Oru Kayak has long offered some of the market&#x27;s most compact, conveniently portable watercraft. Now the company is expanding the appeal of its lineup by pairing its vessels with an equally compact, portable electric drive system. Teaming up with the folks at Bixpy, it&#x27;s developed an e-drive ...

Oru motorizes origami kayaks with portable electric outboard

Unlike last year, park visitors can essentially drive right up to the time-limited attraction. Most of the paved roads in the park are open, including Badwater Road, which can be taken to the lake area. (There’s no place to rent a kayak in Death Valley, so those interested in going out on ...

After heavy storms, Death Valley is now open to kayakers: The return of ghostly Lake Manly

So much rain has fallen in California’s normally bone-dry Death Valley National Park, a temporary lake formed — and it’s deep enough to kayak on, photos show.

Death Valley’s temporary lake is so deep, you can kayak on it — and some have. See it

Kayaking at Badwater Basin earlier in February. Photograph: Michael Kohler/NPSView image in fullscreen

Kayakers flock to Death Valley after severe rain creates ‘extremely rare’ lake | California | The Guardian

While Wines is encouraging visitors, it&#x27;s advised that you keep an eye on updates on the Death Valley National Park website, as the temporary lake may be deep enough to kayak for just a couple of weeks but could still be around through April.

Heavy rains form temporary lake in Death Valley; kayaking encouraged

And Kayak, which just turned 20 and sold to Booking Holdings a decade ago for $2.1 billion, is also getting in on the GPT game with a virtual travel assistant that helps users book flights and car rentals. The application is currently ranked first in the GPT Store&#x27;s lifestyle section.

Here's the playbook tech companies like AllTrails, Canva, and Kayak are using to dominate the charts in OpenAI's new GPT Store.

KAYAK

kayak

What Are General Search Engines?

Welcome back to our 'Behind the Startup' series where we dive into the journeys of innovative companies reshaping industries. Today, we're revisiting Travala.com through a conversation with Juan Otero, who last joined us in May 2020. At that time, Juan forecasted a recovery in the travel sector which largely rang true. As we catch up with him today, we'll learn how Travala.com has navigated the evolving landscape of the travel industry, especially in light of the ongoing shifts towards digital and decentralized technologies. Join us as Juan shares insights on the company's growth, the integration of web3 technologies, and how these strategies are positioning Travala.com for future challenges and opportunities in the travel sector. Ishan Pandey: Welcome back, Juan; it's a pleasure to have you in our 'Behind the Startup' series. Last time we spoke in May 2020, you correctly predicted about a recovery starting in Q3, particularly for domestic travel post Covid-19, with a full recovery including international travel by Q4. As we continue our 'Behind the Startup' series, could you update us on how Travala.com has evolved since then, especially considering the ongoing shifts in the travel industry? Juan Otero: Thanks Ishan, great to be speaking with you again. So much has happened at Travala.com in the last four years as the travel industry rebounded and the web3 industry continued to swell. In that time, we’ve significantly expanded our offering through partnerships with some of the biggest names in travel, including Expedia and KAYAK. Our accommodation selection multiplied to over 2.2 million properties, and we introduced flights with 600+ airlines as well as 410,000+ activities, with a total of over 3 million travel products now available on Travala.com. Our team has also more than doubled in size to accommodate our growth, with hires across all departments from the management team to security, developers, marketing, and customer support. All of these developments have culminated in tremendous growth in customers, bookings, and revenue, with our gross revenue growing from less than $1 million in Q1 2020 to over $22 million in Q1 2024. Ishan Pandey: During our last discussion, you highlighted some pivotal adjustments made at Travala.com in response to the pandemic. Looking at the current times, how has your business model or strategy changed to align with the new dynamics of the travel industry? Juan Otero: From the rise of domestic travel to the influx of digital nomads across the globe, the pandemic has prompted the emergence of many new trends that look likely to continue well into the future. Where we once might’ve promoted a weekend away, we’re now encouraging longer, more immersive experiences through marketing, exclusive mobile-only deals on stays, and by offering an average of 16% savings on hotels after booking a flight. One of the often overlooked developments in recent years has been the rapid emergence of metasearch engines. With shifting behaviours in how savvy travellers search for, compare, and book travel, we recognised the importance of these metasearch engines—which have quickly gained market share when it comes to the discovery phase of travel—and became the first crypto-friendly online travel agency to be listed on leading metasearch engines KAYAK and Google Hotels, alongside incumbents in the travel industry. Ishan Pandey: Cryptocurrencies have seen substantial growth in value and popularity since we last talked. How is Travala.com planning to capitalise on this trend? Are there new strategies or technologies you're implementing? Juan Otero: We’ve honed our web3 strategy by partnering with projects to promote cross-community growth and leverage the power of highly engaged web3 audiences. As a result, we now have over 100 cryptocurrency payment options and frequently conduct campaigns with partners to promote the ability to travel with crypto on Travala.com. From leading web3 events like TOKEN2049 and Paris Blockchain Week to traditional brands interested in expanding their audience—such as Marriott International and the Catalan Tourist Board—we’re leveraging our position as the bridge between the world of traditional travel and the web3 space to continue underscoring our reputation as the leading crypto-native travel booking service. We’ve also introduced Bitcoin rewards for Platinum and Diamond members of the AVA Smart Program, the travel rewards program available on Travala.com in partnership with the AVA Foundation. These two membership groups can receive up to 10% back in Bitcoin on bookings made via Travala.com, which can be put towards future bookings or transferred out of the platform. Ishan Pandey: With rising competition and shifting consumer behaviors, how does Travala.com intend to differentiate itself in the travel industry? Juan Otero: As consumer behaviours continue evolving and products become increasingly tailored to the millennial and Gen Z audience that now make up the majority of the travel market, the key advantage that we have over more established players in the travel industry is our agility as a team, coupled with our innovation-first approach. We predict that crypto payments will become more commonplace as the web3 industry continues to mature, to the point where it will no longer be a point of differentiation. Other web3 elements (and how successfully they can be incorporated into the travel experience) will therefore be the main area of differentiation for Travala.com. From areas like web3-oriented loyalty programs to digital collectibles, we’re continuously exploring new ways that enhance the experience and make it more rewarding, pushing the boundaries of what travel is in today’s age. Ishan Pandey: Previously, you mentioned the impact of Bitcoin halving on your operations. Can you expand on how recent cryptocurrency events have influenced Travala.com's market dynamics and user behavior? Juan Otero: The positive market action driven by the Bitcoin halving saw the cryptocurrency reach an all-time high in mid-March earlier this year and resulted in our bookings soaring, leading to the strongest quarter in Travala.com’s history. As approximately 75% of our bookings are purchased with crypto, we experience a strong correlation between a crypto bull market and high booking volume on our platform, given the additional value available for travellers to derive from their crypto assets in dollar-value terms.
With the fourth Bitcoin halving now behind us, we expect the crypto market to continue performing well in the next 12–18 months, based on historic trends following previous Bitcoin halving events. Ishan Pandey: Finally, considering all the challenges and opportunities that have emerged, what is your long-term vision for Travala.com in this new era of travel and technology? Juan Otero: We see Travala.com as becoming a hub for crypto travellers to create genuine connections with the world, themselves, and each other. Web3 is a community movement, and our community is constantly brimming with discussions about travel tips, destinations to explore, the broader web3 space, and suggestions for Travala.com. We want Travala.com to be more than just a platform where travellers go to book their travel; in the long term, we envision Travala.com solidifying its position as the world's leading web3 travel ecosystem, where knowledge, creativity, and of course the act of travel itself is rewarded. Don’t forget to like and share the story! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR. Welcome back to our 'Behind the Startup' series where we dive into the journeys of innovative companies reshaping industries. Today, we're revisiting Travala.com through a conversation with Juan Otero, who last joined us in May 2020. At that time, Juan forecasted a recovery in the travel sector which largely rang true. As we catch up with him today, we'll learn how Travala.com has navigated the evolving landscape of the travel industry, especially in light of the ongoing shifts towards digital and decentralized technologies. Join us as Juan shares insights on the company's growth, the integration of web3 technologies, and how these strategies are positioning Travala.com for future challenges and opportunities in the travel sector. Ishan Pandey: Welcome back, Juan; it's a pleasure to have you in our 'Behind the Startup' series. Last time we spoke in May 2020, you correctly predicted about a recovery starting in Q3, particularly for domestic travel post Covid-19, with a full recovery including international travel by Q4. As we continue our 'Behind the Startup' series, could you update us on how Travala.com has evolved since then, especially considering the ongoing shifts in the travel industry? Ishan Pandey: Welcome back, Juan; it's a pleasure to have you in our 'Behind the Startup' series. Last time we spoke in May 2020, you correctly predicted about a recovery starting in Q3, particularly for domestic travel post Covid-19, with a full recovery including international travel by Q4. As we continue our 'Behind the Startup' series, could you update us on how Travala.com has evolved since then, especially considering the ongoing shifts in the travel industry? Ishan Pandey: Welcome back, Juan; it's a pleasure to have you in our 'Behind the Startup' series. Last time we spoke in May 2020, you correctly predicted about a recovery starting in Q3, particularly for domestic travel post Covid-19, with a full recovery including international travel by Q4. As we continue our 'Behind the Startup' series, could you update us on how Travala.com has evolved since then, especially considering the ongoing shifts in the travel industry? Travala.com Juan Otero: Thanks Ishan, great to be speaking with you again. So much has happened at Travala.com in the last four years as the travel industry rebounded and the web3 industry continued to swell. In that time, we’ve significantly expanded our offering through partnerships with some of the biggest names in travel, including Expedia and KAYAK. Juan Otero: Travala.com Our accommodation selection multiplied to over 2.2 million properties, and we introduced flights with 600+ airlines as well as 410,000+ activities, with a total of over 3 million travel products now available on Travala.com . Travala.com Our team has also more than doubled in size to accommodate our growth, with hires across all departments from the management team to security, developers, marketing, and customer support. All of these developments have culminated in tremendous growth in customers, bookings, and revenue, with our gross revenue growing from less than $1 million in Q1 2020 to over $22 million in Q1 2024. Ishan Pandey: During our last discussion, you highlighted some pivotal adjustments made at Travala.com in response to the pandemic. Looking at the current times, how has your business model or strategy changed to align with the new dynamics of the travel industry? Ishan Pandey: During our last discussion, you highlighted some pivotal adjustments made at Travala.com in response to the pandemic. Looking at the current times, how has your business model or strategy changed to align with the new dynamics of the travel industry? Ishan Pandey: During our last discussion, you highlighted some pivotal adjustments made at Travala.com in response to the pandemic. Looking at the current times, how has your business model or strategy changed to align with the new dynamics of the travel industry? Travala.com Juan Otero: From the rise of domestic travel to the influx of digital nomads across the globe, the pandemic has prompted the emergence of many new trends that look likely to continue well into the future. Where we once might’ve promoted a weekend away, we’re now encouraging longer, more immersive experiences through marketing, exclusive mobile-only deals on stays, and by offering an average of 16% savings on hotels after booking a flight. Juan Otero: One of the often overlooked developments in recent years has been the rapid emergence of metasearch engines. With shifting behaviours in how savvy travellers search for, compare, and book travel, we recognised the importance of these metasearch engines—which have quickly gained market share when it comes to the discovery phase of travel—and became the first crypto-friendly online travel agency to be listed on leading metasearch engines KAYAK and Google Hotels, alongside incumbents in the travel industry. Ishan Pandey: Cryptocurrencies have seen substantial growth in value and popularity since we last talked. How is Travala.com planning to capitalise on this trend? Are there new strategies or technologies you're implementing? Ishan Pandey: Cryptocurrencies have seen substantial growth in value and popularity since we last talked. How is Travala.com planning to capitalise on this trend? Are there new strategies or technologies you're implementing? Ishan Pandey: Cryptocurrencies have seen substantial growth in value and popularity since we last talked. How is Travala.com planning to capitalise on this trend? Are there new strategies or technologies you're implementing? Travala.com Juan Otero: We’ve honed our web3 strategy by partnering with projects to promote cross-community growth and leverage the power of highly engaged web3 audiences. Juan Otero: As a result, we now have over 100 cryptocurrency payment options and frequently conduct campaigns with partners to promote the ability to travel with crypto on Travala.com . From leading web3 events like TOKEN2049 and Paris Blockchain Week to traditional brands interested in expanding their audience—such as Marriott International and the Catalan Tourist Board—we’re leveraging our position as the bridge between the world of traditional travel and the web3 space to continue underscoring our reputation as the leading crypto-native travel booking service. Travala.com We’ve also introduced Bitcoin rewards for Platinum and Diamond members of the AVA Smart Program, the travel rewards program available on Travala.com in partnership with the AVA Foundation. These two membership groups can receive up to 10% back in Bitcoin on bookings made via Travala.com , which can be put towards future bookings or transferred out of the platform. Travala.com Travala.com Ishan Pandey: With rising competition and shifting consumer behaviors, how does Travala.com intend to differentiate itself in the travel industry? Ishan Pandey: With rising competition and shifting consumer behaviors, how does Travala.com intend to differentiate itself in the travel industry? Ishan Pandey: With rising competition and shifting consumer behaviors, how does Travala.com intend to differentiate itself in the travel industry? Travala.com Juan Otero: As consumer behaviours continue evolving and products become increasingly tailored to the millennial and Gen Z audience that now make up the majority of the travel market, the key advantage that we have over more established players in the travel industry is our agility as a team, coupled with our innovation-first approach. Juan Otero: We predict that crypto payments will become more commonplace as the web3 industry continues to mature, to the point where it will no longer be a point of differentiation. Other web3 elements (and how successfully they can be incorporated into the travel experience) will therefore be the main area of differentiation for Travala.com . From areas like web3-oriented loyalty programs to digital collectibles, we’re continuously exploring new ways that enhance the experience and make it more rewarding, pushing the boundaries of what travel is in today’s age. Travala.com Ishan Pandey: Previously, you mentioned the impact of Bitcoin halving on your operations. Can you expand on how recent cryptocurrency events have influenced Travala.com's market dynamics and user behavior? Ishan Pandey: Previously, you mentioned the impact of Bitcoin halving on your operations. Can you expand on how recent cryptocurrency events have influenced Travala.com's market dynamics and user behavior? Ishan Pandey: Previously, you mentioned the impact of Bitcoin halving on your operations. Can you expand on how recent cryptocurrency events have influenced Travala.com 's market dynamics and user behavior? Travala.com Juan Otero: The positive market action driven by the Bitcoin halving saw the cryptocurrency reach an all-time high in mid-March earlier this year and resulted in our bookings soaring, leading to the strongest quarter in Travala.com ’s history. Juan Otero: Travala.com As approximately 75% of our bookings are purchased with crypto, we experience a strong correlation between a crypto bull market and high booking volume on our platform, given the additional value available for travellers to derive from their crypto assets in dollar-value terms.
With the fourth Bitcoin halving now behind us, we expect the crypto market to continue performing well in the next 12–18 months, based on historic trends following previous Bitcoin halving events. Ishan Pandey: Finally, considering all the challenges and opportunities that have emerged, what is your long-term vision for Travala.com in this new era of travel and technology? Ishan Pandey: Finally, considering all the challenges and opportunities that have emerged, what is your long-term vision for Travala.com in this new era of travel and technology? Ishan Pandey: Finally, considering all the challenges and opportunities that have emerged, what is your long-term vision for Travala.com in this new era of travel and technology? Travala.com Juan Otero: We see Travala.com as becoming a hub for crypto travellers to create genuine connections with the world, themselves, and each other. Web3 is a community movement, and our community is constantly brimming with discussions about travel tips, destinations to explore, the broader web3 space, and suggestions for Travala.com . Juan Otero: Travala.com Travala.com We want Travala.com to be more than just a platform where travellers go to book their travel; in the long term, we envision Travala.com solidifying its position as the world's leading web3 travel ecosystem, where knowledge, creativity, and of course the act of travel itself is rewarded. Travala.com Travala.com Don’t forget to like and share the story! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR. Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program . HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR. Vested Interest Disclosure: business blogging program business blogging program

How Travala.com Skyrocketed to $22 Million in Revenue: Lessons for the Travel Industry

কিভাবে Travala.com স্কাইরোকেট $22 মিলিয়ন আয়ে পৌঁছেছে: ভ্রমণ শিল্পের জন্য পাঠ

Wie Travala.com seinen Umsatz auf 22 Millionen Dollar steigerte: Lehren für die Reisebranche

Cómo Travala.com se disparó hasta alcanzar los 22 millones de dólares en ingresos: lecciones para la industria de viajes

Comment Travala.com a grimpé à 22 millions de dollars de revenus : leçons pour l'industrie du voyage

कैसे Travala.com का राजस्व 22 मिलियन डॉलर तक पहुंचा: यात्रा उद्योग के लिए सबक

Travala.com が収益 2,200 万ドルに急上昇した方法: 旅行業界への教訓

Travala.com이 2,200만 달러의 매출로 급상승한 방법: 여행 산업을 위한 교훈

Como Travala.com disparou para US$ 22 milhões em receita: lições para a indústria de viagens

Как выручка Travala.com взлетела до $22 миллионов: уроки для туристической индустрии

Travala.com'un Geliri Nasıl 22 Milyon Dolara Yükseldi: Seyahat Sektörü İçin Dersler

Làm thế nào Travala.com tăng vọt doanh thu lên 22 triệu USD: Bài học cho ngành du lịch

Travala.com 如何实现收入 2200 万美元：旅游业的教训

As I wrapped up the research for this piece and was about to start writing, OpenAI had a perfect announcement to go with it - they are feature on ChatGPT. If you haven’t used it before, this is a feature available to paying Plus users. Plus gives you access to primarily two things: temporarily disabling the “Browse with Bing" Browse with Bing - By default, ChatGPT does not connect to real-time website data (e.g. if you ask it what are upcoming Marvel movies in 2023, it won’t give you an answer because its training data stops at Sept 2021). Browse with Bing goes beyond this limitation by across the web, which OpenAI now gets access to given their partnership with Microsoft Bing leveraging real-time information from sites Plugins - These are integrations built into ChatGPT by independent companies to expose their capabilities through ChatGPT’s UI (e.g. OpenTable lets you search for restaurant reservations, and Kayak lets you search for flights from within ChatGPT if you use their plugins); These are experimental at this point and are “cool” features, but users haven’t really found them useful (yet). Therefore, Browse with Bing is particularly important for ChatGPT because its biggest competitor Google Bard has the ability to use real-time data from Google Search. See example responses from ChatGPT vs. Bard for the Marvel movies in 2023: ChatGPT 3.5 (left) vs. Google Bard (right) for real-time information So, you can see why it’s non-trivial for to disable Browse with Bing (even temporarily). : OpenAI The reasoning is what’s interesting We have learned that the ChatGPT Browse beta can occasionally display content in ways we don't want. For example, if a user specifically asks for a URL's full text, it might inadvertently fulfill this request. As of July 3, 2023, we’ve disabled the Browse with Bing beta feature out of an abundance of caution while we fix this in order to do right by content owners. We are working to bring the beta back as quickly as possible, and appreciate your understanding! It’s interesting because it brings into the spotlight a larger issue: Companies like . OpenAI and Google Bard are using a large amount of data to train their models, but it’s unclear whether they have permission to use this data and how they are compensating creators/content platforms for the use of this data In this article, we’ll unpack a few things: What are Large Language Models (LLMs), and why do they need data? Where are they getting this data from? Why should companies like OpenAI and Google care about how they source data? What strategies are content platforms adopting to respond to this? At the end of the article, you will hopefully walk away with a fuller picture of this rapidly evolving topic. Let’s dive in. What are Large Language Models, and why do they need data? We’ll start with a simple explainer of how Machine Learning models work - let’s say you want to predict how late your upcoming flight’s arrival time will be. A very basic version can be human guesswork (e.g. if the weather sucks or if the airline sucks, it’s likely late). If you want to make that more reliable, you can take real data on flight arrivals times and pattern-match it against various factors (e.g. how arrival times related to airline, destination airport, temperature, rainfall, etc.). Now you can take this one step further, use the data and create a math equation to predict this. For example: Delay minutes = A * airline reliability score + B * busy-ness of an airport + C * amount of rainfall. How do you calculate A, B, and C? By using the large volume of past arrival time data you have and doing some math on it. This equation, in math terms, is called a “regression” and is one of the most commonly used basic machine learning models. Note that the model is basically a math formula comprising of “features” (e.g. airline reliability score, busy-ness of an airport, amount of rainfall) and “weights” (e.g. A, B, C, which shows how much each variable adds to the prediction). weight The same concept can be extended to other more complex models - like “neural networks” (that you might have heard in the context of deep learning) or Large Language Models (often abbreviated to and are the underlying models for all text-based AI products such as Google Search, ChatGPT and Google Bard). LLMs We won’t go into too much detail, but each of these models, including LLMs, is a combination of “features” and “weights.” The most performant models have the best combination of features and weights. The way to get to that combination is through training with a TON of data. The more data you have, the more performant the model. Therefore, having a massive volume of data is critical, and companies that train these models need to source this data. Where are they getting this data from? Broadly speaking, data sources can be broadly categorized into: : These are high-volume data sources that are typically available for commercial purposes, including LLM training. Examples of large open-source data include Wikipedia, (an open repository of web crawl data), (free eBooks), and (free books written by unpublished authors), to name a few. Open Source Data CommonCrawl Project Gutenberg BookCorpus : These include a broad set of websites such as news publications (think Washington Post, the Guardian), creator-specific platforms (think Kickstarter, Patreon, Medium), and user-generated content platforms (think Reddit, Twitter). These typically have more restrictive policies when it comes to scraping their content, especially if it’s used for commercial purposes. Independent Content Websites In an ideal world, LLM companies would explicitly list out all the data sources they have used/scraped and do so in compliance with the policies of whoever owns the content. However, several of them have been non-transparent about it, the biggest offender being OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT). Google published one dataset it used for training, called C-4. The Washington Post put together a of this data. Here are the top 30 sources based on their analysis: neat analysis Most of this data was acquired from scraping, and content platforms contend that this data was scraped in violation of their terms of use. They are clearly unhappy about it, especially given the amount of upside the LLM companies are able to capture from the data. Why should companies like OpenAI and Google care about how they source data? Okay, content providers are complaining. So what? Should companies with LLM products care about this, besides wanting to be “fair” out of the goodness of their hearts? Data sourcing is becoming increasingly critical for two major reasons: : Companies developing LLMs are starting to find themselves embroiled in lawsuits from content creators and publishers who believe their data was used without permission. Legal battles can be costly and tarnish the reputation of the companies involved. Legal Complications Case in point: Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI are being sued for allegedly violating copyright law by reproducing open-source code using AI Getty Images sues AI art generator Stable Diffusion AI art tools Stable Diffusion and Midjourney targeted with a copyright lawsuit [side note: Stable Diffusion and Midjourney are AI image generators and not language generators and therefore not “LLMs,” but the same principles of what constitutes a model and how they are trained are the same] : Enterprise customers employing LLMs or their derivatives need to be assured of the legitimacy of the training data. They do not want to face legal challenges due to the data-sourcing practices of the LLMs they use, especially if they cannot pass on the liability of those lawsuits to the LLM providers. Making headway with Enterprise Customers Can you really build effective models with all of these messy data-sourcing constraints? That’s a fair question. A masterclass in applying these principles is the recent announcement of (it’s a cool product, and in open beta, you can play around with it) - the product has a , including Text to image, i.e., you can type a line of text, and it will generate an image for you. Adobe Firefly wide set of features What makes Firefly a great example is: Adobe . In addition, they have also announced that they want to build generative AI in a way that enables creators to monetize their talents and that they will announce a compensation model for Adobe Stock contributors once Firefly is out of beta. only uses images that are part of Adobe Stock that they already have the licenses for, plus open source images that are not license restricted Adobe will (starting with the text-to-image feature) - if you haven’t heard the term “indemnify” before, in simple terms, Adobe is saying they are confident they have cleanly sourced the data going into their models and are therefore willing to cover any legislation that might come up if someone sues an Adobe customer for using Firefly output. indemnify its customers for Firefly outputs One criticism of the clean data sourcing approach has been that it will hurt the quality of output generated by the models. The opposite side of that argument is that high-quality data owned by content providers can provide better quality input to model training (garbage in, garbage out is real when it comes to model training). In the image below, the left is output from Adobe Firefly; the right is from OpenAI’s Dall-E. If you compare the two, they are quite similar, and Firefly’s output is arguably more realistic, which goes to show that high-quality language models can be built off of just cleanly sourced data. What strategies are content platforms adopting to respond to this? Several companies that have large volumes of content have come out strongly, expressing that they intend to charge AI companies for using their data. It’s important to note that most of them have not come up with an anti-AI stance (i.e. they are not saying AI is going to take over our business, so we are shutting down access to content). They are mostly pushing for a commercial construct that defines how the access of this data will occur and how they will get compensated for it. , arguably the most popular forum that programmers use when they need help, for access to the 50 million Q&A content on its service. StackOverflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar laid out some reasonable arguments: StackOverflow plans to begin charging large AI developers The additional revenue will be vital to ensuring StackOverflow can keep attracting users and maintaining high-quality information, which will also help future chatbots by generating new knowledge on the platform. StackOverflow will continue to license data for free to some people and companies and only looking to charge companies developing LLMs for commercial purposes. He argues that LLM developers are violating Stack Overflow’s terms of service, which he believes falls under a Creative Commons license that requires anyone later using the data to mention where it came from (which LLMs don’t do) came out with a (alongside their controversial changes to API pricing that shut down several third-party apps). Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told the Times, "The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable, but we don't need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.” Reddit similar announcement earlier this year and also announced a recent change that a user can see in a day in an attempt to prevent unauthorized scraping of data. Though the execution and rollout of the policies leave much to be desired, the intent is clear that they do not intend to provide free data access for commercial purposes. Twitter stopped free access to their APIs limits the number of tweets Another group that has come out with a united front and critique of LLMs is news organizations. The , which represents publishers in print and digital media in the US, has published what they are calling . While there isn’t much tactical detail here, the message they are trying to get across is clear: News/Media Alliance (NMA) AI principles GAI (Generative AI) developers and deployers should not use publisher IP without permission, and publishers should have the right to negotiate for fair compensation for use of their IP by these developers. Negotiating written, formal agreements is therefore necessary. The fair use doctrine does not justify the unauthorized use of publisher content, archives and databases for and by GAI systems.  Any previous or existing use of such content without express permission is a violation of copyright law. Again, their arguments have not been to shut these down but to have commercial agreements in place to use this data in compliance with copyright law, and they also make the argument that compensation frameworks (for example, licensing) already exist in the market today and therefore will not slow innovation. Conclusion This is just the beginning. Platforms with a high volume of content are likely to seek compensation for their data. Even companies that have not yet announced this intent but already have other forms of data licensing programs (e.g. LinkedIn, Foursquare, Reuters) are likely to adopt them for AI/LLM companies. Though this development may seem like a hindrance to innovation, it is a necessary step for the long-term sustainability of content platforms. By ensuring they are compensated fairly, content creators can continue to produce quality content, which in turn will feed into making LLMs more effective. Also published . here

Data Scraping: Do Large Language Models Cross Boundaries by Training on Content from Everyone

The future of emerging technologies in marketing is an exciting one. Within the space of three years, the number of marketing professionals using Martech (marketing technology) grew by 186% and the from 2020 to 2027. Martech industry is expected to grow by 18% Where does the outdoor industry stand in all this? The outdoor industry is not only about exploring woods and mountains. It is also about brands that deal with outdoor accessories, footwear, and equipment for outdoor activities. It is about outdoor enthusiasts that engage in mountain climbing, kayaking, whitewater rafting, and other outdoor activities. According to the Outdoor Industry Association, the outdoor industry in consumer spending alone. Much of this spending is a result of effective marketing tactics. Marketing in the outdoor industry is highly competitive and smart brands who embrace innovation are staying ahead of their competitors and increasing their consumer spending power. generated about $887 billion How are they doing so today? How Emerging Technologies are Affecting Marketing in the Outdoor Industry There is an ever-changing marketing world in the outdoor industry. Not only is the competition getting stiffer, but there is also a whole new evolution going on in the outdoor marketing landscape. As an outdoor brand, you have to educate your prospects on why your product or service is a preferable choice and then take steps to convert them into sales. Whether you decide to choose an outdoor marketing agency or not, here are a few emerging technology trends that are affecting the outdoor industry in 2023: 1. Augmented and Virtual Reality Augmented and provide immersive experiences that improve outdoor industry marketing campaigns. How? virtual reality Video Marketing This type of marketing has become popular in this digitalized world. New emerging technologies like Augmented/Virtual reality and live video are great avenues for a successful outdoor industry campaign. Outdoor brands are creating 360-degree ad videos, using drones to create light shows and holographic projections for their marketing campaigns. Fancy right? How about you try this out in your next outdoor campaign? Digital Out-of-Home Ads (DOOH) Outdoor brands are also using AR/VR to improve immersive customer experience and increase customer engagement. AR/VR is helping outdoor marketers with several measurable strategies like location-specific targeting, interactive billboards, drones, and other marketing activities that improve customer experience. Inbound Marketing You may have carried out traditional outbound strategies in reaching customers. While these tactics are still relevant, you are likely to get better success with inbound marketing tactics. Inbound marketing in the outdoor industry is when an outdoor brand focuses on building the interests of prospects, providing value for them, and converting them into customers. An inbound marketing tactic aims to show customers what you have, turn them into enthusiasts, and slowly into customers. Adding AR/VR to your inbound marketing campaign will hasten this process for you. It helps your prospects to be quickly immersed in your product and know how you are creating a difference with your campaigns. 2. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning AI is changing the outdoor industry marketing one step at a time. There are several ways AI is doing this today. Here are are a few key areas: Paid Ads Running paid ads is a common marketing practice in the outdoor industry. With AI and machine learning tools, you can create more personalized ads and segment your target audience with more information. How? AI helps businesses to detect their target audience's emotions and determine whether people are happy or angry. Then the AI algorithms can set up personalized ads based on the data from people. This interactive and personalization feature is becoming very important in today’s fast-paced commercial world as it helps outdoor businesses improve their marketing efforts to keep up with the demands of their prospective customers. In-depth Monitoring and Analysis AI and machine learning tools have made it possible for outdoor brands to monitor and analyze important data. These tools help businesses to optimize customer data and provide marketing and ROI evaluation by using key performance indicators (KPIs).  Also, as these AI tools improve analytics, brands can better and customer retention efforts. improve their content creation Content Marketing A good story can turn your prospects into loyal customers. Smart outdoor brands know how important storytelling is to customer retention. AI is helping outdoor brands create stories that reach their target audience. With AI algorithms, outdoor marketers can understand their customer's preferences and create content that improves customer engagement. 3. Web3 Web3 might be a new innovation, but it has great potential that outdoor brands shouldn’t miss out on. Web3 is a new generation of the Internet that focuses on interacting with users and devices directly and providing an open Internet for all. Web3 promotes personalized user experience and it has great potential in the digital marketing space. Smart outdoor brands that recognize and take advantage of it in their marketing strategies are benefiting. How are they doing so? the importance of Web3 Brand Awareness Outdoor marketers are using blockchain tools to create awareness by issuing tokens, NFT collectibles, and digital asset ownership to customers and prospects. People who spend their time creating content for the outdoor industry or outdoor enthusiasts are benefiting from Web3. These enthusiasts can earn rewards in the form of tokens and NFTs and this can be converted into real cash. Customer Experience Web3 helps outdoor brands put their customer first in their marketing efforts. It helps to improve targeted marketing efforts, ad fraud prevention, and other customer interactions. Web3 equips outdoor marketers with tools that improve the virtual relationship of customers. Also, this technology promotes customer data privacy through its private infrastructure. Outdoor Brands that are Using Emerging Technologies in Their Marketing Campaigns Today Adidas Adidas, an outdoor brand in 2017 that allowed people to follow two mountaineers in real time. Through virtual reality, people were able to virtually experience climbing the Delicatessen peak from two mountain climbers' POVs. This campaign helped users to understand how rock climbing works and enjoy the real outdoor experience. launched an AR/VR campaign Bass Outdoor Bass Outdoor adopted an to establish its POV on the outdoors. Origin Outside assisted in bringing this campaign into reality by creating a 60-second interactive video that introduces the brand as a perfect outdoor companion to its target audience. interactive ad campaign TOMS The shoe brand TOMS provided as part of their humanitarian campaign to donate shoes to people. With VR, customers got a virtual experience of what it is like to give shoes to children with the staff. The reactions to this were positive and emotional. an immersive experience to customers HUCK Token This is an ERC-20 token that is built on ETH blockchain for community members who engage in outdoor activities. The main use of this token is to reward anyone engaging in an outdoor activity or creating content for the outdoor industry. Even outdoor enthusiasts who do not understand how cryptocurrency or Web3 works can benefit from this token. In Summary Outdoor businesses, whether big or small, need to embrace the innovation that emerging technologies are bringing to improve their marketing campaigns. Technology is there to make things interesting, and it’s up to you to improve your outdoor industry marketing strategy with technology.

How Emerging Technologies Are Affecting Marketing in the Outdoor Industry

Google has just unveiled mind-boggling advances in artificial intelligence that bring generative AI capabilities to an entirely new level. (1) Bard Google's response to OpenAI's ubiquitous chatbot, , has no waiting list and is available immediately. Bard AI can navigate the internet, has visual search capabilities for images, supports 20+ programming languages, and is compatible with other applications (Gmail, Docs, Spreadsheets, etc.). ChatGPT (2) Bard Plugins In contrast to Plugins, these are accessible to all users. With Bard, you now have instant access to OpenTable (restaurant reservations), Kayak (travel bookings), Spotify (playlist creation), Walmart (direct ordering), and Indeed (job searching), among others. OpenAI will now need to up its game. ChatGPT (3) Gmail powered by AI Google released "Help me write" in Gmail, permanently altering the nature of email. Now, you only need to write a single-line prompt, and AI will compose the entire email for you in mere seconds. You can edit your communications, alter the tone, etc., later on. (4) Google Photos The new "Magic Editor" in Google Photos allows you to alter the illumination of a scene, remove unwanted elements, adjust your position, and more. You can now alter your photographs like a specialist. (5) MusicLM MusicLM, Google's audio generator, is the finest music model currently available. It generates tunes based on your requests, which is utterly astounding. The music business will never again be the same. (6) Google Food Alerts This app uses machine learning to analyze search queries related to foodborne illness and food safety to identify potential outbreaks. It then sends alerts to public health officials to help them quickly identify and respond to outbreaks. Google is a member of the , a group of companies and organisations working to improve food safety through collaboration and innovation. Food Protection Alliance (7) PaLM 2 This is Google's new state-of-the-art language model, which has superior multilingual and reasoning capabilities and is more computationally efficient than PaLM. It has been taught more than 100 languages and is available in four sizes: - Gecko (10 billion parameters) - Otter (100 billion parameters) - Bison (1 trillion parameters) - Unicorn (ten quintillion parameters) Google(Today begins a new era of generative AI) Daily, 's 15 products serve 4 billion individuals and over 6 million enterprises. The most recent AI capabilities will alter how they operate, collaborate, produce, and travel. Today begins a new era of generative AI. Google

7 Ways Google is Competing with ChatGPT

Do Today What Others Won’t. When John Harley created in 2015, his motivation was to do things better. This concept is not new, and it is certainly prevalent in the business world, where entire industries have flourished on simple day-to-day improvements. Fishing Online However, Harley’s approach to his one-stop shop for all things fishing has encompassed this idea time and time again. His refusal to accept the satisfactory or even comfortable status quo has consistently yielded Fishing Online and its customers benefits that will only continue to grow. From its inception, through numerous growing pains, to being honored on the INC. 5000 list for the third year in a row in 2022, Harley has strived to make his company as efficient as possible. “Oh, the places you’ll go?” -Dr. Seuss Coming from a family with five other siblings, Harley was no stranger to facing challenges. Even as the family struggled to pay for his college education, he was able to earn his degree in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh. Although he always wanted to own his own business and be his own boss, his career as a software engineer provided him with a good life. Even as his brother launched a successful online business, Harley had yet to make the jump himself, instead helping his brother streamline his company on the side. It wasn’t until he went to a kayak fishing tournament that he visualized his path to entrepreneurship. He saw countless competitors with their kayaks and gear, often valued in the tens of thousands of dollars. He realized that this was a massive market, without a convenient, fully stocked, vendor with the data integrity customers demand when providing their credit card information. From here, Harley set out to build Fishing Online. For the first three and a half years, he had to keep working his day job to accumulate the capital he needed, where he had entire months with no days off. In his own words, “I thought I’d be a millionaire overnight. With my automation background, I’d just optimize everything, it would just run itself. This was not true.” Despite the hardships, and hitting low points, Harley’s final words of wisdom to me were “Stick with it. Keep pushing through the hard times, and eventually you’ll get there.” He sacrificed his own comfortable life to pursue his dream of owning a business because he knew there was a better way for avid fishermen to shop for all their needs. “Automation is driving the decline of banal and repetitive tasks.” -Amber Rudd Harley’s pursuit for improvements didn’t end once the company began. He continued to optimize his electronic footprint, both externally and internally. Originally, Harley used Bigcommerce for his platform, but they were overbearing and had several negative issues. After forcing him into a corner, he made the decision to switch to Shopify. This was a major risk, as this could’ve crippled his business for an unknown amount of time. However, Harley was willing to take the risk, as he knew there had to be a better way to operate, and he wasn’t willing to accept the current situation. With his programming background, he was able to get his company to go live on Shopify within three days and has been much happier with their service. In regard to catching the search algorithms, there was a rude awakening for Harley to develop the brand. He was unaware that the product descriptions were crucial to getting in front of customers as they searched the web. From his own experience, his brother told him that good descriptions are a necessity to being found organically. Harley had thousands of products that all needed new descriptions. Despite the task in front of him, he did not accept the state of things and invested the time to improve the search engine presence of Fishing Online. Inside his own walls, he first relied on C# to build his accounting software, with the hopes of crafting a system that would automatically manage the ordering process. He soon learned that Excel, with the right Macros could accomplish everything he needed, catapulting his efforts with a solid foundation he no longer had to construct. His custom-made spreadsheets incorporated all the different data that his employees tracked, including inventory, invoicing, and ordering materials. His automated bookkeeping system was able to instantly pull all the information he needed to issue purchase orders. He could now make orders as large as a quarter of a million dollars within minutes, with zero errors. Harley acknowledges that there is existing software that could mimic this capability, but his current system has been crafted and polished to specifically meet the needs of his company. From his service provider to his online sales pitches to his internal data management, Harley continuously pushed for a better way to do business. “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” -Michael LeBoeuf His dedication wasn’t limited to the virtual world. From limited warehousing to product selection and customer experience, Harley also looked to optimize his operations in the real world. By the time his original shop had grown to include a 10,000-square-foot warehouse, this space was already too small. Rather than slow his scaling, he worked to reduce or eliminate slow-moving products, while also negotiating with a third-party logistics firm. Luckily Harley’s business model was well established to keep his largest items moving, in this case, kayaks. They would sell out before even hitting a shelf. This enabled him to relegate using 3PL for smaller items, which is naturally their strong suit. The kayaks themselves were an excellent opportunity for him, despite their challenges, and often provided the coattails for accessory sales, increasing overall profits. As mentioned, he had to prioritize his inventory due to space, but he made sure to account for the secondary sales a loss leader could generate. One example is the Hawk Trough. As he said “We made no money on it. But we were the only vendor that offered it. Everyone who needed one came to us. Even though it wasn’t profitable, it got people to shop.” Harley’s understanding is that a better customer experience with limitless options, despite the detriments, would pay off in the end. Finding a better alternative for his customers and his business has certainly contributed to Fishing Online’s success. Be Proud, but Never Satisfied. Harley’s unwillingness to settle drove him to create a lucrative, niche business that caters to all the needs of its target clients. Over the course of creating and growing Fishing Online, had he simply accepted the status quo at any of its crucial milestones, the company might not exist, let alone thrive the way it has. From his personal goals that drove him to leave his comfortable programming job to developing a superb, automated process for inventory and order management, to optimizing his real-world footprint and product selection, Harley has always kept his eye out for better and more rewarding opportunities, regardless of the hardships required to seize them. He stated that his next goal is to surpass his personal best on the INC. 5000 list of 260, which he achieved in 2019. I have no doubt he will accomplish this, as his success over the years has never made him complacent or scared of hard work and change.

How to Make Inc's Fastest Growing Companies by Catching the Big Fish

In the finance world you often hear that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. No matter how frequently you remind yourself of this principle, occasionally you will delude yourself into believing you found a great opportunity. This situation presented itself to me a few years back when I started researching high-fee credit cards. I ended up going choosing the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card based on a friend’s recommendation and the whopping 50,000 points sign up bonus (worth ~$750)! The credit card boasted a huge list of benefits; including but not limited to, an annual travel stipend of $300, trip cancellation insurance, extended warranty protection, and 3x points on restaurants and travel. However, the card came with an annual fee of $450 — which can be hard to swallow. Required Return on Investment Once I exhausted through the sign-up bonus, the question became whether I would use the card enough to warrant the annual fee, which was unfortunately increased to $550 in 2021. Additionally, one has to consider the opportunity cost of a no-fee card. Assuming annual credit card expenses of $30,000 and an average conversion rate of $.015/point, I estimated the ROI for the Chase card to be ~$291 in a post sign-up bonus world. An annual ROI of \$291 is nice, but not worth spending an inordinate amount of time trying to optimize credit card points. However, the “Other Benefits” mentioned above include a number of items that could prove to be useful and change my assumptions. After a recent negative experience with one of these “other benefits”, I decided to analyze them in more detail. Calculation Example: $29,700 expenses * 2 = 59,400 points * .015 = $891 rewards – $450 annual fee + $300 travel credit benefit + \$50 other benefits = $791 profit – $450 opportunity cost = $341 ROI pre-2021. Other Benefits Chase Travel Portal Chase advertises their incredible travel portal where users can earn 5x points on airfare booked within the portal and 10x points on hotels and car rentals. While this appears to be an incredible benefit, they forget to mention that most, if not all, bookings are more expensive in their portal than outside of the portal. Every time I have compared prices between the Chase travel portal and prices found googling, the portal was often higher*. Do the extra points still make it worth booking via the portal? Let’s walk through an example. Imagine a weekend trip where you will spend ~$500 on the round trip flight and ~$500 on the hotel. Let’s compare a scenario where the portal is $50 more expensive for each item to see if the points justify this higher expense. In the scenario above, the additional rewards points received for booking through the Chase travel portal did not make up for the higher prices. The price would have to be no more than $70 higher in order to justify using the chase travel portal (assuming equal split between airfare/hotel cost and an ~$1000 total trip cost). Another disadvantage that is not mentioned in most reviews is the worse user experience. Take a look below to see how it is MUCH simpler to search flights across multiple airports in Kayak versus the Chase Travel Portal. I was unable to select all nearby airports in the Washington, DC area in the Chase Travel Portal, while this was a simple feature in Kayak. Another useful feature excluded in the Chase Travel Portal is Kayak’s “Fee Assistant”. This makes it easy to compare prices with and without luggage. Chase’s interface is okay, but not quite as user-friendly and intuitive as some others (e.g. Kayak, Google’s Flight Search). *The price difference is primarily explained by the additional options via googling or another website when compared to the Chase Travel Portal. For example, you cannot book Southwest flights or see Airbnb listings through the travel portal. Special Lounge Access When I first received the , I was pretty excited. I used to hear stories from colleagues about the incredible benefits of flying first class and getting access to exclusive lounges. I assumed Priority Pass would yield some luxury experience. Priority Pass Unfortunately, many of the exclusive lounges you see in airports are not part of the Priority Pass program. While the Priority Pass has lounges at most airports, they are only available at specific concourses. Even if your airport has one, it might be nowhere near your gate. I have yet to utilize this feature in the 3+ years of having this benefit. Experiences and Special Offers The experiences are extremely limited. The lack of options and diversity of locations made me forget about this feature quickly. I have never once booked any of their experiences. As seen below, they currently only offer experiences in 4 different locations. Chase Shopping Portal Because the travel card only gives 3x points (or higher multipliers) for travel and restaurants, shopping and groceries get left out of this bonus. They only get the standard 1x point multiplier for purchases. The Chase Shopping Portal is an additional benefit where you can get higher points multipliers for shopping online with some vendors. This can be a worthwhile benefit if you are able to make a large percentage of your shopping via this online portal, which requires you to click their special links prior to making any purchases. The huge limitation for this shopping portal is its lack of availability for shopping via your mobile phone or shopping in-person. As far as I know, there is no mobile app for using the Chase Shopping Portal and no way to receive the bonus points for shopping in-person. Personally, a large percentage of my shopping takes place via my mobile phone or in-person. Therefore, most of my shopping and grocery purchases have not been via the Chase travel card. The poor user experience drove me to use my other credit card for these purchases since it yields higher rewards for these types of purchases. Doordash/Lyft Chase will often have new or limited benefits, such as Doordash and Lyft. Currently, I receive $5/month in Doordash and a free Dashpass membership. If you use Doordash at least once per month, this is a worthwhile benefit that can easily yield $60 or more in annual savings. If I remember correctly, there was previously a limited time Lyft membership benefit that reduced fees for using their app as well. Trip Cancellation Insurance I recently had to cancel several trips because my traveling companion received some unfortunate medical news that would require a lengthy treatment. The cancellation fees were irritating until I remembered that my Chase card had travel cancellation insurance. It could help me recoup ~$500 in cancellation fees. I proceeded to their to file two new claims. The issues with this web page loading slowly was an ominous sign for what was to come. After the page finally loaded, I tried to fill out their confusing and poorly functioning web form. I called their helpline, whom after putting me on hold for 25 minutes, guided me in filling out the online claims form. They required A LOT of documentation to prove that your situation qualified for the insurance. I obtained a letter from my travel companion’s doctor to verify her condition and date of diagnosis, collected the cancellation confirmations from my vendors (i.e. hotels), and got my bank statements to prove the purchase. I was confident that I provided everything they would need to verify my claims. Upon submission, they said I should expect a response in 5-7 days. claims site Fast forward 4 weeks (and multiple calls) — I finally received a response for my claims. They sent me a response that requires further confirmation that I received no future benefits from the vendors and required my travel companion’s physician to fill out a custom form. At this point, I honestly debated whether getting the refunds was still worth it. My travel companion’s physicians and nurses are extremely busy people and we already asked them to fill out several other forms for us. I used one of those forms instead of Chase’s custom, physician statement form. I doubt it will be sufficient for their verification process. The trip cancellation insurance which started as a promising benefit has now become a huge pain in the ass. I’m not sure whether I’ll recoup the cancellation fees even if I pester the physicians to complete Chase’s custom forms. Summary While the high fee credit cards appear as a no-brainer, the ROI significantly diminishes in the years following the sign-up bonus. My first-hand experience has shown that many of these benefits come with hidden limitations or disadvantages. The opportunity cost for not choosing a high-fee card, coupled with their benefits’ limitations, reduces the expected ROI of choosing high-fee cards. While the supplemental benefits were unimpressive, the sign-up bonus justifies consideration of this high-fee card. I would recommend individuals with the following characteristics to consider the Chase Sapphire Reserve card (or something similar): Expects to spend $2500+ per month via this and can comfortably afford the bills credit card Will spend $4,000 within 3 months after signing up to receive the *** sign-up bonus Can easily afford paying the high annual fee of $550 at the beginning of each year Will dedicate extra time if they want to take advantage of the supplemental benefits Spends at least as much on travel (e.g. planes, gas, hotels) and restaurants as the average consumer Is willing to risk a negative annual ROI if they don’t spend enough each year Is willing to bear the burden of a temporary credit rating hit if they need to cancel the card While there is no such thing as a free lunch in finance, credit cards rewards are as close as they come. ~ The Data Generalist ***If you want to sign up for the , please use my and you will receive if you spend $4,000 or more in the first 3 months. Chase Sapphire Reserve card referral link 60,000 bonus points Image Source: Arrested Development Meme Source Also published . here

Is the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card Worth It?

Have you wondered how Netflix recommends similar shows or Snapchat knows the shape of your face? It’s all down to machine learning. Using techniques like deep learning and image recognition, models can achieve incredible things. The worldwide machine learning market is worth $15 billion, forecasted to grow to over $200 billion by 2029. That growth demonstrates its massive potential to transform business. By learning from past data, companies can use machine learning technology to provide an enhanced customer experience. This article will explore machine learning and its impact on mobile apps. What is Machine Learning Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI). It’s the process of taking data, finding patterns and information, then making predictions that improve without human help. With further data and experience, machine learning models can achieve remarkably high accuracy. How Machine Learning Works Fundamentally, any task that produces data has defined patterns and requires optimization, and is a candidate for machine learning automation. Thanks to platforms like Tensorflow, machine learning is not just an option for large corporations. In fact, around half of all companies now use machine learning in some capacity. The predictive power of machine learning comes into its own when it can learn from an extensive training dataset. In today’s world of big data and rapid CPU speeds, models can analyze millions of instances to learn how to do their tasks. This data mining allows them to get a deep understanding before any predictive analysis takes place. Understanding Machine Learning Techniques Machine learning algorithms take data, perform actions, and produce predictions. These algorithms handle data differently and produce varying results, so some are more suited than others to specific tasks. They also range in complexity – from simple clustering models to advanced neural networks. Machine learning models can generally be split into three categories: Algorithms are provided with examples of the outcome they're seeking. Then, they look for the same patterns in future examples to make educated predictions. Supervised learning: Algorithms are provided with a dataset and look for new patterns. They then organize data into meaningful groups, such as clustering customers. Unsupervised learning: Algorithms create new rules in a trial-and-error process. Gradually, the model learns the best way to achieve an outcome based on those results. Reinforcement learning: The appropriate machine learning algorithm depends on many things, like data size, speed, and intended results. Mobile app developers use various machine learning techniques to suit changing business needs. Machine Learning in Mobile Applications The machine learning revolution is well underway, and models are improving processes faster than ever. Mobile apps are no different. Mobile app machine learning models are used for data mining, forecasting, personalization, and security. A massive 76 percent of businesses are prioritizing the adoption of machine learning. Meanwhile, many industries are reaping the rewards already. Retail Retail apps use machine learning to provide a deeper personalized experience for customers. This includes improved service, highly relevant product suggestions, and suitable offers. Retail machine learning app examples include giants like Amazon, which use machine learning to understand searches and display fine-tuned results, through to start-ups and smaller companies on the cutting edge of technology. One such app, Criteo, shows the power of using machine learning with e-commerce apps. Its algorithms monitor over one billion shoppers per month. Then, it designs robust retargeting ads based on its vast datasets. Over 50 percent of companies already use machine learning to improve marketing. With the enhanced customer experience it offers, this trend will only grow. Finance Machine learning can impact finance apps in two ways. Firstly, it can help provide critical improvements in data security, detecting fraud, and blocking unusual transactions. It can also offer stricter on-device authentication methods like biometrics. Machine learning can also transform how people use their money. Apps like put the knowledge back in the hands of investors, while intelligent and personalized projections and suggestions can tailor financial services to each user. Wombat Healthcare Building on user data, machine learning has the potential to transform how we manage our health. From analyzing trends in patient records to designing individual workouts, mobile healthcare apps can become powerful assistants capable of giving real-time health information. Supervised learning, in particular, has become critical in diagnosing illness. By learning from an extensive database of medical images, apps like Aysa can check symptoms and identify conditions, allowing quicker and more appropriate treatment. Travel While Google Maps has provided travelers with smart directions for years, the travel industry is now primed for further development. A great way to support travel customers is with chatbots. Kayak, for example, incorporates its mobile chatbot into the whole travel cycle. Their bot provides ideas, additional products, and support. Likewise, Hopper learns from past pricing patterns to recommend the cheapest time for customers to book their trips. With these powerful tools, travel companies engage their customers on a much deeper level. Machine Learning & Mobile App Development Mobile devices dominate our daily lives. By building mobile apps that use machine learning, we can fine-tune services to user behavior. In turn, this promotes loyalty and improves the bottom line. Advances in algorithms, platforms, and software development kits (SDKs) now allow robust models to power mobile apps. Mobile developers can leverage machine learning with Flutter, amongst other frameworks, to give mobile application development revolutionary capabilities. From improved user experience to new features, the future of mobile apps and machine learning looks bright. Accessible Technology All this amazing technology may be more accessible than you may think. Whilst the computer science behind the technology is immense it can be accessed readily through digital tech providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). By signing up users can access Amazon Rekognition Rekognition Image is a service that detects objects, scenes, and faces; extracts text; recognizes celebrities; and identifies inappropriate content in images. It also allows you to search and compare faces. Rekognition Image is based on the same proven, highly scalable, deep learning technology developed by Amazon’s computer vision scientists to analyze billions of images daily for Prime Photos. Videos are also catered for, Rekognition Video detects activities; understands the movement of people in the frame; and recognizes objects, celebrities, and inappropriate content in videos stored in Amazon S3 and live video streams from Acuity. Also published . here

The Future of Mobile Applications Is Brighter With Machine Learning

How the Product Management Role Changes at Different Stages of a Company Product management is among the most dynamic roles in tech. Even across teams at the same company, the role can mean very different things. But for product managers exploring new opportunities, stage of company should be one of the first characteristics considered. I’ve seen several company stages first hand. I was the first product hire at a seed stage SaaS startup, when the team was only 7 and the roadmap was just being built. I have worked in product at a fast-paced public company, as it was growing through acquisitions and mergers. I worked at Google when it had 100,000 employees, when the things I built impacted billions of users and hundreds of millions of dollars a day. I've helped start a company before there was any product at all. Product management at a big company feels like navigating a city: you need to get from Point A to Point B, and there are buildings and traffic and pedestrians and in your way. But you have to help you get where you need to go. There are street signs and GPS, you can hop on the subway or hail a cab. pizza rats infrastructure Product management at an early stage startup feels like navigating the desert. There is nothing in your way, but there is also nothing there to help. You must chart your own course and for a long time, there won’t be any signs that you’re headed in the right direction. Some people love bobbing and weaving their way through cities. Big companies have data and users and systems and tools that when wielded adeptly, can bring you to really interesting places. There will be obstacles–bureaucracy, politics, dependencies–but the best big company PMs can parkour their way through the busiest metropolis with aplomb. Some people love blazing a trail. New products have infinite possibility. The best early stage PMs show exceptional judgment given very few signals. They listen to their first users to find just the right insight, and steer the company's efforts toward solving the most salient problems. In a desert sky of stars, they know which one to follow. They are pioneers. Of course, there are roles in between. In the growth stage, the best PMs are standing up the foundational processes and practices that will serve as the bedrock for their future cities. They’re documenting feedback and structuring data so that it can be leveraged long-term as guideposts. They’re thinking about scalability and endurance. They’re ensuring departments are talking to one another so that their city design looks more like New York than Boston: When to parkour and when to pioneer Companies with mature product practices are great places to learn. At Google, there is a clearly defined product management ladder. At any moment, you know where you stand on that ladder, and there is a distinct articulation of expectations for the rung–or six–above you. You can point to where you are, where you want to be, and have a tactical understanding of how to close the gap. There is a robust system for feedback and performance evaluations. You get to work with experienced practitioners and to observe their best habits and model them in yourself. You also get to observe their worst habits, and remind yourself to do better. There is benefit to that large sample size: by studying many practitioners, you can hone your own style and understand what type of product work most excites you. But it can be misleading. A company like Google has the resources to staff their teams with best-in-class specialists: UX researchers, designers of several flavors, back-end builders, front-end developers, data scientists, copywriters. A product role at an early company is more encompassing. Often there are no specialists, there is only you. You’re not just walking through the desert, you’re walking through the desert in 17 hats. But at an early stage company, your work can have outsized impact. You’re not responsible for a of a product, you’re responsible for product. You’re not focused on optimizing through iteration, you’re focused on launching and learning. If there is a problem you can’t stop thinking about, or a space you’re called to explore, it may be time to pioneer. slice the Bring a compass No matter the company stage, some skills are universal. These will help you navigate whether you’re in a city or a desert. They are the crucial skills that will serve you in any product environment. : No matter the company stage, you always need clear, structured, and concise emails. Slack messages, task tickets, and user stories are no different. Understand how to write for a technical audience. Omit extraneous words. When writing a product spec, specify success criteria. And of course, communicate early and often. Good news travels fast, but bad news should travel faster. Written communication : Be cogent in stakeholders meetings. Exhibit empathy and exceptional listening with users. Learn to lead with a headline and back up with supporting points. Verbal communication : Use critical thinking to decide what is and is not worth spending time on. If you’re not sure, think about what data you need to answer that question and find it. Learn from yourself: keep track of what you and your team spend time on, and measure the eventual outcomes. Understand this ROI and use it to inform future prioritization. Prioritization : Negotiate among teams and stakeholders respectfully and effectively. This matters whether you’re a team of two or 222,222. Engage through inquiry and understand each person’s incentives. Look for opportunities where incentives are aligned, and try to reframe objectives for the best shared outcome. Diplomacy Happy parkour-neering! Emily Batt is a senior associate at She previously led product teams at Google, Kayak, and early stage startups in enterprise and biotech spaces. Batt earned an MBA and MS Engineering from Harvard, where she was one of two students honored with the Dupré Nunnelly Innovation Leader Award. Pillar VC.

On Product and Parkour

Miki Agrawal Highlights The Importance Of Authenticity in Business Miki Agrawal is a social entrepreneur and the founder of several companies. Her newest venture, TUSHY, is an innovative bidet brand that aims to elevate the antiquated bathroom hygiene realm. Often recognized as an industry disruptor, Miki Agrawal brings fresh perspectives and solutions to modern problems, often in what are still considered “taboo” industries. In addition to spearheading industry-disrupting businesses, Miki Agrawal is also the best-selling author of “ ” and “ ”. Agrawal has earned various professional accolades throughout her fifteen-year entrepreneurial journey, and was named “Fast Company’s Most Creative People”, “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum and INC’s “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs”. Do Cool Sh*t Disrupt-Her What is TUSHY all about? My current company is TUSHY, the modern bidet brand for people who poop. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company? I’ve been obsessed with bidets since I was very young. I’m half Japanese, half Indian-and bidets are normal in both of those cultures. I never really thought about owning one when I was younger because they were so expensive! I was also renting different apartments in New York City, so it was just never an option for me. But in 2014, I developed an intense hyperthyroid condition and one of the effects was pooping (a lot!). It was so painful to go to the bathroom and to use toilet paper each time. My skin was raw! I had to jump in the shower every time to ease the pain. My boyfriend at the time (now husband) found a bidet from Asia that completely changed my life and I made a vow to bring it to America. I wanted to make the best-in-class, sleek, modern bidet and, of course, make it relevant to American culture. What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why? Questioning things: Questioning the way things are done has been ingrained in me since I was a kid. The questioning philosophy showed up in my entrepreneurial career as I looked to enter categories that have been “set for a long time” with little to no innovation, like the period and poop spaces. I recognized that these categories were “taboo”, and since nobody was talking about these topics out loud, nobody was innovating in them, either. Yet, every single being poops and every female has a period! That was a big ah-ha moment for me because I knew that I could harness creativity and innovation and disrupt tired old categories that sorely needed elevating. Taking risks: At TUSHY, we are taking bigger creative risks as our company grows and that feels really good. Most companies become less and less creative as they grow, because they have more to lose so keep things more even (aka boring), or they stagnate and get stuck in a vibe. Our team has the opposite philosophy. The bigger we get, the bigger the splash of weirdness we can make and the more we “go where we/people/brands haven’t gone before”. Surrounding yourself with the right people: Each of us has our own unique zone of genius. I’m lit up when I get to be creative and ideate new directions for my brands, but I’m not always the person who wants to get caught up in operations. That’s the reason why one of the first things I did with TUSHY was hired my CFO and CEO, who perfectly balanced out my creativity with their understanding of the technical. What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company? TUSHY’s big-picture goal is really to become the household bidet brand in America. Most companies, as they grow bigger, start to lose the creative spark that made them big in the first place. They feel like they have to play it safe in order to keep their customers. My big goal for TUSHY is that the bigger we get, the more creative we’re going to get. We’re going to continue talking to customers with accessible, relatable language and using humor to break down barriers. We’re going to continue creating wild, exciting, and beautiful creative campaigns. We know that’s what defines our brand and what attracts people to us. How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business? The pandemic has been such an interesting time for us! When COVID first began, our sales actually skyrocketed because of the toilet paper shortage. At the same time, our team was also adjusting to working remotely and operating with new technologies across many different time zones. But, they truly crushed that adjustment, and I feel so fortunate that every single one of our employees is like a Swiss Army knife, capable of adapting and performing so many different functions in our business all at once. The pandemic really showed us that no matter what gets thrown our way, we’re able to adapt and make it work for us. How do you separate yourself from your competitors? We do our best to keep away from just being a “toilet” brand. I think our creativity and innovation is the thing that really sets us apart. Our humor, our ridiculous marketing campaigns, and our beautiful artwork are what draw people to us. What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them? Not wanting to look “bad” or make a fool of myself. I had to learn and accept that it’s impossible not to sometimes, and that’s okay. When I was 22, I was working in investment banking, hating my job, and then 9/11 happened. It was my wake-up call and I wrote down what I wanted to do with my life if I died tomorrow. Playing professional soccer was one of them. I found out that the NY Magic was holding tryouts and I said screw it, I was going to try even if I made a fool out of myself. So I snuck out of my job twice a week, got to Brooklyn for the tryouts, and would go and try out against over a hundred Division 1 soccer players. I felt like an imposter as a banker and also as a wannabe player, but I went for it anyway and did the thing even though I thought I looked stupid. Being too harsh on myself. After going through so many wild times in my businesses and life over the years, trusting and being kind to myself has become paramount. Taking the time to trust myself and listen intently to my inner knowing has become the most important work in my life. I took 2 months right before COVID and it was the first time in my whole adult life that I finally listened to my body’s needs. Now, I check in with myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m human and there are going to be times when I am tempted to take on more than I can handle, but those moments of recalibration are so important to reset. Realizing that I don’t need to take on everything to be successful. This is probably the biggest lesson that I’ve learned in my entrepreneurial career. When I first started WILD, I spent 7 years, 7 days a week, working 16-18 hour days, struggling to keep everything afloat and do everything myself. I finally came across the right operating partner and after bringing him on, our numbers tripled in a month. Go figure. Surrounding myself with people who have their own zones of genius frees up my time and helps everything run more smoothly. Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you? There are two huge things that we always implement in our marketing. First is accessible, relatable language. People don’t want to be marketed to. They want to feel like they’re engaging with the content they actually enjoy. Making all your copy sound like you’re talking to your best friend is the best way to do this. Break down barriers and use language that your customer would use in their everyday life. Second, make sure your visual design is always on point. Be it font size, spacing, etc., it matters! Those things matter. My challenge to my team is to ask for every design that they make, is it fridge-worthy? AKA is this piece of art so beautiful that someone would want to put it on their fridge? If someone else would want to display it in their home, then you know you’ve done your job. What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them? One of my biggest challenges has been coming to terms with the bumps in the road that have come up while creating my businesses. But, I recognize now that each and every painful and difficult experience I have encountered is just one more beautiful teaching moment in life. One of the biggest misconceptions about finding joy and happiness is that in order to find them you have to remove sorrow from your life. I actually think it’s quite the opposite. Only in experiencing suffering do we truly know joy. As Khalil Gibran puts it: joy and sorrow “are inseparable”. What was your first business idea and what did you do with it? One of my very first business ideas was Wild, New York City’s first farm-to-table gluten-free pizza concept, which I started back in 2005. At the time, I realized that all of the food I was consuming was making me feel horrible. I wasn’t fueling my body with the nutrients it needed. People don’t tend to think of pizza as healthy food, but it has all of the major food groups that your body needs to function. When done properly and with the best, most organic ingredients, it’s actually one of the most amazing foods you can put into your body. What are you learning now? Why is that important? I’m learning how to be more vulnerable. Last year, I attended the Hoffman Institute and one of the teachers said that when people are asked “how are you?” and the response is “good” or “fine”, those are “fast food words” which don’t create a vulnerable opening for what is true and real. In turn, this loses all power in connecting deeper and getting to a more profound understanding of the self and others. Avoidance in all forms does the same. The more vulnerable we are, the more powerful we actually are because we are in full authentic truth. That authenticity has the power to not only transform our personal lives but how we operate in our business and creative mindsets as well. If you started your business again, what things would you do differently? I really wouldn’t change a thing about any part of my journey. Each bump in the road is a learning opportunity and has helped me grow and reach the point that I’m at today. What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company? There are truly so many amazing tools that exist right now, but I am especially loving . It has completely transformed our design process. We used to operate strictly out of Photoshop and Dropbox, but Figma opens up the design process to make it collaborative. Now our marketers and designers can be working on projects simultaneously and that has been a game-changer. Figma Outside of Figma, we also use and , which are both absolutely necessary for quick communication and organization. Monday Slack What’s a productivity tip you swear by? Figure out how you access your flow state. Constantly focusing on the need to be great makes it difficult to actually achieve that greatness. The way I enter my flow state is through meditation, morning pages, moving my body, sitting in nature, or doing routine things where I can be fully away from any social media like showering or driving or biking, or outdoorsy things like kayaking/paddleboarding/hiking. I come up with most of my best ideas in these ways. Find what habits get you into your personal flow state! Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs? I really love . It has a workbook that has completely expanded my creativity and helped me access my flow state. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it? Start with purchasing your domain name and website and locking down your business name on every social platform. Your brand is one of the most important aspects of your new business. If you have some funds left over, you can also get a designer to help out with your brand guide or designing your pitch decks. All of these things will form the building blocks of your future marketing campaigns. It’s also likely the first impression people will have when they encounter your new business. What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business? All of my companies excite me! Before I start a new business I always check in with myself and ask if the topic is something that I know I can live and breathe for years on end. If the answer is yes, then I know I can stay driven and motivated, even when things are trying. What is your favorite quote? There are so so many. Right now I would have to say: “Things are always impossible right up until they’re not.” Quincy Jones What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out? Do it. Do whatever has been on your mind. Do what you feel excited and passionate and lit up about. So many people get stuck in the planning/talking about it phase. Don’t worry about things being messy or making mistakes. Just start. Who should we interview next and why? My amazing identical twin sister Radha! She’s spreading so much joy and love through her company, Daybreaker. She knows how to build meaningful communities and inspire genuine human connection. What is your definition of success? To me, success is all about finding our LIT path, or the thing that we’re so passionate and excited about, and following it. It sounds cliché at this point, but doing what you love is truly the only thing that matters. How do you personally overcome fear? When I think of fearlessness, I don’t think of the absence of fear, but rather taking action in the face of fear. Sometimes we just need to turn off the part of our brain that likes to ask all of the scary “what ifs” and just walk headfirst into something, learning along the way. How can readers get in touch with you? You can contact me through my website or visit any of my social media profiles. I’m on Instagram! mikiagrawal.com @mikiagrawal Also Published Here

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