The WMA codec may be great when it comes to multi-channel surround sound, but unfortunately, it falters in terms of compatibility. Check out our guide on how to convert WMA files to MP3 via web-based or desktop methods.
The post Here’s how to convert a file from WMA to MP3 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Happy Love Day! (Ugh) Here’s how to get started with Tinder, Bumble, and so on
Source: Wired
If you’re a video creator in 2019, you’re probably thinking about a long list of publishing destinations: YouTube, of course, but also Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and more.
StayTuned Digital is a new startup trying to help video creators and publishers push their content to multiple platforms. The company, which bills itself as “content’s best friend,” is officially unveiling its product today and announcing that it’s raised $2.5 million in funding.
StayTuned was founded by CEO Serge Kassardjian (previously the global head of media app business development for Google Play) and Randy Jimenez (previously CTO at SinglePlatform). Kassardjian told me he saw the need for a product like this during his time at Google, when he would talk to content creators becoming “overwhelmed” by the fragmentation across all the different devices and platforms available to them.
“What’s happened is every single one of the platforms is releasing new formats, new ways to optimize, it’s constantly changing every couple of months,” Kassardjian said.
So with StayTuned, publishers shouldn’t have to worry about all that. Kassardjian said the product does three big things: optimizes the video so it looks good and can perform well on each platform, pushes the video to each platform and then measures the results, which feeds back into the optimization.
Kassardjian acknowledged that getting into the media business, even as a technology provider, might seem like a bad idea right now, but he said, “There’s a misconception that what’s happening in the world is that media and content is dead, but there’s more media and content than ever before.”
Nor does Kassardjian believe that publishers can stop relying on Facebook and other platforms. Sure, they may want to drive more traffic to their own properties or launch their own subscription services, but unless they’re Netflix-sized, they can’t ignore the big platforms entirely.
“We provide ubiquity to where the audience is,” he said.
And when he talks about video publishers, he isn’t just thinking about traditional media companies (although he’s looking to work with them too). He also said StayTuned could work with newer digital companies, e-commerce retailers and other brands that are creating content — and eventually, small businesses.
As for the funding, it was led by Bowery Capital, with participation from CourtsideVC, Quaker Health, Social Leverage, Liquid 2 Ventures, The Fund, Hive Ventures, Grape Arbor and a number of angel investors. StayTuned is also part of the current GCT Startup-in-Residence program.
Source: TechCrunch
Email is certainly not dead, despite many such exclamations, but there’s no question that it’s a bloated, seeping hog of a platform on which it’s incredibly difficult for businesses to develop meaningful relationships with customers.
Postscript, a startup launching out of Y Combinator’s latest class, wants to learn from what email marketing got right and translate that to the next frontier of B2C communications: SMS. It basically wants to be the Mailchimp for texts.
“We are witnessing the decay of email,” Postscript president Alex Beller tells TechCrunch. “User behavior is all SMS now and e-commerce traffic and web traffic, in general, are so heavily mobile.”
The startup specifically wants to focus on shaping how consumers and businesses engage in the relationship around online commerce. Do you have a subscription to some cook-at-home meal startup? Then maybe they’ll shoot you a message asking if you want to add a new dessert option to your meal this week. Reply “YES” to add. That’s it.
The startup handles ensuring that businesses have proper consent from users to get text messages sent to them. From there businesses are able to segment users, plan SMS campaigns with text and media and have everything backed up by a decent analytics suite so that customers can see what happens on the other end of the texts. Beyond campaigns, communications can be automated based on customer actions so they get some feedback after they make a purchase or other action.
Being at the forefront of a new frontier for communicating with customers seems to have its advantages. Postscript claims a 95+ percent open rate and 35 percent click-through rate, numbers that are pretty wild for marketers that have dealt with the stats on email campaigns.
Given that people are used to SMS as a means of conversation, people are also a lot more likely to respond and ask questions inside the chain, something the Postscript founders were a bit surprised by but soon built into their feature set alongside integrations with customer support platforms.
“We rushed out this inbound feature when we realized how much [communication] we had coming in from users,” Postscript CEO Adam Turner told TechCrunch. “It’s all about engagement, not just clicks… and a one-way communication channel.”
As a consumer, the idea that my text messages are soon going to be inundated by #brands elicits a gut reaction to burn it all down, but there’s an air of inevitability that SMS will become the next place that businesses want to infiltrate. We’re already getting updates from food delivery services and UPS; Postscript wants their platform to let people expand and manage these relationships.
There are a few reasons why you don’t have to gravely fear your texting app turning into a corporate dump. The opt-in process for phone communications is already a bit more codified in the U.S., and as companies attempt to stay in the good graces of GDPR for fear of the EU god, it might be more likely they tread carefully. Additionally, while SMS fees aren’t substantial, there’s certainly a more baked-in cost than with forwarding an offer to a huge bank of emails. Lastly, users just have to punch out a quick “UNSUBSCRIBE” to get out of messages from which they’ve gotten their fill, a standard across carriers.
Right now the company is closely integrated with Shopify so users can add this to their storefronts. Pricing varies based on the amount of messages you’re sending. There’s a free tier for sending 100 messages per month, $50/month for sending 1,000 and a few more tiers topping out at a 40,000 SMS per month/$1,500 tier.
Source: TechCrunch
OpenAI offers only a peek behind the curtain, saying it’s worried about bad actors creating “deceptive, biased, or abusive language at scale.”
Source: CNET
El país depende enormemente del dinero físico, y casi no practica los pagos electrónicos. Este podría ser el escenario perfecto para hacer el salto definitivo a las criptomonedas basadas en cadenas de bloques y el Gobierno ha decidido apoyar la idea
Source: MIT
El ‘Green New Deal’ plantea unos objetivos energéticos y climáticos realmente ambiciosos, sin nuevas centrales nucleares, apoyo a las renovables y promoción de la captura natural del carbono atmosférico. Pero es poco probable que sus buenas intenciones resulten rentables ni reciban el apoyo necesario
Source: MIT
Después de una estadía de 15 años en nuestro vecino planetario, la NASA está por terminar sus intentos de comunicarse con el robot.
Source: MIT
General Motors announced last year it was getting into the electric bike business. But besides a crowdsourcing name competition and a few teasers, details were scant.
Now, GM has given this new brand a name — ARĪV — as well as names for its two electric bikes, and some information about its go-to-market plan. The name ARĪV was selected as part of a global crowdsourcing campaign announced in November 2018.
GM is bringing two new electric “connected” bikes to market this year — one folding and one compact — as it makes a broader push into electrification and experiments with how to diversify its business of making and selling vehicles.
The compact electric bike is called Meld and the folding one is called Merge.
GM says it brought “automotive-grade capabilities” to its bikes. The company’s experience with EV motor software and controls greatly influenced the proprietary GM motor that was built for the electric bikes, GM said.
The motor enables speeds up to 25 kph with four levels of pedal-assisted power. The battery allows users to travel 64 km, about 40 miles, on a single charge. The battery charges in about 3.5 hours.
Both bikes, which were engineered and designed in GM facilities in Michigan and Oshawa, Ontario, come standard with safety components such as integrated, rechargeable front and rear LED safety lights and oversized brake rotors to increase stopping power.
GM plans to launch first in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands because of “popularity of lithium-ion battery-powered ebikes in those markets.” GM has opened up a website www.BikeExchange.com where customers can pre-order.
The Meld will be cheaper than the Merge, and prices depend on the country.
In Belgium and the Netherlands, the ARĪV Meld is €2.800, or about $3,100, and the Merge is €3.400 ($3,800). In Germany, the ARĪV Meld is €2.750 and the Merge is €3.350.
ARĪV e-bikes are scheduled to begin shipping to customers in the second quarter of 2019.
GM calls these connected bikes and that can mean a lot of different things. In this case, it means the bikes can connect with an app via Bluetooth.
The app gives riders all kinds of metrics such as speed, distance, remaining battery level, motor assist level and distance traveled. The company plans to add more features, including a mode that will use a proprietary algorithm to help riders arrive at their destination sweat-free.
These bikes also come with what it calls a “Quad Lock mount,” a system to securely attach a smartphone to the bike. An integrated USB port allows riders to maintain their phone’s charge while on the go.
Source: TechCrunch
Today, Zendesk announced it has hired three new executives — Elisabeth Zornes, former general manager of global support for Microsoft Office, as Zendesk’s first chief customer officer; former Adobe executive Colleen Berube as chief information officer and former Salesforce executive Shawna Wolverton as senior vice president, product.
The company emphasized that the hirings were about expanding the executive suite and bringing in top people to help the company grow and move into larger enterprise organizations.
From left to right: Shawna Wolverton, Colleen Berube and Elizabeth Zornes
Zornes comes to Zendesk with 20 years of experience at Microsoft working in a variety of roles around Microsoft Office. She says that what attracted her to Zendesk was its focus on the customer.
“When I look at businesses today, no matter what size, what type or what geography, they can agree on one thing: customer experience is the rocket fuel to drive success. Zendesk has positioned itself as a technology company that empowers companies of all kinds to drive a new level of success by focusing on their customer experience, and helping them to be at the forefront of that was a very intriguing opportunity for me,” Zornes told TechCrunch.
New CIO Berube, who comes with two decades of experience, also sees her new job as a chance to have an impact on customer experience and help companies that are trying to transform into digital organizations. “Customer experience is the linchpin for all organizations to succeed in the digital age. My background is broad, having shepherded many different types of companies through digital transformations, and developing and running modern IT organizations,” she said.
Her boss, CEO and co-founder Mikkel Svane, sees someone who can help continue to grow the company and develop the product. “We looked specifically for a CIO with a modern mindset who understands the challenges of large organizations trying to keep up with customer expectations today,” Svane told TechCrunch.
As for senior VP of product Wolverton, she comes with 15 years of experience, including a stint as head of product at Salesforce. She said that coming to Zendesk was about having an impact on a modern SaaS product. “The opportunity to build a modern, public, cloud-native CRM platform with Sunshine was a large part of my decision to join,” she said.
The three leaders have already joined the organization — Wolverton and Berube joined last month and Zornes started just this week.
Source: TechCrunch