CarVi Wants to Help Cure the Common Pothole

It would update its windshield-mounted devices to identify the scourges, then share the info with local governments.

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Media's Fatal Flaw: Ignoring the Mistakes of Newspapers

Opinion: The most promising news innovations of the past decade have been built on audience engagement and community needs.

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Netflix's 'Trigger Warning' Is the Latest in a Slew of Host-Driven Stories

The confrontational, sometimes Swiftian heart of Killer Mike's show aims to reach common ground by way of unvarnished agitation.

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Why Electric Cars Struggle in the Cold—and How to Help Them

Cold weather is no fun for battery-powered cars, but experienced owners have a few tips for getting by when the mercury drops.

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Best TV and Soundbar Deals for the Super Bowl (2019)

TVs are on sale because of the Super Bowl, and we've rounded up our favorite discounted sets and soundbars.

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The Phone Number Ashton Kutcher Tweeted Comes From a Startup

If you tried to text Ashton Kutcher today, you were prompted to sign up for a new messaging service called Community.

from Wired http://bit.ly/2MDWQju
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SF denies Spin’s appeal to operate electric scooters, but offers some hope

Spin, the electric scooter company recently bought by Ford, still won’t be able to operate in San Francisco. Well, at least for now. This comes after Spin appealed the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s decision regarding electric scooter permits in the city. A neutral officer, James Doyle, has since denied Spin’s appeal.

“The SFMTA is pleased the hearing officer validated our permitting process, which above all, prioritized the public interest,” SFMTA Communications Manager Ben Jose said in a statement to TechCrunch. “The SFMTA developed a fair, thoughtful and transparent permit program. Permits were awarded to the companies with the best applications that demonstrated a commitment to operating a safe, equitable and accountable service.”

There is, however, a silver lining for Spin. The hearing officer recommends the SFMTA consider having Spin participate in the second half of the one-year pilot program. That’s because “Spin appears to be an experienced and capable operator, and because allowing additional operators will enhance the probability of success of the powered e-scooter share program in San Francisco,” Doyle wrote in his decision.

Electric scooters are back in SF

Citing Section 916 of the electric scooter program, which states that after the initial six-month period, the SFMTA may evaluate those with permits and reassess compliance, Doyle says that provides a “natural juncture” in the program. After the first six months of the program, the SFMTA can potentially increase the number of scooters from the current max of 625 to 2,500. This juncture, Doyle said, should be able to accommodate the addition of other operators.

“We were heartened by the Hearing Officer’s strong recommendation that Spin be granted a permit by the SFMTA at the six-month mark of the pilot,” a Spin spokesperson told TechCrunch via email. “While it’s disappointing that Spin can’t immediately serve our hometown, we appreciate the Hearing Officer’s acknowledgment of our experience and capabilities, and we look forward to working with the SFMTA to serve more San Franciscans with an alternative mobility mode and hire locally from the community.”

Currently, Skip and Scoot are the only two companies permitted to operate electric scooters in SF. Since deploying their respective fleets in October, both have experienced some growing pains — mostly pertaining to theft and vandalism. That has led both Scoot and Skip to add locks to their fleets.

Moving forward, it’s unclear if the SFMTA will take the recommendation, but Jose said, “The SFMTA will be consulting with the City Attorney’s Office to determine next steps as we near the second half of the pilot.

The electric scooter wars of 2018

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The Threat That the US Can't Ignore: Itself

Tuesday's worldwide threats briefing to Congress outline numerous concerns for US security—many of which Donald Trump has inflamed or denied.

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If Convicted, Huawei Faces Bigger Problems Than Fines

China's Huawei, charged in two indictments Monday, might lose access to American-made components, a move that nearly put rival ZTE out of business.

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Google Takes Its First Steps Toward Killing the URL

Google wants to get rid of URLs. But first, it needs to show you why.

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Why Taxing the Rich May Not Save Democracy

Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have proposed new taxes to bolster government revenue and reduce inequality. The plans may not do either.

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At Sundance, Virtual Reality Filmmakers Are Evolving Beyond VR

The next frontier? Augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and a return to real people.

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Apple Takes Drastic Measures to Stop a Nasty FaceTime Bug

Group FaceTime chats let people eavesdrop on whoever they called, a bug so bad that Apple pulled the plug until it comes up with a fix.

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All This Newfound Cynicism Is Going to Hamper Big Tech

The public no longer gives Facebook, Google, Twitter, and the other tech giants the benefit of the doubt. And that's going to hamper their growth.

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James Watson and the Insidiousness of Scientific Racism

Opinion: Black scientists are in the best position to understand what is so broken about the ideas of Watson and his army.

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The Arctic Village With Satellite TV But No Running Water

The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet threatens this region's simple way of life.

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Mercedes’ EQC SUV Makes Everyday Electric Elite

With some clever tricks and flair-free styling, Mercedes sets off down the battery-powered path.

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'Family Trust' Shows Silicon Valley’s Secret Obsessions

The novel by former tech worker Kathy Wang focuses on the envy and tensions in Silicon Valley’s middle class.

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The Need for Carbon Fiber Could Ground the Flying-Car Future

The many companies racing to launch air taxis face the gnarliness of building aircraft from the lightweight but finicky material.

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Creating Saturday Night Live’s Cue Cards

As part of their YouTube series on how the Saturday Night Live sausage is made, this short video details how the cue cards that the actors read from during the show are made and used. There’s even a tiny little bit in there about how they use whitespace (between words and lines) to make sure the cards are readable from a distance.

I am kind of amazed that the cue card process is still done by hand. I don’t want to see any hard-working staffers or interns getting fired, but it seems like a couple of fast large-format color printers capable of printing on poster stock and a block letter handwriting font could dramatically streamline the workflow, particularly when late-stage changes are needed.

Tags: design   Saturday Night Live   TV   video

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Scenes from the Anthropocene, an Earth Forever Changed by Humans

These are photographs by Edward Burtynsky from The Anthropocene Project, a multimedia undertaking that showcases the effect humans have had on our planet. Top: a palm oil plantation in Malaysia. Bottom: a coal mine in Germany.

In addition to the photographs, there’s also a book and a film among other things.

I’ve been a fan of Burtynsky’s photography for years and I’m hoping to see both the film and the photos somewhere soon.

Tags: Anthropocene   Edward Burtynsky   photography

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El Chapo, Master of the Drug Tunnel (and Escape Tunnel)

In this video, Vox takes a look at how El Chapo leveraged his use of tunnels for transporting drugs into the United States and became one of the richest and most powerful drug lords of all time.

Throughout his career as a drug trafficker, tunnels have been the common theme in El Chapo’s story. When he gained control of a major drug trafficking corridor in the late 1980s, Joaquin Guzman Loera — then known as “el Rapido” — was the first to create super tunnels for transporting drugs across the border.

At the time, a crackdown by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) meant Colombian cocaine was in decline and the Mexican narcotrafficker saw an opportunity. By using tunnels to facilitate fast transport, El Chapo leveraged his role as a trafficker to claim new responsibilities as a cultivator and distributor of drugs.

El Chapo is currently on trial in the US and the proceedings thus far indicate that the Trump administration’s proposed border wall likely wouldn’t stop the flow of drugs into the US from Mexico. Most of the drugs shipped by El Chapo into the US went through regular old border crossings on trucks and trains, hidden in truck panels, packed into fake plastic bananas, or surrounded by food.

At one point, testimony at the trial has shown, Mr. Guzmán sent tons of cocaine across the border in cans of jalapeños marked with the label La Comadre chiles. The cans were stacked on pallets in the backs of commercial tractor-trailers, which simply drove through official border entry points. To protect his product from being found, witnesses said, Mr. Guzmán often placed the cans filled with cocaine in the middle of the pallets, surrounded by cans with actual chiles.

The NY Times link is via Geoff Manaugh, whose take on this tunnelling I’d love to read.

Tags: architecture   crime   drugs   El Chapo   video

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“Closeness Lines”: Lovely Visualizations of Relationships Over Time

I *love* these simple visualizations of how different kinds of relationships change over time by writer and cartoonist Olivia de Recat.

My pal Jesse James Garrett called them “Feynman diagrams of the heart” that depict “the vast entanglement of humanity”.

The illustration is available as a print but currently sold out. :( Hopefully it’ll be back in stock soon? In the meantime, you can take a look at some of her other cartoons (mostly for the New Yorker), peruse her shop, or follow her stuff on Insta.

Tags: illustration   infoviz   Olivia de Recat

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It’s So Cold Out! Where’s the Global Warming?!

In what is now an annual tradition, when the temperatures in some part of the US plunge below zero degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, some nitwit Republican climate change-denier live-tweets from the back pocket of industry something like “It’s so cold out where’s the global warming when we need it???? #OwnTheLibs”. This time around, it was our very own Shitwhistle-in-Chief who tweeted merrily about the current polar vortex bearing down on the Midwest:

In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming? Please come back fast, we need you!

Some time ago, Randall Munroe addressed what severe cold in the US has to do with climate change on XKCD: it used to be colder a lot more often but we don’t really remember it.

When I was a kid growing up in Wisconsin, I recall experiencing overnight low temperatures in the -30°F to -40°F range several times and vividly remember being stranded in my house for a week in 1996 when the all-time record low for the state (-55°F) was established in nearby Couderay.

Munroe’s observation isn’t even the whole story. Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, writes that the polar vortex bringing cold air into the Midwest is connected to the rapidly warming Arctic.

Because of rapid Arctic warming, the north/south temperature difference has diminished. This reduces pressure differences between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, weakening jet stream winds. And just as slow-moving rivers typically take a winding route, a slower-flowing jet stream tends to meander.

Large north/south undulations in the jet stream generate wave energy in the atmosphere. If they are wavy and persistent enough, the energy can travel upward and disrupt the stratospheric polar vortex. Sometimes this upper vortex becomes so distorted that it splits into two or more swirling eddies.

These “daughter” vortices tend to wander southward, bringing their very cold air with them and leaving behind a warmer-than-normal Arctic.

(via @mkonnikova)

Tags: Donald Trump   global warming   Jennifer Francis   Randall Munroe   science   weather

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Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the Better Platform? (Comparison)

Are you thinking of starting an online store? Not sure whether you should use Shopify or WooCommerce?

Shopify and WooCommerce are the two top eCommerce platforms in the world each with their own pros and cons.

As a business owner, choosing the right eCommerce platform that fits your business needs is crucial for your success.

In this guide, we will show you a detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce. The goal is to break down their advantages and disadvantages to help you choose the best option for your eCommerce store.

Since this is a detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce, here’s a quick table of content:

• Overview: WooCommerce vs Shopify
• What to look for in your eCommerce platform?
• Cost comparison
• Ease of usse comparison
• Payment methods
• Add-Ons comparison
• Dropshipping comparison
• Scalability comparison
• Support options
• Conclusion: WooCommerce vs Shopify – Which is better?

Overview: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Before we start with our in-depth comparison of the two most popular eCommerce platforms on the web, it’s important that we cover the basics and highlight what makes these platform stand out.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that makes it easy for you to create an online store, accept payments, and manage your inventory all from a single platform without ever worrying about the technical aspects of managing a website such as web hosting, security, caching, etc.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin built for WordPress. It allows you to leverage the most powerful content management system (CMS) and use it to run an online store. Because of the open-source nature, you can customize every aspect of your store and easily build custom extensions.

The decision to choose between the two platforms depend entirely on your needs and skill level.

What to Look for in Your eCommerce Platform?

There are few things that you absolutely need to keep in mind when starting an online store. These key factors will help you decide which platform is better suited for your needs.

• Budget – The initial cost of starting a fully functional ecommerce store.
• Ease of use – It should be easy to use even for absolute beginners.
• Payment Methods – It should have support for multiple payment methods (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, other merchant processors).
• Integrations – Number of services and third party tools you can integrate to grow your business.
• Scalability – The platform should be able to scale as your business grows.

These are the very basic requirements that all online store owners must consider. However, depending on your needs, you may also want to look at other options like shipping, inventory management, invoicing, taxes, dropshipping, etc.

Our goal with this article is to take an in-depth look at how Shopify and WooCommerce stand on these basic requirements, and which one of them is best suited for your needs.

Cost: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Cost is often the most important consideration for eCommerce website owners. You need to evaluate the cost of getting started while also keeping in mind the variable costs for add-on services and software.

The true cost of using Shopify

Shopify makes it super easy to start your online store. Their basic plan starts at $29 per month, and you can upgrade to the Shopify plan for $79 or the Advanced Shopify plan for $299 per month.

Each of these plans includes domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting.

The basic plan comes with enough features to set up a new online store. You can add unlimited products, 2 user accounts, unlimited file storage, and more.

However, this pricing doesn’t include third-party tools and add-ons that you will need to take your Shopify store to the next level. As your business grows, these costs will start adding up, and you’ll soon be paying a lot more than the basic plan.

Payments are another factor that affects your costs. Shopify offers their own Shopify Payments solution which costs 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.

If you want to use third-party payment gateways or your own merchant account, then you will be charged a flat fee of 2.0% for all transactions. You can reduce this fee to 0.5% by using the Shopify Advanced plan which costs $299 per month.

These payment processing fees are fairly steep when using external payment gateways. However, if you’re just starting out and want to use the Shopify payment solution, then the fees are fairly comparable to popular platforms like Stripe and Braintree.

The true cost of using WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress.org (also known as self-hosted WordPress). It is open source and freely available as a WordPress plugin.

However, you’ll need a domain name, SSL Certificate, and a WordPress hosting account to start a WooCommerce store.

Typically, a domain name costs $14.99, SSL Certificate costs $69.99, and web hosting around $7.99 / month. This is not cheap, particularly when you are just starting out.

Thankfully, there are several hosting companies who are now offering specialized WooCommerce hosting plans which significantly reduces the cost.

Bluehost, an official WordPress and WooCommerce recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a discount on web hosting.

This will help you start your online store for as low as $6.95 / month.

→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←

As you can see, the cost of starting a basic WooCommerce store is significantly lower than Shopify. WooCommerce also doesn’t charge you a percentage fee of your transactions which is a very nice perk.

But the WooCommerce costs start adding up as you purchase paid extensions. Your hosting costs will also increase as your online store grows.

However, one clear advantage of using WooCommerce is that you can often find free alternatives to the paid extensions. You can also keep your costs in control by only purchasing the tools and plugins as you need them.

With the number of free themes and free add-ons available for WooCommerce, it’s definitely the winner when it comes to cost.

Winner: WooCommerce

Ease of Use: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Most users starting an online store are not web designers or developers. Even users who are familiar with basic concepts need a platform that is easy to use and gets out of their way.

Let’s see how Shopify and WooCommerce stack up in terms of user-friendliness.

Shopify – Ease of Use

Shopify is a fully hosted platform which means you don’t need to install, manage, or update any software. You also don’t need to worry about security, performance, backups, and compatibility issues.

As soon as you sign up, it helps you pick a design for your website. After that, they walk you through customization and then help you add products.

Shopify comes with an intuitive drag and drop interface. Managing your products, sales, and inventory inside Shopify is a breeze.

One downside of this guided, polished, and highly optimized user experience is that it limits your control. You can only use the design and development tools provided by Shopify or add-ons available in their marketplace.

However, this is not as bad as it sounds. For most users, the large selection of extensions and themes available in Shopify, is more than enough to get started and grow your online store.

WooCommerce – Ease of Use

WooCommerce is not a hosted platform like Shopify. This means you will need to install WooCommerce, manage updates, keep backups, and make sure that your website is secure. There are plenty of free and paid plugins that can automate most of these tasks for you.

WooCommerce is super flexible when it comes to customizations. You have full control of the whole platform. You can add any functionality imaginable to your website with the help of more than 55,000+ WordPress plugins.

However, there is no built-in drag & drop design builder. You can use one of the WordPress page builders like Beaver Builder, but it adds to your cost.

The biggest downside of the flexibility is that it comes with a learning curve and requires a more hands-on management of your website. You also have to signup for a merchant account or similar service like Stripe / PayPal.

While the WooCommerce guided setup wizard is helpful, it does not come close to the onboarding and ease of use of Shopify.

Winner: Shopify

Payment Methods: Shopify vs WooCommerce

There are many payment gateways that you can use to accept payments online. Some payment methods may not be suitable for you, and others may not be available to your customers.

This is why it’s important that the platform you choose offers multiple payment options. Let’s take a look at how Shopify and WooCommerce compare when it comes to payment integrations.

Payment Options in Shopify

Shopify offers plenty of payment options that you can use to receive payments from customers. It has its own payments solution called Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe) as well as all popular third-party payment gateways.

The problem is that Shopify charges an extra 2% fees on each transaction made through third party payment gateways. This is on top of the transaction fees charged by the payment gateway. You can reduce the fee to 0.5% by paying $299 per month for Advanced Shopify plan.

Shopify Payments has flat credit card fees, but no other transaction fees. Credit card rates start from 2.9% + 30¢ for the basic plan and get lower for other plans.

Payment Options in WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers PayPal and Stripe payments by default. It also supports all other popular payment service providers through add-ons.

For payment gateways, WooCommerce even has support for many regional and less popular payment services. Since there is no barrier to entry, any payments company can create add-ons for WooCommerce and provide support for it.

As a self-hosted platform, you are only charged transaction fees by your payment gateway or your bank. WooCommerce never charges you a % fee on your store transactions which is a major plus.

If choosing your own merchant account and using a third-party gateway is important for you, then you will save A LOT of money by using WooCommerce. But if you’re a small store and willing to use Shopify Payments which has the same credit card rates as Stripe / Paypal, then it makes no difference.

Winner: Tie

Integrations and Add-ons: Shopify vs WooCommerce

No matter how robust an e-commerce platform is, you’ll always need third-party tools and services to grow your store. For example, an email marketing software, lead generation tool, analytics tools, outreach services, etc.

Both Shopify and WooCommerce have a massive extensions directory, and they integrate with many third-party services.

Shopify Add-ons and Integrations

Shopify comes with a powerful API and an App Store where you can buy third-party add-ons for your Shopify store. They have hundreds of apps in the store covering every feature you’ll want to add to your store.

For lead generation, they have integrations with software like OptinMonster which helps you grow your email list and reduce cart abandonment. They have apps for SEO, product reviews, discounts, countdowns, and more.

Shopify’s app store contains both free and paid apps. Free apps are usually created by third-party services that have their own pricing, and the app only integrates your store to their APIs. Pricing for paid add-ons varies and most apps offer monthly subscriptions.

WooCommerce Add-ons and Integrations

WooCommerce is open source and built on top of WordPress. This gives you access to more than 55,000 free WordPress plugins and many more paid plugins.

You can use these add-ons to add payment gateways, lead generation, SEO, performance optimization, and almost any feature you can think of.

Due to the low barrier of entry, there are a lot more integrations and add-ons available for WooCommerce than Shopify. Almost all third-party tools and service providers have their own plugins to seamlessly integrate with your WooCommerce store.

You can also hire a developer to create an integration or plugin just for your own website. However it’s important to keep in mind that WooCommerce is a lot easier to customize. Having personally gone through the process of submitting a plugin for WordPress and submitting an app to the Shopify store, we can say that the process is extremely harder on Shopify vs WooCommerce.

Winner: WooCommerce

Shopify vs WooCommerce Dropshipping

Dropshipping is an online business where an eCommerce store doesn’t keep the products in stock. Instead, it fullfills order by purchasing products from vendors and then shipping them directly to the customers.

Due to its low overhead, dropshipping has become popular around the world. Many of our users asked us to compare WooCommerce vs Shopify for dropshipping and which one of them is better for a dropshipping business.

Dropshipping with Shopify

When building a dropshipping business, the front-end of your website will look just like any online store. Your users will be able to browse the products, add them to cart, and make payment, just like they would do on any other eCommerce store.

Depending on the vendors you choose, you will then have to place user’s order for shipping.

Shopify also has integration apps for several popular dropshipping marketplaces like AliExpress, Oberlo, Printify, and more. However, each of these product marketplaces has their own membership fees, shipping, and other charges that you need to keep in mind when building your dropshipping website with Shopify.

Dropshipping with WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a popular choice among dropshipping businesses. Mainly because WooCommerce allows you to install extensions that make order fulfillment a breeze.

You can easily find extensions that allow you to instantly import products, fulfill orders from your website, and more. You can even create your own eCommerce marketplace allowing other vendors to sell on your website.

Keep in mind, that your supplier and vendor may have minimum order requirements, membership fees, and other charges. You need to keep those in mind when adding products to your WooCommerce dropshipping store.

Winner: WooCommerce

Scalability and Growth: Shopify vs WooCommerce

You have probably heard the term “growth-pains” from various CEOs. As your business grows, you will need more resources to handle new challenges and goals.

Shopify and WooCommerce can both be scaled to handle large amount of traffic and orders, but they’re not created equal. Let’s take a look at how these two eCommerce platform compare when it comes to scalability.

Scalability on Shopify

Shopify handles the technical parts of your store which means you don’t ever have to worry about performance, security, and scalability. Once your business starts growing, you can simply upgrade your Shopify plans.

Their infrastructure can easily handle your growing business without you having to worry about downtimes, backups, updates, or security. They also offer enterprise services as part of the Shopify Plus plan.

This takes out the painful part of the growth, but it also adds to your cost of business. Your expenses will grow, and you’ll have to plan accordingly.

The good part is that your costs will be offset by you not having to hire / manage a technical team in-house.

Scalability on WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform which makes you responsible for maintaining updates, backups, and security of your website.

Your starter WooCommerce hosting plan would run out of resources as your store starts getting more traffic.

The good part is that you have plenty of options to manage growth as you are in full control of your website. Starting with better management of resources with caching to upgrading your hosting plan to more powerful servers.

Your WooCommerce hosting costs will increase, but you will have better control on resources, and you can make sure that you are not paying for resources that you don’t need. You can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine or LiquidWeb to help scale your WooCommerce store.

Despite the control that WooCommerce offers, some business owners simply prefer a hassle-free solution.

Winner: Shopify

Support Options for WooCommerce vs Shopify

Both WooCommerce and Shopify are quite easy to use. However, sometimes you may need help to learn how to do something new on your store.

Let’s see how WooCommerce and Shopify handle support and what are your options to get help when needed.

Support Options on Shopify

Shopify is a fully hosted platform, which means they control the software and they are the ones who know their platform the best.

Shopify provides 24/7 support via live chat, phone, email, and Twitter. For users who want to fix things on their own, Shopify offers extensive documentation, how-to guides, knowledge base, video tutorials, and forums.

It also maintains a directory of Shopify Experts that you can hire if you need extra help or if you want to integrate a third-party solution.

Shopify doesn’t provide support for any third-party apps or themes that you are using.

Support Options for WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform, which means there are tons of support options that you can utilize when needed.

The official website has extensive documentation, tutorials, and guides that allow you to help yourself. They also have support forums where you can get help from other WooCommerce users and experts.

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform, which means your hosting provider is responsible for providing support for issues with your server.

For your WooCommerce theme and extensions, those developers are responsible for answering support questions regarding their products.

Due to its immense popularity, it is quite easier and often cheaper to find developers to help you fix issues with your WooCommerce store. You can find developers on freelancing websites to fix WooCommerce issues.

Winner: Shopify

WooCommerce vs Shopify: Which is the Best eCommerce Platform?

Shopify and WooCommerce are both powerful platforms to start your eCommerce store. It truly comes down to your personal skills and preferences.

Shopify is a lot easier to use. It doesn’t require you to install anything, and you can get started quickly. Setting up payments is easier, and they have easy to understand pricing plans.

The disadvantage of Shopify is that you don’t have full control over everything. Your costs can go high with transaction fees, add-ons, and integrations. Your upgrade options are limited to select plans, and you cannot manage costs on a pay-as-you-grow basis.

WooCommerce is open source and gives you full control of your website. It costs a lot lower to start an online store with WooCommerce specially with these WooCommerce hosting companies.

The disadvantage is that you’ll have to maintain the software. It comes with a bit of learning curve. However, millions of beginners are already using it, and they get over the learning phase quite quickly.

If you are looking for a cost-effective solution, and you want to have full control of your online store, then WooCommerce is the best platform for you.

If you want something that’s completely hassle-free that has infinite scalability, then Shopify is the better platform for you.

We hope this article helped you compare pros and cons of Shopify vs WooCommerce. You may also want to see our guide on how to choose the best website builder.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the Better Platform? (Comparison) appeared first on WPBeginner.

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Five tips to increase social media engagement

According to Statista, 77 percent of people in the U.S. have a social media account. If your business doesn’t yet utilize social media, you’re missing out on lots of opportunities to get your content promoted and recognized. But beyond your social media, have you considered how to interact with the audience behind it?

Most brands do, in fact, have social media accounts across various channels, but they have one thing in common: they hardly ever socialize with or get to know their followers. What good is social media if you don’t use it to connect with and better understand your audience? It’s building these relationships that will improve your conversions, leads, and customer engagement level.

Getting the engagement you want through social media isn’t always easy. It takes time to build your platform and gain people’s trust enough that they want to consume your content regularly. Be patient and know that as long as you keep up with it, you’ll see results eventually.

Here are five tips you can increase your social media engagement with followers.

1. Interact with followers

When you give clear, direct responses to thought and feedback from customers, you’re showing them you’re actively engaged in the conversation and care about what they think. Many consumers like to reach out to brands via social media rather than contacting them through the phone or by email. This also gives brands an opportunity to build a connection with their followers.

A Sprout Social survey found that 68 percent of consumers want brands to participate in conversations they’re mentioned in while 83 percent want brands to respond to them. Users already want to actively engage with businesses on social media, so by giving them what they want, you’re more likely to be in their favor.

More and more consumers count on social media when there’s an issue and depend on brands to respond to get it fixed right away.

2. Ask for feedback

You shouldn’t underestimate your audience’s willingness to interact with you when given the chance. People online have nothing to lose by being honest with you and you shouldn’t be afraid of possibly receiving negative customer feedback. There’s nothing wrong with that because it allows you to fix what isn’t working for better results.

Ask them how to better get in touch with them. Find out what interests them, start up a conversation, and be genuine in your pursuits. Suggest that they write reviews of your products and share it through their own social media. Encourage them to spread the love through all their platforms once they learn to love your brand and its interactions with followers. Reviews give newcomers important information about your business and its products so it’s important they are positive.

3. Get visual

In a reported study by eMarketer, Facebook business pages with images receive an 87 percent increase in engagement by visitors.

Visual mediums allow people to absorb and consume information easier and quicker. People want the easiest experience available, and demonstrating through graphics is more stimulating than reading paragraphs of text. The more interactive you can be towards users, the better.

Get creative with your visual approach. Upload images, graphics, infographics, GIFs, video, and whatever else suits your taste. Be sure to upload content that fits and resonates with your brand and your audience. Otherwise, your posts might come off childish and immature.

4. Create a contest

Who doesn’t love entering contests with the chance to win something? Contests are a fun, interactive way to spark your followers’ interest, get them talking, and introduce them to different products. They also appeal to a broader audience which attracts potential converting visitors.

Announce your contest through all your active social media channels. Determine how long the contest will go for and what the rules are for entering, like if your followers must like or share your post to be considered. This will boost your visibility and level of engagement.

Make your prize something you know your audience will love that ties back to your brand. If you know your audience well, coming up with ideas for prizes they’ll enjoy should be easy. The more value the item has, the higher chance you have of giving them something they’ll really enjoy.

Don’t forget to thank your participants once the contest is closed. Send a follow-up email thanking them for their participation and link them to a piece of content you think they’ll enjoy. You can also offer promo codes and discounts as further incentive to convert them to paying customers and encourage them to share their experience with your brand on social media.

5. Foster community

Building a community on social media is difficult in the beginning because you have to give people reason enough to follow and engage with you as a brand. Eventually, if you stick to it, you’ll see followers start to trickle in and that’s when you can begin engaging.

There are multiple ways you can foster community through social media:

• Listen to your audience. Ask them directly what they want to see from you and what will solve their problems as a consumer. Don’t exclusively talk to them about your products or business; instead, converse with them like you’re friends and keep it casual. This will make them feel more comfortable with you and urge them to buy.
• Be honest. Everyone falls short sometimes. When your business exposes its shortcomings, own up to them and try to fix them rather than ignore them or pretend they don’t exist. Admit to your mistakes and avoid using excuses and lies out of embarrassment.
• Be a quick problem solver. When users reach out to you on social media asking for help, respond as quickly as possible with a solution to bring them. Be eager to solve their problems. This will encourage them to continue engaging with you and spark interest in others to do so as well.
• Share user-generated content. Encourage them to share their own content and tag you in it. This will boost your reach with potential customers and present real-life usability of your products. Consumers also like seeing other customers using your products to show their quality and functionality.

Over to you

If you’re not at the level of social media engagement you’d like, these tips should help you get started. Giving your audience what they want — in this case, direct communication — will show your brand as friendly, personable, and willing to help with any issues. If you ask for constructive criticism, you may be surprised by what you find and how the advice you receive could improve your engagement. By inserting more visual content into your posts, like image and video, you’re likelier to catch someone’s attention. What do you do to increase social engagement?

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B2B strategy for 2019: Four steps to get started

When it comes to sales, there isn’t necessarily a “right approach.”

Sales is about people and often tactics and messages will need to vary to appeal to the people you are speaking to. This is even more important when attempting to grow B2B relationships, to stand out from the crowd by delivering a targeted message to a valuable group of contacts.

This is where we get the basis of Account Based Marketing.

In this article, we will take a more general view about how you can use these principles to create long lasting, valuable B2B contacts.

Step 1: Identify the objective. What are you hoping to achieve with B2B?

Before implementing any strategy, you need to know what it is that you want to achieve; something you can refer back to throughout your plan, that will also make it measurable.

The typical outcome will likely be revenue increase. But rather than filling the pipe with “quick wins” and short-term prospects, if done right, B2B activity can result in a more valuable long-term customer base.

Let’s think about a travel brand, who’ve just entered the market – ZazzleAir! Here is a look at a possible objective which will also translate itself into a more detailed brief.

Objective

“ZazzleAir” is currently focused on the consumer market, offering tailor made package holidays across the UK, Europe, America and Australia. They are looking to increase their service offerings by branching out into business travel, allowing them to stand out in an already crowded market place.

Focusing specifically on business-to-business organisations, ‘ZazzleAir’ aims to become the main provider for business travel needs using their current expertise to organize flights, hotels and expeditions entirely for business travelers.

Brief

The primary objective for ‘ZazzleAir’ is clear. They want to position themselves as exclusive business travel experts, in addition to the consumer holidays they already offer.

They want to achieve the following:

1. Highlighting the increase in service offering
2. Speaking and appealing to a wider market
3. Standing out against competitors in an already crowded market place

Step 2: Form the strategy and identify a target market

To accurately identify the pain points and accompanying remedies for your desired audience, your brand needs to put in a high level of ground work. This will create a detailed list of potential customers that are far more likely to engage with you and actually want to use your services. But what steps do you need to take, to make this a success?

Build a picture of your audience

In the case of ZazzleAir, we already know from their objective that they wish to target larger organisations across sectors such as finance, technology, recruitment; brands that tend to operate both locally and globally to warrant a need for business travel.

Once you know who you want to speak to, you can begin to identify the ways to get in front of them. Networking, speaking engagements, and industry events will give you a better idea of the pain points that key brands in specific sectors experience, whilst putting you in front of the companies themselves.

Match your audience with solutions based on the services and abilities of your company

Sources such as Business Events and EventBrite will detail approaching events.

Moving on to more informed research will help to determine the specific companies to form relationships with. Platforms such as LinkedIn offer a wealth of information with very little input. This can include;

• Company name and general overview
• Company size
• Employees, including positions within the company
• Team structures

One of the targets for ZazzleAir could be Hitachi Capital (UK) Plc, who provide financial solutions to businesses across the UK and global markets; prime candidates for the business travel offering… An initial LinkedIn search offers information including company size (employees) website address, location and specialties.

Drilling down further and taking a closer look at employees will likely create the list of decision makers that could be targeted.

An obvious tool during the research stage and afterwards, should be a company’s website. This should offer insight into who they are, what they do and even possible pain points, giving the opportunity to further tailor your specific sales and marketing message.

Social media like LinkedIn also creates the opportunity to understand the content that key influencers digest.

Decision makers such as MD’s, marketing managers, business development managers and so on, will likely share content and insights, giving a better idea as to the type of online resources they use. This will help with the distribution plan for your sales-based content and allow you to directly target the right audience.

For example, the publications that ZazzleAir may wish to distribute to include businesstraveller.com in order to raise their profile amongst the target audience, whilst also focusing on industry specific sources such Reuters and CrunchBase.

Step 3: Deliver the strategy

Any good marketing strategy focuses on people and the delivery of a message that will resonate. One of the best ways to do this is through informational and digestible content that targets the right consumer, before using inbound marketing techniques to really draw them in.

Again, you need to be mindful of the people you are speaking to, the type of content they prefer and where in the buying cycle they are likely to need it, and therefore consume it.

To speak to the right audience, ZazzleAir need to offer insightful content that is specifically tailored and has the ability to be deployed across a number of relevant mediums; including online resources, publications and social platforms.

A great example of this was carried out by Concur — they created an infographic on booking behavior, partnering with the Global Business Travel Association to offer digestible stats and facts on UK business travel.

The Global Business Travel Association also released their own report, ‘Booking behaviors; Helping business travelers book smarter’.

Finding an angle that appeals to your target leads will set you apart from competitors. By sharing this on socials with a targeted audience (expect to pay for this though) you are building your brand awareness by positioning your brand at the forefront of the audiences mind.

Using the content, you can get their attention, and this piece of content has to include calls to action throughout (so should each piece of marketing content), willing the customer to make contact.

Step 4: Measure success

Thinking back to objectives – how are you going to prove your B2B efforts have worked?

Generally speaking, the aim is to increase brand engagement ultimately delivering increased sales. However, depending on your objectives, you should think clearly about how you will measure success, and you should not expect to achieve widely varying results, but it is better to be realistic and specific.

Five ways you can monitor your B2B activity’s effects:

1. Inquiries (including contact forms)

It will become clear quite quickly if the number of inquiries begins to increase. It is important to carefully attribute the exact source of leads during the initial contact stage, something that could be factored in on things such as contact forms, or when engaging in conversation.

That way, you will have more insight into the success (or not) of your marketing efforts.

2. ROI

An obvious measurement, but if your business is starting to increase in clients that appear to be coming from the target industry, and revenue as a direct result of the newly targeted approach, and the marketing costs are being covered, then this is clearly the right approach to take.

This is of course not an overnight measurement or result and is one that can take time particularly depending on the length of your average sales cycle.

3. Client retention

As mentioned, ABM principles tend to encourage long term relationships of value as opposed to short term wins. Again, this is not an overnight measurement but is one to monitor closely.

You’ll know it’s working because every interaction you have with your clients and target audience will be valuable and encourage them to come back to you time and time again, for work or for advice in the form of content. (In this vein, you can also monitor the amount of returning visitors to certain pages of your site.)

4. Length of sales cycle

It is suggested that with more accurate targeting the length of the sales cycle should shorten as you are delivering the right message to a network that have the ability to make decisions. You are offering a solution to contacts that have a problem which should speed up the sales process and conversion rate.

5. Conversion rate

The best way to really measure if your content strategy is working is to determine whether the number of prospects converting into retained customers is increasing. Provided you can attribute them to your sales and marketing strategies, this is the ultimate measurement of success.

Conclusion

The level of research and input that is needed with a B2B strategy can be daunting. But it is this level of detail that is at the heart of a successful campaign and, if done right, will deliver clients of long-term value.

Your content marketing efforts should complement your sales efforts, uniting them to allow you to deliver a valuable message to specific industries, as opposed to a vague message given to a broad audience who may be unclear on what it is you are trying to say.

B2B strategy, when done well, should see benefit to both the company employing the tactic and the customer, who is given a more tailored experience making them feel valued from the very beginning.

Jess Rasmussen is Digital PR Project Lead at Zazzle Media.

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Apple’s next iPhones and iPads: Triple camera, 3-D back camera for AR, new Face ID, iOS 13 Dark Mode, new cheap iPad

Rumor has it that Apple is testing a triple camera system for iPhones in 2019, plus other improvements including 'dark mode.' Less expensive iPads and an updated iPhone XR are also said to be in development.

Here’s Apple’s Plans for 2019, 2020 iPhones and iPads — Triple camera for extra pixels, 3-D back camera for AR, new Face ID, iOS 13 Dark Mode, codenames, Live Photos revamp, new cheap iPad and iPad Mini, and many more details: https://t.co/vZ14mO7Uyq

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) January 30, 2019

Bloomberg was first with the goods today, wrapping up where all the 2019 product rumors are headed.

Excerpt:

A third camera on the back of the 2019 iPhone will help the device capture a larger field of view and enable a wider range of zoom. It will also capture more pixels so Apple software could, for example, automatically repair a video or photo to fit in a subject that may have been accidentally cut off from the initial shot, according to the people familiar with the plans. The company is also planning an enhanced version of its Live Photos feature, which pins video from before and after each shot to the photo. The new version will double the length of the video from three seconds to six seconds.

The laser-powered 3-D camera could debut first on an upgrade to the iPad Pro currently planned for as early as spring 2020, according to one of the people. Apple isn’t expected to release a major iPad Pro update this year like it did in 2018. It typically upgrades the line in the second half of the year. Apple in the past has launched major new features on the iPad before the iPhone, including 4G internet connectivity in 2012.

Apple is also testing some versions of this year’s iPhone line that includes a USB-C connector instead of the Lightning port that has been used on iPhones since 2012, indicating that the company plans an eventual switch, according to one of the people. Moving to USB-C would make the new models compatible with chargers used for hundreds of other devices, like Android phones.

This year’s iPhone models will include an upgraded Apple processor and use an updated Face ID sensor for unlocking the device and approving payments, the people said. The handsets will otherwise look similar to the current models with larger changes expected as early as 2020 to accommodate plans for 5G networking capabilities, Bloomberg News reported last year.

Beyond iPhones, Apple plans to release an updated version of its lower-cost iPad with a roughly 10-inch screen and a faster processor as early as this spring, according to people familiar with the plans. That device is expected to retain the Lightning port, according to one of the people. The company is also readying a new, cheaper iPad mini, its smallest tablet that hasn’t been updated since 2015, the people said.

Apple’s next operating system update, iOS 13, will include a dark mode option for easier nighttime viewing and improvements to CarPlay, the company’s in-vehicle software. There will also be iPad-specific upgrades like a new home screen, the ability to tab through multiple versions of a single app like pages in a web browser, and improvements to file management. The company will also integrate two new services, including a magazine subscription service and its original video content efforts, via iOS updates this year.

Huh the new iOS 13 home screen might be for iPads onlyhttps://t.co/L16cyCe8Dp pic.twitter.com/xqhJUFAe2w

— Felix Lapalme (@lap_felix) January 30, 2019

huge huge scoop from @markgurman There are a ton of details here

- 3D Cameras!
- USB-C iPhones!
- New iPads!
- Dark Mode!https://t.co/gCuR7QjhAr

— Dieter Bohn (@backlon) January 30, 2019

2019 iPhone info from @markgurman

- Third Ultra-Wide Angle Lens (Max)
- Better Zoom (3-5X)
- More Pixels
- Enhanced Live Photo (6 seconds)
- USB-C (some prototypes)
- Updated Face ID

Full Article: https://t.co/NvKe3uyqKQ pic.twitter.com/KGz6bouJsa

— Ben Geskin (@VenyaGeskin1) January 30, 2019

Looks like Apple is rolling out its rebuilt Maps in additional areas. Got a notification in LA (!). Was previously Northern California only. Anyone getting the notification in other areas?

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) January 31, 2019

Been waiting years for the AR camera to ship. Gimme. https://t.co/NeqLjh1CRb

— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) January 30, 2019

from Boing Boing http://bit.ly/2WuRYSo
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