Snapchat is losing twice as much money as it did last year

Snapchat Profit LossSnap reported its earnings for the first time since becoming a public company in March of this year. Its daily active user count clicked up to 166 million, a 5 percent increase over last quarter, up 36 percent from this time a year ago. That puts it behind Instagram Stories, a competitor launched by Facebook that copied heavily from Snapchat and has already passed 200 million users. It also means...

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FTC Head Wants The Internet of Things to Regulate Itself

Internet of Things Business RegulationThe acting head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Maureen Ohlhausen, has said that she believes the Internet of Things industry should largely be left to regulate itself, rather than being subjected to external oversight. She also defended the use of data analytics to target consumers with different offers and pricing. As much as the tech industry likes to try and create new standards, it has often taken external...

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Shopify: The Invisible Selling Machine

Ecommerce Online Digital ShoppingFrom the ­unlikely setting of Ottawa, Shopify has ­quietly been powering an e-commerce revolution.

Shopify has done a pretty good job hiding itself from the world. The company’s e-commerce platform was involved in purchases by more than 100 million individual shoppers in 2016, yet it is invisible by design, enabling the end-to-end operation of its customers, some 400,000 individual retail shops and brands. It proudly operates not from San Francisco or...

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Google Targets Mobile Back-End Development

Google Mobile Back End DevelopmentWith front-end mobile coding taken care of in the recent release of Android Studio 2.3, Google targeted cloud-based back-end development at its recent Google Cloud Next '17 conference. While the show addressed cloud development in general, Google's mobile focus was exemplified by new serverless computing initiatives that provide back-end functionality for Android, iOS and Web apps. These include an update to Google App Engine -- its nine-year-old serverless runtime environment...

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6 Mistakes Your Ecommerce Store Must Avoid

Ecommerce DesignEcommerce marketers have four basic objectives. To start, they must bring new visitors to their store. Next is to convert more of these visitors into customers. Then they must look at ways to increase the average revenue earned per customer session. Finally, they must create incentives for these customers to return for future purchases. Apart from bringing new visitors to your store, the rest of the marketing objectives are all directly influenced...

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Could Google give fintech apps a needed boost?

Google Chrome Mobile FinTech AppFintech companies that have developed products for the under-served have a big challenge — reaching their intended customers. Google and the Center for Financial Services Innovation are hoping to change that. The tech giant and CFSI, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting financial health, have been collaborating on ways to help customers wade through financial apps in the Google Play store. They are also trying to guide developers on building...

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How to Invest in the “Internet of Things”

IoT Investment PortfolioAll around us, the world grows more intertwined every day. Thanks in part to our global web connections, we have the ability to interact with people and things on an incredible level. This online experience can be life-saving and important, or it can be as arbitrary as simplifying monotonous tasks. There are many industries and companies that aim to advance this experience. One growing market, known as the Internet of Things...

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How to Get Started in Ecommerce for Less Than $100

Affordable Ecommerce DevelopmentStarting an ecommerce business can be stressful. Not because it's difficult, but because there's just so much information out there. It's hard to know what to do and when. Sure, you can figure it out through trial and error, but that can get expensive. Fast. Throwing your computer at the wall can seem like a better solution. But, before you launch your laptop at the drywall, keep reading. The four steps I...

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Libraries Continue to Evolve in Digital Age

Library Digital MediaLibraries have been vital in communities for ages. Now, in the era of digital media and instant information, more people are doing research and other traditional library tasks digitally. With so many people receiving information "on the go," local Tomball and Spring-area libraries are working to evolve in the digital times.   Social media platforms are one of the main avenues libraries are connecting with others digitally.   The American Community Survey, which is...

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Ready or Not – Healthcare Consumers Want a Mobile Patient Experience

Healthcare Patients PreferencesMost people don’t look forward to doctors’ visits. As kids, we dreaded the needles and the medicine. As adults, we dread the time off work, the commute to the doctor’s office, and worst of all, the wait. So it’s no surprise that modern healthcare consumers are eager to bypass all that. Accustomed to getting everything from banking services to entertainment on demand, they are ready to approach their healthcare...

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