#¶ initiating startup screen ! • { meme }
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HIGH WITHOUT U
Install shots from exhibition
BAS CS Gallery, Berlin, 07.11-11.11.2024
In HIGH WITHOUT U, love, longing and desire collide, inviting viewers to confront the dualities of love — its warmth and its distance, the closeness it promises and the yearning it leaves behind in its wake.
A love manifesto of sorts, KISS ME charts the initial spark of a connection; the butterflies, the lust, the push and pull. WITHOUT U is the epilogue; the I-miss-you, the fuck-you, the final severing. Desire is ventriloquised through found-text images, anonymous voices become a vehicle for the artist to share their deepest wants.
Imagery from memes, iMessage conversations and a NOKIA startup screen depict love and loss in the digital age, where screens become vessels for our most vulnerable desires, and our darkest heartbreaks. These digital artefacts of connection — a hand reaching, a read receipt — become symbols of intimacy that is found and lost.
Raw desires surface, woven with lyrics from Lana del Rey, contemplating how love and intimacy intersect with power and submission.
Found objects are personified and romanticised, evoking an abstracted intimacy where human presence is implied, but not seen. In EL BESO, two hoodies are sewn together at the mouth. The bodies once filling these hoodies are absent, leaving only the memory of their embrace — a ghostly, eternal kiss. A confrontation with absence, yet a kind of fleeting reunion.
HIGH WITHOUT U offers a perspective on love tinged with longing, imagination and a desire for connection that goes beyond the limitations of human relationships. It is a lens through which even the quietest, most overlooked objects carry meaning, showing us the infinite ways that love can manifest, even in the absence of the lover.
Works:
EL BESO, 2024 Photograph, 100 x 100
BESITO, 2024 Sculpture, found artificial flowers, vase
OPEN ME UP, TELL ME YOU LIKE ME, 2024 Foil decal on mirror, 30 x 30
UNTITLED (AMOR ROMÁNTICO), 2024 Sculpture, plastic chairs
KISS ME, 2024 Zine, edition of 50, 14.8 x 14.8
(HIGH) WITHOUT U, 2024 Zine, edition of 50, 14.8 x 14.8
U & ME, 2024 Acrylic on found road sign
ÁTAME, 2024 Sculpture, found curtains
UNTITLED (NOKIA), 2024 Acrylic on wood, 34.5 x 34.5
SPIT ON ME, 2023 Sculpture, sterling silver earrings
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YOUR CHARACTER IN FIVE QUOTES!
( repost, do not reblog. )
tell us your favorite quotes from your muse. give us an idea of who they are by five things they’ve said then tag your friends!!
“Hey....uh, wanna help a guy out a lil teensy bit? I kinda set the kitchen/washing machine/television on fire––WAIT, NO–– STOP WALKING AWAY DON’T GO AND LEAVE ME PLEASE I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED I SWEAR!”
“L-listen, it’s a total misunderstandin’ I swear! Wrong place, wrong time, I’ve the worst luck!”
“I swear, I ain’t lyin’ to ya! There’s definitely a garden gnome hiding out in our tool shed–– Laurent told me so!! He’s been ruining all our flowers, taking them as sacrifices to rid of all the weeds!!”
“S...Shut up! Shut up! You –– you’re wrong! I cannot believe in something so hypocritical like that! That’s not what I am, I’m a hero...!! They don’t, they wouldn’t do something so underhanded like that.... I’m beginning to feel dizzy.”
“Is it bad to be idealistic, to want a better and happier future...? To believe that not everythin’ is gonna go to shit?”
Tagged By: @redhuntinghood
Tagging: @detectivewxlf-revived / @aesthetiquement / @aoiseijitsu / @akaiseijitsu / @senjounochou!!
#¶ initiating startup screen ! • { meme }#lars: accidentally sets anything and everything on fire#this is fine he says while he's trying to put it out and cry about what he needs to replace
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Dote taps into Social Screen Sharing
As Generation Z grows to represent a much larger percentage of the overall consumer base, brands are quickly realizing their need to shift to appeal to this groups affinity for seamless shopping experiences, authentic connections and transparency. This group values YouTube reviews, Instagram influencers and digital hangouts more so than a traditional social outing to the mall.
Enter Dote, a 2 year old mobile shopping startup with an initial goal, according to founder and CEO Lauren Farleigh, of creating a truly native mobile experience that makes it "easy to check out across a lot of different stores". Users simply log in, create a profile featuring a minimum of at least 5 of their favorite retailers and can then begin browsing affiliated partner products and deals. Featured stores include Express, The North Face, Under Armour, Forever 21, Claire's and much more.
The biggest difference when it comes to Dote vs a platform like Amazon, is the social aspect. User profiles are designed to draw followers and act almost as an area for direct content creation as one would use their Instagram profile. Users can post polls to determine things like "what outfit goes best with these shoes?", upload videos of product reviews and try-on's, and of course link to product giveaways and favorited items – many of which include brand sponsored features.
If your profile gets big enough or you've built up an influencer status on other platforms, you may qualify to be a Dote Girl. Dote Girls have verified profiles with large audiences that look to them for inspiration in lifestyle & fashion. Many, like Emma Chamberlain (below), have built a following of more than 3.5 million YouTube subscribers and sell their own line of clothing exclusively within Dote.
Recently, the company released a feature that aims to bring the relationship between Dote Girls closer to that of the every-day user. It's called Shopping Parties, and it takes advantage of Apple's ReplayKit 2 framework in order to deliver two live streams at once while also allowing for live chats to occur.
When a Shopping Party goes live, which will happen twice hourly from 6am -10pm PCT, users can join a Dote Girl as she browses items on the app, talks fashion and pop culture, and answers questions from those on the other end. Participants are able to view a live stream of the Dote Girl as well as what she is looking at on her phone, all the while having the ability to interact with this person in real time. Farleigh compared this experience to “game streaming on Twitch, except for shopping”.
The ability to share screens in this manner was first popularized by video chat app, Squad, which discovered that Apple's ReplayKit, announced in 2015, was actually feasible to work with for consumer apps due to updates in 2018's iOS12 release. Squad gave users a reason to hang out, because while they could also see their friends, they could also see their screens, making it very easy to browse social platforms together, share memes, curate text responses to their crush, swipe on dating apps, shop and much more. Given the way that Dote initially shaped its users relationship with their verified Dote Girls, integrating this feature was a natural extension.
The premise is simple, people like spending time with others just as much as they like spending time on their phones, why not allow them to do both at once?
Implications
Screen sharing in this manner will likely become the norm across many of our most used platforms. After the launch of Squad, Facebook and Snap employees were quick to download the app and have since expressed a great deal of interest in the functionality, making an acquisition or copycat product seem immanent. What this means is that users will now be "hanging out" within your brands mobile environment. Generally speaking; experiences, content creation, and commerce will now have to be looked at through the lens of singular browsing as well as browsing with groups.
With regards to Dote, Shopping Parties will help to expand the influence that their Dote Girls have on their followers. Retailers should look to align themselves with influencers that represent the tone and value that their brand represents. The company has indicated that branded Shopping Parties are on the horizon and utilizing these for new product releases, gathering feedback, sampling and creating brand ambassadors will be incredibly valuable for marketers in the fashion space.
Branded Shopping Parties will give marketers an opportunity to craft an experience that can be shared and communicated with many dedicated consumers, at a single place and time. Live streaming while sharing your phone's screen allows people to simultaneously hang out while being alone, a dichotomy that takes the pressure off both parties – creating a relaxing and natural environment.
Brands that are able to provide experiences for this environment are poised to reach Gen Z in a transparent and trustworthy manner, something that the cohort immensely values.
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Kinspire’s new app helps parents find screen-free activities for kids
A new startup called Kinspire wants to make it easier for parents to find activities to help keep kids occupied — away from a screen. The app, which launches with hundreds of activities vetted by parents and teachers alike, arrives at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has many families continuing to engage in social distancing, cutting kids off from regular playdates and other activities. Meanwhile, millions of schoolchildren are now spending long hours online, engaged in distance learning activities.
For parents, this rapid and dramatic increase in screen time has many looking for alternative ways to keep kids occupied and entertained, preferably offline.
Image Credits: Kinspire
“We needed Kinspire in our lives as parents, so we built it,” explains Rob Seigel, PhD, a father of two and Kinspire’s CEO and co-founder. “Before Kinspire, I found it stressful having to search for an activity on websites and social media, then pitch it to my kids. Inevitably after all that work, they’d say no. Kinspire is the one-stop shop where kids can choose what they want to do, not what looks fun to dad,” he says.
He also wanted the app to offer the convenience of having the instructions and the materials together in one place. When quarantine started in the U.S., Seigel put a team together and built it.
At launch, Kinspire features over 350 screen-free activities, including project-based STEAM activities from Tinkerclass, via NPR’s “Wow in the World” — a kids’ podcast designed to encourage kids to think and “tinker” with ordinary household items. None of this content, at present, is paid, we’re told.
The Kinspire community will source the activities going forward by using the app’s “add activity” feature, after first creating their profile. Seigel says the team moderates the content through a combination of an A.I. moderation service and human review.
When you first open the Kinspire app, you’ll see a vertical feed of images, similar to Instagram. But instead of artsy photos or memes, kids and parents can scroll through the activity suggestions to find something fun to do. Each activity card will feature a photo taken by the Kinspire community, which includes teachers, activity creators, as well as parents and caregivers.
Some of the initial creators participating in Kinspire include Nicole Roccaro of @naturallycuriouschildren, Kari McManamon of @entertainmytoddler, Viviana Maldonado of @makethingsbox_, and Kira Silvera of @totsonlock.
Parents can also filter the suggested activities by age, whether it’s designed for indoors or outdoors, prep time, how much parental involvement is needed, activity type, materials needed, and even the mess level involved. (Now that sounds like a parent built this!)
Image Credits: Kinspire
You can also save favorite activities you may want to try later.
As kids complete the activities in Kinspire, they earn in-app rewards as they accomplish things like doing a creative or scientific project, a nature exploration, engaging in pretend play, practicing cooking, math, music, mindfulness and more. Some of the in-app rewards turn into digital character badges for profiles. Rewards also deliver printable instructions to help kids build origami characters with paper from home.
The app could help homeschoolers, remote learners, and any other families who are struggling to come up with new ideas for kids after exhausting so many during the early days of the pandemic.
The company plans to generate revenue by adding a premium subscription that will allow parents to subscribe to individual content creators to receive exclusive, additional content within Kinspire. This also lets Kinspire’s creative content partners monetize, as they share in that revenue.
Kinspire is also working on shoppable activities, a top user request during testing. This lets parents easily purchase all the necessary materials for an activity directly in the Kinspire app, instead of having to go to Amazon or another store. Kinspire would take a commission on those purchases.
Denver and New York-based Kinspire was founded in May 2020, during the pandemic, by a team with backgrounds in tech and children’s play experiences.
Sara Berliner was on the founding team and is an advisor at YC-backed Hellosaurus, a new interactive video platform and creator tool. Before Kinspire, she co-founded children’s IP studio Star Farm (2002-2008), started and built the Kids & Family group at ScrollMotion, now Ingage (2008-2012), and was Chief Strategy Officer at Night & Day Studios, home of Peekaboo Barn, from 2012-2018. She’s also a mother of two.
Kinspire’s current co-founders Rob Seigel, Dave Tarasi, and Nate Ruiz, meanwhile, have a combined twenty years of experience at startups like HeadsUp, Nodin, SolidFire, and NetApp. CEO Seigel was previously co-Founder and CEO of HeadsUp, CTO at Nodin, and a software engineer at SolidFire/NetApp, in addition to being a father of two boys.
The startup is currently bootstrapped and raising a seed round.
The Kinspire app is a free download on iOS and Android in the U.S. and Canada.
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Best Tips to Attract Customers With eCommerce Video Marketing
You might have come across several eCommerce advertisements daily if you are a regular social media user. Video marketing gained its popularity years ago, but it is delightful to see that it is also changing now. The formulas that were used in the 90s and early 2000 are now getting redefined. Easy access to the internet and smartphone can change this field of marketing. Audiences and consumers are also becoming smart with their choices. They are looking for something authentic to believe and rely on. And hence the strategies of companies are also changing.
Initially, the only mode of advertisement was through television. Now the medium has also changed. People can feel what connects and what does not. The attention period of the audience has changed and shortened. The more confined and short an ad is, the more chance of it is to reach further. Since this field has become a little complex to understand, and because of the vast number of platforms, it is also challenging to choose which one is more liable. So for those small businesses, and startups, this article will share some tactics to increase your audience with eCommerce video marketing.
Statistics
The most important thing is the statistics. One should understand the numbers properly while doing the business as numbers speak it all. Before investing in this area of eCommerce video marketing, one must thoroughly study which platforms are useful, what is trending among people, how the theme needs to be chosen, and, most importantly, how you want to portrait your company among your consumers. A great strategy can ease the rest of the process and also saves time and money.
Studies say:
Over 80% of the companies are using eCommerce video marketing as it is the most convenient way to communicate with consumers. Videos can effectively convey thoughts and goals.
Videos themselves have proven to be a useful mode of communication with the customers. Company data says they can reach about 90% of their target audience through video advertisements.
The vertical video frame is the most wanted and desired frame among users. They say it is easy to watch a video in a vertical structure; otherwise, they need to change the screen orientation.
YouTube has two billion users worldwide. And every day, one billion video hours are played on YouTube.
Authenticity
The more authentic the content is, the more chances are that the audience is going to love it. What our world is losing right now is authenticity. When something got popular, or some marketing formula got hit, everyone started using it like some herd of sheep. Very few organizations try to experiment and create something more real. Today’s audience is brilliant, they know what they want. So if you are going to give them some copied stuff, they will reject it.
Moreover, consumers want to watch more original videos defining them; those high brand value shoots aren’t going to help you reach your customer. Try to show them the flaws, the hard work, the failures, and the success.
So media companies should write relatable scripts that are inspired by society, memes, and pop culture. And should keep changing the technique as the world is also changing day by day. Consumers want to see themselves and relate themselves to those situations; only then can you impress them.
Dove has done a beautiful campaign for ‘Choose Beautifully.’ If you have some time to spare, check the video online. It represents the women of all around the world and their insecurity of being not beautiful. It was heart-touching watching something like that, and a fantastic idea to reach to their target audience.
Social Media
After YouTube, Instagram is also growing its popularity in advertising platforms. It is also improving and updating new features to the application to make it more user-friendly. Companies can recruit the influencers for original reviews, which also help the marketing connect with the influencers’ followers.
The features on Instagram, like stories, IGTV, promote poll, question-answer, contest option, featuring Live, are helpful. Among all online buyers, about 48% put Instagram stories with the products and reviews, which eventually help the brand gain raw opinion, authentic publicity, and word-to-word recommendations. The Marketing teams can put behind the scene footage in stories to connect better.
The National Geographic channel used it well. They put a picture of Yellowstone and asked its audience which year it became the 1st National Park, and gave two options. It is a great way to connect to the target audience directly and also helps to keep them engaged.
Silent Videos
Silent videos are unexpectedly doing well. Initially, it was introduced on Facebook; later, they are being adopted by YouTube and Instagram. It turns out, and people are liking watching silent videos online.
Videos with short and defined instructions are becoming popular among people, and audiences are also finding it convenient to attend. Make a short, hyper-lapsed, and exciting video ad; consumers are going to love the advertisement.
VR, AR and 360-degree
Virtual reality, 360 Degree, and AR are not very accessible. But they are the future, as the 5G network is slowly started to rule the era. Studies say 86% of people find 360-degree videos more engaging and exciting. It can be made more appealing by adding creative art and originality to it.
One can learn a fantastic example from Google Doodles 360 degree advertisement. It is fascinating and fun to watch a video in a 360-degree view, which means apart from what the video serves, and it allows us to explore another new corner of the video. However, making such videos can cost a bit more and is also time-consuming.
Use the tips mentioned above and engage your potential customers in a unique way with video marketing.
Source: https://ypquest.com/blog/best-tips-to-attract-customers-with-ecommerce-video-marketing/
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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/byte-tops-a-million-downloads-amid-spam-issues-and-content-concerns/
Byte tops a million downloads amid spam issues and content concerns
New short-form video app Byte, heralded as Vine’s successor, is off to a strong start despite its issues. The app, built by Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann, brings back the six-second videos made popular by Vine which was shut down in late 2016 after Twitter’s acquisition of the popular video-sharing platform. According to new data from Sensor Tower, Byte’s launch has been well-received with over 1.3 million downloads during its first week alone. The U.S. delivered the bulk of these new installs, followed by Great Britain then Canada.
The U.S. contributed 912,000 downloads, or 70% of the installs, the report says. While Great Britain and Canada offered 7% and 6% of installs, respectively. The majority of Byte downloads were also on iOS, with 950,000 iOS downloads compared with 350,000 installs on Android.
App Annie’s numbers differed a bit, but also found that Byte topped 1 million total downloads on iOS and Android through Sunday, Feb. 2.
Sensor Tower’s new report compares Byte’s figures to Vine’s debut in January 2013, which only saw a total of 775,000 installs during its first week on iOS. However, that doesn’t mean Byte is soon to be a much more popular app than its predecessor.
For starters, the app market has grown over the years to include more users and more devices. In 2016, for example, only 2.5 billion users worldwide had smartphones. Now that number tops 3.5 billion. In addition, Vine launched as an unknown startup into a market that had yet to really embrace short-form. Byte, on the other hand, not only takes advantage of its association with Vine, it also arrives at a time when short-form video is now hugely popular thanks to Vine’s success and TikTok, the latter which became the No. 4 most-downloaded app of 2019.
Despite its solid launch numbers, Byte’s debut was not unmarred.
The app immediately saw massive comment spam as bots rushed to fill comment sections with follow requests (and follow for follows), including requests from pornbots. Byte’s early adopters also started snatching up coveted usernames — those belonging to real people, ranging from tech folks to celebs like Taylor Swift and other prominent figures like Trump, Bezos, Tiger Woods and others, Slate reported. The company quickly moved to acknowledge the problem and promised a cleanup was underway.
But that’s not Byte’s only issue. The app originally launched with a 12+ age rating, yet was immediately filled with adult humor alongside videos from obvious minors. Surfaced in Byte’s popular feed were videos with dick jokes and sexual humor, and problematic content including distasteful jokes about child abuse and coronavirus victims.
To give you a sense of Byte’s content, a perusal of the “Popular” feed on Friday surfaced a video featuring a teenaged-to-young adult boy joking “if you call me a slut in the comments one more time, I’m going to suck all your d***s.” Another teenaged-appearing boy joked about a prostate exam performed by his dad. A boy of a similar age asks if anyone had ever pooped into someone’s….and then the video cuts off.
It’s unclear if the boys in question are 18 or older, but seeing these — as well as so many other videos featuring dick jokes — followed by videos filmed by very young children was an uncomfortable experience.
The Popular feed also featured a video of a drone trying to fly a dildo into a sex doll. One video made light of child abuse, with a man viciously hitting the phone screen. The video is filmed from above, giving you the child’s perspective. The caption read: “when a child brings up a valid argument.”
Two other videos featured toddlers – one of a dad knocking the baby down, perhaps on purpose, as they played ball, only to later fall himself. Another depicted someone spraying a baby in the face with the kitchen sink nozzle, followed by the baby crying.
One video made fun of Chinese people dying from coronavirus. Another showed a teen smoking a joint, then hearing a siren and running.
Vine videos were strange and dumb in their own way, but the best weren’t typically crass or dirty. Think: duck army, eyebrows on fleek, hate blockers, what are those, Squidward hits the dab, and so on.
Given the amount of adult humor, Byte’s lack of an age-gate and the app’s 12+ rating was concerning. (Byte updated to 17+ over the weekend. The above videos aren’t surfacing now. We know Apple was taking a look at its content).
Another potential concern was that a lot of Byte’s content was recycled from elsewhere — there were clips from YouTube, FunnyorDie, TV shows, and even TikTok — logo and all. Users also reposted Snapchat videos and memes from around the web.
With the changes to the age rating, it seems Byte may have been alerted to some of its more problematic content. Byte now puts a curated Spotlight feed at the top of its discovery page, where videos curation is improved.
The company on Friday also published the initial details on its Partner Program, touting the potential for revenue other platforms don’t provide.
TikTok, by comparison, hasn’t quite figured out how to monetize — its app has seen 1.65 billion downloads to date, but only grossed $176.9 million in 2019. However, TikTok’s elite are making names for themselves that allow them to grow their brand in other ways, including by directing users to other social channels like YouTube and Instagram, and even doing meet-and-greets with fans.
Whether a whole new world of Byte stars emerges remains to be seen.
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Who gains from Facebook’s missteps?
When Facebook loses, who wins?
That’s a question for startups that may be worth contemplating following Facebook’s recent stock price haircut. The company’s valuation has fallen by around $60 billion since the Cambridge Analytica scandal surfaced earlier this month and the #DeleteFacebook campaign gained momentum.
That’s a steep drop, equal to about 12 percent of the company’s market valuation, and it’s a decline Facebook appears to be suffering alone. As its shares fell over the past couple of weeks, stocks of other large-cap tech and online media companies have been much flatter.
So where did the money go? It’s probably a matter of perspective. For a Facebook shareholder, that valuation is simply gone. And until executives’ apologies resonate and users’ desire to click and scroll overcomes their privacy fears, that’s how it is.
An alternate view is that the valuation didn’t exactly disappear. Investors may still believe the broad social media space is just as valuable as it was a couple of weeks ago. It’s just that less of that pie should be the exclusive domain of Facebook.
If one takes that second notion, then the possibilities for who could benefit from Facebook’s travails start to get interesting. Of course, there are public market companies, like Snap or Twitter, that might pick up traffic if the #DeleteFacebook movement gains momentum without spreading to other big brands. But it’s in the private markets where we see the highest number of potential beneficiaries of Facebook’s problems.
In an effort to come up with some names, we searched through Crunchbase for companies in social media and related areas. The resulting list includes companies that have raised good-sized rounds in the past couple of years and could conceivably see gains if people cut back on using Facebook or owning its stock.
Of course, people use Facebook for different things (posting photos, getting news, chatting with friends and so on), so we lay out a few categories of potential beneficiaries of a Facebook backlash.
Messaging
Facebook has a significant messaging presence, but it hasn’t been declared the winner. Alternatives like Snap, LINE, WeChat and plain old text messages are also massively popular.
That said, what’s bad for Messenger and Facebook-owned WhatsApp is probably good for competitors. And if more people want to do less of their messaging on Facebook, it helps that there are a number of private companies ready to take its place.
Crunchbase identified six well-funded messaging apps that could fit the bill (see list). Collectively, they’ve raised well over $2 billion — if one includes the $850 million initial coin offering by Telegram.
Increasingly, these private messaging startups are focused on privacy and security, including Wickr, the encrypted messaging tool that has raised more than $70 million, and Silent Circle, another encrypted communications provider that has raised $130 million.
Popular places to browse on a screen
People who cut back on Facebook may still want to spend hours a day staring at posts on a screen. So it’s likely they’ll start staring at something else that’s content-rich, easy-to-navigate and somewhat addictive.
Luckily, there are plenty of venture-backed companies that fit that description. Many of these are quite mature at this point, including Pinterest for image collections, Reddit for post and comment threads and Quora for Q&A (see list).
Granted, these will not replace the posts keeping you up to date on the life events of family and friends. But they could be a substitute for news feeds, meme shares and other non-personal posts.
Niche content
A decline in Facebook usage could translate into a rise in traffic for a host of niche content and discussion platforms focused on sports, celebrities, social issues and other subjects.
Crunchbase News identified at least a half-dozen that have raised funding in recent quarters, which is just a sampling of the total universe. Selected startups run the gamut from The Players’ Tribune, which features first-hand accounts for top athletes, to Medium, which seeks out articles that resonate with a wide audience.
Niche sites also provide a more customized forum for celebrities, pundits and subject-matter experts to engage directly with fans and followers.
Community and engagement
People with common interests don’t have to share them on Facebook. There are other places that can offer more tailored content and social engagement.
In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in community and activity-focused social apps gain traction. Perhaps the most prominent is Nextdoor, which connects neighbors for everything from garage sales to crime reports. We’re also seeing some upstarts focused on creating social networks for interest groups. These include Mighty Networks and Amino Apps.
Though some might call it a stretch, we also added to the list WeWork, recent acquirer of Meetup, and The Guild, two companies building social networks in the physical world. These companies are encouraging people to come out and socially network with other people (even if just means sitting in a room with other people staring at a screen).
Watch where the money goes
Facebook’s latest imbroglio is still too recent to expect a visible impact in the startup funding arena. But it will be interesting to watch in the coming months whether potential rivals in the above categories raise a lot more cash and attract more users.
If there’s demand, there’s certainly no shortage of supply on the investor front. The IPO window is wide open, and venture investors are sitting on record piles of dry powder. It hasn’t escaped notice, either, that social media offerings, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Snap, have generated the biggest exit total of any VC-funded sector.
Moreover, those who’ve argued that it’s too late for newcomers have a history of being proven wrong. After all, that’s what people were saying about would-be competitors to MySpace in 2005, not long before Facebook made it big.
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Text
Who gains from Facebook’s missteps?
When Facebook loses, who wins?
That’s a question for startups that may be worth contemplating following Facebook’s recent stock price haircut. The company’s valuation has fallen by around $60 billion since the Cambridge Analytica scandal surfaced earlier this month and the #DeleteFacebook campaign gained momentum.
That’s a steep drop, equal to about 12 percent of the company’s market valuation, and it’s a decline Facebook appears to be suffering alone. As its shares fell over the past couple of weeks, stocks of other large-cap tech and online media companies have been much flatter.
So where did the money go? It’s probably a matter of perspective. For a Facebook shareholder, that valuation is simply gone. And until executives’ apologies resonate and users’ desire to click and scroll overcomes their privacy fears, that’s how it is.
An alternate view is that the valuation didn’t exactly disappear. Investors may still believe the broad social media space is just as valuable as it was a couple of weeks ago. It’s just that less of that pie should be the exclusive domain of Facebook.
If one takes that second notion, then the possibilities for who could benefit from Facebook’s travails start to get interesting. Of course, there are public market companies, like Snap or Twitter, that might pick up traffic if the #DeleteFacebook movement gains momentum without spreading to other big brands. But it’s in the private markets where we see the highest number of potential beneficiaries of Facebook’s problems.
In an effort to come up with some names, we searched through Crunchbase for companies in social media and related areas. The resulting list includes companies that have raised good-sized rounds in the past couple of years and could conceivably see gains if people cut back on using Facebook or owning its stock.
Of course, people use Facebook for different things (posting photos, getting news, chatting with friends and so on), so we lay out a few categories of potential beneficiaries of a Facebook backlash.
Messaging
Facebook has a significant messaging presence, but it hasn’t been declared the winner. Alternatives like Snap, LINE, WeChat and plain old text messages are also massively popular.
That said, what’s bad for Messenger and Facebook-owned WhatsApp is probably good for competitors. And if more people want to do less of their messaging on Facebook, it helps that there are a number of private companies ready to take its place.
Crunchbase identified six well-funded messaging apps that could fit the bill (see list). Collectively, they’ve raised well over $2 billion — if one includes the $850 million initial coin offering by Telegram.
Increasingly, these private messaging startups are focused on privacy and security, including Wickr, the encrypted messaging tool that has raised more than $70 million, and Silent Circle, another encrypted communications provider that has raised $130 million.
Popular places to browse on a screen
People who cut back on Facebook may still want to spend hours a day staring at posts on a screen. So it’s likely they’ll start staring at something else that’s content-rich, easy-to-navigate and somewhat addictive.
Luckily, there are plenty of venture-backed companies that fit that description. Many of these are quite mature at this point, including Pinterest for image collections, Reddit for post and comment threads and Quora for Q&A (see list).
Granted, these will not replace the posts keeping you up to date on the life events of family and friends. But they could be a substitute for news feeds, meme shares and other non-personal posts.
Niche content
A decline in Facebook usage could translate into a rise in traffic for a host of niche content and discussion platforms focused on sports, celebrities, social issues and other subjects.
Crunchbase News identified at least a half-dozen that have raised funding in recent quarters, which is just a sampling of the total universe. Selected startups run the gamut from The Players’ Tribune, which features first-hand accounts for top athletes, to Medium, which seeks out articles that resonate with a wide audience.
Niche sites also provide a more customized forum for celebrities, pundits and subject-matter experts to engage directly with fans and followers.
Community and engagement
People with common interests don’t have to share them on Facebook. There are other places that can offer more tailored content and social engagement.
In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in community and activity-focused social apps gain traction. Perhaps the most prominent is Nextdoor, which connects neighbors for everything from garage sales to crime reports. We’re also seeing some upstarts focused on creating social networks for interest groups. These include Mighty Networks and Amino Apps.
Though some might call it a stretch, we also added to the list WeWork, recent acquirer of Meetup, and The Guild, two companies building social networks in the physical world. These companies are encouraging people to come out and socially network with other people (even if just means sitting in a room with other people staring at a screen).
Watch where the money goes
Facebook’s latest imbroglio is still too recent to expect a visible impact in the startup funding arena. But it will be interesting to watch in the coming months whether potential rivals in the above categories raise a lot more cash and attract more users.
If there’s demand, there’s certainly no shortage of supply on the investor front. The IPO window is wide open, and venture investors are sitting on record piles of dry powder. It hasn’t escaped notice, either, that social media offerings, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Snap, have generated the biggest exit total of any VC-funded sector.
Moreover, those who’ve argued that it’s too late for newcomers have a history of being proven wrong. After all, that’s what people were saying about would-be competitors to MySpace in 2005, not long before Facebook made it big.
via Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2Ij7TuX
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Text
Who gains from Facebook’s missteps?
When Facebook loses, who wins?
That’s a question for startups that may be worth contemplating following Facebook’s recent stock price haircut. The company’s valuation has fallen by around $60 billion since the Cambridge Analytica scandal surfaced earlier this month and the #DeleteFacebook campaign gained momentum.
That’s a steep drop, equal to about 12 percent of the company’s market valuation, and it’s a decline Facebook appears to be suffering alone. As its shares fell over the past couple of weeks, stocks of other large-cap tech and online media companies have been much flatter.
So where did the money go? It’s probably a matter of perspective. For a Facebook shareholder, that valuation is simply gone. And until executives’ apologies resonate and users’ desire to click and scroll overcomes their privacy fears, that’s how it is.
An alternate view is that the valuation didn’t exactly disappear. Investors may still believe the broad social media space is just as valuable as it was a couple of weeks ago. It’s just that less of that pie should be the exclusive domain of Facebook.
If one takes that second notion, then the possibilities for who could benefit from Facebook’s travails start to get interesting. Of course, there are public market companies, like Snap or Twitter, that might pick up traffic if the #DeleteFacebook movement gains momentum without spreading to other big brands. But it’s in the private markets where we see the highest number of potential beneficiaries of Facebook’s problems.
In an effort to come up with some names, we searched through Crunchbase for companies in social media and related areas. The resulting list includes companies that have raised good-sized rounds in the past couple of years and could conceivably see gains if people cut back on using Facebook or owning its stock.
Of course, people use Facebook for different things (posting photos, getting news, chatting with friends and so on), so we lay out a few categories of potential beneficiaries of a Facebook backlash.
Messaging
Facebook has a significant messaging presence, but it hasn’t been declared the winner. Alternatives like Snap, LINE, WeChat and plain old text messages are also massively popular.
That said, what’s bad for Messenger and Facebook-owned WhatsApp is probably good for competitors. And if more people want to do less of their messaging on Facebook, it helps that there are a number of private companies ready to take its place.
Crunchbase identified six well-funded messaging apps that could fit the bill (see list). Collectively, they’ve raised well over $2 billion — if one includes the $850 million initial coin offering by Telegram.
Increasingly, these private messaging startups are focused on privacy and security, including Wickr, the encrypted messaging tool that has raised more than $70 million, and Silent Circle, another encrypted communications provider that has raised $130 million.
Popular places to browse on a screen
People who cut back on Facebook may still want to spend hours a day staring at posts on a screen. So it’s likely they’ll start staring at something else that’s content-rich, easy-to-navigate and somewhat addictive.
Luckily, there are plenty of venture-backed companies that fit that description. Many of these are quite mature at this point, including Pinterest for image collections, Reddit for post and comment threads and Quora for Q&A (see list).
Granted, these will not replace the posts keeping you up to date on the life events of family and friends. But they could be a substitute for news feeds, meme shares and other non-personal posts.
Niche content
A decline in Facebook usage could translate into a rise in traffic for a host of niche content and discussion platforms focused on sports, celebrities, social issues and other subjects.
Crunchbase News identified at least a half-dozen that have raised funding in recent quarters, which is just a sampling of the total universe. Selected startups run the gamut from The Players’ Tribune, which features first-hand accounts for top athletes, to Medium, which seeks out articles that resonate with a wide audience.
Niche sites also provide a more customized forum for celebrities, pundits and subject-matter experts to engage directly with fans and followers.
Community and engagement
People with common interests don’t have to share them on Facebook. There are other places that can offer more tailored content and social engagement.
In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in community and activity-focused social apps gain traction. Perhaps the most prominent is Nextdoor, which connects neighbors for everything from garage sales to crime reports. We’re also seeing some upstarts focused on creating social networks for interest groups. These include Mighty Networks and Amino Apps.
Though some might call it a stretch, we also added to the list WeWork, recent acquirer of Meetup, and The Guild, two companies building social networks in the physical world. These companies are encouraging people to come out and socially network with other people (even if just means sitting in a room with other people staring at a screen).
Watch where the money goes
Facebook’s latest imbroglio is still too recent to expect a visible impact in the startup funding arena. But it will be interesting to watch in the coming months whether potential rivals in the above categories raise a lot more cash and attract more users.
If there’s demand, there’s certainly no shortage of supply on the investor front. The IPO window is wide open, and venture investors are sitting on record piles of dry powder. It hasn’t escaped notice, either, that social media offerings, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Snap, have generated the biggest exit total of any VC-funded sector.
Moreover, those who’ve argued that it’s too late for newcomers have a history of being proven wrong. After all, that’s what people were saying about would-be competitors to MySpace in 2005, not long before Facebook made it big.
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Hey, did you hear about the DoctorX apk released by Ice Open Network? It's a cutting-edge crypto app that rewards users with a 2000 DRX token bonus just for signing up. This app is part of the innovative Ice Open Network Startup Program and offers seamless integration with MultiversX, ensuring a secure and scalable experience. With over 930,000 downloads in the last 30 days, DoctorX apk is quickly becoming a favorite among crypto enthusiasts. You can boost your earnings by inviting friends to join the fun, making it a rewarding community experience How to Download? To download the this apk click on the link provided below. After clicking, you will be directed to their official website, where you can proceed with the download. This method ensures you get the latest version of the app directly from the source. How to Install? To install this apk file follow these steps:Download the APK: Click on the provided link to visit the official website and download the apk.Enable Unknown Sources: On your Android device, open Chrome and go to Settings > Security. Enable "Unknown Sources" to allow installation of apps from sources other than the Google Play Store.Install the App: Locate the downloaded APK file in your device's Downloads folder. Tap on it to begin the installation process.Complete Installation: Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation, and then open the app to start playing. App Features 2000 Token SignUp Bonus 2000 Token Sharing Bonus Features of DoctorX apkBonus SystemWelcome Bonus: New users receive a 2000 DRX token bonus upon signing up, encouraging initial engagement.Referral Bonuses: Earn 2,000 DRX tokens for each friend you invite. Additionally, receive a 25% bonus for every referral actively mining with you, boosting your earnings significantly.Referral ProgramTeam Building: Invite friends to join your team and enhance your mining efficiency. Only direct invites contribute to your referral bonuses.Level Boosts: Activate boosts to increase your mining rate by up to 50%, maximizing your rewards.Task CompletionDaily Mining: Tap the DoctorX button every 24 hours to activate mining and earn DRX tokens consistently.Community Engagement: Participate in social media campaigns and community activities to earn additional bonuses.Crypto Exchange ListingFuture Plans: DoctorX aims to list DRX tokens on various crypto exchange platforms, increasing accessibility and potential value.Launch DetailsRecent Launch: The app launched as part of the Ice Open Network Startup Program, leveraging MultiversX for a secure and scalable user experience.Rapid Growth: With over 930,000 downloads in the last 30 days, DoctorX is quickly gaining popularity among crypto enthusiasts.User ExperienceSeamless Integration: Combines high-tech mining with robust token distribution for a smooth user experience.Fun and Engaging: Designed to be entertaining, incorporating meme culture into the crypto world without promises of inherent value. App Screenshot How do I earn Money? . Welcome BonusSign-Up Reward: Upon downloading and registering on the DoctorX apk, users receive a 500 DRX token bonus. This initial boost encourages engagement and participation.2. Daily MiningActivate Mining: Tap the X button daily to mine DRX tokens. This simple task ensures consistent earnings and keeps users engaged with the app.3. Referral ProgramInvite Friends: Share your unique referral link to invite friends. Each successful referral earns you 2,000 DRX tokens.Referral Bonuses: Gain a 25% bonus for every referral actively mining, increasing your overall earnings.4. Boosting EarningsLevel Up: Use ICE coins to upgrade your level within the app, which enhances your mining rate by up to 50%. Higher levels unlock additional bonuses and features.Team Building: Form teams with direct referrals to maximize mining efficiency and collective earnings.
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Long before Instagram toyed with removing “likes,” VSCO, an Oakland-based photo-sharing and editing app, built a community devoid of likes, comments and follower counts. Perhaps known to many only because of this year’s “VSCO girl” meme explosion, the company has long been coaxing the creative community to its freemium platform. Turns out, if you can provide the disillusioned teens of Gen Z respite from the horrors of social media — they’ll pay for it.
VSCO is on pace to surpass 4 million paying users in 2020, up from 2 million paying users in late 2018, the company said. Approaching $80 million in annual revenue, VSCO charges an annual subscription fee of $19.99 for access to a full-suite of mobile photo-editing tools, exclusive photo filters, tutorials and more. For no cost, users can access a handful of basic VSCO filters, standard editing tools and loads of content published by other users in VSCO’s photo feed.
In recent months, the company’s Oakland headquarters has swelled to 150 employees, an increase of 50% from 2018, with a new office in Chicago expected to fit several dozen more. The company, which counts 100 million registered users to date, has also recently inked a partnership with Snap. Together, they’ve launched Analog, VSCO’s first-ever Snapchat lens, in a deal that hints at a future acquisition. Needless to say, VSCO co-founder and chief executive officer Joel Flory is feeling pretty optimistic ahead of his company’s eighth birthday.
“When you walk into a museum, you don’t see the net worth of the artist,” Flory tells TechCrunch. “You don’t see how many people have walked through the museum. There’s not a space for people to write comments and leave stickers. It’s a moment. It’s for you. You get to sit in front of a piece of work, a piece of art. And does it move you? Does it speak to you? Are you able to learn something from it? Does it inspire you to go do something? How can we create a space in which you could do that online? That was our initial insight.”
Flory, a 40-year-old former wedding photographer, wears a grey Oakland Roots sweatshirt and a black Oakland Athletics hat when I meet him at VSCO’s offices on Oakland’s Broadway Avenue in November. He doesn’t look like the Gen Z whisperer I expected to meet, and his responses to my questions about the “VSCO girl” meme paint a picture of a CEO who’s inadvertently connected with a generation 20 years his junior. “It’s a sense of caring about the environment and kind of caring about causes that have a meaning and impact,” Flory said of “VSCO girls,” who have more-oft been described as 21st century valley girls or “annoying, white hopeless romantics.”
On one hand, we were ahead of the curve. But I think we were just being true to who we are. VSCO CEO Joel Flory
Regardless of Flory’s ability to decode Gen Z, VSCO continues to be beloved by millions of teenagers and young adults worldwide. Without selling ads or customer data, VSCO has developed a sustainable subscription-based business and written a new playbook for social media businesses in a world where Facebook’s advertising-based model is king. For those fed up with platforms that have facilitated bullying and failed to prioritize privacy, VSCO may be a protective corner of the internet.
“The creator always wins, the community always wins, who’s paying us wins and VSCO wins,” Flory said. “It sounds simple, but this creates a business model in which our business is not extracting value from any one group to give to someone else. It’s this direct relationship with who’s paying us.”
VSCO CEO Joel Flory speaks to attendees while teaching phone photography class during The Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2019. Photographer: Martina Albertazzi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A sense of belonging
Hot off the heels of a rare moment in the spotlight, VSCO, reportedly valued at $550 million, is ripe for a new round of funding. Flory, naturally, remained mum on any plans to sell the company or raise additional capital. But he was ready and willing to speak to the company’s untraditional path and the unique connection it has fostered with its users.
Flory tells me 75% of VSCO’s registered users and 55% of its paying subscribers are younger than 25, giving the company a small foothold into the most coveted demographic. On top of that, the hashtag #VSCO has been viewed 4 billion times on the immensely popular video sharing app Tik Tok, again according to the company’s own statistics, and another 450 million times on Instagram. With 40 million monthly active users — Facebook had 2.45 billion monthly active users as of September, for context — VSCO is by no means a competitor to Facebook, Facebook-owned Instagram, Snap or Twitter. What it is, however, is a leader in the new era of social media, in which users demand more transparent, equitable relationships with social platforms.
“[Gen Z] knows what each platform is good for and what the downfalls of each are,” Flory said. “They are actively making investments in creativity and in their mental health, and they are seeking out a space where they can be who they are. And the fact that they’re even talking about mental health, anxiety, depression and compare culture — it took me so long in life to be able to articulate what I was feeling … They’re putting their money and time in brands and causes that they care about. And so for us, that’s why I think we’ve seen a lot of our growth.”
Flory and VSCO co-founder Greg Lutze, a long-time creative director-turned-chief experience officer, began building VSCO, an acronym for Visual Supply Co., in 2011. Facebook was more than six years old and mere months from hitting the 1 billion monthly active user milestone when VSCO launched its first product, a photo-editing plug-in for Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Instagram, for its part, was a burgeoning photo-based social network that had launched the year before to “ignite communication through images.” Unlike Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who famously created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, or Instagram’s founding CEO Kevin Systrom, a former Google employee, Flory and Lutze had absolutely no experience in the tech or startup world. The pair banded together to build something focused around the creative community — not to construct a venture-backed startup.
“We wanted to provide the tools for you to express yourself and then a space for you to do that, one that was void of the pressures around likes and comments that create this compare culture, which wasn’t even prevalent yet,” Flory said. “Now we’re seeing this played out on a large scale. So on one hand, we were ahead of the curve. But I think we were just being true to who we are.”
The business is growing in a way that we’ve never seen before. VSCO CEO Joel Flory
After launching VSCO as an Adobe plug-in, improved camera capabilities on smartphones motivated the business to change course. In the spring of 2013, the business launched its mobile app, a free photo-editing tool with in-app purchases and an affiliated community. The app reached 1 million downloads one week later and would eventually adopt a freemium model to earn money from its power users. Since its app launch, VSCO has remained a top-five grossing photo app on Apple’s App Store.
VSCO’s Oakland offices.
New opportunities
Though seldom mentioned on the venture capital and startup blogs, VSCO is indeed supported by VC dollars. Before its subscription revenue could sustain the business, the company brought in $90 million in VC funding from Accel, Glynn Capital Management, Obvious Ventures and Goldcrest Investments, closing its most recent round in 2015.
Flory and Lutze never sought venture funding. The former photographer and creative director didn’t have connections to venture capitalists or an in at a particular firm. Instead, Accel partners Vas Natarajan and Ryan Sweeney approached VSCO with “a thesis around the importance of design and creativity in the future,” Flory said, and quickly formed an alliance. Today, VSCO isn’t profitable, though it has been in the past, Flory said. It did, however, operate at “near break-even” last year — an accomplishment today as startups often lose hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis. With a valuation of $550 million, which Flory would neither confirm or deny, VSCO plans to invest heavily in growth next year.
As for the “VSCO girl” meme explosion, largely a mockery of white middle-class, social-media-savvy teenagers, it provided a jolt of publicity for a nearly decade-old company lost in the shadow of the giants. Though the meme entered the internet’s zeitgeist many months ago, the company is still riding a wave of press (and likely downloads) tied to its popularity. For many, the VSCO girl was their first encounter with VSCO, while for others, the photo-editing and sharing tool has been a fixture of their home screen for years.
As Instagram explores hiding likes in a bid to promote user health and other social media companies realize the importance of safety, security and mental wellness, VSCO may see its unique identity fade. Regardless, Flory says he wants other platforms to realize the impact of likes: “I honestly hope everyone thinks about what’s good for people’s mental health and builds more products that have a positive impact than a negative impact.”
Instagram’s experiments aside, VSCO is gearing up for another banner year, packed with plans for new features and products entirely. In our chat last month, Flory mentioned video design, publishing and editing, as well as illustration, as areas of interest for the now established photo-editing tool.
“The business is growing in a way that we’ve never seen before,” Flory said. “And what it’s doing is opening all of these new areas of opportunity. We’re focused on not only how you create content and how you edit content, but ultimately, how you tell a story with that content.”
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Inside VSCO, a Gen Z-approved photo-sharing app, with CEO Joel Flory Long before Instagram toyed with removing “likes,” VSCO, an Oakland-based photo-sharing and editing app, built a community devoid of likes, comments and follower counts.
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– ABOUT THE MUSE
general –
height: 5′9″ weight: 145 lb ethnicity: German+English / Japanese occupation: High School Student; Gamestop Cashier; Baby Sitter gender: (Cis) Male sexual identification: Demisexual romantic identification: Panromantic. myers briggs type: ESTP alignment: Chaotic Good
specifics –
favorite food: Watermelon favorite drink: Ginger Ale or Milk! favorite brand: Nike! favorite hobby: Crafting Pranks favorite artist: his mother! favorite musician: he likes a lot different ones, so no favorite. favorite scent: Citruses favorite person: Laurent, his elder sibling.
random –
list ten facts about your muse:
He doesn’t look the musical type, but he plays drums and the tenor saxophone. He prefers the former though.
He’s a rowdy sleeper, so if you walk into his room sometimes you’ll find him fallen onto the floor.
Lars is really dense, like really dense – so if you’re being subtle about something he won’t pick up on it unless someone tells him.
Lars wasn’t born a youkai – the other spirit housed inside his body is so when he died - instinctively their powers reawakened and leaked out to protect the vessel they shared, Lars’s friend Bianca. This spirit, however hadn’t woken up during this time.
Lars has a mourning ritual, believe it or not! On the days he’s actually up early, he’ll go through the motions to look good by gelling his hair and brushing through it and applying hair product.
He looks like a delinquent, but he isn’t.
Because of the aforementioned youkai housed in his body, without him technically he’d be classified as dead. After the power leaked out, some changes occurred to his body which made him more akin to a supernatural entity than a human.
Lars is trilingual, the latest one is something he’s working on. He presently knows English, Korean – due to family, and Japanese is something he’s trying to work on.
He likes crafting elaborate pranks, spending a lot of his free time thinking them out to scare someone or surprise someone.
Lars has few friends in high school due to his hyperactive and dense nature – a lot of his peers tend to ostracize him but he usually laughs off their jeers and insults. (or they, go over his head completely).
list five things they like:
Korean Barbeque.
Elaborate Pranks.
Video Games.
Children.
Peter.
list five things they dislike:
Dishonesty.
Bullies.
Mangos.
Clowns? Clowns.
Squirrels.
common words / phrases that annoy them?: none in particular, rather he probably uses these words that may annoy people. personality types they prefer: Reliable, Resourceful, Easy going nature, Easy to Prank and Understanding People. personality types they avoid: Haughty, Dishonest and Misleading types. what do you find different ( or distinct ) about your portrayal?: he’s an underdog who doesn’t constantly mope about his insecurities. he harbors no ill will toward the other spirit who shares his body, and tries to make an effort to get to know him.
Tagged by: @redhuntinghood
Tagging: @dreamsofreedpipes & @senjounochou @meistergretchen !!
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Long before Instagram toyed with removing “likes,” VSCO, an Oakland-based photo-sharing and editing app, built a community devoid of likes, comments and follower counts. Perhaps known to many only because of this year’s “VSCO girl” meme explosion, the company has long been coaxing the creative community to its freemium platform. Turns out, if you can provide the disillusioned teens of Gen Z respite from the horrors of social media — they’ll pay for it.
VSCO is on pace to surpass 4 million paying users in 2020, up from 2 million paying users in late 2018, the company said. Approaching $80 million in annual revenue, VSCO charges an annual subscription fee of $19.99 for access to a full-suite of mobile photo-editing tools, exclusive photo filters, tutorials and more. For no cost, users can access a handful of basic VSCO filters, standard editing tools and loads of content published by other users in VSCO’s photo feed.
In recent months, the company’s Oakland headquarters has swelled to 150 employees, an increase of 50% from 2018, with a new office in Chicago expected to fit several dozen more. The company, which counts 100 million registered users to date, has also recently inked a partnership with Snap. Together, they’ve launched Analog, VSCO’s first-ever Snapchat lens, in a deal that hints at a future acquisition. Needless to say, VSCO co-founder and chief executive officer Joel Flory is feeling pretty optimistic ahead of his company’s eighth birthday.
“When you walk into a museum, you don’t see the net worth of the artist,” Flory tells TechCrunch. “You don’t see how many people have walked through the museum. There’s not a space for people to write comments and leave stickers. It’s a moment. It’s for you. You get to sit in front of a piece of work, a piece of art. And does it move you? Does it speak to you? Are you able to learn something from it? Does it inspire you to go do something? How can we create a space in which you could do that online? That was our initial insight.”
Flory, a 40-year-old former wedding photographer, wears a grey Oakland Roots sweatshirt and a black Oakland Athletics hat when I meet him at VSCO’s offices on Oakland’s Broadway Avenue in November. He doesn’t look like the Gen Z whisperer I expected to meet, and his responses to my questions about the “VSCO girl” meme paint a picture of a CEO who’s inadvertently connected with a generation 20 years his junior. “It’s a sense of caring about the environment and kind of caring about causes that have a meaning and impact,” Flory said of “VSCO girls,” who have more-oft been described as 21st century valley girls or “annoying, white hopeless romantics.”
<div class="article-block block--pullout block--right"> <blockquote> On one hand, we were ahead of the curve. But I think we were just being true to who we are. <cite>VSCO CEO <a class="crunchbase-link" href="https://crunchbase.com/person/joel-flory" data-type="person" data-entity="joel-flory">Joel Flory</cite> <span class="crunchbase-tooltip-indicator"></span></a> </blockquote> </div>
Regardless of Flory’s ability to decode Gen Z, VSCO continues to be beloved by millions of teenagers and young adults worldwide. Without selling ads or customer data, VSCO has developed a sustainable subscription-based business and written a new playbook for social media businesses in a world where Facebook’s advertising-based model is king. For those fed up with platforms that have facilitated bullying and failed to prioritize privacy, VSCO may be a protective corner of the internet.
“The creator always wins, the community always wins, who’s paying us wins and VSCO wins,” Flory said. “It sounds simple, but this creates a business model in which our business is not extracting value from any one group to give to someone else. It’s this direct relationship with who’s paying us.”
VSCO CEO Joel Flory speaks to attendees while teaching phone photography class during The Wall Street Journal Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2019. Photographer: Martina Albertazzi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A sense of belonging
Hot off the heels of a rare moment in the spotlight, VSCO, reportedly valued at $550 million, is ripe for a new round of funding. Flory, naturally, remained mum on any plans to sell the company or raise additional capital. But he was ready and willing to speak to the company’s untraditional path and the unique connection it has fostered with its users.
Flory tells me 75% of VSCO’s registered users and 55% of its paying subscribers are younger than 25, giving the company a small foothold into the most coveted demographic. On top of that, the hashtag #VSCO has been viewed 4 billion times on the immensely popular video sharing app Tik Tok, again according to the company’s own statistics, and another 450 million times on Instagram. With 80 million monthly active users — Facebook had 2.45 billion monthly active users as of September, for context — VSCO is by no means a competitor to Facebook, Facebook-owned Instagram, Snap or Twitter. What it is, however, is a leader in the new era of social media, in which users demand more transparent, equitable relationships with social platforms.
“[Gen Z] knows what each platform is good for and what the downfalls of each are,” Flory said. “They are actively making investments in creativity and in their mental health, and they are seeking out a space where they can be who they are. And the fact that they’re even talking about mental health, anxiety, depression and compare culture — it took me so long in life to be able to articulate what I was feeling … They’re putting their money and time in brands and causes that they care about. And so for us, that’s why I think we’ve seen a lot of our growth.”
Flory and VSCO co-founder Greg Lutze, a long-time creative director-turned-chief experience officer, began building VSCO, an acronym for Visual Supply Co., in 2011. Facebook was more than six years old and mere months from hitting the 1 billion monthly active user milestone when VSCO launched its first product, a photo-editing plug-in for Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Instagram, for its part, was a burgeoning photo-based social network that had launched the year before to “ignite communication through images.” Unlike Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who famously created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, or Instagram’s founding CEO Kevin Systrom, a former Google employee, Flory and Lutze had absolutely no experience in the tech or startup world. The pair banded together to build something focused around the creative community — not to construct a venture-backed startup.
“We wanted to provide the tools for you to express yourself and then a space for you to do that, one that was void of the pressures around likes and comments that create this compare culture, which wasn’t even prevalent yet,” Flory said. “Now we’re seeing this played out on a large scale. So on one hand, we were ahead of the curve. But I think we were just being true to who we are.”
<div class="article-block block--pullout block--right"> <blockquote> The business is growing in a way that we’ve never seen before. <cite>VSCO CEO Joel Flory</cite> </blockquote> </div>
After launching VSCO as an Adobe plug-in, improved camera capabilities on smartphones motivated the business to change course. In the spring of 2013, the business launched its mobile app, a free photo-editing tool with in-app purchases and an affiliated community. The app reached 1 million downloads one week later and would eventually adopt a freemium model to earn money from its power users. Since its app launch, VSCO has remained a top-five grossing photo app on Apple’s App Store.
VSCO’s Oakland offices.
New opportunities
Though seldom mentioned on the venture capital and startup blogs, VSCO is indeed supported by VC dollars. Before its subscription revenue could sustain the business, the company brought in $70 million in VC funding from Accel, Glynn Capital Management, Obvious Ventures, Goldcrest Investments and others, closing its most recent round in 2015.
Flory and Lutze never sought venture funding. The former photographer and creative director didn’t have connections to venture capitalists or an in at a particular firm. Instead, Accel partners Vas Natarajan and Ryan Sweeney approached VSCO with “a thesis around the importance of design and creativity in the future,” Flory said, and quickly formed an alliance. Today, VSCO isn’t profitable, though it has been in the past, Flory said. It did, however, operate at “near break-even” last year — an accomplishment today as startups often lose hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis. With a valuation of $550 million, which Flory would neither confirm or deny, VSCO plans to invest heavily in growth next year.
As for the “VSCO girl” meme explosion, largely a mockery of white middle-class, social-media-savvy teenagers, it provided a jolt of publicity for a nearly decade-old company lost in the shadow of the giants. Though the meme entered the internet’s zeitgeist many months ago, the company is still riding a wave of press (and likely downloads) tied to its popularity. For many, the VSCO girl was their first encounter with VSCO, while for others, the photo-editing and sharing tool has been a fixture of their home screen for years.
As Instagram explores hiding likes in a bid to promote user health and other social media companies realize the importance of safety, security and mental wellness, VSCO may see its unique identity fade. Regardless, Flory says he wants other platforms to realize the impact of likes: “I honestly hope everyone thinks about what’s good for people’s mental health and builds more products that have a positive impact than a negative impact.”
Instagram’s experiments aside, VSCO is gearing up for another banner year, packed with plans for new features and products entirely. In our chat last month, Flory mentioned video design, publishing and editing, as well as illustration, as areas of interest for the now established photo-editing tool.
“The business is growing in a way that we’ve never seen before,” Flory said. “And what it’s doing is opening all of these new areas of opportunity. We’re focused on not only how you create content and how you edit content, but ultimately, how you tell a story with that content.”
Inside VSCO, a Gen Z-approved photo-sharing app, with CEO Joel Flory Long before Instagram toyed with removing “likes,” VSCO, an Oakland-based photo-sharing and editing app, built a community devoid of likes, comments and follower counts.
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How To Restart Your Apple iphone Without Utilizing The Residence Or even Power Buttons.
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Review of my 2017 Prius (5k miles) via /r/cars
Review of my 2017 Prius (5k miles)
Hey there r/cars, I bought a 2017 Prius in the summer of last year.
Why did I get a Prius, you might ask? Well, for a bunch of reasons. I used to be the type of person to shit on Priuses (Prii?) as cars made for lesbian vegan crossfitters, for those too busy sniffing their own farts to notice their intoxicating personalities. It was definitely a meme car, but damn do I love it.
Before this, I was driving a 2006 GMC Envoy gotten from my family, and lemme tell ya that thing was an absolute pig. Big, comfortable, but also loud and slow as hell, not to mention terrible gas mileage. Things inside were slowly breaking, it felt like every 2 months we had to take it to the shop to fix another minor problem, and I just wasn't a fan of it. My dad and I initially went to the dealerships here looking for a Toyota Camry, ya know the 2018 cars? Was a huge fan of it after seeing online reviews praising it. It was just what we needed, a comfortable, quiet, fuel efficient sedan with a record for reliability. At the dealership, they told us they didn't have any inventory of the Camry as it got sold out, it's apparently in really high demand here (Middle East). This was a huge bummer to me, but the guy pointed me in the direction of this - the 2017 Prius. That single lone car sitting in the show room floor. I didn't know they even sold those things here, keep in mind this is the Arab world, gas prices are some of the lowest in the world here, why the hell would Toyota sell a hybrid? I had no intention of driving it, but the more I learnt about this one model, the more I started to like it.
It was a model left from the previous year, and since they couldn't manage to sell it to anyone (since it doesn't have much of a presence here), they were offering 30% off the MSRP. This is huge, especially considering it's a Toyota and they're known for not budging around with price much. I looked around it, it looked clean as a whistle, brand new everything. I never sat in a hybrid before this one, so everything was weird to me. The car made no sound when i pushed the start button. It had a Heads up Display, blindspot monitoring, automatic up and down settings on all 4 windows. Now this might seem kinda basic to most of you reading this, after all you see this on alot of new cars, but considering what I came from these all felt like luxury features. The center screen was massive and almost felt like a smartphone with how many menu settings I could modify to suit my needs. The JBL speakers sound amazing compared to the old Envoy's, and the AC was pretty cool (heh). I could select the exact temperature I want and let the car do the rest in turning the inside into an Ice Box. The cloth seats were decently comfy, altho admittedly not quite as comfortable as the old Envoy, but hey I guess this was one of the sacrifices I had to make. All in all, it cost me the equivalent of $18.5k, which isn't too bad for a (Saudi spec) fully optioned out Prius.
Interior
Interior quality isn't a Benz by any means, as there are a bunch of plastics here and there, but overall I'm satisfied. There's soft spots for where my arms rest, and overall the interior has mostly soft touch plastics, with very few hard scratchy surfaces. The seats are cloth, and are reasonably comfy, but anytime I take a trip of about 3 hours I definitely feel some lower back pain and need to walk around for a bit to be better. The speedometer being in the center display was a little weird for me at first, but the HUD fixes that problem and I barely every take my eyes off my windshield when I'm driving. You sit really close to the ground in this car, like honestly I don't think your butt gets above a foot and a half from the gravel, and that has it's pros and cons. Pros being that you feel like you have more control over the car and the low center of gravity makes turns more confident, along with lower wind noise at high speeds. Main con of this is that you have to lower yourself into the car, and I can see why older drivers might not like this. The headroom and leg room in this car is phenomenal, at least for the front two occupants. I don't ever feel claustrophobic in here, I have more than enough space to stretch out and not hit my head on the roof (I'm 6'0). As for the back passengers, I tried rolling the driver's seat all the way to the back, yet even then when I sat behind myself, I had more than enough room to stretch my legs out. Leg room is a huge plus in this car, altho my hair does slightly brush against the roof in the back seat, but not enough to be a concern. Hatch space is cavernous, easily much bigger than any trunk of a camry or corolla, and especially when the seats are folded down. I was once able to fit in 40 wooden canvases inside, it's definitely very practical in that regard. It's noticeably quiet inside the car too. Like on startup, you hear nothing since the electric motors are pulling all the work, and if you push the accelerator hard enough, you'll hear the subtle whirr of the engine as it starts up and warms up. If you keep a light foot though, all you hear is the very slight, futuristic purr of the electric motors. Even at high speeds, like on highways, at 70 mph I've been able to hold conversations with people without raising my voice, something I couldn't do in the Envoy (had to damn near scream just to be heard on the highway). Ooooo also one more minor thing, the overhead lights on the inside slowly turn on when you approach the car and slowly turn off when you leave, instead of abruptly turning on and off. A small feature, but one that I really like and which contributes to it feeling more high classed than an equivalent Corolla. Overall, a functional, utilitarian, reasonably comfortable, spacious, and quiet interior.
Exterior
Now the exterior is gonna be more controversial, everyone loves to shit on the 4th gen Prius'es design as weird, edgy, too sharp, and not going to age well. Personally, I thought the same thing of it at first, but it's a design that grows on you. It's not as pretty as an LC500, no doubt, but it really isn't that bad. The shape of the car gives it one of the lowest coefficient of drag in the industry, so you could argue that form follows function here? The sharp edges on the car aren't the easiest on the eyes, but it's different. I like that about it, it gives it character, to be a car so weird and different looking that it almost looks cool in my eyes. I saw the Prius redesign for 2019, it's honestly a prettier car but you know what? I'm proud of owning this thing, it's not pretty, but it's mine and that's all that matters to me.
Besides that, it has sensors behind the door handle that automatically unlock the car for you if it senses the key in your pocket, along with a small touch pad on it to lock the car as you leave. This system has worked for me flawlessly, everytime it opens and locks accurately without me even attempting to look "visible" to it. Love not having to pull my keys out anymore. Reversing camera is standard, along with LED lights on the front (which I gotta admit, really brighten up the road compared to halogen lights). Overall, a unique design that's gonna catch alot of flack from people but hey, I like it.
Performance, economy, and driving dynamics
Yeah, if you came to this car for performance, you will be sorely disappointed. With a whopping 121 horsepower, this car is not fast. It actually has a decent pull from 0-20 mph since those electric motors have the instant torque, but beyond that, yeah it's a drone fest. When you floor it, you can just count along with the speedometer as it slugs it's way up. I think it's just physically impossible to get a speeding ticket in this. That's not to say it's horribly slow, like for any normal person the acceleration is totally adequate, but you won't be replicating any Mad Max scenes with this thing. One thing I think Toyota really perfected with this car is the subtlety at which the engine turns on. It's quiet. In the beginning, you can't really tell whether the engine is off or not without developing the ear for it, you learn to notice it after a couple hundred miles or so. Really impressive and seamless transition between electric to engine power, and vice versa. Honestly, the driving dynamics are not bad. From what I've seen in reviews, the older gen Priuses felt like dead bars of soap to drive, but this new one actually livens things up. It's got independent rear suspension, and a low center of gravity, so those two at least contribute to it being somewhat fun to drive. It can take turns pretty well, the suspension feels good and sturdy, and it handles potholes pretty effortlessly. What about economy? This thing excels. Idk how EPA reports this as around 52 mpg, I easily exceed 60 mpg without even trying. I'm able to travel about 600 miles on a single tank (11 gallon capacity), and that's without even triggering the low fuel level indicator. If I try to hypermile, I can sometimes exceed 80 mpg on a good day. Considering the old Envoy got 15 mpg on a good day, this car is leagues ahead of that and I never find myself worrying about gas anymore.
Cost to own
I have long held the opinion that the Prius is the absolute lowest cost to own non-EV car that exists, ignoring depreciation. This thing sips gas like it's in a drought. Converting the currencies, I can travel 600 miles for the equivalent of $12.40 (Thank God for Arab oil prices). That's about 2 cents per mile driven. I had to double check the numbers just to make sure it was right, because that sounds so absurdly low I was sure there was a mistake in there somewhere. The car being this cheap to drive is what made me love driving everywhere. Before, in the Envoy, I was always cautious with how I drove, tried to be more efficient, take the shortest possible route, because that thing drank gas like it was nothing. But with the Prius, I'm always happy to drive anywhere. Friends wanna go out to eat? Sure thing, I'll drive us there. Forgot a very minor, dollar store item in uni? It would be cheaper to drive there and get it than to buy a replacement. Long trips out into the desert visiting hidden lakes and natural sites? Prius is ready for it. I love to drive. And with how cheap this thing is to fuel up, I can drive anywhere I want anytime with no pressure to save money in mind. This is true economic freedom. Insurance for this came out really cheap too, I pay about 22 dollars a month. What about maintenance?
The engine isn't even on half the time, so despite the manual saying to have 6k mile oil changes, I feel like I could double that to 12k miles and get away with it trouble free (not that I would actually do that tho). It's got a 100k mile warranty for the hybrid battery, but I don't think I'll ever really need it. I've read online that most priuses can easily last to 200k miles on the original battery, some even surpass 300k miles. Considering that the winters here are never really that cold, and the summers are good to the Ni-MH battery chemistry, I have no doubt that these things will outlive the car itself. I don't expect the engine to ever die, after all 1) It's a low power, understressed Atkinson cycle engine, 2) The electric motors drive the car half the time and 3) It's a Toyota. I don't think I've ever heard of a Prius engine failing. The transmission is an eCVT, and to be frank with you it's still kind of like wizardry to me. I don't exactly know how it works, aside from the fact that it uses the electric motors as a sort of power transfer and transmission instead of the traditional automatic or CVT we're used to. It doesn't have any gears, any belts, any clutches, complicated parts at all, and I think it's a pretty simple design overall. All that contributes to it being a reliable beast, I don't think I've heard any stories of Prius transmission replacements. Finally depreciation. Toyotas have great resale value, and I'm sure this Prius would be a king in that regard, but I don't plan on selling this, at least anytime soon. I love this car, it does everything I want it to, and knowing how long it's expected to last, I wanna drive it into the dirt, maybe past 500k miles before I buy a replacement for it.
This car may not be considered an enthusiast car by any means, but in my eyes, it's truly what I would call the car for the people, the car that does everything you need it to, and is one of the greatest achievements in the history of the automotive industry.
Tldr it's a good car
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