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Electronic voting is by no means new. In one way or another, non-paper-ballot voting has been going on for decades. It should surprise no one that there have been instances of severe security breaches in more than one jurisdiction. The HBO documentary “Hacking Democracy” covers this in detail. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts know there is a good solution to the problem of compromised electronic voting. The ledger that underpins Bitcoin, the blockchain, is perhaps the most secure design ever seen. Pete Martin, founder and CEO of  Votem , a veteran of SAP consulting, went to a business conference a few years ago in which the speaker challenged his audience to come up with an idea that would positively impact 1 billion people. “I sold my consulting business and was seriously thinking about getting into state politics,” he stated in interview to CCN. “A lot of people around me said, you know, at the end of the day, Pete, you’re an entrepreneur, you’re not a politician. So, you know, if th...

As marketing technologies, channels, and platforms evolve, the skill sets of digital marketing professionals must evolve as well if businesses are to be able to successfully execute digital marketing strategies in 2017. Does your marketing team have the most important skills it needs for continued success and enhanced efforts? To identify potential talent gaps you'll need to hire for, check out the following top 5 digital marketing skills. 1. Data Analysis Arguably the most important skill in digital marketing in 2017 and beyond is data analysis. Thanks to the growing importance and the abundance of customer data (which will only grow more abundant as a result of the  Internet of Things ), digital marketing professionals must feel at home with measurement, metrics, and the analysis of data. Data-analysis skills allow marketers to answer the most important question: "Is this working?" Which results in more effective and targeted marketing campaigns, enhanced custo...

Chris Weller EBay founder and chairman Pierre Omidyar in Delaware, December 7, 2009. REUTERS/Tim Shaffer Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment arm started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar,  has invested  $493,000 into an experiment giving people in Kenya free money. The experiment, put on by the charity GiveDirectly, tests an up-and-coming solution to poverty known as basic income. People under basic income receive a set amount of money on a regular basis to cover expenses like rent, food, and clothing. GiveDirectly is running a small pilot in just a few Kenyan villages at present, but once the full experiment launches in a few months it will be the largest basic income experiment in history. More than 26,000 people will receive free money in some form, whether it's for a period of 12 years, just a couple, or in a lump sum or spread out. Not much long-term research on basic income exists, but the studies that have been performed  suggest only good comes ...

Instagram has become more prevalent on the web than Twitter, according to an analysis by website tool provider  SimilarTech  of the top 1 million sites based on their global traffic, including publishers, brands and e-commerce sites. At the start of 2016, Instagram trailed Twitter in the number of sites that embedded its users’ posts or featured its social widgets, like follow buttons. But from January through December, Instagram’s footprint expanded by 308 percent to overtake Twitter, whose footprint expanded by 36 percent over the same period. It’s unclear what pushed so many sites to begin embedding Instagram posts and widgets on their pages in 2016. Instagram introduced the ability to  embed people’s posts on sites back in July 2013  and rolled out  follow buttons, or “badges,” in November 2012 . Instagram’s monthly user base growing from  400 million people in September 2015  to  600 million people in December 2016  li...

Bloomicon  /  Shutterstock.com YouTube is opening its  mobile live-streaming  feature to creators with, at least, 10,000 subscribers and has added a “Super Chat” feature that monetizes the live-stream chat function. According to the announcement, live streams will include the same features as regular YouTube videos — they will be searchable; listed in video recommendations and playlists; and, protected from unauthorized use. YouTube’s live streams also come with the new “Super Chat” monetization tool, allowing viewers to pay for more prominent messaging: “It lets any fan watching a live stream stand out from the crowd and get a creator’s attention by purchasing chat messages that are highlighted in bright colors and stay pinned to the top of the chat window for up to five hours.” YouTube shared the following GIF, showing how to start live streaming using the “”Capture” button built into the YouTube app, and included an example of a “Super Chat” message (the chat...

Tamar Weinberg tanuha2001  /  Shutterstock.com With Twitter’s  rampant  abuse problem, the company has been aggressively trying to find the right way to handle its crippling problem. An announcement  today  addresses Twitter’s overall improvements toward a safer, more pleasant tweeting experience, with the addition of three primary changes: abusive account creation prevention, safer search results and collapsing low-quality (or abusive) tweets. New Accounts Twitter says it’s being proactive about identifying users whose accounts have been suspended, primarily as a result of abuse and harassment, to ensure that they will not recreate new accounts. Safer Search A “safe search” will be implemented to remove tweets that contain sensitive content or tweets that have been made by blocked/muted accounts. The objective is for search to be less cluttered with more relevant (and possibly more interesting) results. Collapsing low quality tweets While Twitter ...