optimization, advertising, and more!

You have probably heard of some of these companies. For example, Adobe is well-known in creating online programs such as Flash, Shockwave, Photoshop, and Pages. LiveBooks is another company that provides software for creating, maintaining, and managing a website. Microsoft is well known for its Visual Studio, ASP, C#, and Java tools. Yahoo! Internet Solutions specializes in creating corporate websites.

Before hiring any Web Design Liverpool , it's important to thoroughly evaluate their credentials. Search for reviews and client testimonials on the Internet. Check out their references and recommendations, too. It's a good idea to talk to someone from their previous clients. A consultant may also be able to tell you about their experience and how they were able to help the client. Even talking to a former client will give you an idea of what to expect from the company.

There are many other web design companies that provide various services. Don't be afraid to ask questions about their experience and capabilities. It's also a good idea to get price quotes, guarantees, and explanations for their fees. Look into at least three firms before making your decision to hire one.

Some web design companies offer freelance designers and others offer full service website design. Freelance designers are generally located in different cities throughout the United Kingdom. To find a freelance designer in Liverpool, use your favorite search engine and type "web designer in Liverpool" or "Liverpool web designers." You will then be directed to a web design gallery or directory. Browse the directory until you find an individual or company that looks right for your project. Contact them by email or telephone to discuss your project.

If you decide to hire a web design firm instead of a freelance designer, check out the portfolio of the individuals or businesses you are considering. Contact the firms beforehand to set up an initial meeting. At this time, you should also ask questions about their experience, rates, and web design history. The web design agency should provide all of the information you need to know before the first meeting.

If you're planning to start your own business website, then it may be worth hiring a web design agency to create your site. This will allow you to focus on running your business. The agency will take care of all aspects of graphic design, content creation, and marketing. They will also work with your business to get your site approved by search engines. A web design agency in Liverpool is an excellent choice for web designers.

A web design company in Liverpool can help you design a website that gets your message out while at the same time making sure that you're able to effectively market your products. A professional website design service can be invaluable to small business owners because it can reach an extremely wide customer base. A website design company in Liverpool offers several services to their customers. Web hosting, graphic design, social media marketing, and SEO are all offered by some web design companies in Liverpool. For your web design needs, consider hiring a professional service in the UK. You'll be glad that you did.

When you hire a web design company in Liverpool to create your website, you know that you have someone who understands the ins and outs of how the web functions. They will be able to help you get your message across while making sure that your design is unique and creative. When searching for a professional website design service in the UK, be sure to keep these things in mind. Remember that you want a website that will help your business to grow. A web design company in Liverpool is able to offer many services to their customers, including:

When you need a professional website created, you may feel overwhelmed with all of the services available to you. Know that a graphic design firm in Liverpool has services that fit into just about any budget. You'll be amazed at the quality of services available. They'll be able to handle just about any type of design need you have, including: logo design, social media marketing, ecommerce, and more. A professional web design company in Liverpool can also offer their clients cutting-edge technology in order to help them design a website that works today. In fact, these firms will be able to help you incorporate state-of-the-art technology in order to ensure that your site is not only unique, but also convenient for your visitors.

You want a website that promotes your company and brand, but you don't want it to take up an entire wall or page. That's why it's so important to find a design company in Liverpool to handle your design needs. You'll find that a professional website design company in Liverpool can help you achieve a great website, which will be helpful for your current business goals, as well as future business goals. With a design company in Liverpool to handle your website design needs, you'll be able to keep your customers up to date with your products and services, which will help you grow your business.

[s4g2world]

Finding a Web Designer - A Brief Guide on What to Look for and What to Ask

Finding a website designer

There are a few ways to find a web designer, but we are going to cover how to most effectively get the correct web designer for the job.

Local web designers vs. outsourced web designers (Support):

First if you do not understand much about computers and want to stay hands off with the project, aim for finding a web designer in your area. This way you can physically sit down and check through reports, designs and plans for your website on the web.

If you are comfortable reaching out through email and comfortable attaching pictures and written content for your website revisions it is okay to choose a web design company to work on your website remotely. But, that brings up a great question. How remotely should you go when finding a project manager?

I always recommend sticking within two hours of your current timezone. Why would I suggest this when finding a website developer? Easy, when you are having an emergency and you need someone to tech the problem, it's an amazing benefit to have a web designer that is on the same hours as you and does not mind working on the task right that second.

Local web developers vs. outsourced web developers(Price):

Sure you will save yourself a few dollars by choosing a web developer in a country other than yours, but more often than not you may have to overcome or overlook language barriers which could end costing you a lot of time. Not to mention during your productive hours, the designer you hired outside could be resting and to me that could be asking for trouble.

What should I ask for when finding a web designer?

Simple Projects

More often than not you will not need to ask for much, other than examples and the costs.

Make sure your designer is up to par on their software, hosting and (Search Engine Optimization) strategies.

I say this because a degree now-a-days in Graphic Design does not mean too much. Some of the greatest designers I know learned everything by themselves. My main rule of thumb is that if you have found a web designer that does not understand the basic Content Management Systems out there like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal and the PHP and MySQL carried out on the server that makes them operational, you should keep looking.

Most non-complex projects should be done in one of the above CMS mentioned. Reason being is with a content management systems, you are generally given login credentials to complete changes to the basic text on your website. If you fire a member of your company or update your phone number, you are not forced to compensate your web designer to make modifications on the fly after signing off on the website contract.

I have became friends with many website designers in the industry through my company with college degrees in Graphic Design, that still use programs and techniques from ten years ago that do not work well and even worse they use SEO techniques that could get you dropped out of on Google's search SERPs. Check the ranking of their other passed projects and do not be afraid to pay them for qualified SEO services.

Complex Projects

When looking for a web designer for a difficult design, you will need to see testimonials, traffic reports and comparisons on previous design projects that company has finished that looks like what you want.

If your business is trying to find a complete package that includes print design similar to what we offer, ask for sample fliers, business cards, and the quanitity in which the company cans create them and turn them around for you to use.

 S4G2 Marketing Agency Will be Best Choice If You Looking For Web Designer in United Kingdom:

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[magzoso-tech]

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/this-ride-hailing-pr-pitch-shows-platforms-and-digital-campaign-dark-arts-want-democracy-to-be-pay-to-play/

This ride-hailing PR pitch shows platforms and digital campaign ‘dark arts’ want democracy to be pay to play

A UK PR firm pitching to run an account for Ola has proposed running a campaign to politicize ride-hailing as a tactic to shift regulations in its favor.

The approach suggests that, despite the appearance of ride-hailing platforms taking a more conciliatory position with regulators that are now wise to earlier startup tactics in this space, there remains a calculus involving realpolitik, propaganda and high-level lobbying between companies that want to enter or expand in markets, and those who hold the golden tickets to do so.

In 2017 Estonia-based ride-hailing startup Taxify tried to launch in London ahead of regulatory approval, for example, but city authorities clamped down straight away. It was only able to return to the UK capital 21 months later (now known as Bolt).

In Western markets ride-hailing companies are facing old and new regulatory roadblocks that are driving up costs and creating barriers to growth. In some instances unfavorable rule changes have even led companies to pull out of cities or regions all together. Even as there are ongoing questions around the employment classification of the drivers these platforms depend on to deliver a service.

The PR pitch, made by a Tufton Street-based PR firm called Public First, suggests Ola tackle legislative friction in UK regions with a policy influence campaign targeted at local voters.

The SoftBank-backed Indian ride-hailing startup launched in the U.K. in August, 2018 and currently offers services in a handful of regional locations including South Wales, Merseyside and the West Midlands. Most recently it gained a licence to operate in London, and last month launched services in Coventry and Warwick — saying then that passengers in the UK had clocked up more than one million trips since its launch.

Manchester is also on its target list — and features as a focus in the strategy proposal — though an Ola spokesman told us it has no launch date for the city yet. The company met with Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, during a trade mission to India last month.

The Public First proposal suggests a range of strategies for Ola to get local authorities and local politicians on-side, and thus avoid problems in potential and future operations, including the use of engagement campaigns and digital targeting to mobilize select coalitions around politicized, self-serving talking points — such as claims that public transport is less safe and convenient; or that air quality improves if fewer people drive into the city — in order to generate pressure on regulators to change licensing rules.

Another suggestion is to position the company less as a business, and more as an organization representing tens of thousands of time-poor people.

Public First advocates generally for the use of data- and technology-driven campaign methods, such as microtargeted digital advertising, as more effective than direct lobbying of local government officials — suggesting using digital tools to generate a perception that an issue is politicized will encourage elected representatives to do the heavy lifting of pressuring regulators because they’ll be concerned about losing votes.

The firm describes digital campaign elements as “crucial” to this strategy.

“Through a small, targeted online digital advertising campaign in both cities, local councillors’ email inboxes would begin to fill with requests from a number of different people (students, businesses, and other members of [a commuter advocacy group it proposes setting up to act as a lobby vehicle]) for the local authority to change its approach on local taxi licensing — in effect, to make it easier for Ola to launch,” it offers as a proposed strategy for building momentum behind Ola in Manchester and Liverpool.

Public First confirmed it made the pitch to Ola but told us: “This was merely a routine, speculative proposal of the sort we generate all the time as we meet people.”

“Ola Cabs has no relationship whatsoever with Public First,” it added.

A spokesperson for Ola also confirmed that it does not have a business relationship with Public First. “Ola has never had a relationship with Public First, does not currently have one and nor will it in the future,” the spokesman told us.

“Ola’s approach in the UK has been defined by working closely and collaborating with local authorities and we are committed to being fully licensed in every area we operate,” he added, suggesting the strategy it’s applying is the opposite of what’s being proposed.

We understand that prior to Public First pitching their ideas to a person working in Ola’s comms division, Ola’s director of legal, compliance and regulation, Andrew Winterton, met with the firm over coffee — in an introductory capacity. But that no such tactics were discussed.

It appears that, following first contact, Public First took the initiative to draw up the strategy suggesting politicizing ride-hailing in key target regions which it emailed to Winterton but only presented to a more junior Ola employee in a follow-up meeting the legal director did not attend.

Ola has built a major ride-hailing business in its home market of India — by way of $3.8BN in funding and aggressive competition. Since 2018 it has been taking international steps to fuel additional growth. In the U.K. its approach to date has been fairly low key, going to cities and regional centers outside of high-profile London first, as well as aiming to serve areas with big Indian populations to help recruit riders and drivers.

It’s a strategy that’s likely been informed by being able to view the track record of existing ride-hailing players — and avoid Uber-style regulatory blunders.

The tech giant was dealt a major shock by London’s transport regulator in 2017, when TfL denied it a licence renewal — citing concerns over Uber’s approach to passenger safety and corporate governance, including querying its explanation for using proprietary software that could be used to evade regulatory oversight.

The Uber story looks to be the high water mark for blitzscaling startup tactics that relied on ignoring or brute forcing regulators in the ride-hailing category. Laws and local authorities have largely caught up. The name of the game now is finding ways to get regulators on side.

Propaganda as a service

The fact that strategic proposals such as Public First’s to Ola are considered routine enough to put into a speculative pitch is interesting, given how the lack of transparency around the use of online tools for spreading propaganda is an issue that’s now troubling elected representatives in parliaments all over the world. Tools such as those offered by Facebook’s ad platform.

In Facebook’s case the company provides only limited visibility into who is running political and issue-based ads on its platform. The targeting criteria being used to reach individuals is also not comprehensively disclosed.

Some of the company’s own employees recently went public with concerns that its advanced targeting and behavioral-tracking tools make it “hard for people in the electorate to participate in the public scrutiny that we’re saying comes along with political speech”, as they put it.

At the same time, platforms providing a conduit for corporate interests to cheaply and easily manufacture ‘politicized’ speech looks to be another under-scrutinized risk for democratic societies.

Among the services Public First lists on its website are “policy development”, “qualitative and quantitative opinion research”, “issues-based campaigns”, “coalition-building” and “war gaming”. (Here, for example, is a piece of work the firm carried out for Google — where its analysis-for-hire results in a puffy claim that the tech giant’s digital services are worth at least $70BN in annual “economic value” for the UK.)

Public First’s choice of office location, in Tufton Street, London, is also notable as the area is home to an interlinked hub of right-leaning think tanks, such as the free market Center for Policy Studies and pro-Brexit Initiative for Free Trade. These are lobby vehicles dressed up as policy wonks which put out narratives intended to influence public opinion and legislation in a particular direction without it being clear who their financial backers are.

Some of the publicity strategies involved in this kind of work appear to share similarities with tactics used by Big Tobacco to lobby against anti-smoking legislation, or fossil fuel interests’ funding of disinformation and astroturfing operations to create a perception of doubt around consensus climate science.

“A lot of what used to get sold in this space essentially was access [to policymakers],” says one former public relations professional, speaking on background. “What you’re seeing an increasingly amount of now is the ‘technification’ of that process. Everyone’s using those kinds of tools — clearly in terms of trying to understand public sentiment better and that kind of thing… But essentially what they’re saying is we can set up a set of politicized issues so that they can benefit you. And that’s an interesting change. It’s not just straight defence and attack; promote your brand vs another. It’s ‘okay, we’re going to change the politics around an issue… in order to benefit your outcome’. And that’s fairly sophisticated and interesting.”

Mat Hope, editor of investigative journalism outlet DeSmog — which reports on climate-related misinformation campaigns — has done a lot of work focused on Tufton Street specifically, looking at the impact the network’s ‘policy-costumed’ corporate talking points have had on UK democracy.

“There is a set of organisations based out of offices in and around 55 Tufton Street in Westminster, just around the corner from the Houses of Parliament, which in recent years have had an outsized impact on British democracy. Many of the groups were at the forefront of the Leave campaign, and are now pushing for a hard or no-deal Brexit,” he told us, noting that Public First not only has offices nearby but that its founders and employees “have strong ties to other organisations based there”.

“The groups regularly lobby politicians in the interests of specific companies or big industry through the guise of grassroots or for-the-people campaigns,” he added. “One way they do this is through targeting adverts or social media posts, using groups with benign sounding names. This makes it hard to trace the campaign back to any particular company, and gives the issue an impression of grassroots support that is, on the whole, artificial.”

Platform power without responsibility

Ad platforms such as Facebook which profit by profiling people offer cheap yet powerful tools for corporate interests to identify and target highly specific sub-sets of voters. This is possible thanks to the vast amounts of personal data they collect — an activity that’s finally coming under significant regulatory scrutiny — and custom ad tools such as lookalike audiences, all of which enables behavioral microtargeting at the individual user/voter level.

Lookalike audiences is a powerful ad product that allows Facebook advertisers to upload customer data yet also leverage the company’s pervasive people-profiling to access new audiences that they do not hold data on but who have similar characteristics to their target. These so-called lookalike audiences can be tightly geotargeted, as well as zeroed in on granular interests and demographics. It’s not hard to see how such tools can be applied to selectively hit up only the voters most likely to align with a business’ interests.

The upshot is that an online advertiser is able to pay little to tap into the population-scale reach and vast data wealth of platform giants — turning firehose power against individual voters who they deem — via focus group work or other voter data analysis — to be aligned with a corporate agenda. The platform becomes a propaganda machine for manufacturing the appearance of broad public engagement and grassroots advocacy for a self-interested policy change.

The target voter, meanwhile, is most likely none the wiser about why they’re seeing politicized messaging. It’s that lack of transparency that makes the activity inherently anti-democratic.

The UK’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee raised Facebook’s lookalike audiences as a risk to democracy during a recent enquiry into online disinformation and digital campaigning. It went on to recommend an outright ban on political microtargeting to lookalike audiences online. Though the UK government has so far failed to act on that or its fuller suite of recommendations. (Nor has Facebook responded to increasingly loud calls from politicians and civic society to ban political and issue ads altogether.)

Even a code of conduct published by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) emphasizes transparency — with member organizations committing to “be open and transparent in declaring their name, organisation and the interest they represent”. (Albeit, the IPRA’s member list is not itself public.)

While online targeting of social media users remains a major problem for democracies, on account of the lack of transparency and individual consent to targeting (or, indeed, to data-based profiling), in recent years we’ve also seen more direct efforts by companies to use their own technology tools to generate voter pressure.

Examples such as ride-hailing giant Uber which, under its founding CEO, Travis Kalanick, became well known for a ‘push button’ approach to mobilizing its user base by sending calls to action to lobby against unfavorable regulatory changes.

Airbnb has also sought to use its platform-reach to beat against local authority rule changes that threaten its ‘home sharing’ business model.

However it’s the opaque tech-fuelled targeting enabled by ad platforms like Facebook that’s far more problematic for democracies as it allows vested interests to generate self-interested pressure remotely — including from abroad — while remaining entirely shielded from view.

Fixing this will require regulatory muscle to enforce existing laws around personal data collection (at least where such laws exist) — and doing so in a way that prevents microtargeting from being the cheap advertising default. Democracies should not allow their citizens to be mirrored in the data because it sets them up to be hollowed out; their individuals aggregated, classified and repackaged as all-you-can-eat attention units for whoever is paying.

And likely also legislation to set firm boundaries around the use of political and campaigning/issue ads online. Turning platform power against the individual is inherently asymmetrical. It’s never going to be a fair fight. So fair ground rules for digital political campaigning — and a proper oversight regime to enforce them — are absolutely essential.

Another democratic tonic is transparency. Which means raising awareness about tech-fuelled tactics that are designed to generate and exploit data-based asymmetries in order to hack and manipulate public opinion. Such skewed stuff only really works when the target is oblivious to what’s afoot. In that respect, every little disclosure of these ‘dark arts’ and the platforms that enable them provides a much-needed counter boost for critical thinking and democracy.

[ukdigitalcompany]

Reinventing Travel and Tour Apps

Travel and Tour Mobile Apps

Ever planned about having the perfect getaway? It can get extraneous, right? You have to plan everything. From accommodation bookings, car and taxi rentals, route mapping, and so much more. You also have to think about flight bookings and tours. That is why travel and tour apps are useful and important to people these days to get their escape to come to reality without all the stress.

UK Digital Company is a Travel and Tourism Apps Development Company in the UK and a top Travel and Tourism Industry Mobile Apps Development. In addition, we are the best Travel App Solution Company in the United Kingdom that flawlessly works on Android and iOS platforms. Through its availability in Android and iOS platforms, you can discover more and book multiple travel services that are seamless and easy.

Needless to say, the old course of the travel industry has been disrupted due to the pandemic. Thus, it totally reinvented tour and travel ways and how we explore traveling. In addition, technology has even made it easier, seamless, contactless, and it restores confidence. You will discover a lot of other vacation spots and destinations using our app. Just use your smartphone and find your perfect destination in a few taps.

Travel agencies and physical bookings are almost dated and currently are having a new approach moving forward. A survey conducted by eMarketer shows that travel-based mobile apps are placed at 7th in the most downloaded applications category. While 60% of smartphone users prefer travel apps for planning their travel. Undoubtedly, there are so many benefits of having travel and tours mobile apps. In the UK and Europe alone, the competition is too stiff and competitive in gaining control of the consumer market. Having a travel and tourism mobile app can resonate well with consumers who want to spend their time and vacation during the holidays season. To name a few of its benefits are the following: making your mark in the consumer industry, understanding consumer trends, attracting customers, etc.

But wait, there’s more. Have we mentioned the features of having our tour and travel mobile apps? Here are the lists of our features: online ticket bookings, geo-tracking services, ease in selection method, online payment facility, in-app language translator, travel itinerary generator, and many others.

Ready to have your own or to transform your travel and tour apps? Hire the best Tourism and Travels App Software Developers in London, Bath, Oxford, Bristol, Cambridge, and Liverpool at an affordable price. Visit our website today to learn more about us.

[lovelordblog-blog]

Selecting an SEO Agency To Your Site

When choosing an search engine optimization service for your site, the choice is often a difficult one. It's crucial to ensure you choose one that specializes in the area of work you have selected. A business or website owner might choose to take the assistance of a company that is able to give the broad selection of solutions to meet the needs of different customers. It is often advised to take help from companies that could supply you with full-service for a fantastic price.

Before you settle for any one SEO service, you need to understand what their providers can offer you. They ought to be able to offer you an understanding of the business and how they operate. This might help you figure out which company is suitable for your site. A firm ought to be able to give you analysis reports that have the growth of your website in terms of search engine placement.

You should also be able to get information on the type of keywords you can use for SEO. Using the right keywords on your web pages can allow you to rank high for your intended market SEO agency Manchester. As you engage in SEO, you need to remember that search engines use more than one method to discover sites that are relevant to their topic.

The services of an search engine optimization agency may also involve the technical part of the website and search engine optimisation. It will ensure your site is connected to the web and is easily accessible for potential customers. It is highly advisable to engage a company that knows the most recent methods to get your website listed in the top search results.

An SEO service in Liverpool has the experience to help you attain your goals. They are well versed in the latest software, tools and methods to optimize your site to achieve its desired goals. This will help you bring you traffic that will convert to revenue in addition to keep your business going.

An search engine optimization service in Liverpool should be able to help you create marketing campaigns for your site. It should be in a position to provide you with consultancy to the new and better methods to achieve the results you need for your site. This can allow you to manage your financial plan whilst ensuring your site is developed in the most efficient way possible.

A professional SEO agency should also offer you solutions which are tailored to your enterprise. This could assist you in making an informed choice on the best service for your website. The search engine optimization agency should be able to assist you integrate the most recent technology into your website.

The services provided by a fantastic SEO agency in Liverpool can help you attain your targets and improve your business. It is important to hire a professional agency which will give you the best results to your company.  There are plenty of agencies available but selecting the right one will make a difference.

[endenogatai]

This ride-hailing PR pitch shows platforms and digital campaign ‘dark arts’ want democracy to be pay to play

A UK PR firm pitching to run an account for Ola has proposed running a campaign to politicize ride-hailing as a tactic to shift regulations in its favor.

The approach suggests that, despite the appearance of ride-hailing platforms taking a more conciliatory position with regulators that are now wise to earlier startup tactics in this space, there remains a calculus involving realpolitik, propaganda and high-level lobbying between companies that want to enter or expand in markets, and those who hold the golden tickets to do so.

In 2017 Estonia-based ride-hailing startup Taxify tried to launch in London ahead of regulatory approval, for example, but city authorities clamped down straight away. It was only able to return to the UK capital 21 months later (now known as Bolt).

In Western markets ride-hailing companies are facing old and new regulatory roadblocks that are driving up costs and creating barriers to growth. In some instances unfavorable rule changes have even led companies to pull out of cities or regions all together. Even as there are ongoing questions around the employment classification of the drivers these platforms depend on to deliver a service.

The PR pitch, made by a Tufton Street-based PR firm called Public First, suggests Ola tackle legislative friction in UK regions with a policy influence campaign targeted at local voters.

The SoftBank-backed Indian ride-hailing startup launched in the U.K. in August, 2018 and currently offers services in a handful of regional locations including South Wales, Merseyside and the West Midlands. Most recently it gained a licence to operate in London, and last month launched services in Coventry and Warwick — saying then that passengers in the UK had clocked up more than one million trips since its launch.

Manchester is also on its target list — and features as a focus in the strategy proposal — though an Ola spokesman told us it has no launch date for the city yet. The company met with Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, during a trade mission to India last month.

Hot on the heels! @Olacabs meeting with @MayorofGM @AndyBurnhamGM in #Bengaluru to discuss their Manchester plans. pic.twitter.com/quzYtQ4zna

— Leena Paul (@leenavittal) October 9, 2019

The Public First proposal suggests a range of strategies for Ola to get local authorities and local politicians on-side, and thus avoid problems in potential and future operations, including the use of engagement campaigns and digital targeting to mobilize select coalitions around politicized, self-serving talking points — such as claims that public transport is less safe and convenient; or that air quality improves if fewer people drive into the city — in order to generate pressure on regulators to change licensing rules.

Another suggestion is to position the company less as a business, and more as an organization representing tens of thousands of time-poor people.

Public First advocates generally for the use of data- and technology-driven campaign methods, such as microtargeted digital advertising, as more effective than direct lobbying of local government officials — suggesting using digital tools to generate a perception that an issue is politicized will encourage elected representatives to do the heavy lifting of pressuring regulators because they’ll be concerned about losing votes.

The firm describes digital campaign elements as “crucial” to this strategy.

“Through a small, targeted online digital advertising campaign in both cities, local councillors’ email inboxes would begin to fill with requests from a number of different people (students, businesses, and other members of [a commuter advocacy group it proposes setting up to act as a lobby vehicle]) for the local authority to change its approach on local taxi licensing — in effect, to make it easier for Ola to launch,” it offers as a proposed strategy for building momentum behind Ola in Manchester and Liverpool.

Public First confirmed it made the pitch to Ola but told us: “This was merely a routine, speculative proposal of the sort we generate all the time as we meet people.”

“Ola Cabs has no relationship whatsoever with Public First,” it added.

A spokesperson for Ola also confirmed that it does not have a business relationship with Public First. “Ola has never had a relationship with Public First, does not currently have one and nor will it in the future,” the spokesman told us.

“Ola’s approach in the UK has been defined by working closely and collaborating with local authorities and we are committed to being fully licensed in every area we operate,” he added, suggesting the strategy it’s applying is the opposite of what’s being proposed.

We understand that prior to Public First pitching their ideas to a person working in Ola’s comms division, Ola’s director of legal, compliance and regulation, Andrew Winterton, met with the firm over coffee — in an introductory capacity. But that no such tactics were discussed.

It appears that, following first contact, Public First took the initiative to draw up the strategy suggesting politicizing ride-hailing in key target regions which it emailed to Winterton but only presented to a more junior Ola employee in a follow-up meeting the legal director did not attend.

Ola has built a major ride-hailing business in its home market of India — by way of $3.8BN in funding and aggressive competition. Since 2018 it has been taking international steps to fuel additional growth. In the U.K. its approach to date has been fairly low key, going to cities and regional centers outside of high-profile London first, as well as aiming to serve areas with big Indian populations to help recruit riders and drivers.

It’s a strategy that’s likely been informed by being able to view the track record of existing ride-hailing players — and avoid Uber-style regulatory blunders.

The tech giant was dealt a major shock by London’s transport regulator in 2017, when TfL denied it a licence renewal — citing concerns over Uber’s approach to passenger safety and corporate governance, including querying its explanation for using proprietary software that could be used to evade regulatory oversight.

The Uber story looks to be the high water mark for blitzscaling startup tactics that relied on ignoring or brute forcing regulators in the ride-hailing category. Laws and local authorities have largely caught up. The name of the game now is finding ways to get regulators on side.

Propaganda as a service

The fact that strategic proposals such as Public First’s to Ola are considered routine enough to put into a speculative pitch is interesting, given how the lack of transparency around the use of online tools for spreading propaganda is an issue that’s now troubling elected representatives in parliaments all over the world. Tools such as those offered by Facebook’s ad platform.

In Facebook’s case the company provides only limited visibility into who is running political and issue-based ads on its platform. The targeting criteria being used to reach individuals is also not comprehensively disclosed.

Some of the company’s own employees recently went public with concerns that its advanced targeting and behavioral-tracking tools make it “hard for people in the electorate to participate in the public scrutiny that we’re saying comes along with political speech”, as they put it.

At the same time, platforms providing a conduit for corporate interests to cheaply and easily manufacture ‘politicized’ speech looks to be another under-scrutinized risk for democratic societies.

Among the services Public First lists on its website are “policy development”, “qualitative and quantitative opinion research”, “issues-based campaigns”, “coalition-building” and “war gaming”. (Here, for example, is a piece of work the firm carried out for Google — where its analysis-for-hire results in a puffy claim that the tech giant’s digital services are worth at least $70BN in annual “economic value” for the UK.)

Public First’s choice of office location, in Tufton Street, London, is also notable as the area is home to an interlinked hub of right-leaning think tanks, such as the free market Center for Policy Studies and pro-Brexit Initiative for Free Trade. These are lobby vehicles dressed up as policy wonks which put out narratives intended to influence public opinion and legislation in a particular direction without it being clear who their financial backers are.

Some of the publicity strategies involved in this kind of work appear to share similarities with tactics used by Big Tobacco to lobby against anti-smoking legislation, or fossil fuel interests’ funding of disinformation and astroturfing operations to create a perception of doubt around consensus climate science.

“A lot of what used to get sold in this space essentially was access [to policymakers],” says one former public relations professional, speaking on background. “What you’re seeing an increasingly amount of now is the ‘technification’ of that process. Everyone’s using those kinds of tools — clearly in terms of trying to understand public sentiment better and that kind of thing… But essentially what they’re saying is we can set up a set of politicized issues so that they can benefit you. And that’s an interesting change. It’s not just straight defence and attack; promote your brand vs another. It’s ‘okay, we’re going to change the politics around an issue… in order to benefit your outcome’. And that’s fairly sophisticated and interesting.”

Mat Hope, editor of investigative journalism outlet DeSmog — which reports on climate-related misinformation campaigns — has done a lot of work focused on Tufton Street specifically, looking at the impact the network’s ‘policy-costumed’ corporate talking points have had on UK democracy.

“There is a set of organisations based out of offices in and around 55 Tufton Street in Westminster, just around the corner from the Houses of Parliament, which in recent years have had an outsized impact on British democracy. Many of the groups were at the forefront of the Leave campaign, and are now pushing for a hard or no-deal Brexit,” he told us, noting that Public First not only has offices nearby but that its founders and employees “have strong ties to other organisations based there”.

“The groups regularly lobby politicians in the interests of specific companies or big industry through the guise of grassroots or for-the-people campaigns,” he added. “One way they do this is through targeting adverts or social media posts, using groups with benign sounding names. This makes it hard to trace the campaign back to any particular company, and gives the issue an impression of grassroots support that is, on the whole, artificial.”

Platform power without responsibility

Ad platforms such as Facebook which profit by profiling people offer cheap yet powerful tools for corporate interests to identify and target highly specific sub-sets of voters. This is possible thanks to the vast amounts of personal data they collect — an activity that’s finally coming under significant regulatory scrutiny — and custom ad tools such as lookalike audiences, all of which enables behavioral microtargeting at the individual user/voter level.

Lookalike audiences is a powerful ad product that allows Facebook advertisers to upload customer data yet also leverage the company’s pervasive people-profiling to access new audiences that they do not hold data on but who have similar characteristics to their target. These so-called lookalike audiences can be tightly geotargeted, as well as zeroed in on granular interests and demographics. It’s not hard to see how such tools can be applied to selectively hit up only the voters most likely to align with a business’ interests.

The upshot is that an online advertiser is able to pay little to tap into the population-scale reach and vast data wealth of platform giants — turning firehose power against individual voters who they deem — via focus group work or other voter data analysis — to be aligned with a corporate agenda. The platform becomes a propaganda machine for manufacturing the appearance of broad public engagement and grassroots advocacy for a self-interested policy change.

The target voter, meanwhile, is most likely none the wiser about why they’re seeing politicized messaging. It’s that lack of transparency that makes the activity inherently anti-democratic.

The UK’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee raised Facebook’s lookalike audiences as a risk to democracy during a recent enquiry into online disinformation and digital campaigning. It went on to recommend an outright ban on political microtargeting to lookalike audiences online. Though the UK government has so far failed to act on that or its fuller suite of recommendations. (Nor has Facebook responded to increasingly loud calls from politicians and civic society to ban political and issue ads altogether.)

Even a code of conduct published by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) emphasizes transparency — with member organizations committing to “be open and transparent in declaring their name, organisation and the interest they represent”. (Albeit, the IPRA’s member list is not itself public.)

While online targeting of social media users remains a major problem for democracies, on account of the lack of transparency and individual consent to targeting (or, indeed, to data-based profiling), in recent years we’ve also seen more direct efforts by companies to use their own technology tools to generate voter pressure.

Examples such as ride-hailing giant Uber which, under its founding CEO, Travis Kalanick, became well known for a ‘push button’ approach to mobilizing its user base by sending calls to action to lobby against unfavorable regulatory changes.

Airbnb has also sought to use its platform-reach to beat against local authority rule changes that threaten its ‘home sharing’ business model.

However it’s the opaque tech-fuelled targeting enabled by ad platforms like Facebook that’s far more problematic for democracies as it allows vested interests to generate self-interested pressure remotely — including from abroad — while remaining entirely shielded from view.

Fixing this will require regulatory muscle to enforce existing laws around personal data collection (at least where such laws exist) — and doing so in a way that prevents microtargeting from being the cheap advertising default. Democracies should not allow their citizens to be mirrored in the data because it sets them up to be hollowed out; their individuals aggregated, classified and repackaged as all-you-can-eat attention units for whoever is paying.

And likely also legislation to set firm boundaries around the use of political and campaigning/issue ads online. Turning platform power against the individual is inherently asymmetrical. It’s never going to be a fair fight. So fair ground rules for digital political campaigning — and a proper oversight regime to enforce them — are absolutely essential.

Another democratic tonic is transparency. Which means raising awareness about tech-fuelled tactics that are designed to generate and exploit data-based asymmetries in order to hack and manipulate public opinion. Such skewed stuff only really works when the target is oblivious to what’s afoot. In that respect, every little disclosure of these ‘dark arts’ and the platforms that enable them provides a much-needed counter boost for critical thinking and democracy.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/2OeejQM via IFTTT

[sheminecrafts]

This ride-hailing PR pitch shows platforms and digital campaign ‘dark arts’ want democracy to be pay to play

A UK PR firm pitching to run an account for Ola has proposed running a campaign to politicize ride-hailing as a tactic to shift regulations in its favor.

The approach suggests that, despite the appearance of ride-hailing platforms taking a more conciliatory position with regulators that are now wise to earlier startup tactics in this space, there remains a calculus involving realpolitik, propaganda and high-level lobbying between companies that want to enter or expand in markets, and those who hold the golden tickets to do so.

In 2017 Estonia-based ride-hailing startup Taxify tried to launch in London ahead of regulatory approval, for example, but city authorities clamped down straight away. It was only able to return to the UK capital 21 months later (now known as Bolt).

In Western markets ride-hailing companies are facing old and new regulatory roadblocks that are driving up costs and creating barriers to growth. In some instances unfavorable rule changes have even led companies to pull out of cities or regions all together. Even as there are ongoing questions around the employment classification of the drivers these platforms depend on to deliver a service.

The PR pitch, made by a Tufton Street-based PR firm called Public First, suggests Ola tackle legislative friction in UK regions with a policy influence campaign targeted at local voters.

The SoftBank-backed Indian ride-hailing startup launched in the U.K. in August, 2018 and currently offers services in a handful of regional locations including South Wales, Merseyside and the West Midlands. Most recently it gained a licence to operate in London, and last month launched services in Coventry and Warwick — saying then that passengers in the UK had clocked up more than one million trips since its launch.

Manchester is also on its target list — and features as a focus in the strategy proposal — though an Ola spokesman told us it has no launch date for the city yet. The company met with Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, during a trade mission to India last month.

Hot on the heels! @Olacabs meeting with @MayorofGM @AndyBurnhamGM in #Bengaluru to discuss their Manchester plans. pic.twitter.com/quzYtQ4zna

— Leena Paul (@leenavittal) October 9, 2019

The Public First proposal suggests a range of strategies for Ola to get local authorities and local politicians on-side, and thus avoid problems in potential and future operations, including the use of engagement campaigns and digital targeting to mobilize select coalitions around politicized, self-serving talking points — such as claims that public transport is less safe and convenient; or that air quality improves if fewer people drive into the city — in order to generate pressure on regulators to change licensing rules.

Another suggestion is to position the company less as a business, and more as an organization representing tens of thousands of time-poor people.

Public First advocates generally for the use of data- and technology-driven campaign methods, such as microtargeted digital advertising, as more effective than direct lobbying of local government officials — suggesting using digital tools to generate a perception that an issue is politicized will encourage elected representatives to do the heavy lifting of pressuring regulators because they’ll be concerned about losing votes.

The firm describes digital campaign elements as “crucial” to this strategy.

“Through a small, targeted online digital advertising campaign in both cities, local councillors’ email inboxes would begin to fill with requests from a number of different people (students, businesses, and other members of [a commuter advocacy group it proposes setting up to act as a lobby vehicle]) for the local authority to change its approach on local taxi licensing — in effect, to make it easier for Ola to launch,” it offers as a proposed strategy for building momentum behind Ola in Manchester and Liverpool.

Public First confirmed it made the pitch to Ola but told us: “This was merely a routine, speculative proposal of the sort we generate all the time as we meet people.”

“Ola Cabs has no relationship whatsoever with Public First,” it added.

A spokesperson for Ola also confirmed that it does not have a business relationship with Public First. “Ola has never had a relationship with Public First, does not currently have one and nor will it in the future,” the spokesman told us.

“Ola’s approach in the UK has been defined by working closely and collaborating with local authorities and we are committed to being fully licensed in every area we operate,” he added, suggesting the strategy it’s applying is the opposite of what’s being proposed.

We understand that prior to Public First pitching their ideas to a person working in Ola’s comms division, Ola’s director of legal, compliance and regulation, Andrew Winterton, met with the firm over coffee — in an introductory capacity. But that no such tactics were discussed.

It appears that, following first contact, Public First took the initiative to draw up the strategy suggesting politicizing ride-hailing in key target regions which it emailed to Winterton but only presented to a more junior Ola employee in a follow-up meeting the legal director did not attend.

Ola has built a major ride-hailing business in its home market of India — by way of $3.8BN in funding and aggressive competition. Since 2018 it has been taking international steps to fuel additional growth. In the U.K. its approach to date has been fairly low key, going to cities and regional centers outside of high-profile London first, as well as aiming to serve areas with big Indian populations to help recruit riders and drivers.

It’s a strategy that’s likely been informed by being able to view the track record of existing ride-hailing players — and avoid Uber-style regulatory blunders.

The tech giant was dealt a major shock by London’s transport regulator in 2017, when TfL denied it a licence renewal — citing concerns over Uber’s approach to passenger safety and corporate governance, including querying its explanation for using proprietary software that could be used to evade regulatory oversight.

The Uber story looks to be the high water mark for blitzscaling startup tactics that relied on ignoring or brute forcing regulators in the ride-hailing category. Laws and local authorities have largely caught up. The name of the game now is finding ways to get regulators on side.

Propaganda as a service

The fact that strategic proposals such as Public First’s to Ola are considered routine enough to put into a speculative pitch is interesting, given how the lack of transparency around the use of online tools for spreading propaganda is an issue that’s now troubling elected representatives in parliaments all over the world. Tools such as those offered by Facebook’s ad platform.

In Facebook’s case the company provides only limited visibility into who is running political and issue-based ads on its platform. The targeting criteria being used to reach individuals is also not comprehensively disclosed.

Some of the company’s own employees recently went public with concerns that its advanced targeting and behavioral-tracking tools make it “hard for people in the electorate to participate in the public scrutiny that we’re saying comes along with political speech”, as they put it.

At the same time, platforms providing a conduit for corporate interests to cheaply and easily manufacture ‘politicized’ speech looks to be another under-scrutinized risk for democratic societies.

Among the services Public First lists on its website are “policy development”, “qualitative and quantitative opinion research”, “issues-based campaigns”, “coalition-building” and “war gaming”. (Here, for example, is a piece of work the firm carried out for Google — where its analysis-for-hire results in a puffy claim that the tech giant’s digital services are worth at least $70BN in annual “economic value” for the UK.)

Public First’s choice of office location, in Tufton Street, London, is also notable as the area is home to an interlinked hub of right-leaning think tanks, such as the free market Center for Policy Studies and pro-Brexit Initiative for Free Trade. These are lobby vehicles dressed up as policy wonks which put out narratives intended to influence public opinion and legislation in a particular direction without it being clear who their financial backers are.

Some of the publicity strategies involved in this kind of work appear to share similarities with tactics used by Big Tobacco to lobby against anti-smoking legislation, or fossil fuel interests’ funding of disinformation and astroturfing operations to create a perception of doubt around consensus climate science.

“A lot of what used to get sold in this space essentially was access [to policymakers],” says one former public relations professional, speaking on background. “What you’re seeing an increasingly amount of now is the ‘technification’ of that process. Everyone’s using those kinds of tools — clearly in terms of trying to understand public sentiment better and that kind of thing… But essentially what they’re saying is we can set up a set of politicized issues so that they can benefit you. And that’s an interesting change. It’s not just straight defence and attack; promote your brand vs another. It’s ‘okay, we’re going to change the politics around an issue… in order to benefit your outcome’. And that’s fairly sophisticated and interesting.”

Mat Hope, editor of investigative journalism outlet DeSmog — which reports on climate-related misinformation campaigns — has done a lot of work focused on Tufton Street specifically, looking at the impact the network’s ‘policy-costumed’ corporate talking points have had on UK democracy.

“There is a set of organisations based out of offices in and around 55 Tufton Street in Westminster, just around the corner from the Houses of Parliament, which in recent years have had an outsized impact on British democracy. Many of the groups were at the forefront of the Leave campaign, and are now pushing for a hard or no-deal Brexit,” he told us, noting that Public First not only has offices nearby but that its founders and employees “have strong ties to other organisations based there”.

“The groups regularly lobby politicians in the interests of specific companies or big industry through the guise of grassroots or for-the-people campaigns,” he added. “One way they do this is through targeting adverts or social media posts, using groups with benign sounding names. This makes it hard to trace the campaign back to any particular company, and gives the issue an impression of grassroots support that is, on the whole, artificial.”

Platform power without responsibility

Ad platforms such as Facebook which profit by profiling people offer cheap yet powerful tools for corporate interests to identify and target highly specific sub-sets of voters. This is possible thanks to the vast amounts of personal data they collect — an activity that’s finally coming under significant regulatory scrutiny — and custom ad tools such as lookalike audiences, all of which enables behavioral microtargeting at the individual user/voter level.

Lookalike audiences is a powerful ad product that allows Facebook advertisers to upload customer data yet also leverage the company’s pervasive people-profiling to access new audiences that they do not hold data on but who have similar characteristics to their target. These so-called lookalike audiences can be tightly geotargeted, as well as zeroed in on granular interests and demographics. It’s not hard to see how such tools can be applied to selectively hit up only the voters most likely to align with a business’ interests.

The upshot is that an online advertiser is able to pay little to tap into the population-scale reach and vast data wealth of platform giants — turning firehose power against individual voters who they deem — via focus group work or other voter data analysis — to be aligned with a corporate agenda. The platform becomes a propaganda machine for manufacturing the appearance of broad public engagement and grassroots advocacy for a self-interested policy change.

The target voter, meanwhile, is most likely none the wiser about why they’re seeing politicized messaging. It’s that lack of transparency that makes the activity inherently anti-democratic.

The UK’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee raised Facebook’s lookalike audiences as a risk to democracy during a recent enquiry into online disinformation and digital campaigning. It went on to recommend an outright ban on political microtargeting to lookalike audiences online. Though the UK government has so far failed to act on that or its fuller suite of recommendations. (Nor has Facebook responded to increasingly loud calls from politicians and civic society to ban political and issue ads altogether.)

Even a code of conduct published by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) emphasizes transparency — with member organizations committing to “be open and transparent in declaring their name, organisation and the interest they represent”. (Albeit, the IPRA’s member list is not itself public.)

While online targeting of social media users remains a major problem for democracies, on account of the lack of transparency and individual consent to targeting (or, indeed, to data-based profiling), in recent years we’ve also seen more direct efforts by companies to use their own technology tools to generate voter pressure.

Examples such as ride-hailing giant Uber which, under its founding CEO, Travis Kalanick, became well known for a ‘push button’ approach to mobilizing its user base by sending calls to action to lobby against unfavorable regulatory changes.

Airbnb has also sought to use its platform-reach to beat against local authority rule changes that threaten its ‘home sharing’ business model.

However it’s the opaque tech-fuelled targeting enabled by ad platforms like Facebook that’s far more problematic for democracies as it allows vested interests to generate self-interested pressure remotely — including from abroad — while remaining entirely shielded from view.

Fixing this will require regulatory muscle to enforce existing laws around personal data collection (at least where such laws exist) — and doing so in a way that prevents microtargeting from being the cheap advertising default. Democracies should not allow their citizens to be mirrored in the data because it sets them up to be hollowed out; their individuals aggregated, classified and repackaged as all-you-can-eat attention units for whoever is paying.

And likely also legislation to set firm boundaries around the use of political and campaigning/issue ads online. Turning platform power against the individual is inherently asymmetrical. It’s never going to be a fair fight. So fair ground rules for digital political campaigning — and a proper oversight regime to enforce them — are absolutely essential.

Another democratic tonic is transparency. Which means raising awareness about tech-fuelled tactics that are designed to generate and exploit data-based asymmetries in order to hack and manipulate public opinion. Such skewed stuff only really works when the target is oblivious to what’s afoot. In that respect, every little disclosure of these ‘dark arts’ and the platforms that enable them provides a much-needed counter boost for critical thinking and democracy.

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2OeejQM via IFTTT