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Microsoft is planning a special event to unveil its vision for integrating AI into Windows, Microsoft 365, Surface, and more.

GRAYSCALE FILES FOR ETHER FUTURES ETF

VIVEK RAMASWAMY IS DRAFTING A 'CRYPTO POLICY FRAMEWORK'

AZTEC SANDBOX: THE ENDGAME FOR SMART CONTRACT PRIVACY

MIRROR: REALTIME ON-CHAIN DATA, SYNCED DIRECT TO DATABASE

Goldsky has launched Mirror, a data pipeline solution for real-time streaming of on-chain data to off-chain databases. Mirror allows developers to merge data from multiple chains into one repository, generate advanced dashboards, and effortlessly combine on-chain data with off-chain data. It provides broad support for various database connectors and is powered by Goldsky's indexing coverage on major EVM-compatible chains.

FUND SOLO ETHEREUM VALIDATOR NODE WITH IRA

UNI-LBP

Uni-LBP is a Uniswap v4 pool for tokens to be sold at a linearly decreasing price. It optimizes liquidity and selling pressure over time to ensure accurate price discovery and reduces bot effectiveness. Unique features include no initial capital requirements, capital efficiency, limit orders, and gas efficiency. To use, owners must initialize the pool with the PoolManager and approve the hook address to spend the bootstrapping token.

PART 2: THE FAT-FINGER

POKEMON CARD PACKS ON COURTYARD

ON ECO’S CUSTODIAL PRODUCT SHUTDOWN

THE METAVERSE

MICHEAL LEWIS’ BOOK ON SBF IS COMING OUT ON OCT 3

SOUTH KOREANS HOLD $99B OF DIGITAL ASSETS OVERSEAS: TAX SERVICE

This is the latest in a string of Paint renovations. On September 7, Windows introduced one-click background removal, which detects subjects and cuts them smoothly out of the canvas. The most recent update supports transparency too. You can open PNGs, use the background removal tool to create a transparent backdrop, and even use the eraser tool to reveal content in layers underneath.

BARD CAN NOW CONNECT TO YOUR GOOGLE APPS AND SERVICES

Bard can now find and show relevant information from the Google tools we use every day — Gmail, Docs, Drive, Maps, YouTube, Flights, and Hotels — even when the information needed is across multiple apps and services. Integration with other Google apps will make using Bard a more seamless experience, always at users’ fingertips, ready to help.

MEDIA APP

A new "Home" tab will improve content discoverability, helping users by providing entry to an exciting universe of stories, ideas, and people on Substack. The platform will also feature a swipeable queue of cards with posts from the user's subscriptions. The overall look and feel of Substack has also been changed, making it more similar to a social network app.

HOW TO BUILD INTENTIONAL UX IN AN ERA OF PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGY

Where does persuasive UX end and manipulative UX begin? How do we achieve long-term user engagement without it being exploitative? Adding the pre-action step to the Hook model could enable critical thinking by informing and preparing users before they take an intended action.

THE MISSING LINK IN APPLE’S EVENT

Features without context or direct application to the problems they solve are useless. Though the features introduced at Apple’s latest event were accompanied by demonstrations, such as through promotional videos on Apple’s website and snazzy snippets during the release conference, their direct application to the problems we face in our daily lives is missing. Building systems that “just work” is good for sales and for a narrow set of universally shared, preexisting, shallow problem domains, but it won’t make us better problem solvers.

MIDJOURNEY FOR UI DESIGN: PROMPTS, TIPS, AND ETHICS

Midjourney is a game-changer for inspiration, allowing designers to explore an entirely new creative landscape. It's essential to understand the tool to make it behave more predictably. This article dives into prompt design, important parameters, how image generations fit into the design process, and how to iterate on the results.

SHADERGRADIENT GENERATOR

A new tool to create beautiful, moving gradients with customizable shapes, colors, speed, and more. There is a web version, and plugins are available for Framer and Figma.

ICONBUNDLER

Upload zipped SVG icons and get optimized and ready-to-use framework components. Iconbundler can convert SVG into React, Vue, or Svelte components. It also comes with a Figma plugin.

TRACK YOUR COMPONENTS

Luro allows you to connect and sync components from Figma and Storybook. After syncing, you add the pages related to those components and track their adoption and usage stats.

CERTAINTY

Data-driven decision-making gets people into trouble for two reasons. The first is that we tend to put data on a pedestal, but then fail to think critically about how the data was generated and jump to conclusions. The second is that we’re asking the wrong questions. A decision-driven mindset should be adopted instead to lead with questions not answers, opportunities not solutions, challenges not consensus, dialog not arguments, and “I don’t know” instead of “I know.”

THE 20 MOST CONTROVERSIAL LOGOS OF ALL TIME

Hidden political messages. A logo that is loading forever. Body parts that should be hidden. Poor branding can be damaging... and funny.

THE MORNING ROUTINE OF THE OPTIMIZED CREATIVE

Sleep tracking is just the beginning. Check out this peculiar view of the near future, which shows how technology might empower the creatives of tomorrow.

WHY DESIGNERS QUIT

Survey for the 2023 “Why designers quit” report. Designer mass layoffs, AI disruption of the UX industry, high inflation worldwide… how did these factors impact designers and their careers?

THE CRAFT OF THE WEB

Craftsmanship seems to be forgotten in the age of templates and frameworks. Good craftspeople understand the medium they work with and how people use the thing that was built. This is a prerequisite for creating things that are functional and resilient.

THE POWER OF BRAND ARCHETYPES

Branding is not only about its visual representation. Defining a brand's identity is critical to giving it a soul, engaging its audience, and multiplying its message. The principles of brand archetype provide an effective way for achieving that and more.

BUSINESS VERIFICATION

Meta is now offering verification badges on Facebook and Instagram at a significantly lower cost than X's business verification service. The subscription for a single account on either platform will cost $21.99 per month, or $27.99 per month on mobile devices, compared to X's $1,000. The verification includes features like a blue checkmark badge, impersonation protection, premium customer support, and improved discoverability.

MICROSOFT ADVERTISING LAUNCHES NEW VIDEO AD PRODUCT

Microsoft launched a new video ad product, Video and Connected TV (CTV) ads, enabling businesses to create online video and CTV ad campaigns. The ads will be served across Microsoft's sites, publisher partners, and on connected TV in the US, with more publishers expected to be added as the product expands.

YOUTUBE’S CRACKDOWN ON AD BLOCKERS INTENSIFIES

YouTube has been showing ad blocker users more aggressive prompts that block the video player and warn them to either allow ads or subscribe to YouTube Premium. The company has been taking more measures against ad blockers to ensure its content creators are compensated for their work.

HOW CONTENT CAN VALIDATE YOUR NEXT PRODUCT IDEA

This post shares a unique approach to product development called “content-led product”. The approach helps validate ideas and organic traffic potential without building anything. This could be a potential tactic for SaaS companies where product building is expensive, marketing is often an afterthought, and survival depends on getting new users through the door as quickly as possible.

USE THE “EY, OH!” FRAMEWORK TO WRITE COPY THAT DRIVES ACTION

The “Ey, Oh!” framework entails skipping boring copy in favor of emotions and outcomes. Boilerplate CTAs and copy could be costing you conversions. For example, instead of “Read our resources” or “Sign up today,” use “Become a social media growth wizard” or “Start accelerating pipeline today.”

YOUR GUIDE TO CAC PAYBACK PERIOD

CAC payback period is a vital metric for startups and SaaS companies. It indicates how long it takes to recoup customer acquisition costs (CAC). A "good" CAC payback period varies based on target customers, with smaller companies aiming for <12 months, 100-120% net dollar retention (NDR) companies looking at 12-18 months, and high NDR companies having more flexibility. Factors such as R&D investment should be considered when calculating CAC payback, and a holistic view of efficiency metrics should be adopted.

This guide breaks down the reporting and attribution must-haves at the early and growth stages. In detail, it covers how to map your funnel and start tracking the right data, generate full-funnel reports with attribution, use reports to understand the impact of marketing activities, and turn this work into a bottoms-up forecast.

LEAH’S PRODUCT-MARKET FIT GUIDE 2.0

This guide, written by Leah Tharin who specializes in product-led growth, explains the concept of product-market fit, tools to find it, ways to measure it, and common misunderstandings around it.

TOP 6 GENERATIVE AI CERTIFICATIONS FOR MARKETERS

Generative AI is transforming content creation and customer experiences. This article explores 6 Gen-AI certifications from Microsoft, Google, Coursera, and LinkedIn.

H&M IS EXPANDING RETURN FEES FOR NON-LOYALTY MEMBERS

H&M is expanding its online return fee policy to more markets outside of the UK, including the US. The brand charges a fee on online returns, but only to customers who aren’t enrolled in its loyalty program. In-store returns will continue to be free. This is a strategy to increase loyalty signups and in-store traffic while also retaining more revenue from refunded items.

A CONVERSATION WITH TRUFF’S DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

Michelle Gabe used her past agency experience to land big brand collaborations with partners like Taco Bell and The Super Mario movie. She also revealed that many of Truff’s celebrity acknowledgments occurred organically or through carefully sent samples.

SHOULD WE PUBLISH PRICING ON OUR WEBSITE?

A quick think-piece on why B2B companies who claim to be customer-centric should publish pricing on their websites.

4 METRICS THAT SHOW WHETHER YOUR SMS STRATEGY WORKS

This post describes 4 metrics that factor into the LTV of a successful SMS program: acquisition rate, revenue per message, messages per subscriber, and retention rate.

NAILING PRODUCT POSITIONING

This post highlights 5 questions product marketers should ask before writing compelling product positioning and messaging.

INTRODUCING RUNES

Svelte is a web UI framework that uses a compiler to turn declarative component code into tightly optimized JavaScript that updates the document when state changes. In this article, Svelte talks about a future feature for the framework called “runes,” which are symbols that influence the Svelte compiler. Runes adds runtime reactivity to Svelte.

GET ALL THAT NETWORK ACTIVITY UNDER CONTROL WITH PRIORITY HINTS

There’s a lot of activity going on in a browser’s network tab. The browser is very good at prioritizing resource requests, but not always great. For example, a payment request should have higher priority over an analytics request, but the browser has no way of knowing this priority without explicit specification. Priority hints can be used to provide explicit instructions to decide which requests to favor over others when resources are limited. This article looks at how and when to use four different types of priority hints.

TRACING: STRUCTURED LOGGING, BUT BETTER IN EVERY WAY

It’s better to do tracing instead of logging. Tracing is more sophisticated than logging and it allows developers to have a better end-to-end view of a system. They allow for a better developer experience and better insights.

HOW TO DO A SUCCESSFUL HACKER NEWS LAUNCH

This article presents ten tips on creating a successful product launch on Hacker News. Although some tips are Hacker News-specific, such as adding specific prefixes to titles, most tips are relevant for creating product launch posts in general. There are many examples of how to word your post to reach your audience effectively, what exactly to write about, and what to avoid.

RECRUITERS WARN AGAINST OVERUSE OF AI TOOLS SUCH AS CHATGPT TO WRITE RESUMES

Jobseekers are using artificial intelligence tools to write resumes and cover letters. Recruiters are urging applicants to avoid this or else risk missing out on their dream role.

WEBKIT FEATURES IN SAFARI 17.0

Safari 17.0 is now available for both iOS 17 and iPadOS 17. It will be released to macOS on Sep 26th. The update introduces several new features, such as support for a search element, built-in popover attribute support for overlays and tooltips, new CSS features, Javascript APIs like storage, offscreen canvas, and support for JPEG XL.

ADA

Ada is a fast and spec-compliant URL parser written in C++. It is a magnitude faster than competitors like CURL.