How to Create Advertisements

Twitter is a science. The smarter you post and engage with others, the better chance you have at building a bigger audience. Scheduling your tweets is one way to get there. Most engagement occurs at specific hours, but you may not be around then to post your tweet manually. Wh ...more

Graeme Devine, Chief Creative Officer at Magic Leap, spoke at the Games for Change festival about how mixed reality will change the world for the better. While we might need to take our own magic leap to believe in his utopian future, he hinted at a solution to the impending p ...more

Snapchat has already found a compelling way to create advertisements in augmented reality with their branded filters, but they continue to experiment with new ways to monetize the bridging of the real and digital worlds. Their latest idea, which requires users to "snap" an ima ...more

The recent announcement that Facebook will begin inserting advertisements into its VR experience on its Oculus Quest headset has set the VR and augmented reality industry into a frenzy. At first glance, the first thing many will point to is the recent history of Facebook and ...more

This is my fourth (and final) installment on SCRABBLE adverts. I'm sure there's a lot I haven't found, but that's for another day. But this post features all of the remaining SCRABBLE advertisements (prints and posters) that haven't already been listed in my previous posts: O ...more

There's no doubt about it, we all owe a great debt to one Reverend Elijah Craig and his invention of one of the most delicious and intoxicating (no pun intended) drinks known to man—bourbon whiskey, a sweet mix of corn, rye and barley malt. But we also owe respect to T'sai Lun ...more

The SCRABBLE Brand trademark has been around since 1948, but video advertisements for the popular board game didn't appear until the start of this millennium. Although there may be a few SCRABBLE video spots out there that predate 2000, I haven't come across them. Aside from ...more

Downloading YouTube videos for offline use to watch later has always been a problematic endeavor. Dedicated third-party apps don't last long in the App Store, web-based converters aren't very functional on mobile, and rogue apps outside the App Store are tricky to sideload and ...more

Throwaway phones aren't just for seedy criminals and spies—they can be useful for many everyday situations. For example, you don't necessarily want to give your real phone number out to strangers when you're buying or selling something on Craigslist, managing an Airbnb listin ...more

Ok, so you've memorized the list of valid 2-letter words, but when challenged after playing one, can you smugly demonstrate your dominating intellect by spouting out the proper definition? If you're anything like me, chances are you'll find yourself babbling something defensi ...more

Phone numbers often contain clues to the owner's identity and can bring up a lot of data during an OSINT investigation. Starting with a phone number, we can search through a large number of online databases with only a few clicks to discover information about a phone number. I ...more

Taco Bell's in the news for umpteenth time, and today the controversy is over their infamous beef taco meat. Gizmodo leaked a picture of Taco Bell's "Taco Meat Filling" and surprise, surprise— it's missing a lot of the "meat" that it claims in its advertisements. Taco Meat Fil ...more

What do Hulu Plus, Pandora, and YouTube all have in common? Ads—and lots of them. Sometimes, an advertisement or two isn't a big deal, but when you're bombarded with them daily on your iPhone, they can get old really quick, and might even lead you to delete the apps entirely. ...more

When you want to install a new tool or game on your iPhone, you go straight to the App Store to do so — but it's not the only place you can get apps from. Some developers use back alleys to get their apps to you, while others can trick you into installing them without giving i ...more

No one likes in-app advertisements, especially in mobile gaming, but they're necessary because they offer developers a way to make revenue without having to charge you to play. In some games, in-app purchases give you the chance to remove ads, but what can you do about apps th ...more

Smartphones are like high tech buckets that collect our personal information through constant use. This has some obvious benefits, like getting a more personalized experience with our devices. On the other hand, this data is a tempting target for bad actors looking to make a b ...more

Switching from one popular music streaming service to another shouldn't have to be a hassle, but it is if you want to transfer all your favorite music over. No popular service offers a built-in feature to export or import playlists, so if you want to move your favorite Apple M ...more

One of the most aggravating things that can happen on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media apps is when a friend shares an exciting story, and a paywall prevents you from reading any of it. You could pay for a subscription to unlock it, but there are so many news sites th ...more

There's no shortage of ice cream recipes out there, but one ice cream shop in London has found a unique recipe to sell to its customers, and of course it's controversial—breast milk ice cream. The Icecreamists make the ice cream from donated breast milk, straight from healthy ...more

One of Android's biggest strengths, when compared to other mobile operating systems is its open file structure. Google introduced a built-in file manager with Marshmallow that provides basic file management, but like with most apps on Android, there are alternatives. Third-par ...more

Because of Apple's iron grip over iOS, hiding stock applications is a topic we frequently like to cover. While not everyone may think that Apple's preinstalled iOS apps are bloatware, that's exactly what some of them are. For instance, the Apple Watch app; it's basically just ...more

Threats to your privacy and security are everywhere, so protecting your data should be the highest priority for anyone with a smartphone. However, one threat many people overlook is the company who supplies the operating system your Android phone runs — Google. Google offers ...more

There are some really talented graffiti artists out there. Some of them are good enough that businesses hire them to paint advertisements, rather than hiring someone to scrub their work off the side of the building. Then there are the taggers who just go around painting their ...more

Over the years, we've seen security breach after security breach, as well as high-profile data scandals where collected personal information was misused by companies. Apple makes customer privacy a priority, so there have been few issues to worry about when it comes to its ser ...more

Privacy and security go hand in hand, especially for smartphones. When it comes to privacy, you decide what personal information about yourself is out there to discover. Security, on the other hand, is all about enforcing those privacy decisions. Sometimes privacy and securit ...more

Most of the spam messages are commercial advertisements, phishing websites and get rich quickly messages that asks users to provide personal details and other confidential information.Spam filters in Gmail prevent its users from these spam messages and restrict them to enter i ...more

Whether we like it or not, our personal information and smartphones are tied together at the hip. The former needs the latter to deliver a personalized experience that matches our individual needs. This personal data, however, makes your phone a prime target for thieves of all ...more

I won't mince words: the Notes widget in iOS 14 is bad. But you're not stuck with it if you want sticky notes on your home screen. Although I enjoy iOS 14's updated widgets overall, its Notes implementation was poorly thought out. I was hoping for a large sticky note on my ho ...more

There's something extremely satisfying about hunting down your online adversaries and knocking them out with a well-placed shot, which probably explains why shooting games are still one some of the most popular time killers for iOS and Android. Shooting games for mobile come ...more

As a means to combat annoying and intrusive advertisements in Safari, Apple added native support for content blockers on the iPhone. Instead of being bombarded by notifications, banners, and pop-ups, content blockers prevent them from opening, which can also be said about thos ...more

While iOS 11.3 doesn't have as many new features as iOS 11.2, there's still a lot to love about Apple's latest update for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, even if some of the best features we were expecting didn't make the cut. Apple released the iOS 11.3 beta on Jan. 24, and ju ...more

Apple wants to support the advertising economy, but its primary focus of late has been user privacy and security. In Safari, cross-site tracking, which lets content providers track you across websites and apps to show you more targeted ads, is disabled by default. However, con ...more

With the amount of time we spend glued to our smartphones, they could be considered a second job (if only we got paid). I spend a large part of my day scrolling through Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and countless other apps, and burn through hours and hours without even noticin ...more

Puzzle games are a great way to kill time and exercise your brain in one fell swoop. They challenge you to think strategically and plan ahead, whether that's to create killer chain combinations for maximum points, or to plain old keep from getting killed. But with so many puz ...more

Your iPhone has a lot of personal information contained within it, so of course you want your device to be secure. You don't want that information getting into the wrong hands — or any hands other than your own, for that matter. This guide breaks down the new privacy settings ...more

To name just a few companies, VK, µTorrent, and ClixSense all suffered significant data breaches at some point in the past. The leaked password databases from those and other online sites can be used to understand better how human-passwords are created and increase a hacker's ...more

After many beta builds, Apple has finally released iOS 7.1 to the public. It includes bug fixes for the old iOS 7.0.6, along with UI enhancements and even some new features. If you haven't gotten around to playing with iOS 7.1 yet, here are a few of the new features and impro ...more

Everyone listens to music. I've got over 3,000 songs in my iTunes library, but am always looking for more, and I'm sure you are too. You can never have enough tunes to rock out to, right? If you're using Windows 8 like I currently am, these are some of the best apps in the Win ...more

Adblock Plus is a well known add-on for Google Chrome and Firefox that eliminates all of those annoying and obtrusive advertisements on the webpages that you visit. You've probably noticed that there's also ads on your Nexus 7 when you're surfing the web, so why not get Adblo ...more

It should be simple to select and copy all text on a webpage in Safari, but it won't work as it does in other apps. Usually, you can press-and-hold down anywhere on a page and choose "Select All" from the edit menu, but that functionality is disabled in Safari and WebKit-based ...more

Apple has tools built into iOS to help parents monitor the iPhone habits of their children. However, those same tools can be used by everyday iPhone owners to both hide apps they don't care about, as well as restrict features they don't need or that infringe on privacy. Whethe ...more

Apple is famous for their easy to use consumer software such as Garage Band and iMovie. However, I've found their apps a little hard to use. Why? Because their suite of software, mainly the consumer apps I've mentioned, errs on the side of ease of use. Isn't that a contradict ...more

If you normally take your iced coffee with plain old cream and sugar, you'll find that Starbucks recently-introduced Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew will really hit the spot. It's icy, smooth, and perfectly sweetened with vanilla syrup. Maybe you've tried this drink at Starbuck ...more

Sometimes, for whatever reason it may be, we just want to take a photo without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, thanks to the extremely large screen and loud shutter sound, taking a picture discreetly with our Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is a hard thing to do. This chick is so not o ...more

Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your ...more

Silence can therapeutic at times, but unsettling at others. When I'm in bed at night, I need some sort of background or white noise to help me fall asleep. Pure silence just does not do it for me. Whether it's a fan oscillating left to right, or the TV playing, I need backgrou ...more

Make no bones about it—Google is an advertisement company first and foremost. Nearly everything they do is geared towards targeting the right people with the right ads. In this vein, they've released an app that will actually give you real money to spend in the Google Play St ...more

How many of us actually drink enough water? It's one of the easiest ways to improve your health, but most people don't get nearly as much as they should. We've grown so accustomed to soda, coffee, and sugary juices that water just seems bland by comparison. That's why drinks l ...more

It just got a whole lot easier to decide whether or not saving $50 on Amazon's new ad- and bloatware-subsidized smartphones is worth the headache of having to see an advertisement on the lock screen every time you wake the device. That's because you can get rid of the lock sc ...more

Nine times out of ten, when you pick up your Samsung Galaxy Note 2, you already know what app you're going to be using. If you only have Swipe to unlock enabled, finding that app is as easy as swiping and locating the app on your Home screen or in the app drawer. You can also ...more

We've already shown you our favorite new action games that have come out this year, but now it's time to share our all-time top ten list. These games are available for both Android and iPhone, they don't have intrusive ads or freemium schemes, and most importantly, they're all ...more

Any app on your iPhone could potentially listen in on your conversations and use that information to target you with tailored ads. Although most companies, including Facebook and Apple, have come out and vehemently denied these claims of spying on consumers, who's to say they' ...more

Facebook is constantly evolving, and lately it seems like a bad thing, at least for its users. First, you had to opt out of Instant Personalization, which shared your personal information with Facebook's partner sites. Then, you had to take drastic measures to secure your hom ...more

Facebook makes it easy to show how much you appreciate a funny status, great picture, or cool news article using their iconic "thumbs up" button, but what about those terrible jokes and annoying baby pictures? Where's the "thumbs down" for that crap? I've been excited for a " ...more

The Reader mode in Safari is a great way to view a webpage on your iPhone in a stripped-down manner, removing unnecessary images, videos, and advertisements for a streamlined experience free of distractions. Apple's iOS 13 improves upon Safari Reader when it comes to choosing ...more

Safari for iPhone is generally a good mobile browsing experience — except when it isn't. Popup ads are a real issue, and they cause both great annoyance as well as concern over iOS security. How do you stop these nuisances and return to a web without fear of popups? Through a ...more

While ads certainly pay the bills (thank you guys, we love you), they can also be obtrusive and annoying when it comes to accessing and viewing content (not our advertisers though, they rule). YouTube, which is fist-full of advertisements, rakes in billions of dollars a year ...more