Internet Week New York

Celebrating the NYC tech community and technology's impact on business, entertainment and culture.

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We’ve Moved!

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Don’t despair - we just moved our blog over here. Please follow us there to keep up with Internet Week and all of its techy goodness. 

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Register now!

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Google launches “Made w/ Code” initiative to encourage girls to code w/ film featuring mentor & GA grad Maddy Maxey!

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“The definition of ‘hack’ has recently morphed and I’m really happy about that. The the term is no longer like back in my dad’s day – four dudes in a dark basement, like in that cheesy movie Hackers. David Lee of SV Angel actually wanted us to change [Tech@NYU’s] name to Hack@NYU - he was like, you need to change what that word means to society. To hack means to be resourceful, to take a look at a problem and be creative in your approach. I’ve never been a hacker in the traditional sense. I’m the world’s most inefficient developer, but what I think I’ve been doing these past couple of years is hacking ‘community’ and hacking how people relate to one another. A lot of my side projects have been about scaling human experience and sharing.”

Kim Pham just graduated from NYU with a degree in Marketing, Information Systems, and Computer Science. During her time there, she was president of NYC’s largest student designer & developer organization, Tech@NYU, and founding partner at Dorm Room Fund. She is now taking her love of the Internet and supporting talented creators overseas to Europe, where she is joining the Frontline Ventures team as Head of Platform.

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Redefining What It Means To Talk In The Age Of Smartphones

Why talk when we can text? For many, our phones are a habit — a bad one — and only a small number of us realize it. Our voices are a way to express and define ourselves; a text message can’t do that.

People aren’t walling themselves off behind their cellphone or computer screen in an effort to avoid face-to-face interaction.

But is that always the case?

According to our 2012 survey, 67% of cellphone owners found themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts or calls — even when they didn’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating; and 29% of cell owners described their phone as “something they can’t imagine living without.”

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Nominate your company for the Best Places to Work Awards and see how you stack up!

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Creating a 9-1-1 Service for Programming

Left to right: Forest Good, Assis Antunes and Geraldo Ramos,  Co-Founders, HackHands

By Ashley Rodriguez

We’ve all been there. You spend hours on a forum trying to find the solution to a coding conundrum. Then, a colleague takes a peek and presto! It works. HackHands, a new programming support site, is trying to create an SOS button so that no programmer will have to go through that again. The New York-based startup boasts 24/7 live support from programming experts around the globe for $1 per minute. But how can one site meet all the world’s programming needs? Co-Founder Forest Good chatted with Internet Week about the evolution of HackHands and his venture into being a startup founder.

Internet Week: What is HackHands?

Forest Good: HackHands is a marketplace. It’s also a service where through screen sharing, video chat, and a collaborative code editor, a HackHands mentor and a developer who needs help can collaborate.

Programmers spend around 90% of their time debugging code rather than actually writing new code. And everyone's chasing these mythical unicorn programmers that are 20 times more productive than the average programmer. Programming is the only industry where an average worker is 1/20th as productive as a really great worker. We think that can be corrected and our strategy is to raise the bar of quality for all programmers around the world.

The way we’re achieving that is by creating a platform where developers can mentor each other over a screenshare. Senior programmers mentor and helping junior programmers for five minutes. Then they are hired by the minute by the junior programmers. If you’re getting stuck all the time in your programming, you can get unstuck almost immediately by basically pressing this SOS button, rather than wasting hours or days searching the web for answers that are incomplete.

Internet Week: How does it work?

Good: You come to HackHands, you put in a request, then put in tags and high-level information for your request. We then broadcast that to our experts and we use those tags to make sure that the request is very relevant for those experts. If the experts are online, they’re able to see the request in real time. Then they connect in our collaborative environment which includes screenshare, video chat and collaborative code editor, so that they can work as if they're right next to each other.

Internet Week: HackHands is only 10 months old. How have people responded to the site so far?

Good: We've had some pretty good traction so far. We’ve had a lot of retention with the customers that have given HackHands a try. They’ve provided testimonials that told us how much more productive they’ve been because of HackHands. They have also been referring a lot of their friends to HackHands, which is really helpful.

Internet Week: Is HackHands aimed at newbie coders? Or can advanced programmers also find the help they need?

Good: It’s really for all programmers at all levels. A lot of programmers are experts in certain areas that they have focused on, but they’re not necessarily experts in all areas. You’re always learning as a programmer.

Internet Week: How did the idea for HackHands come about?

Good: I taught myself how to program in Rails, probably around a year-and-a-half ago. As I was learning, I realized there was a huge need for live programming support. The current status quo involves going to Stack Overflow, and other forums and communities online. But they’re not timely. They’re not hands-on. That was the impetus of the idea, which was a little different than what HackHands is now. I met then Geraldo Ramos who has plenty of experience with products, and my idea for getting help was coupled with his experience using different technologies.

Internet Week: Five years ago you were working in finance. How did you transition into the tech industry?

Good: I started in finance and then I realized that I was more passionate about technology. I got my Master’s degree in Information Systems and had experience working as a management consultant for financial services, health and retail industries. I realized that I was more passionate about potentially being in the game rather than being on the sidelines consulting for other business models. I really wanted to take the risk and start my own company.

Internet Week: You describe yourself as a “self-taught programmer.” What’s your coding background?

Good: I started programming in my Master’s program and got the fundamentals. As I was getting more involved in the tech community here in New York, I realized that there’s a huge need to know how to program at least from a product perspective. So I started learning Ruby on Rails and doing my own self-taught programming.

Internet Week: Tell me about the “experts” on the site. How are they recruited and vetted?

Good: We review all of the applications potential experts submit to us. We also collect a couple of different areas of information from the experts that submit to us, including their LinkedIn, GitHub and Stack Overflow profiles. We look at all of that and decide if they have the strength to help other programmers.

In terms of location, these are experts located all over the world, so they’re available at anytime to help other programmers. We have all the different time zones covered and can provide 24/7 support.

Internet Week: The site offers programming support for $1 per minute. On average, how long does it take for the expert coders to solve problems?

Good: It depends on the complexity of their request and the availabilty of the experts that are seeing that exact request. Once connected with an expert, we’re seeing an average time of around 40 minutes. But we’ve had experiences where some programmers have been able to get help within 10 minutes. That’s part of the value and the magic that our platform provides.

Internet Week: How does HackHands stack up against sites like Air Pair, Stack Overflow and Code Academy?

Good: We look at ourselves as the 911 for programmers. You can come into the service and get instantly connected. The way we’ve architected the platform is very efficient, so that someone who needs help right now can be connected. They don't have to spend time struggling while they wait for help.

Internet Week: What are the challenges in setting up a site like this?

Good: The real challenge is to always have both sides engaged in any two-sided market. The challenge with us is that we’re very aggressive in how we provide the real-time help. Instead of offering a service for every single programming area out there, we’ve taken a stepped approach in the areas of programming help that we provide.

Internet Week: Why did you choose Ruby on Rails as the first language you support?

Good: Ruby on Rails is a very popular framework for programming and deploying Web applications. It was also a containable scope of actual programming help. There’s only a few frameworks that are very popular and supported for Ruby. By offering Ruby on Rails as the first market, we could really do some customer validation. We could also ensure that when someone put in a request for Ruby on Rails we could distribute that to a qualified programming expert that would be comfortable helping them.

There are a lot of communities right now that are supporting Ruby on Rails. All the education bootcamps have focused on using that as the technology, so we wanted to position ourselves in that ecosystem.

Internet Week: What will the future of HackHands look like?

Good: Our vision is to be the SOS button for programmers. We want to double the productivity of programming by providing real-time support for all programmers at any level. We’re allowing programmers to come into HackHands and get instantly connected, have quality mentorship, and be on their way. Our slogan is “keep coding.” Instead of having to struggle on forums and tear their hair out for seven hours trying to debug some code, they can actually tap into this service and get connected with an expert in that area.

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The Glossary: What The Heck is SSL?

Welcome to The Glossary, a new content series that unpacks those unfamiliar terms and concepts that pop up in the news from time to time. In addition to a basic breakdown of the subject, we engage authorities in a Q&A about what this news means for Internet entrepreneurs big and small.

By Max Willens

Over the past couple months, one could argue that the biggest stories on the Internet concerned its security (or lack thereof). Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel resigned in the wake of the massive data breach that rocked the retail store chain last year, and websites ranging from Typepad to Feedly have been knocked out by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

But by far the biggest story of this kind involved Heartbleed, a vulnerability in the security protocol SSL that prompted Internet users around the world to change their passwords en masse. The Heartbleed bug has since been corrected, but when a fresh array of SSL bugs were discovered at the beginning of June, it raised a whole host of new questions:

Is it naïve to assume that our data will ever be secure online? How can we protect ourselves?

And, for more than a few of us:

Can someone please explain SSL for me again?

We’ve got you covered. We asked Emmanuel Schalit, the CEO of password security company Dashlane, and Darien Kindlund, the director of threat research at web security firm FireEye, some questions about the state of our web security, and what it means for entrepreneurs.

  What It Is:

SSL, which stands for Secure Sockets Layer, is the standard security technology used to ensure the information traveling between an individual’s web browser and a server remains secure. Virtually every kind of private information transmitted across the Internet - from emails to credit card transactions - is transmitted using SSL. Though there are variants on the SSL protocol, some form of it is in place on more than two thirds of all web servers.

How It Works:

When your web browser attempts to connect to a web site via a server, the browser asks to see the server’s certificate of authenticity. That certificate, which website owners apply for from SSL Certification Authorities, essentially verifies that certain key information about the site is true. Once the browser verifies that the certificate is valid, it allows information to be transmitted securely and continuously, meaning that third parties can’t see or tamper with it.

Questions

IW: Earlier this week, another OpenSSL bug was exposed, and it touched off another surge of hand-wringing and alarmist articles, even though it was, comparatively speaking, a much more minor problem. Do you think this heightened awareness of Internet security is here to stay?

Emmanuel Schalit, Dashlane: There has undoubtedly been a sharp increase in online security matter following Heartbleed. Unfortunately, this has also led to a “calm-after-the-storm” effect whereby every incident that has followed hasn’t been as serious, and thus, hasn’t received the same attention. While less people were exposed with the recent OpenSSL bug, it was by no means a less serious matter as the potential consequences for affected users is just as grave as those are for Heartbleed.

Darien Kindlund, FireEye: We think the Heartbleed vulnerability has kick-started increased scrutiny around the code quality of various open-source libraries that are fundamental to the security fabric of the Internet.  Although painful, we see this as a good thing, because these vulnerabilities were always present — it's just that now people are motivated to find them and fix them before they become part of in-the-wild attacks.

IW: As the security of our information becomes something that the public is increasingly aware of and concerned about, what are some of the biggest opportunities an entrepreneur might seize on in this climate?

Schalit: The first step any entrepreneur should take is to make sure they are following the best security practices, regardless of where their business interests lie.

Kindlund: Increased awareness of security and privacy issues within the public means that entrepreneurs will have an easier time justifying and marketing their product's capabilities that cater towards security/privacy, overall.  The public is demanding a balance of usability and security, as they are starting to pay for better security architectures.  This means that savvy entrepreneurs could bring to market a product that might not be as usable as its competitors, but market distinct security capabilities, which can help differentiate it and ultimately demonstrate unique value to the public.

IW: An editorial in Wired called these recent server-side issues an "infrastructure" problem, something that cannot be fixed in a matter of days or hours. What do you think the prospects are for disrupting or addressing these core characteristics of the Internet to make it safer?

Schalit: The Internet has developed into an apparatus whereby users demand convenience and speed and our core mission at Dashlane is to make identity security simple and universal. We understand that if security measures become too burdensome to the user experience then they will not be widely adopted and are providing a product that takes this into account.

Kindlund: While secure infrastructure is a key component to this problem, it is not the only factor.  One of the classic models for dealing with this problem is to never have a homogenous environment. Instead, adopt a heterogenous set of systems.  Traditionally, this has meant using combinations of Windows, Linux, and other operating systems for your servers, with the idea that a vulnerability in one of those systems will be less likely applicable to the other environments.  That said, this theory breaks when common fabric libraries (e.g., OpenSSL) are used across all of these systems.  Heterogenous models only work effectively, when there is very little code reuse across the different systems (meaning: OpenSSL can't be used across all systems).  Unfortunately, this model creates compounding problems, when it comes to operational/maintenance costs, which usually outweigh the risk of adopting a homogenous environment.

That said, the overall damage of Heartbleed may be enough to warrant some to consider adopting a pure heterogeneous model in the future.

IW: A large percentage of our readers are entrepreneurs and people working at small to medium sized businesses. What steps can they take to ensure they are taking the utmost care of its customers' accounts and information?

Shalit: Businesses should first make sure they have implemented the necessary security fixes to patch the latest SSL flaws. Additionally, they can take implement the following simple password policies to ensure they are following industry-standard security practices: Minimum password length of 8 characters; alphanumeric and case-sensitive passwords; email confirmations for password changes; no accepting the 10 worst passwords on the web; no logins allowed after 10 incorrect password tries.

Our latest Q2 Security Roundup provides additional easy steps online businesses can take to protect their customer’s information.

Kindlund: Develop operational plans/measures to better prepare for when these types of incidents occur.  Of course, it's best to make sure it never happens, but having a fail-safe plan in place will help in the eventuality these types of incidents occur.

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Artsy Wants to Be the Pandora of the Art World

Art may be the last frontier ripe for Internet disruption, says Artsy Founder and CEO Carter Cleveland, and technologists and investors are betting on it: The site won a Webby Award for Best Art Website in April, shortly after announcing its $18.5 million Series B funding round. Internet Week’s Matylda Czarnecka spoke with Cleveland about how the company grew from being dismissed by galleries to building a database of 160,000 artworks from 25,000 artists viewed by 7 million unique visitors.

Internet Week: What is Artsy?

Carter Cleveland: Artsy is a resource for learning about and collecting art. Our long-term vision is where art is as important a part of culture as music is today. Before radio, music was like art is today: there was no mass market, so being able to talk about music was a sign of class. The Internet is for art what the record player and radio was for music.

On the commercial side, Artsy connects artists with people who want to buy their art. It opens up the art market to a larger audience of potential buyers.

Practically speaking, Artsy is a resource where and the only place you can go see all the latest works, latest shows by most notable artists, from Cindy Sherman to Ai Weiwei to Banksy. We have both historical reference works that are not for sale and previous works that have come onto market for sale. That’s the critical thing that sets us apart from anything else that’s on the Internet.

IW: How are people using Artsy?

Cleveland: What’s really crazy is Artsy is being used in university classrooms all over the world. Teachers will show up to class with 20 tabs open. Nowhere else can you can go to find all the imagery in one place.

Also, on Saturday I sat next to an artist named Miya Ando and asked if she was on Artsy. She said, “actually a bunch of my work is on Artsy and in galleries, and I’m currently working on my 3rd commission piece from someone who found me through Artsy.”

It’s not just place to buy, but connecting her with a fan base. When you follow an artist on Artsy, you’re helping artists develop a relationship with their fans. It’s much more than a marketplace, and more and more a communication platform, a way for artists to connect with users.

IW: What’s the story behind the idea?

Cleveland: I was very lucky that from a young age I was being dragged to galleries and museums by my father, who is an art writer. He patiently explained why the art was important and significant. My mom would walk me to school every morning and on the way she asked me to solve math problems. I was very lucky to have those influences. I majored in physics at school and then fell in love with programming and switched to computer science.

My senior year I noticed there was no website with all world’s art on it. I thought it should clearly exist and that the reason it didn’t was that no one had thought of it before. I was completely naive as to why it didn’t exist. It’s extremely hard to get all players in the art world to believe in you and upload their art to you.

IW: What were the struggles like in the beginning?

Cleveland: I remember two letters from the bank. One said I had $3 left in my personal account. I’d burned through all my savings and was literally down to $3 and change. I had no savings, no trust fund, no stocks or portfolio. This was my total personal worth, besides my Artsy ownership at that point. It was the constant stress of having to fight the bank on overdraft fees. I’d go get a coffee, run out of money and have to call to negotiate out of the overdraft fee. The thought of going out with friends and buying a beer was inconceivable. I would order water with a lime in it so it would look like a vodka soda.

I remember when the check for the seed round came in. It was  a very surreal moment.  At this point our churn was $6,000 a month - we were insanely lean. The next note from the bank was much bigger. I could actually buy myself a $6 beer.

Other than that, not much has changed. I moved out of my parents’ house into the East Village with couple of roommates, and that remains my living situation. I spend all my time in the office anyway, and I enjoy being in the East Village.

IW: What’s your personal philosophy of success?

Cleveland: Clearly defining long-term goals and in every moment, making sure your actions are aligned with those goals and values. And being present in that moment, just enjoying that moment.

IW: What were some of the greatest obstacles to launch?

Cleveland: Learning how to build a product. I’m still learning. I had the computer science background and understood the math and algorithms, but as anyone who builds websites knows, math and algorithms are a very small part of it. I didn’t have much engineering experience because I was originally a physics major, so I only had a couple years of CS experience when I first started Artsy.

I had no experience with design and had to learn on the fly how to build a product team. I made every possible mistake you can make, except the ones I’m still making or have yet to make.

Another challenge was how to get galleries and museums to upload their collections. At the time I’d thought no-one had tried this before and that’s why it didn’t exist. In retrospect, there’s a giant graveyard of companies that tried to do this, but failed.They failed because they were not able to get the content - that’s at least 50% of the challenge.

Just like for Spotify in music or for Netflix in film - the hardest part is securing access to the content.

I went to a lot of meetings with galleries and they were like, “why would I ever associate my artists and my brand with some 22-year-old and his website?” There was a lot of “stop wasting my time and get out of here.”

It’s a paradoxical problem: no-one will join you until someone higher-branded is already on board.

Finally we got the top two galleries in the world to become investors in the platform and it was like flipping the light switch. It turned the world upside down. Now we get 100 galleries per month filling out a long application to join. The tables have turned dramatically. Those two galleries gave us the the credibility and trust for other galleries to say, “let’s give these guys a shot.” But even once we had social proof, we still have to deliver and give value to galleries.

IW: How did you land those two galleries?

Cleveland: We were connected to them by our seed round investors. We were in the lucky position of having multiple different parties interested in what we were doing and buying into the long-term vision. They really understood that the art world, like every other industry, would move online. 

IW: Artsy is known for its Art Genome Project. How has it grown?

Cleveland: We have about 10 people dedicated to the Art Genome Project now. Some things we can detect like, “is this a geometric work? Does this work have wavy lines?” Then there are genes that correspond to visual properties, and those aren’t easy to be predicted. Examples include Mortality and Decay/Deterioration.

IW: What surprises people about Artsy?

Cleveland: When you show up in the Artsy office, people comment that it’s very different from a startup office. We have the whole floor with 360-degree views of the entire city. Also, unlike most tech startups, Artsy is probably 70% to 75% women.

What really makes Artsy different than most startups is our core value of art meeting science. The other thing we really believe in is recruiting, and investing a lot of time in people. We’re really into giving to the community. It’s easy to say that, but in practice if you look at our github, we open-source a huge amount of what we build. We have happy hours every Friday that are open, and we host regular drawing sessions with a live model and teacher on Artsy, open to the community. It’s deeply ingrained in our DNA that we love to give, whether that’s open source or events.

IW: How else can technology disrupt the art industry?

Cleveland: Everyone’s got wall space. Right now, only 3% of the people who have the income to be an art collector actually buy art. The market could become massively bigger. Many more artists and galleries will be able to get discovered, sell art and pursue their passion for creating art in a more sustainable way. I think tech will be a very positive thing for this industry.

Art’s place in culture has so much potential for change. Technology disrupted music when music already had a way of reaching a mass audience via the record player and radio. The Internet was a relatively small, incremental change for the music industry compared to art. It’s a huge paradigm shift for the art world, compared to what already exists, a much bigger disruption than in other industries.

Art is the last massive industry that is still completely untouched by technology, and that’s starting to change. It took a long time to come online, but it’s a massive opportunity.

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Yext, Percolate and Black Ocean Are Featured in the Fourth Episode of the NYC Edition of Internet Week Tech Digs!

We’re excited to release the fourth episode of the NYC edition of Internet Week Tech Digs, an original web series exploring the workplaces of 12 of the top digital companies driving New York City's vibrant tech-based economy. Presented by CBRE Group, Inc., the series includes leading business executives discussing how physical space and design impacts company culture. In this episode, you'll peek into an old firehouse, examine how workspace is adapted to specific roles and see an in-office ball pit.

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Celine Semaan Vernon Breaks Down Data-Driven UX Design

By Samantha Scott

Today in the Classroom General Assembly instructor and creator of Le Design Team + Slow Factory, Celine Vernon, led an informative discussion on data and design. In her talk, Vernon approached five major subjects:

WHAT IS DATA? 

Data are discrete elements (words, numbers, code, tables, databases) that we can categorize, calculate, collate, quantify, or collect. Visualization of data yields information that presents linked elements within the data. Through design, we can transform this information into organized information or knowledge. When we apply or map this knowledge, it becomes wisdom. And with experience, this wisdom can create meaning. 

WHAT IS GOOD DESIGN?

Good design looks for meaning. UX design lies at the center of user goals, brand goals, and business goals. We must articulate each one to come up with a vision.

DEMYSTIFYING METRICS

Vernon stressed the need for a balance between quantitative and qualitative analysis. To fully understand context, we need to know both the what and the why. Examples of quantitive data include A/B Testing and data mining. She highlights usability lab studies and participatory design as useful methods of qualitative analysis. 

TOOLS & SOFTWARE

Though there are many options, Vernon highlights Mixpanel, Google Analytics, and Optimizely as well as Guerilla Usability, specifically usability lab studies and participatory design. 

IMPLEMENT THE DATA DRIVEN PROCESS

How do we put this work into action? Some important takeaways:

Create clear, measurable goals

Make an uber-model that breaks down key variables

Collect both quantitative and qualitative data

Generate hypotheses around key variables and variable combinations

Execute test and control methods, and don't confuse correlation with causality

Want more? Today's slideshow can be found here. 

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Live Blogging on Location Technology in NY with Justin Moore, Engineering Manager, Facebook

By Michelle Cheng

Facebook's Engineering Manager Justin Moore talks about location technology and data scientists who use this information to create a better experience for users.

2:31 pm: Moore: Facebook is a global database. When you use Facebook and interact with location you interact with the data we are building.

A lot of areas don't have coverage, like rural South America, where there is no database.

2:33 pm: Facebook wants to build a great user experience by creating a high quality automated search.

Moore: How do we determine poor quality? We have highly trained individuals to see if there are duplicate results, incorrect spellings and misallocation.

It can be a difficult challenge, says Moore.

2:35 pm: The amount of Starbucks in NY is a great example of data source that can be difficult to identify.

2:37 pm: Moore: For Facebook, it is important to interact with these locations and create a richer experience. We want to be able take a photo at The San Francisco Zoo and tag it anywhere.

2:39 pm: Machines don't always know the answers to this stuff.

Use hybrid technology to get very high coverage and search product on the data set. It is an interesting infrastructure, says Moore.

2:41 pm: Moore talks about the fast growing site of data scientists in NY who use data to create a better experience for users. Data scientists require good hacking skills, math and stats knowledge and substantive expertise.

Must have good math skills: Information retrieval, binary classification, natural language processing.

2:42 pm: Moore: NY is the best environment to build teams. Lots of industries and great academic universities that focus on math and computer science. Also, a site where there is a lot of data, Mac heavy, and finance industries -- great for data scientists.

Moore talks about attending Columbia and studying Computer Science before working for Foursquare and then Facebook in New York.

2:42 pm: New York is also a great working location space --very unique area hundreds of restaurants opening and closing, many places underground. GPS and antennas can bounce off of skyscrapers. Difficult thing to find where you are. 

2:43 pm: However, if we can solve data set in NY, we can solve it anywhere, says Moore.

2:44 pm: Facebook NY is currently hiring data scientists.

2:45 pm: [From the Audience] How many people are being hired by NY Facebook offices?

Moore: NY Facebook offices opened 2 years ago. Currently, we have around 100 Engineers in NY, and we are rapidly growing.

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Mission-Driven Media as Discussed by Upworthy's Co Founder Peter Koechley

By Michelle Cheng

At IWNY on Thursday, Upworthy’s Co Founder Peter Koechley shared his insight on the power of mission driven media.

One big trend Koechley noted is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to produce quality news in a short amount of time. “The amount of content we produce is growing exponentially and the time we get is the same,” he said. Mission-driven media is efficiently delivering quality news that is relevant to audiences.  

There is a “new front page” for news, and social media is at the forefront.

“The landscape is shifting,” Koechley said. “There are 1,500 eligible items allowed to be on [someone’s Facebook] newsfeed per person per day.”

Access to information is changing, and it’s tough for publishers who are trying to get their content out.

In his telling, there used to be a significant amount of newspaper content that might not have been particularly interesting for its readers, but, he said, “Now we have access to all information: You can spend 100% of your time on high-content stuff you are interested in.” Online, the audience is able to pick and choose what they want to read.

Publishers are struggling to widely disseminate their content, not necessarily due to a lack of quality, but because of the competition in a landscape saturated with good content. So how does one get his or her information noticed in the sea of media?

Koechley shares the lessons he’s learned:

Lesson 1: Purpose is a powerful motivator

On its site, Upworthy’s news is easily accessible in a “streamlined” manner, in which the news is easily accessible by simply scrolling the page. Importantly, the simplicity and accessibility of the stories don’t detract from the strong editorial voice. Upworthy covers current and relevant topics --  standards of beauty, environment, mental health and discrimination, to name a few. Recently, Upworthy asked its audience what topics it would like to focus on, and respondents were interested in more coverage around income inequality, human rights and climate control. At its core, Upworthy is interested in the big issues that are defining our time.

When people are passionate about these things, they share these issues in great numbers. “Passion is a relatively untapped motivator,” said Koechley.

Lesson 2: Quality is more important than ever

Because Upworthy curates and distributes content around the entire Internet, Koechley said, it is the company’s duty to provide high-quality content. Upworthy recently upped its hiring to double the number of curators combing through content online to find the stories most relevant to the Upworthy audience. The goal of this, of course, is to provide the audience with a better reason to engage and a solid understanding of their news.

In order to make sure Upworthy is delivering quality content, it uses “attention minutes” which measures the amount of time users spend on a page and is a more precise way to measure audience’s interest in the content. The key to quality is to be obsessed with content, Koechley said.

Lesson 3: You have to be where the people are

Rather than waiting for viewers to find you, you have to reach out, Koechley said. There is a “switch from search being dominant to social media being dominant,” he explained.

Upworthy has a core community of 8 million readers, a total readership of 50 million and 78 percent reach to social web. There is a “big, rising group of the socially conscious and the socially connected,” Koechley said.

Lesson 4: The most memorable market is mission driven

Upworthy noticed that before people buy products, they often prefer to connect to those brands’ social values. “98 percent of our core community has to believe in a company’s brand values [in order] to believe in its marketing,” Koechley said. People have to believe what you do is meaningful to actually share it with others.

Social media is a powerful tool, allowing people to like, share and comment in an effort to bring about action and change. “If you want to stand out, you have to stand for something,” said Koechley.

[internetweek-blog-blog]

A Crash Course in Human Connection with Patrycja Slawuta

By Samantha Scott

Manhattan-based researcher and entrepreneur, Patrycja Slawuta, discussed the importance of creating human connections when building a business. In an interesting spin, Slawuta began her presentation with the conclusion, stating that "world-class technology enterprise needs both IQ (intellectual intelligence) and EQ (emotional intelligence) to reach its full potential." Slawuta considers EQ to be the "inner code of humans." After ensuring that audience members were on the same page, Slawuta continued listing the three basic elements of emotional intelligence: presence, power, and empathy. Enacting these elements allow humans to establish authentic connections.

Because we are social animals, connection is fundamental to our experiences. The three elements of human connection include presence, warmth, and power. These elements allow us to be charismatic, to love and be loved. Presence helps us to build trust and assess authenticity. We can cultivate presence by giving eye contact, feeling the body, and breathing. Warmth helps to build, connection, fosters fellow and humanness, and allows us to express vulnerability, empathy, compassion. Warmth requires inner game (beliefs to visualize a positive outcome), gratitude, and outer game (biofeedback - to smile or say hello). Power indicates social status and is built around self-esteem, self-acceptance, confidence, and leadership, as well as respecting oneself and others. Enacting emotional intelligence allows us to work better and work together. 

[internetweek-blog-blog]

Garance Doré Talks Style, Tech & Developing a Brand

by Monique Valeris

Garance Doré has made a name for herself by building a brand surrounding her passion for street style photography, illustrations and fashion blogging. Journalist Caroline Palmer interviewed Doré at Internet Week on Wednesday about the strategy behind her website, connecting with readers and utilizing social media to drive awareness about her work. Here are Doré’s top tips from the talk.

Convey a strong message. Doré stressed the importance of understanding your audience and really taking the time to pinpoint the true purpose of the content being delivered. “Think about what you want to say to this world,” she said. “Take your time and do it right.”

Reserve room for growth. Many bloggers and digital influencers may be consumed with developing their voice in a particular category, but Doré mentioned that this might not always be the best route. “Don’t focus too much on finding your niche, instead give yourself room to grow,” she emphasized.

Connect with readers. Whether she’s blogging or sharing her popular illustrations, Doré said she always keeps one goal in mind. “My whole story is to have direct contact to my readers," she said of her philosophy. Regardless of the medium, it’s all about resonating with her audience.

[internetweek-blog-blog]

Rebecca Minkoff CEO, Uri Minkoff, Reveals Brand’s Digital Strategy

by Monique Valeris

If you follow the fashion brand Rebecca Minkoff, you’re probably aware of the company’s willingness to delve into the digital landscape, and its clear focus on its customers’ needs. At Internet Week New York on Wednesday, Rebecca Minkoff CEO Uri Minkoff sat down with Stella Bugbee, editorial director of New York magazine’s The Cut, to offer the audience a glimpse into their digital initiatives and strategies for engaging with consumers in new ways.

Regardless of the digital platform the company chooses to use to engage consumers, there’s one thing that never changes. Since its inception in 2005, Minkoff says, “Everything we did was about how we get closer and closer to our customer.” Millennials make up the brand’s customer base so it’s only natural for the brand to align itself with the platforms its young adult followers are using.

Rebecca Minkoff recently partnered with Keek.com, a video-based social sharing platform, to give consumers an inside look at this year’s Fashion Week and the preparation involved. Customers loved it. “They (customers) appreciated that we were able to meet them in a new place,” Minkoff said. “We were able to let our customers view live video updates in a creative, organic way,” Minkoff said. Rebecca Minkoff is the first fashion brand to dive into Snapchat as well, where it gave consumers access to New York Fashion Week looks before they appeared on the runway.

In addition to tapping into social media, RebeccaMinkoff.com is a very important part of the business—not only from a sales standpoint, but as an outlet for the brand to interact with consumers. The website features user-generated content, like consumers’ photos of their products, to drive engagement. “It’s another way for our consumers to feel like they are part of [our business] and get featured,” Minkoff said. “It creates a great experience.”

Rebecca Minkoff is innovating technologically outside of their website and social media, as well. One example is the Stellé Audio Clutch, which is a stylish bag that contains built-in speakers and retails for $400. “You have to be a design-driven company,” Minkoff said of wanting to deliver unique products to consumers. “At the end of the day, product rules all.”

What’s next for the fashion brand? Rebecca Minkoff will introduce a few retail stores in this year, including a site in the city’s SoHo neighborhood.

[internetweek-blog-blog]

Catching Up with Eva Chen of Lucky Magazine

By Michelle Cheng and Julia Haskins 

At Internet Week's Webby Sessions, Lucky magazine's editor in chief Eva Chen said that it's somewhat easier for her to engage with people through social media rather than an intimate face-to-face. But our candid conversation with Chen showed how open and down-to-earth the editor really is.

Chen shared her thoughts on how aspiring fashion writers should use social media to succeed in the industry, and how her life experiences have helped get her where she is today. 

Do you think it is necessary these days for a writer aspiring to work at a fashion magazine to have a strong media presence?

Chen: I don't think it's required to have a strong presence, but I think it's required to have an understanding of how social media works and how things can go viral and an awareness of the medium, period. I personally think there's nothing worse than someone who is not good at social media who is forcing [him- or herself] to be on it. I think it's better to kind of learn it naturally and not force it . . . It took me a little while to learn it.

With the rise of fashion bloggers on the Internet, what do you think bloggers that stand out have in common?

Chen: I think they have a unique voice. I think that right now we're going through an evolution in fashion blogging where it's like models: There are so many beautiful models . . . but what makes one stand out from the rest is they have something unique. It's about letting their personalities shine. For fashion bloggers, what sets people apart is really having a unique voice and not just posting beautiful pictures of themselves. 

Your career path has had many twists and turns. How have your experiences, even the ones not directly related to media, helped you as Lucky's editor in chief?

Chen: Most of my teen years and into my early twenties, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I had no idea. And I think that has always served me well . . . My strategy was to not have a strategy but to say yes to opportunities that came up. 

I think a lot of people look at their career as [though] . . . they have to stick to it for the rest of their lives, which is my parent's generation's thing. Our generation is definitely one of self-discovery, and not being afraid to fail and make mistakes.