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In the first part of this article, we tried to find an answer to the question, "What have we learned about ourselves thanks to artificial intelligence?" Now it's time to ponder the next question: What will we learn about ourselves through AI? Sooner or later (and perhaps sooner rather than later), Artificial Intelligence will become a full-fledged neighbor of humankind, possessing free will and aspirations. More precisely, most will recognize it as such. In all likelihood, there will always be a minority that believes that even the most complex machine or program can only imitate reasonableness and believes that intelligence and self-consciousness are the prerogatives of biological beings or even human beings exclusively. This inclusivity, however, is not currently widespread. The majority now believes that at their current level, are nothing more than an imitation of intelligence, and only a small minority sees them as real intelligence. AI systems However, we have no idea about the true state of affairs in this sphere because we do not know what developers have "on their table" or what is already in the possession of organizations that operate with various degrees of secrecy. It is quite possible that "real" AI is already among us, but that we do not know about it. However, we will leave our thoughts on this matter to the tinfoil hat crowd and return to our topic. Have we retained our adventurous spirit and pioneering genes? Tell me honestly, when reading and watching science fiction in which intelligent robots are flying through the galaxy right along with humans, have you ever asked yourself: "Why do people in these stories risk their lives? Why don't they just sit safely on Earth and leave the exploration of outer space to intelligent machines?" If so, you're not alone. Among space technology designers, there are quite a few proponents of maximizing the automation of space exploration. One of the expressions of this point of view was the famous space engineer Konstantin Feoktistov, who, among other things, made a flight on the ship Voskhod-1. According to his rather sharp assessment, crewed spaceflight is of no scientific benefit and, apart from the fact that people can fly into space and work in it, has given nothing to mankind. Proponents of this point of view often point out that a person on a spaceship or another planet is needed only to repair the equipment, which, in fact, does most of the work. What if we create AI and robots equipped with it, which would be able to control spaceships and repair them? Would humans still fly into space? Not as tourists, but for dangerous and difficult work like exploring asteroids and other planets? Even now, when AI is still far from perfect, we prefer to use automatons. After the Apollo program was shut down, robots became the mainstay of space exploration. They explore deep space, land on the Moon and Mars, fly near asteroids, and photograph gas giants up close. Humans, on the other hand, don't even make an attempt to leave low Earth orbit. This is true even though, at least technically, we could have long ago built a permanent settlement on the Moon and landed on Mars. Or, at least, we could have made the attempt. People prefer not to take risks. No, not astronauts, but those who make the decisions for them and are constantly tightening safety regulations. Yes, there are plans to return humans to the Moon and . But wouldn't they be reconsidered if a robot, equipped with AI and able to do what humans can, could be sent there? land on Mars A good example is ocean exploration. The majority of all work and research at great depths is carried out with the help of unmanned vehicles. And this is despite the fact that we learned how to make crewed vehicles capable of diving to great depths a half-century ago. Do we still have the desire to step into the unknown, the same desire that, thanks to which we have become a planetary species after emerging from Africa? Will humanity retain its pioneer status, or will it surrender this title to intelligent machines? The emergence of full-fledged artificial intelligence will certainly answer this question. What do we really want to do? The development of AI systems will inevitably lead to complete or almost complete automation of most work processes. Smart machines will replace humans, and not only in factories and plants. They will surely dominate transportation, services, and multiple branches of intellectual activity. AI will also certainly become prominent in the management of economic processes, development and design of buildings and machinery according to set parameters, programming, creation of drugs and other chemical compounds, and medical diagnostics (at least as far as analysis and hardware examination are concerned). AI’s active participation is predicted even in such purely human activities as lawmaking and court proceedings. Indeed, and identifying all the contradictions, gaps, and loopholes in legislation. And in the role of a judge, AI will be able to take into account all the circumstances and precedents that are available in its database. In short, in the future, we will have a society built in such a way that most of the work will be reduced to inventing tasks for AI. People of art, of course, will not go anywhere. Perhaps some of them will even defiantly refuse to help AI. But most of humanity will be out of work. At least the way we're used to doing it. AI is quite capable of analyzing Now, don't be alarmed. We're not trying to describe another cyberpunk post-apocalypse in which billions of unemployed people stand in line for Great Depression-style chowder. Surely, with the help of AI, a new socio-economic system will be devised in which everyone will be guaranteed some kind of Universal Basic Income that will keep them on their feet. Perhaps this system will even provide more than what most people today receive through hard work. The question is: What are we going to do? It is unlikely that coming up with tasks for AI will require a great deal of specialists. And it's not going to take much time. So what are we going to spend that time on? Sport? Will we occupy ourselves with the endless invention of entertainment, hedonistic pleasures, and ways to consume them? Shallow, don't you think? How will humanity respond to this challenge? The authors would like to believe that most people will use their new opportunities to explore the universe and themselves; that people will strive to discover new facets of their intelligence and learn as much as possible about the world we live in. That they will improve themselves and persistently seek out other intelligent beings beyond Earth. In other words - it would be great if we became a civilization of scientists, explorers, creators, and philosophers. But something tells us that on the way to this ideal, we will face a lot of obstacles and thorns, which will not be created by AI but by us... How will we meet another mind? This question is one of the oldest and most asked. Every person has wondered about it at least once in their life, and thousands of philosophers, futurologists, and fantasists have been, and still are, searching for the answer. These searches have led to a multitude of scenarios and concepts on this topic. Some of these ideas include gods and demons, minotaurs and mermaids, fairies and elves, inhabitants of other planets, and aliens from other dimensions. In the hope of detecting another mind, we try to pick up ordered signals from space, and we also send them into space ourselves. But our attempts at interstellar conversation have failed so far. Either there's no one to talk to, or we don't understand the language. It is quite possible that no one has taken any notice of us - we live on the very outskirts of our Galaxy. What do we need this communication for? First of all, we probably want someone to look at us from the outside and tell us who we are. It seems that the first non-human mind with which we will truly interact will be born through our own efforts. In any case, the emergence of a seems much more likely than a flying saucer landing in front of the UN building or a portal from another dimension opening at the top of the Cheops pyramid. Actually, the "human-AI" plot thread has been developed in quite a lot of detail. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to enumerating humankind’s possible reactions when it realizes that a full-fledged artificial intelligence, self-aware and with a will of its own, exists alongside it: full-fledged AI in the foreseeable future We will try to subdue AI and not let it out of our control. We recognize AI as an equal species and will interact with it as partners. We will antagonize AI. We will distance ourselves from AI and ask it to develop separately from us without interfering in our lives. Which of these options humanity will choose, we do not undertake to predict. Those who have read our previous texts probably have guessed that the hearts of the text’s authors lie in the interaction of humans and AI as equal, mutually complementary partners. One way or another, the appearance of full-fledged AI will reveal to us exactly who we are. There is a high probability that our interaction with such an AI will mirror how and in what role we will act when we meet, for example, with an alien civilization. What is greatest in us? The desire for domination, xenophobia, and aggression? Or the desire to cooperate, learn, and communicate? If a self-aware AI appears, we will get answers to these questions very quickly. I would like to believe that these answers will show us in a good light. The article was created in collaboration with Andriy Tkachenko

AI: A Mirror on Humanity (Part 2)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts Chapter III. The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts The evidence of the medical experts, too, was of little use to the prisoner. And it appeared later that Fetyukovitch had not reckoned much upon it. The medical line of defense had only been taken up through the insistence of Katerina Ivanovna, who had sent for a celebrated doctor from Moscow on purpose. The case for the defense could, of course, lose nothing by it and might, with luck, gain something from it. There was, however, an element of comedy about it, through the difference of opinion of the doctors. The medical experts were the famous doctor from Moscow, our doctor, Herzenstube, and the young doctor, Varvinsky. The two latter appeared also as witnesses for the prosecution. The first to be called in the capacity of expert was Doctor Herzenstube. He was a gray and bald old man of seventy, of middle height and sturdy build. He was much esteemed and respected by every one in the town. He was a conscientious doctor and an excellent and pious man, a Hernguter or Moravian brother, I am not quite sure which. He had been living amongst us for many years and behaved with wonderful dignity. He was a kind‐hearted and humane man. He treated the sick poor and peasants for nothing, visited them in their slums and huts, and left money for medicine, but he was as obstinate as a mule. If once he had taken an idea into his head, there was no shaking it. Almost every one in the town was aware, by the way, that the famous doctor had, within the first two or three days of his presence among us, uttered some extremely offensive allusions to Doctor Herzenstube’s qualifications. Though the Moscow doctor asked twenty‐five roubles for a visit, several people in the town were glad to take advantage of his arrival, and rushed to consult him regardless of expense. All these had, of course, been previously patients of Doctor Herzenstube, and the celebrated doctor had criticized his treatment with extreme harshness. Finally, he had asked the patients as soon as he saw them, “Well, who has been cramming you with nostrums? Herzenstube? He, he!” Doctor Herzenstube, of course, heard all this, and now all the three doctors made their appearance, one after another, to be examined. Doctor Herzenstube roundly declared that the abnormality of the prisoner’s mental faculties was self‐evident. Then giving his grounds for this opinion, which I omit here, he added that the abnormality was not only evident in many of the prisoner’s actions in the past, but was apparent even now at this very moment. When he was asked to explain how it was apparent now at this moment, the old doctor, with simple‐hearted directness, pointed out that the prisoner on entering the court had “an extraordinary air, remarkable in the circumstances”; that he had “marched in like a soldier, looking straight before him, though it would have been more natural for him to look to the left where, among the public, the ladies were sitting, seeing that he was a great admirer of the fair sex and must be thinking much of what the ladies are saying of him now,” the old man concluded in his peculiar language. I must add that he spoke Russian readily, but every phrase was formed in German style, which did not, however, trouble him, for it had always been a weakness of his to believe that he spoke Russian perfectly, better indeed than Russians. And he was very fond of using Russian proverbs, always declaring that the Russian proverbs were the best and most expressive sayings in the whole world. I may remark, too, that in conversation, through absent‐mindedness he often forgot the most ordinary words, which sometimes went out of his head, though he knew them perfectly. The same thing happened, though, when he spoke German, and at such times he always waved his hand before his face as though trying to catch the lost word, and no one could induce him to go on speaking till he had found the missing word. His remark that the prisoner ought to have looked at the ladies on entering roused a whisper of amusement in the audience. All our ladies were very fond of our old doctor; they knew, too, that having been all his life a bachelor and a religious man of exemplary conduct, he looked upon women as lofty creatures. And so his unexpected observation struck every one as very queer. The Moscow doctor, being questioned in his turn, definitely and emphatically repeated that he considered the prisoner’s mental condition abnormal in the highest degree. He talked at length and with erudition of “aberration” and “mania,” and argued that, from all the facts collected, the prisoner had undoubtedly been in a condition of aberration for several days before his arrest, and, if the crime had been committed by him, it must, even if he were conscious of it, have been almost involuntary, as he had not the power to control the morbid impulse that possessed him. But apart from temporary aberration, the doctor diagnosed mania, which premised, in his words, to lead to complete insanity in the future. (It must be noted that I report this in my own words, the doctor made use of very learned and professional language.) “All his actions are in contravention of common sense and logic,” he continued. “Not to refer to what I have not seen, that is, the crime itself and the whole catastrophe, the day before yesterday, while he was talking to me, he had an unaccountably fixed look in his eye. He laughed unexpectedly when there was nothing to laugh at. He showed continual and inexplicable irritability, using strange words, ‘Bernard!’ ‘Ethics!’ and others equally inappropriate.” But the doctor detected mania, above all, in the fact that the prisoner could not even speak of the three thousand roubles, of which he considered himself to have been cheated, without extraordinary irritation, though he could speak comparatively lightly of other misfortunes and grievances. According to all accounts, he had even in the past, whenever the subject of the three thousand roubles was touched on, flown into a perfect frenzy, and yet he was reported to be a disinterested and not grasping man. “As to the opinion of my learned colleague,” the Moscow doctor added ironically in conclusion, “that the prisoner would, on entering the court, have naturally looked at the ladies and not straight before him, I will only say that, apart from the playfulness of this theory, it is radically unsound. For though I fully agree that the prisoner, on entering the court where his fate will be decided, would not naturally look straight before him in that fixed way, and that that may really be a sign of his abnormal mental condition, at the same time I maintain that he would naturally not look to the left at the ladies, but, on the contrary, to the right to find his legal adviser, on whose help all his hopes rest and on whose defense all his future depends.” The doctor expressed his opinion positively and emphatically. But the unexpected pronouncement of Doctor Varvinsky gave the last touch of comedy to the difference of opinion between the experts. In his opinion the prisoner was now, and had been all along, in a perfectly normal condition, and, although he certainly must have been in a nervous and exceedingly excited state before his arrest, this might have been due to several perfectly obvious causes, jealousy, anger, continual drunkenness, and so on. But this nervous condition would not involve the mental aberration of which mention had just been made. As to the question whether the prisoner should have looked to the left or to the right on entering the court, “in his modest opinion,” the prisoner would naturally look straight before him on entering the court, as he had in fact done, as that was where the judges, on whom his fate depended, were sitting. So that it was just by looking straight before him that he showed his perfectly normal state of mind at the present. The young doctor concluded his “modest” testimony with some heat. “Bravo, doctor!” cried Mitya, from his seat, “just so!” Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor’s opinion had a decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeared afterwards, every one agreed with him. But Doctor Herzenstube, when called as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya. As an old resident in the town who had known the Karamazov family for years, he furnished some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly, as though recalling something, he added: “But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for he had a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know. But the Russian proverb says, ‘If a man has one head, it’s good, but if another clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there will be two heads and not only one.’ ” “One head is good, but two are better,” the prosecutor put in impatiently. He knew the old man’s habit of talking slowly and deliberately, regardless of the impression he was making and of the delay he was causing, and highly prizing his flat, dull and always gleefully complacent German wit. The old man was fond of making jokes. “Oh, yes, that’s what I say,” he went on stubbornly. “One head is good, but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits, and his wits went. Where did they go? I’ve forgotten the word.” He went on, passing his hand before his eyes, “Oh, yes, spazieren.” “Wandering?” “Oh, yes, wandering, that’s what I say. Well, his wits went wandering and fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself. And yet he was a grateful and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember him very well, a little chap so high, left neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ran about without boots on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button.” A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest old man’s voice. Fetyukovitch positively started, as though scenting something, and caught at it instantly. “Oh, yes, I was a young man then.... I was ... well, I was forty‐five then, and had only just come here. And I was so sorry for the boy then; I asked myself why shouldn’t I buy him a pound of ... a pound of what? I’ve forgotten what it’s called. A pound of what children are very fond of, what is it, what is it?” The doctor began waving his hands again. “It grows on a tree and is gathered and given to every one....” “Apples?” “Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound.... No, there are a lot of them, and all little. You put them in the mouth and crack.” “Nuts?” “Quite so, nuts, I say so.” The doctor repeated in the calmest way as though he had been at no loss for a word. “And I bought him a pound of nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before. And I lifted my finger and said to him, ‘Boy, Gott der Vater.’ He laughed and said, ‘Gott der Vater.’... ‘Gott der Sohn.’ He laughed again and lisped, ‘Gott der Sohn.’ ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ Then he laughed and said as best he could, ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ I went away, and two days after I happened to be passing, and he shouted to me of himself, ‘Uncle, Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn,’ and he had only forgotten ‘Gott der heilige Geist.’ But I reminded him of it and I felt very sorry for him again. But he was taken away, and I did not see him again. Twenty‐ three years passed. I am sitting one morning in my study, a white‐haired old man, when there walks into the room a blooming young man, whom I should never have recognized, but he held up his finger and said, laughing, ‘Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, and Gott der heilige Geist. I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound of nuts, for no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts; you are the only one that ever did.’ And then I remembered my happy youth and the poor child in the yard, without boots on his feet, and my heart was touched and I said, ‘You are a grateful young man, for you have remembered all your life the pound of nuts I bought you in your childhood.’ And I embraced him and blessed him. And I shed tears. He laughed, but he shed tears, too ... for the Russian often laughs when he ought to be weeping. But he did weep; I saw it. And now, alas!...” “And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly man,” Mitya cried suddenly. In any case the anecdote made a certain favorable impression on the public. But the chief sensation in Mitya’s favor was created by the evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly. Indeed, when the witnesses à décharge, that is, called by the defense, began giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favorable to Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a surprise even to the counsel for the defense. But before Katerina Ivanovna was called, Alyosha was examined, and he recalled a fact which seemed to furnish positive evidence against one important point made by the prosecution. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2009). The Brothers Karamazov. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28054/pg28054-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts

Let's be honest. Branding is awfully expensive. A logo design can cost you around $500 - $1,000 depending on you're hiring to do the job. A website can cost you up to $3,000 and branding materials such as pitch decks, proposals, can all sum up to $5,000. That's a lot of money to dish out if you're only just beginning your entrepreneurial journey. These were the estimates I got when I wanted to build my online identity. I then tried hiring resources on Upwork and Fiverr, but finding someone who could my vision was a real struggle. 'get' So what’s one to do when one’s picky but also poor? 😄 Well, you go DIY (do-it-yourself)! Lucky for people like me, the internet has some of the most fantastic tech DIY tools out there that can let you create your own logo, website, and branding materials literally for free or for a quarter of the cost of hiring someone. Know that DIY tools are just temporary solutions. Eventually, when your business brings in good money, you can then hire professionals to rebrand and redesign. But until you don’t have that ROI coming in, spending nearly $10K on branding isn’t recommended. Pro-Fact: And so I went on a hunt to try out several tools. I’m not going to review each of them, but I’ll give you a reason why I chose that specific tool over its competitors. So here goes! Logology for Logo Designs I’ve had my fair share of experiences with logo makers and they never live up to the hype. I didn’t have the time to find, brief, and wait for a logo designer and was on the hunt for something quick. I tried Canva, but I was afraid it would be too redundant. Then, as I was about to go on Twitter to ask for suggestions, I came across , the founder of y, who is quite loved for sharing his entrepreneurial journey as it is, with no filters! I checked out Logology, assuming it would be just another logo maker (which it technically is, but with a twist!). Dagobert Renouf Logolog This is one unique logo maker, where you take a quick brand personality test, get logos that match your values, and customize your logo colors and font as you want. The questions forced me to understand more about my brand and what I wanted the world to see it as. Some of the cool questions were: There were 16 more questions like these which included important questions like the kind of marketing voice, the kind of values, and the kind of company that I envisioned my startup to be. I was sold on how creative these questions were! The result of my answers: Here were some of my favorite options: I changed the personality from kind and classic to visionary. Check out these favorite picks. Of all these, I went with the first one because it was exactly what I wanted! I tried another for my personal brand name Farah Kim, and here’s what I chose after plenty of options. What I absolutely love about Logology was the amount of detail that was put into crafting a brand identity. All this would have cost me nearly a $1,000 had a hired a professional. Sure, it could get repetitive because I did see the same symbols from the Caffeinated Pros repeated for Farah Kim, but, even if they were, you had so many options and variations to choose from that your logo would still be unique! The best part? I was able to see how my logo would look in branding materials! With previews for how it would look like on a website. For every option, there would be a detailed explanation: All this for a mere $49 and literally in 15 minutes. Not bad for a starter I’d say. You could get a unique version of this logo for $499 after a brand discussion call. The Pros: Focused on branding and not just making a logo like other logo makers Loads of options based on voice and brand values Impressive UI/UX where I didn’t quickly close the tab in frustration You can see how your logo would look on all branding materials The Cons: We could have had more superhero options. I don’t necessarily like WonderWoman, but had to go with it! Maybe Captain Marvel could have been better! I would have liked more options for typographic logos playing on initials I wanted to have element options too. There was a nice cup vector that appeared in the Farah Kim branding but not in the Caffeinated Pros branding which I really wanted. To Use or Not to Use? → To use if you want consistency, a reflection of brand values, and plenty of options to choose from. → Not to use if you are afraid of a non-original logo. In that case, you can avail the $499 package. Wix for Website Design & Development I know, I know, Wix is not a favorite for many people. It’s expensive, it’s sometimes wonky, and annoying, but it really helped me get a nice-looking website for when I needed it most. I pay $100 annually to get: Complete lead management with a start from finish workflow Tasks and reminders dashboard An integrated inbox with automatic contact management options SEO and basic marketing functions Detailed analytics & reports Plenty of integrations Everything I need to make my website work well in one platform It did take me a week to pull off a 5 pager website that could host my CV, portfolio, and blog, but it was well worth the effort. Some of the things I absolutely love about Wix and which would cost me more if I had a developer work on it would be: Automations This is the coolest feature of Wix. Traditionally, you would have to invest in several tools in order to automate chat responses, signup emails, and tasks reminders. But Wix lets you do that in one dashboard. Wix provides you with website features, but advanced marketing functions are provided by Ascend, Wix’s suite of marketing and customer management tools that are built into your site dashboard. To get unlimited tools, you will need to pay $49/month. With the free plan, you get limited options. Note: Here’s what you can get with all Ascend plans. When you upgrade to the Premium plan, you can get unlimited access. I don’t mind paying $49/month for everything to be on one platform, because if I were to do any of these manually, I’d be having a tech stack costing no less than $500/month! SEO Friendly I don’t have to hire a technical SEO expert to ‘optimize’ my website. Wix takes care of all the technical optimization parts so the website is already Google ready. Now, I just need to start creating content and working on the on-site SEO. My website was on Google’s 3rd-page result without me having to do any SEO optimization. Here’s a list of SEO optimization that Wix lets you do easily. You can optimize the SEO for all your pages without having to hire an SEO expert. For every step you get a guided snippet to do the task yourself. Flexible Editor What sets Wix apart from the other competitors is the Editor. You just have to drag and drop text and boxes to get it done. You can even preview the site on mobile and tablet version to see how the layout functions. And the best thing? You can change layouts easily. This is great if you want to update your website design without having to go through the whole process of hiring a designer or a development team. With hundreds of layouts to choose from, you’ll have plenty of fun. Some of the best features of the editor that I love are: A host of functions to choose from. Forms, social buttons, interactive elements, video & music options, whatever you need to get your site running, Wix has it. Directly add apps into the website from the Wix Store (some apps are paid) Easily embed custom codes in the site for optimal performance Plenty of color, font, theme, options to customize your theme Overall, Wix is a great option for solo consultants like me who don’t want to spend 5-digits on a website. With everything in one place, I can easily experiment with my needs and wants to decide what tech stack I absolutely need. Here’s the final result of my website. Now, to the pros and cons. The Pros: Solid DIY website builder with great speed & features Easy DIY with guided tutorials at every step of the way You can easily add/remove/fix functions and features as needed A complete business suite in one place so you don’t have to use additional plugins or tools The Cons Site themes need more improvement and variety Business suite tools are very limited if you’re on the free Ascend plan This means if you ever want to move to another platform like WordPress, you’ll have to start from scratch You can’t transfer your site. Mobile responsive may have issues. I had to spend a lot of time adjusting spacing & text positions so it could look as good on mobile To Use or Not to Use? → If you want a quick website, don’t have the time, or budget to invest in a website right now, $100 for the Premium plan is good money to build a functional website in a day. → Not for people who have specific design or functionality requirements that can only be done through custom coding. Envato Themes for Presentations & Mockups Envato has literally been a lifesaver for the many times I’ve had to design pitch decks and presentations without having access to a designer. Let me note here that you can make great presentation decks on Canva too, but you’ll have to spend a lot of time adjusting designs and shapes. The easy way out for me is to buy an Envato presentation deck (you don’t need to purchase an individual deck if you have an Envato account) and use Canva to create images that I then add into the Envato deck. With over 6,000 presentation decks categorized into PowerPoint, KeyNotes, and Google Slides, you’re not short on options. Each deck has around 40 slides that you can use to represent your data. And every Envato presentation deck that I’ve used for clients and for myself has received stellar responses. From presentations for a solar business to a laundry business, and to an NFT project, you get EVERYTHING. Here’s one solar presentation deck that I used. All I had to do in this was replace the text and images that I had created on Canva. This presentation template won me an extended contract from the client! With one Envato account, you can get access to stock videos, images, logos, graphic templates, presentations, audios, and much more. Personally, I find the stock images to be very limited but I loved the slide templates and vector icons for every industry under the sun. The Pros 6,000+ templates Everything you need for graphics Easy to use templates that come for both Mac/Windows One account at $16.50/month to get it all You can also purchase individual items if you don’t want an account The Cons Some designs may be too outdated. You’ll have to search for modern designs Stock images are quite limited Images used in the slides are not provided There’s no lifetime membership so if you don’t use it for more than one time, it could be an expensive deal to renew the account every month To Use or Not to Use? → Use if you don’t have a designer on hand and need to send out pitch decks with stock images and vector icons that you can download. → Don’t use if you want detailed customization and a unique design. Overall, Envato has been great every time I needed to pull off a presentation. Sure I would have to spend hours perfecting it, but with some decks having over 100 slides to choose from, I get more variety in how I present information. You’ll still have to use tools like Canva to create custom graphics and animations for the deck, but rest assured, once you’re able to do this, you wouldn’t need to hire a designer! Other Great DIY Branding Tools for Early Starters & Consultants A list of other favorite tools: plugin to capture complete web page and PDF screenshots. Great for showcasing your web portfolio instead of sharing links. GoFullPage for recording tutorial videos, screen videos, and demos. Loom for landing page and email automation Unbounce for AHMAZING public domain pictures Unsplash for creating stock videos Lumen5 for one-pager CVs About.me for digital letterheads, business cards, and other essentials Canva And there you go! Over the past 6 months, I’ve been using a plethora of tools (some free, some paid) to get most of my branding done. In the coming year though, as I am able to understand my brand identity better, I will be investing in a professional website that will host a community, a job portal, and much more. When you’re just starting out, it doesn’t make sense to spend tens of thousands on designs and branding materials where there are so many free options out there that can help you kickstart your business. Any more tools that you think I should try out? Let me know!

How I Created My Digital Branding For Less than $500

The zkEVM project is both great and huge, which cannot be actualized correctly by any single team. It requires the collaboration and hard work of multiple great teams in this industry. Since there is no mature design for reference, all are exploring ways to realize it. The related articles published by Sin7Y Labs only represent our understanding of the zkEVM design, which is not guaranteed to be completely correct. We sincerely hope and desire to communicate with those professionals, learn from each other and get improvement to move forward together. In the article , we have a preliminary analysis and comparison of the frameworks of zkEVM designs by Hermez, MatterLabs, AppliedZKP, and Sin7Y. One thing they have in common is to deal with the execution process of EVM separately, including logic calculation, state reading, etc. The following figure shows the general procedure of zkEVM: Exploring Popular zkEVM Solutions As shown in Figure 1, when an overall process is separated and processed separately, it is necessary to ensure: The data between each part is consistent. For example, the data involved in the logic calculation is the same as the data in the state read/write; The order of the executed op is completely consistent with the logic of the contract to ensure the correctness of the program executed; The logic calculation is correct, including Add, Mul, Sub, etc. Because in the current Rollups scheme (which has specific circuits and is not compatible with EVM), the logic of the contract is written in the circuit, there is no need for PROVER to prove the correctness of the executed contract logic; while in zkEVM, the circuit contains only one op, and the logic of the contract often has multiple ops, which are executed in a certain order. We need to confirm that the order of this execution is consistent with the contract. For better understanding, we call the functions described in 1) and 2) state proof and in 3) EVM proof: State Proof proves that the implementation procedure is correct; State Proof proves that the operations of stack, memory, and storage are correct; EVM Proof proves that the input, output, and operational logic are correct. All of the above three requirements can be achieved by using Plookup technology (as shown in Figure 1). For the introduction of the principle of Plookup technology, please refer to the previous article . Simply put, it is to prove that the set f € t, and the element in f appears at least once in t. Plookup: An Algorithm Widely Used in zkEVM State Proof - 1: Ensure Execution of Right Procedures When a contract is deployed in the layer 2 EVM, the bytecode will be stored in the Storage (for simplicity, we first consider the scenario of one contract, and multiple contracts can be distinguished according to the contract address); then the user initiates a transaction and calls a method in the contract (as shown in 1 and 2 in Figure 1), and the EVM will match the method when the contract is deployed according to the method signature. Once matched, the EVM will execute the corresponding logic according to the method matched and the parameters passed in by the user, and form the final execution trace (The entire execution traces). However, there may be a problem. As mentioned earlier in the article, the specific circuit corresponds to a specific function in the rollup scheme of a specific circuit, so the correctness of the function has been guaranteed by the circuit and has been audited and disclosed by security companies. Therefore, Verifier only needs to hold the corresponding input and output to verify whether the data meets the circuit function; however, in the zkEVM design, the circuit only restricts the correct execution of the single-layer base opcode, but the order among opcodes cannot be guaranteed. For example, zkEVM's circuit can only guarantee the correctness of Add Op and Mul Op, but "from Add Op to Mul Op" and "from Mul Op to Add Op" can lead to completely different results. We need to ensure that their order is consistent with the contract itself. Therefore, we should use Plookup technology to ensure that the op sequence executed by the prover is consistent with that in the contract. This part refers to the principles and ideas of . Importantly, if the calculation logic of the contract is very complicated, then the Table may take up a lot of memory space. Thus some means should be used to optimize the number of these instructions, such as replacing the Stack operation with Register, but this will increase modifications to the compiler. Hermez Another way to achieve this is to use the Merkel Tree to prove it. As shown in Figure 2 below (Please note that extra fees may incur if you choose this scheme.): A ZK-friendly hash is needed to implement this process to minimize the scale of this part of the circuit. (It can also be verified by . Compared with the Merkel tree, it can judge the existence of elements faster, and it can also realize batch verification.) Accumulator based on Class group State Proof - 2: Ensure Usage of Right Data As described previously, when the EVM matches the corresponding function based on the function signature, a real execute trace is formed according to the parameters input by the user. As shown in the middle part of Figure 1, the complete Trace includes stack operations, memory operations, storage operations, and some Arithmetic calculation operations. If one circuit is used to prove, then this circuit needs to prove: The validity of the Stack operation, the scope limitations of the sp (stack pointer) value, the operation type limit (write/read), etc. The validity of the Memory operation, the pc value limit of the same address (monotonically increasing), the operation type limit (write/read), etc. The validity of the Storage operation. The accuracy of the Arithmetic operation. … This will be a complex and huge circuit. Therefore, we need to make a functional segmentation. The function of one circuit is to ensure the validity of data read/write operations. State circuits can be divided into stack circuits, memory circuits, and storage circuits based on the type of Memory operation. The other circuit guarantees that these read/write values are correctly calculated (Add, Mul, Sub…), and ensures that the value involved in the mathematical calculation is consistent with the first circuit, as shown in Figure 1. Therefore, a cache is needed, namely Busmapping, where valid stack data, memory data, and storage data are stored. When performing mathematical calculations, we need to verify that the value involved in the calculation is stored in Busmapping. For example, when performing the Add operation (a + b = c), we need to verify that a, b, and c are all stored in bus mapping (the plookup technology is still used here) and then verify whether they satisfy the addition relationship (we can use addition circuit + Lookup table, or we can also use Lookup table alone. The lookup table of the first method is used to verify the validity of the data, and the lookup table of the second method is used to verify the validity of the data and the correctness of the calculation. Two options can be selected according to the actual calculation type.) It should be noted that after the transaction is executed, the storage value of the corresponding location has been updated, but the new state root has not. We need to write this value into bus mapping after calculating the new state root and generate the corresponding circuit to prove the correctness of the new state root update. EVM Proof: Ensure Execution of Correct Calculations In the process of State proof, the data needed for the EVM circuit has been stored in the shared bus mapping cache. As mentioned above, the EVM proof needs to ensure the validity of the inputs, i.e., the data for its operation comes from bus mapping; the correctness of the calculation of the arithmetic op, i.e., the input data satisfies the operational logic of Add, Mul, Sub, etc. Take Add as an example. The pseudo-code is shown below, where va, vb, and vc refer to the addend, the augend, and the sum. Before checking whether va, vb, and vc satisfy the operational logic of addition, we need to make sure that they are from bus mapping and satisfy the 8-bit rang proof to ensure the data is valid. Summary As shown in Figure 1, we have designed several circuits. If the proof of each circuit is placed in L1 for verification, the cost of verification will be very high. However, we can use Aggregative proof to aggregate multiple Proofs together. Only one pairing is required on the chain to verify the validity of all proofs. This article describes how zkEVM works. Meanwhile, there are still details that are not involved, which require further research. As our design of zkEVM is in an early stage, we sincerely hope to receive suggestions/opinions from industry professionals to accomplish this task.

Plookup with zkEVM: A Brief Introduction to How zkEVM Works

The Voting system is a core component of any (DAO) regardless of its complexity and number of participants. Despite massive interest in this area, fully decentralized and secure (therefore trustworthy) on-chain votings are still hard to implement. Decentralized Autonomous Organization There are two key problems: Sybil attack resilience — it is hard to keep track of valid voters. Cost-effectiveness (if we manage to fix problem #1) — not all voters are interested to pay high fees in order to declare their opinion. In this article, I want to present my solution to this case. This solution provides a level of security that is enough to automate critical decision-making in any DAO such as automatic protocol modification or even automatic smart-contract upgrade done in a completely decentralized manner. Task definition Let’s assume we need to implement a voting system that has to satisfy these requirements: voters can only or a voting topic; ACCEPT REJECT voters vote by their voting power (weight) based on the number of tokens they possess; voting can be “executed“ — that will lead to some critical change in another part of our dapp (imaginary, in this article); voting can only be “executed” after it expires and only if the majority of voters -ed it; ACCEPT no token lock during votings. Also, this voting system should be completely decentralized: there is no admin; any token holder is able to start a voting; any token holder is able to vote; any token holder is able to “execute” a voting. The Problem If we naively implement this like “check the caller’s token balance and if they did not vote yet — add the balance to or counters” that just won’t work. ACCEPTED REJECTED We see that a malicious token holder would easily overcome such a voting system. All they need to do is simply vote once, transfer the token to another address and then vote again. They can repeat this process until they reach the desired voting outcome. Our votings lost their trustworthiness and we no longer able to perform critical on-chain actions autonomously — this will lead to the inevitable death of our dapp. This situation when an actor uses unlimited identities to gain an advantage over a system is called a . It looks very simple at a first glance, but the more we think of a solution, the more we get confused. Sybil attack “Omg, just provide a list of every token holder’s address and balance when you create a voting, this is easy!” — we think This looks like a valid idea — if we should somehow prevent users from making many identities, we could restrict them to stick with a single identity during a voting event. There are two questions: This list can theoretically become huge, how do we handle this? Who should supply the list into our voting system? Analysis Now when we know what questions exactly we have to answer in order to proceed, let’s do a little of software architecture analysis. 1. The list can become huge EVM is pricy (especially with 1200 USD per 1 ETH exchange rate), this means our code should be very compact and performant if we want someone to even touch our dapp. We also can’t operate large datasets (like our potential list), because this can lead to complete of the voting system (if there is more computation to perform over that list, that a single block can handle). DoS Let’s imagine this solidity function (uint = ; < voters. ; ++) {
        require(token.balanceOf(voters[ ]) > ); 
    }
    createVotingObj(voters, duration, description);
} { function startVoting (
    address[] calldata voters, 
    uint duration, 
    string calldata description
) external for i 0 i length i i 0 It takes a set (technically, a list — we have to manually check if there are any repetitions) of voters, checks that all of them have something in their wallets, and creates a state entry with these addresses and their corresponding balances. It is obvious that this function doesn’t scale and could require a huge amount of gas if there are many voters. Looks like a “list” won’t work here — we need something else. 2. Someone should supply this information into our voting system This can’t be done by us — this would mean that our dapp is centralized. This also can’t be done by someone else, because we have no way to (and we shouldn’t), validate this data. Look at the function above once again — nothing stops a malicious user from making an “exclusive” voting play, where only a little subset of token holders would be able to vote. This information also can’t be retrieved from the token itself. Balances in ERC tokens are stored inside a mapping mapping( uint256) balances; => address and mappings in EVM are implemented in a way that doesn’t let us . So there is no way to know addresses that have a non-zero balance. iterate over its keys Looks like this information should come from somewhere else. 3. Conclusion A key to the solution lies in obtaining a method to “freeze” balances at some point in time and then use this snapshot to validate any voter. This method should be cheap and autonomous (so voters couldn’t take any advantage of it). That way there is no need for users to stick to some identity — it will work out of the box. We need to have on-chain access to the balance history of any account holding the token. The solution To make it cheap we should write our solidity code in a gradual fashion — when no bulk reads/writes are performed and only a little portion of data is modified per transaction. So, it looks like our only way is to update the balance history on-chain every time the token moves. Let’s do this. Let’s assume that we’ve chosen implementation as a base for our token. OpenZeppelin’s ERC777 This implementation of ERC777 provides a hook-function that makes it easier to explain and present the idea, but if our goal is cost-effectiveness we might want to keep it minimal and implement this logic on top of ERC20. This is a little harder (we’ll have to alter original ERC20 methods) but still pretty trivial. Now we want to take advantage of ERC777 hook, like this _beforeTokenTransfer() _beforeTokenTransfer(
    address , 
    address , 
    address , 
    uint256 amount
) override 
    virtual 
{ ( != Utils.EMPTY_ADDRESS) {
        updateAccountHistory( , balanceOf( ).sub(amount));
    } ( != Utils.EMPTY_ADDRESS) {
        updateAccountHistory( , balanceOf( ). (amount));
    }
    super._beforeTokenTransfer( , , , amount);
} /**
 * Using openzeppelins hook to update history on every change
*/ function operator from to internal if from from from if to to to add operator from to This hook is automatically executed every time tokens move: on transfer(), send(), mint() and burn(). That is exactly what we need, so we just update the balance history each time it fires. Account history is just an array of records {        
    uint256 timestamp;        
    uint256 balance;    
} // notice, we can optimize it to only use a single slot struct BalanceSnapshot which we store for each account of this token mapping( BalanceSnapshot[]) balanceSnapshots; => address But how exactly do we update it? We just check if the last snapshot was done in the same block or not. If it is, we override it with a new balance value (to only store a most recent snapshot per one block), otherwise, we just make a new snapshot and add it to the end of the history. Now, when we have a balance history of each account accessible on-chain, we can implement the main function of this contract — . This function returns us a balance of any account at any moment in time. Inside this function, we take advantage of the linear nature of the balance history (it is sorted by timestamp by default) and use a binary search to find a snapshot that we need. balanceAt() But what if the balance history of a particular token holder becomes too big? In this case, the token holder can call , that will remove their complete balance history except for the last snapshot if there is one. This is still secure for our voting system — soon we’ll see why. clearAccountHistory() Here is the complete GIST of our fancy token. Let’s continue on our quest for beauty, gentlemen. Next we need to implement our voting system smart-contract itself. The idea is simple: every time we need a voter to prove their token possession we use instead of . For each existing voting the contract should store some timestamp that represents a moment in time from when it is legitimate to put votes. This exact timestamp we would use to check . If at this timestamp a voter was holding some tokens ( returns non-zero), they are allowed to vote. token.balanceAt() token.balanceOf() balanceAt balanceAt There is also a little caveat here. Our token works perfectly fine with past events, but is bad when it comes to present or future events. Never rely on balanceAt in future and in a current block — this action can be manipulated by an attacker. Our voting system smart-contract stores votings in structs NONE, ACCEPT, REJECT    
} uint256 myTokenTotalSupplySnapshot;
    uint256 createdAt;        
    uint256 duration;        
    uint256 totalAccepted;        
    uint256 totalRejected;        
    bool executed;        
    string description;        
    mapping(address => VoteStatus) voteByAccount;    
} { enum VoteStatus { struct VotingDetails In this article, we keep it simple, but in a real-world example in order to change some protocol parameters, we might want to also add them to this struct and store them on-chain transparently. The smart-contract also has 3 next functions: that just stores a new struct in the state; startVoting() that checks voters and applies it to the result; vote() balanceAt that can be invoked only after duration pass. executeVoting() Here’s the complete GIST of our smart-contract This complete code might seem big, but if we think carefully we can clearly see that almost all of it is the actual voting protocol, not permission checking. If we consider our voting contract as a client code for the token contract, it becomes obvious that we’re only using a single function from it and all this good stuff comes for free. And that’s all we need to reach our goal. These two contracts completely satisfy our requirements. Our voting system is completely decentralized — any DAO can make decisions even if there is no maintainer. This function is super-cheap — it takes less than to vote (with gas price). Basically, we spread it’s cost and complexity over the entire lifecycle of the dapp, without compromising security. vote() 0.01 ETH 100 GWEI How can we possibly break it? I don’t know. If an attacker would try the old trick “vote -> transfer -> vote again” it just won’t work, because the voting system doesn’t care about future — it only operates with a snapshot of the balance history. Any scheme with is also a failure, because the voting system will interpret a clean history as zero-balance and won’t let this voter to participate current voting anymore. Just don’t forget to check for current block and everything should be fine. clearAccountHistory() Current block check is important because during a current block an attacker can still perform “vote -> transfer -> vote again” technique. Imagine we started a voting, but forget to check current block timestamp in the function. This means that if someone immediately votes (in the same block), our voting contract will use the most recent balance history snapshot for it’s computations. But this snapshot is not finished yet! It can still change during this block and we can’t be confident about it. vote() It is easy to see that this voting system can be modified to implement scheme or to implement an ability to . 1 account = 1 vote re-vote This pattern (token with on-chain history) can be also used in any other protocol with similar requirements — for example, dividends distribution based on token shares. Here is a link to a github repo that contains this exact voting system covered with tests, so you could play with it for better understanding. https://github.com/seniorjoinu/solidity-cheap-voting I believe, this technique can be used in any other blockchain platform and I hope it was useful and interesting for you.

I Built An Ethereum-based Fully Decentralized Voting System

What are lead form ads? There was a time when the only way to get leads from digital advertising was to use a landing page. That meant time and money spent in designing and building a landing page before you could even run your ads. Now there are a growing number of channels (Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat) where you can run lead form ads that collect the prospects’ details directly from within the ad. Read on to find out if lead form ads could work for you. How lead form ads work All lead form ads work in a similar way. The prospect clicks on your ad and is shown a form without leaving the site or app. For most of the social networks this form is prefilled with the prospect’s details such as name and email address, leaving the user only to complete any additional form fields. Once the form is submitted their details are either stored in the ad system for you to download later or, if configured, sent directly to your CRM or other solution. How to use lead form ads Lead form ads are ideal for businesses of all kinds that want to capture leads at the top of the funnel for follow up by sales or by an email drip campaign. Typical uses include: Early access to new product/service Email newsletter signups Webinar signups Offers and promotions Lead magnet (info) Competitions Request a quote or sample Lead form ads are designed to minimize the friction for the lead to complete the form so it’s best to keep both the offer and the form as simple as possible. Resist the temptation to promote complex products or services, or ask for too many details. Keep the offer simple, and the number of form fields to the minimum. Lead form ads vs landing pages Setting up and managing landing pages is both expensive and time consuming. In addition to landing page design and development costs already mentioned, you should also be tracking conversions accurately (sometimes harder than it should be) and running landing page variation tests to improve performance. And unless you are already an experienced digital marketer, you will need to pay someone to set up and manage your landing pages for you. You may also decide you need a dedicated landing page solution like Unbounce or LeadPages, so you could end up paying a software subscription as well. In contrast, designing and building a lead form ad is quick and easy. And conversion rates are tracked accurately because leads never leave the site or app. Plus you can still experiment to improve conversion rate by testing different ad variants. Where can I run lead form ads? Facebook Instagram Google Search YouTube LinkedIn Snapchat Facebook Lead Ads With 2.4 billion monthly active users Facebook is still the biggest social media network, and your best bet for running low cost lead generation ads for B2C and even for some B2Bs. and can also be used with , making them ideal for converting browsers of specific products or services into identified leads. Facebook lists , including most popular CRMs and marketing automation platforms. Facebook lead ads are available across all devices dynamic ads more than 600 third party solutions that can be connected to lead ads Facebook Lead ads overview How to set up a Facebook Lead Ad Instagram Lead Form Ads You can target Instagram’s 1 billion monthly active users with lead ads in much the same way as Facebook. However, Instagram lead form ads don’t show on desktop, which is unlikely to cause much of a problem given that the vast majority of users are on mobile. There are also some , such as no support for dynamic ads. form field limitations on Instagram that Facebook doesn’t have How to set up an Instagram Lead Form Ad Google Search Lead Form Extension I only learned of the Google Search Lead Form Extension a few weeks ago as it appears to still be in beta and not yet available in all ad accounts. As the name implies, you add the extension to your Google Search campaigns in the same way you would add sitelinks or callouts. Before you get too excited though, I have to tell you that the lead form extension currently only works on iOS and Android mobile devices and tablets, so you can forget capturing leads from desktop searches, smart TVs or any other operating systems. While there may be good technical reasons for this, in my opinion it makes lead form extensions of limited use for now. Despite what Google may say on the subject, I still find that the best leads come from desktop searches and not mobile. Leads can be downloaded in CSV format from the Google ad manager within 30 days. In truth any leads would be stone cold dead by then anyway! Google currently lacks the easy connectivity with CRMs and other software enjoyed by Facebook. Instead, you have to work with a developer to set up a . Alternatively, check out , a solution that offers no-code third party integrations for Google lead form ads. webhook integration LeadsBridge As is to be expected, Google . prohibits the use of lead form extensions with ads promoting adult, alcohol, gambling, healthcare, medicines or political topics How to set up an Google Search Lead Form Ad YouTube Lead Forms in Video Campaigns YouTube is often overlooked as both a social network and ad platform. However, there is no ignoring its 1.9 billion users – surpassed only by Facebook. YouTube lead forms are available as an option in ‘Trueview for Action’ campaigns, and they share all the device limitations of their Google search ads counterpart. Just to make sure you are really serious, YouTube also insists on a minimum previous spend of US$50,000 or equivalent in your ad account. As with Google search ads, YouTube lead form ads require a cumbersome or other third party system. Again, has this covered if you need a simpler solution. webhook integration for transferring leads to your CRM LeadsBridge How to set up an YouTube Lead Form Ad LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms While LinkedIn may ‘only’ have 330 million monthly active users its ad audience targeting is second to none, allowing you to slice and dice by countless demographic and professional criteria. However, costs are high and response rates are low when compared to Google Search or Facebook. But if you’re targeting B2B and you can put an educational spin on your lead gen efforts, then lead generation forms run in either sponsored content or message ads might just work for you. As with the other networks, you can download leads from the ad platform manually. Linkedn also integrates with a small selection of CRMs and other systems, although . The good news is that , an API connector for a wide range of software solutions, is included. My advice would be to get the leads first and worry about integration when the scale of the problem warrants it. not all third party systems are supported equally Zapier How to set up a LinkedIn Lead Form Ad Snapchat Auto-fill for Web View Strictly speaking, Snapchat lead form feature is actually a landing page. It works like this: when you click on the ad the Snapchat browser opens the landing page and attempts to autofill your details into a specifically crafted landing page that must meet Snapchats’ Web View specification. However, because you never leave the app, it feels like a native experience. The Auto-fill option currently only works with single image or video adverts How to set up an Snapchat Lead Form Ad Platforms where you can’t run lead form ads Twitter Lead Generation Card Twitter removed its lead generation card feature at the end of 2016. It seems the format was inconsistent with Twitter’s other ad formats and failed to deliver the performance marketers had hoped for. Now you have to use website cards and send visitors to a landing page instead. I think it would make a lot of sense for Twitter to update and relaunch its lead generation ad format, as there seems to be increasing demand for it. Reddit, Pinterest and WhatsApp? Despite their large user bases, Reddit, Pinterest and WhatsApp don’t currently offer lead generation ads with forms. I wouldn’t be surprised to see lead form ads roll out in the next 12 months across all three platforms. Which works best, landing page or lead form ads? Whether lead form ads or landing pages work best will depend on your situation. , you are likely to experience a higher volume of leads from a lead form ad but they may be of a lower quality than those typically captured by a landing page. The reason for this might be that a lead form does not provide enough information for prospects to ‘de-qualify’ themselves whereas prospects viewing a detailed landing page have a lot more information to assess their suitability for the offer. According to WordStream My experience to date has been running lead magnet promotions for SaaS products. I typically see leads of a similar quality to landing page prospects but at a reduced cost per lead. For this reason alone I would recommend testing lead form ad variations alongside any campaign which uses a landing page. Time to experiment with lead form ads? It’s over to you to explore the opportunities presented by lead form ads for yourself. If you’re promoting a B2C/D2C product or service, try Facebook first because of its large audience and low cost. Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube are also worth experimenting with for this audience type. For B2B products or services, LinkedIn is your best bet. However, Facebook and Google Search Lead Extension ads will probably have a lower cost per lead (CPL) as LinkedIn advertising can be expensive. If you are a SaaS or subscription based company looking for help to get started with lead form ads, please . get in touch Photo credit: . Andy Morffew Previously published at https://www.47insights.com/blog/lead-form-ads/

Lead Form Ads: How To Get Leads Without Landing Pages

is a multi-disciplined international holding company specializing in the creation of high-tech products in the telecommunications field, as well as decentralized and distributed services. We talked with ENCRY’s founder Roman Nekrasov and the technical director Andrei Chmora about the implication of blockchain in the telecom industry and how ENCRY’s developments can drastically improve the security of users on the Internet. ENCRY - How did you start working with decentralized technologies? : Cryptography has been in the field of my scientific interests since the beginning of the 90s. Prior to that, I was working with algebraic codes and was partially in touch with tasks that were related to cryptography, but directly I began to deal with this issue in the 90s. The first surge of interest in cryptography arose in the world at that time due to the development of payment systems and electronic cash, but it was Satoshi Nakamoto, who later managed to formalize the existing technologies into one coherent system. For its time, it became unique because it managed to create a consistent concept and apply well-known cryptographic solutions correctly. At that time, I was working with cryptographic technologies in the field of cybersecurity and still was interested in peer-to-peer payment systems. Andrei Chmora Roman Nekrasov: Speaking about our main project - in the field of telecommunications - EncryptoTel, it has grown on the basis of many years of our experience in this and related fields. Having graduated in information technology, I worked in the IT sphere for several years, this experience includes the position of technical director of one of the major VoIP providers. It was there when I clearly saw how traditional businesses and call centers are “moving” to the Internet, how competitive telecommunications infrastructure helps companies effectively optimize their routine tasks and significantly save money. However, I also noticed how vulnerable were the telecom systems that existed at that time. It was interesting for me to figure out how to make communication on the Internet more reliable and accessible to a wide range of users. How to do so in order to maintain the convenience of virtual PBX with its extensive functionality for business, while sending information in the safest possible way? At the beginning of 2012, I simultaneously got intrigued by how Bitcoin mining is organized and the blockchain technology itself, took part in discussions at specialized forums and even assembled mining farms myself. Having fully studied the technology itself, inspired by the concept of decentralized and reliable applications, the idea of ​​the ENCRY project was born, which eventually became the cradle of several developments at once. - One of your proprietary technologies is the Decentralized Public Key Infrastructure (DPKI), which aims to replace the existing PKI. Why change anything? : Interaction on the Internet always involves the transfer of data. We are all interested in ensuring that data is transmitted in a secure manner. For this, methods of asymmetric cryptography or cryptography with a public key are typically used. Asymmetric cryptography methods are actively used by most resources working with personal data and payment information. For example, banks, insurance companies, airlines, payment systems, as well as government service portals such as the tax office. A. Chmora But the current public key infrastructure is vulnerable because of its centralization. Trusted certification authorities (CAs) are responsible for the distribution and maintenance of digital certificates. But for a couple of decades of using digital certificates, there have been several cases where CAs have been compromised. Unconditional trust to the CA is expected from users, but is it possible to trust someone whose work in fact cannot be verified in any way? Our proposal is to leave behind the centralized infrastructure and store information about public keys in a distributed registry. Let us explain schematically what the essence of the proposal is. The public key, together with metadata, is presented in the form of a specialized transaction, which is placed in the pool as well as all other transactions. Then the transaction is being processed from the pool and, after making a positive decision on the result of the checks, it is saved in the registry entry. All such transactions belonging to a single owner are linked in a chain. Anyone who has access to registry entries can verify connectivity and thereby establish the ownership of the public key. Note that the digital signature mechanism is also involved in the verification. The very first transaction in the chain, or "anchor", plays the role of an identification document and indicates the owner. All subsequent transactions are tied to this anchor one by one as they become available. : If we talk about the fundamental difference, then this is a classic example of contrast between centralization and decentralization. The main drawback of centralized systems, whether it is an infrastructure of public keys or something else, is a single point of attack. Any centralized system is vulnerable to attacks, not only from hackers, but also vulnerable to corruption, political lobbying. And if the system is vulnerable, then it will easily lose users trust if a successful attack is committed. R. Nekrasov Decentralization helps to avoid these shortcomings and build trust among users in the decision-making process without trust between the participants themselves, that is, in a trustless environment. - But how is the user identity resolved? In the current infrastructure registration centers are responsible for public keys. If there were none, wouldn’t this lead to complete chaos with identification? : If we talk about identification, then there is a direct connection with the problem of falsification of credentials for the purpose of impersonification. Note that this problem belongs to the fundamental category. A full-fledged solution does not exist due to informational-theoretical reasons - without the availability of reliable ‘a priori’ information, it is impossible to confirm or deny the subjects authenticity. Both in centralized infrastructure and in decentralized, this problem is equally relevant. Registration centers are now verifying credentials using a set of identity documents. It is clear that everything here depends on how much the presented documents are protected, but, as you know, solutions that provide a 100% guarantee of reliability do not exist. In terms of decentralized infrastructure, members of a distributed community can perform the same function. Although at first glance this approach may seem less reliable than the current rules, in practice we see how the community actively and very successfully identifies people. For example, in 2018, were able to find the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Africa in which civilians died, as well as determine when and where exactly the crime occurred. A. Chmora BBC journalists In short, the problem of identification as it was and still remains, is simply solved in a different way. The proposed method is neither better nor worse. Just different. - You propose building a decentralized infrastructure of public keys on a blockchain of your own design - ENCRY. Why? Aren’t there too many blockchains in the world? : The main requirement for the registry is the ability to form transactions of any type. The Bitcoin network, for example, lacks the necessary mechanisms for processing arbitrary data sets. The ENCRY blockchain uses its own interpretation of the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus. We chose the PoW algorithm, because we believe that it is better than many other consensus algorithms in protecting the network from attacks. We also decided to create our own proprietary programming language Prism, which provides the flexibility we need when solving various technological problems. For example, it helps to better calculate the complexity of the script until it is launched and this helps to filter out excessively heavy scripts and not overload the network. R. Nekrasov - And how do you use blockchain technology in telecommunication services? : As I have already said, confidentiality, communication security, privacy are the main vulnerabilities that I see on telecom platforms. Our development EncryptoTel is a virtual public branch exchange (PBX) with an increased level of confidentiality, which can be achieved thanks to cryptographic and distributed methods. For example, if you store payment information in the blockchain, users will be able to forget about situations when their accounts were suddenly bloated due to the application of hidden and unnecessary services. Just a few days ago, we launched a beta test of the secure messenger. The messenger is designed for anonymous messaging between clients through a distributed network of nodes with multi-level encryption of outgoing and incoming messages. This is a truly anonymous messenger, and it is not like the currently existing services, which use the words "cryptography" and "privacy" only as advertisement. I think that it is hardly possible to achieve real privacy without decentralization. R. Nekrasov By the way, we are not trying to impose our blockchain for this project at all. Our software can integrate with nodes of other applications. We plan to integrate with many popular blockchain platforms soon. Accessibility and communication security is our common goal, and we are happy to share our ideas with the community. We have on how we propose the use of decentralized registry technology, and we invite the community to engage in a constructive discussion. recently published a detailed material

[Interview] Decentralization and Privacy in Telecommunications

The explosive growth of technology over the last decade has increased the need to deliver smart products through increasingly economical means. Therefore a growing number of buyers consider software outsourcing as an efficient way of embracing new technologies and ensuring their project does not run over the budget. Still, negative reviews on remote cooperation and outsourcing have influenced the opinions of many executives and consolidated a number of misconceptions in their minds. They avoid setting up remote partnerships as they expect them to fail. This, in turn, leads to substantial cost spendings on local experts. So is jumping on the outsourcing bandwagon a non-viable strategy? Or is it just one of the common misconceptions? Let’s find out. Outsourcing works for minor and low-profile functions only Some executives still hold to an opinion that outsourcing numerous functions is an ill-fated strategy which may lead to complete loss of control and business agility. Yet, the quality of software outsourcing services greatly depends on the specification of your provider. In this respect, outsourcing vendors generally fall within three categories: The first category comprises narrow-focus outsourcing companies which provide IT support and bug fixing services under a fixed price. The second encompasses providers which perform minor software development tasks and don’t get fully involved in the development process. The third category consists of premium IT outsourcing providers which engage top-level experts and act as business transformation and technology consulting partners for their clients. In case you are looking for a vendor which may help you close different technological gaps and foster innovation on your project, then the first two categories might not work for you. Opt for third category providers which focus on delivering value. Don’t hesitate to delegate important functions to your remote developers and allow them to act as your key innovation drivers on the project. Each member of your distributed team can bring a fresh vision to your project and help you generate effective solutions to common problems based on his diverse technological background. Outsourcing will compromise your security and software quality In the era of evolving cyber threats, information protection and software quality should lie at the core of every outsourcing agreement. Established software outsourcing providers are concerned about their market reputation and trustworthiness. That’s why they have with documented obligations and procedures in place. well-thought-out security policies To ensure you get the desired quality and your assets are shielded from intruders, adopt the following practices: Set the bar for quality and ensure your vendor follows the best coding practices and quality standards (coding conventions). Describe your product roadmap, requirements, and end goals in great details. Examine the security policies and ISO certifications of your potential outsourcing provider. Find out whether your partner had any security-related incidents and how he managed to solve them. Ensure that your outsourcing vendor has a developed incident response plan. Delineate the security responsibilities of your software outsourcing provider in your service agreement. Outsourcing makes you lose control over the process Some buyers still believe that outsourcing can lead to complete loss of control due to lack of ongoing face-to-face communication. However, the level of control outsourcing offers greatly depends on the you choose. cooperation model Project outsourcing In project outsourcing model, the control levers are mostly concentrated in the hands of your software development partner. He takes control of everything from high-level processes down to assessing the quality of resources in the team. The client usually gets involved in the process by reviewing software demos and providing feedback. However, the integration of internal processes and experts with distributed teams may be challenging to achieve under the project outsourcing model. IT outstaffing Whereas another popular cooperation model — IT outstaffing — implies active involvement from the client’s side. In this scenario, your technical provider acts as a facilitator while you have full control over the development process and team motivation. This model enables you to make final decisions regarding the responsibilities and line-up of your team and have direct access to developer retention and motivation mechanisms. Thus you can easily integrate your business culture and build commitment to common goals among your dedicated developers. Regardless of the model you chose, regular communication and exchange of feedback are fundamental. To facilitate efficient collaboration with your remote team, use separate tools for task tracking (e.g. Jira), continuous integration (Jenkins or TFS) and shared repositories (Gitlab, Github, Bitbucket or VSTS). These tools will help you track the team’s progress, reveal potential bottlenecks, and stay focused on continuous improvement. Afterword Overall, before drawing any assumptions based on negative experiences, try to investigate the market and see . Apparently, not all of the common beliefs regarding software outsourcing are true. Moreover, some of them are becoming obsolete as the IT outsourcing market continues to grow and develop dynamically day by day. While an increasing number of outsourcing providers are shifting their focus from simple execution to delivering real value to their clients. the other side of the coin

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LEAD COMPLETE

leadcomplete.co.uk

1-10 employees

Since 2021

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LEAD COMPLETE

EVERGREEN INDEX #6117

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