In 2016, Google announced plans for their Chrome browser that would push for a safer internet – they promised to mark all websites with unencrypted connections as “not secure”. This would make it easier for people to know if their personal information is safe as it travels across the web. Fast forward three years and Google have delivered on their promise – Chrome 68 has arrived and it’s naming and shaming all websites with unencrypted connections.

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Unlike for-profit corporations, nonprofit organizations have much smaller budgets for marketing and advertising than some may anticipate. Unfortunately, many people tend to view these expenses as counter to the reasons they originally gave to a certain cause. As companies are forced to become more transparent in the age of clear and precise communication as well as more personal producer-consumer relationships, people are wanting to see their money go directly towards the receivers of work done by organizations which they decide to give to. Nowadays, these donations are seen more as an investment than just a gift. Although it is understandable that donors give to see results, nonprofits struggle with a lack of ability to grow their reach because of their hesitancy to fund campaigns which have the potential to do so.

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As a student at UT’s Moody College of Communication, I am exposed to many amazing opportunities and professionals with vast experience in the industries of journalism, media and public relations just to name a few. This past week, I had the privilege of attending a lecture by Christopher Ferrel, the Director of Digital Strategy at The Richards Group for one of my courses, Technology, Marketing, and Advertising. After listening to his presentation, I was mesmerized by his concept of a new era that is bound to change the course of digital advertising. The Skippable Era, as he classifies it, is characterized by a feature we all love and embrace; the skip button. To better understand how marketing trends and consumer engagement have shaped digital practices of our current era, Chris poses three essential questions for advertising gurus to consider.

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As technology develops and its applications and features increasingly grow in the age of the internet, it is hard to imagine a new platform that could change it all. Currently, we live in a world built upon intermediaries for many of our industries. Originally created for the digital currency, Bitcoin and Bitcoin trader login option, blockchain was developed as a way to bypass this system and directly connect consumers to their value. Similar to the platform of GoogleDocs, imagine this technology as a shared server where instead of saving a document in Word then sending it to another individual via email or fax, the document is already shared and updated with the other party.

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It seems as though every day, there is a new headline about fake news, information security, and data breaches, but could we ever have imagined one of our most widely used social sites to be in the center of it all? This past month, Facebook has encountered some of its own roadblocks with these popular issues. But to fully understand why #DeleteFacebook is now one of the most trending topics, we must first unpack the purpose and influence of the company itself.

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Feeling like the corporate world is becoming the political world? Every action we take and every move we make may be judged as a reflection of our beliefs and values. Day to day, we are contemplating the balance between our desire for better practices and policies for the good of society and our habits of mass consumerism. Is there a way to achieve a complementary system where companies serve as soapboxes for social change and buyers are not forced into a structure of commerce based on ethics?

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F8 is Facebook’s annual conference for developers and entrepreneurs that build around and for the site. This year the 2-day event took place on May 1 & 2 in San Jose, California with over 50 sessions and interactive demonstrations for attendees to learn about what’s coming up for Facebook in the future.  Day 1 opened with a keynote speech from none other than the creator and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. Naturally, he focused most largely on the company’s newest privacy feature, “clear history”, which will allow users to “clear your browsing history on Facebook — what you’ve clicked on, websites you’ve visited, and so on.” Although he did caution that this may degrade the Facebook experience for those that choose to wipe their data, the site will have to relearn their preferences and become familiar with each profile once this feature has been used.

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With the rise of the iPhone, our society has quickly shifted in many respects. The ways we interact, the ways we find information, the ways we work and the ways we occupy our time have all been impacted by not only the advancement of mobile technology but the introduction of apps into our everyday routines. Now entire businesses revolve around the model of customer interaction via phone applications. Mobile traffic has given the opportunity for hundreds of thousands of companies to reach their audiences with more ease and efficiency, making transactions, and communication in general much more streamlined. By 2020, the predicted number of apps to exist will be 5 million (Perez, 2017), and the possibilities don’t stop there.

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So you’ve heard about it and have seen the hype about its revolutionary developments for the technology sphere, but do you actually know what 5G is? If you don’t, you’re not alone. Short for fifth-generation wireless systems, 5G is the latest iteration of cellular technology that your devices will run its system programs off of. These developments allow for network splicing, which enables multiple channels to run on a singular network. As a result, many benefits will be brought to your use of all those devices our lives revolve around.

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It’s hard to ignore just how much social media has taken the advertising and marketing world by storm. From the beginnings of a millennial-led movement to a full-blown industry changer, social media has transformed how we choose the products we buy, and more importantly how we connect with others to create communities around brands and people alike. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat are only some of the many content-centered sites that aim to reach their audiences directly through personalized targeted visual and written messaging.

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