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Tired of bitter coffee? Pick up a cold brew coffee maker for $19 on Amazon http://ift.tt/2vpnLVU With an estimated 2.25 billion cups of coffee consumed each day, it’s no surprise that a cup of joe is an essential part of so many mornings. Such a huge market brings a wide variety of trending flavors and styles, from frappes to lattes, and one of the most recent trends is a smooth, lush beverage called cold brew. Cold brew isn’t just coffee on ice, it’s a caffeinated sensation that takes hours to effectively craft. Demand for this chilled beverage is increasing year over year, making it a hot commodity in coffee shops everywhere. The Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker lets you take the brewing into your own hands. All you need is a bag of your favorite coffee grounds, water, and a refrigerator to get started. This cold brew coffee maker sits conveniently in your fridge, and with a 32-ounce capacity, you should have no trouble finding roomfor it. Make up to 4 servings of smooth, delicious coffee without the hassle of bulky machines. Do you dislike the bitter taste of most coffee? Traditional hot brewing methods release acids and oils that create a bitter flavor. If you’re someone who cringes at the site of plain black coffee, it’s probably just your taste buds cowering in fear from past acidic experiences. With cold brew, only the natural flavors are extracted to create a more smooth and even taste that doesn’t leave you’re mouth feeling distressed. Once brewed, you can keep the concentrated coffee fresh for up to 2 weeks for use in hot or iced beverages. So if you’re looking to start creating your own cold brew and ditch the bitterness, now is the perfect time to pick up the Takeya Cold Brew Coffee Maker. Grab one today for just $19 on Amazon after a smooth 24 percent discount. MORE DEALS
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Does it really matter how much your startup raises? http://ift.tt/2xdy69L Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor: “How much money does it take to get a startup off the ground?” Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are faced with this question all the time, and the only right answer — it depends — is also the least satisfying. For any particular startup to succeed, it might take a lot of outside funding or very little. It’s contingent on the business a team is trying to build. There are plenty of companies that get off the ground with no outside money. Take Chicago-based Outcome Health. Up until May 2017, it hadn’t raised outside funding since its inception in 2006 (then under the name Context Media). Its $500 million “Series A” round earlier this year — which was led by Goldman Sachs, and saw participation from Alphabet’s CapitalG, Pritzker Group Venture Capital and Prudence Holdings — valued that company at $5 billion. Basecamp, formerly known as 37Signals, is yet another startup that started out free of outside funding. Founded in 1999, the collaboration platform provider was bootstrapped through 2006. It then took a modest $6 million in funding from Jeff Bezos using a nontraditional deal structure. At its last private funding round, which totaled a whopping $1.00 (that’s right, one dollar) in 2015, CEO Jason Fried announced the company was valued at $100 billion — albeit with his tongue very firmly planted in his cheek. But, for most technology startups, raising outside funding is a necessary step in the process of building a viable business. And if it’s assumed that a company will raise outside capital, does how much money a startup raises affect its future fundraising prospects, and, if so, when does that matter? Optimal amount of money to maximize chance of raising Series ATo reiterate a point we’ve made often: The life of most startup companies is, to borrow the sixteenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s phrasing, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Only a small number of startups successfully raise any initial funding from seed and angel investors. And besides, even with a bit of seed or angel funding, reasons for failure still abound. Of course, there are many factors that contribute to making it through the Series A fundraising process. So is how much money one raises in a pre-Series A round one of those factors? Perhaps. To answer the question, we started with funding data from Crunchbase for more than 5,800 U.S.-based companies that raised pre-Series A rounds between 2003 and 2012. (See our methodology note at the bottom of this article to learn more about what data we used.) We then placed these companies in different data “buckets” depending on the size of their pre-Series A rounds, and finally found the percentage of companies in each bin that successfully raised a Series A round. The visualization of the results can be found below. Between $0 raised and somewhere in the $2.00-$2.50 million range, each half-million dollar chunk of pre-Series A financing raised resulted in a marginal increase in the likelihood of raising a Series A round, at least for those companies that raised pre-Series A funding between 2003 and 2012. After that $2.5 million mark, there was no marginal benefit to raising more money from Seed, angel and other pre-Series A investors, at least in terms of companies’ chances of raising a B round. As an aside, the above chart shows the rough distribution of total pre-Series A funding. A surpassing plurality of companies raise between $25,000 — roughly what most accelerator programs invest on the lower end — and half a million dollars. Companies that raise more than $3 million in total pre-Series A funding are relatively few and far between. If how much money raised in pre-Series A funding is at least correlated — and possibly a direct causal factor — with success in raising a Series A round, does this principle also apply to Series B? Let’s find out. Optimal amount of money to maximize chance of raising Series BTypically, seed-stage funding helps founders turn mere projects and ideas into full-time jobs. With a bit of funding, entrepreneurs can dedicate time to building the earliest versions of their products or services, and get some initial traction with their first users. Series A-stage companies are usually focused on optimizing (or finding) a business model and calibrating their products to better serve existing and potential customers. Series B is typically the stage when the full scope of entrepreneurs’ product visions can be realized and the business starts to scale. With a significant bump in capital comes a budget for talented (and expensive) product and business employees. But does the amount of money a company raised from angel and seed investors, as well as those participating in the Series A round, affect a startup’s ability to raise Series B financing? Not really. From the initial set of around 5,800 companies that raised pre-Series A funding, we took the set of almost 1,500 of them that went on to raise Series A rounds. We then performed the same “bucketing” and analysis as before, this time focusing on the sum of all previous equity funding. In the chart above, we find that the rate of Series B fundraising success remains relatively flat with only slight variations from the average. This indicates that, for one reason or another, the amount of money raised prior to Series B doesn’t have a significant impact, most of the time, on a company’s ability to raise a Series B round. There appears to be a “Goldilocks zone” of total pre-Series B funding between $10 million and $16 million where startups are comparatively more successful at raising Series B rounds. However, the rate at which companies succeed at raising Series B rounds does not increase so dramatically as it does with Series A rounds. What to take awayWhy does more capital help a company have a great chance of raising their A, but the amount of an A round that a firm raises doesn’t impact their B as much? Think about it like this: If a company raises too little in a pre-Series A or Series A round, founders don’t have enough time to devote to building the first versions of their product or services, and they’d lack the resources needed to experiment with different business models and customer acquisition strategies. By the time a company is ready to raise a Series B round, questions about what the company is building, how it’s going to make money and who the customers are have, at least somewhat, been answered. So does it matter how much a company raises? Yes, but it only matters up to a certain point. After that, there’s no real advantage to raising more money, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. A note about dataWe started with a set of funding rounds that meet the following criteria:
Using these criteria, we were able to find well over 10,000 rounds raised by more than 5,800 unique companies in Crunchbase’s data. Featured Image: Li-Anne DiasDigital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com August 23, 2017 at 04:14PM
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FTC approves of Amazon and Whole Foods deal http://ift.tt/2xtKNfU The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is allowing Amazon to move forward in the process of purchasing Whole Foods. The $13.4 billino acquisition, which was announced in June, combines the e-commerce behemoth with a major grocery chain. The FTC then investigated whether this would decrease competition and ultimately concluded that it was not a problem. Whole Foods shareholders have also now approved the deal. It was a good deal for them because Amazon paid a 27% premium on the stock price. While this FTC investigation could have potentially been a big roadblock, the deal is not yet finalized. It is expected to close by the end of the year. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com August 23, 2017 at 04:09PM
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5 Ways to Increase Your Deliverability by Boosting Email Engagement http://ift.tt/2xdcmuD This is a guest post written by Rozina Hussain, a Product Manager at BriteVerify. BriteVerify provides real-time email verification solutions that improve email data quality, inbox deliverability and email marketing ROI. What’s the secret to better email deliverability? Beyond any technical tips and tricks is a fundamental truth: People are more likely to see your email if you create emails that people actually want to see. However, there are technical reasons behind this. “If Gmail’s algorithm thinks a marketing email won’t be engaging enough to a user,” says deliverability expert Chris Arrendale, “it won’t deliver that email to the user’s inbox tab.” Gmail – and all email providers – have a strong incentive to give users a good experience. If you opened up your inbox and saw nothing but spam, you might switch to another service. Since it’s in Gmail’s best interest to deliver engaging emails to the inbox, it’s in marketers’ best interest to be engaging. Gmail measures engagement based on a variety of factors. Positive factors include opens, clicks, and replies. Negatives include ignoring the email or reporting it as spam. Even beyond deliverability, making your emails engaging is just a good idea. After all, it’s not enough to deliver a message into a user’s inbox. The final, crucial step is to engage your reader so they remember your message. In other words, the recipient ultimately needs to open and read it. Sending too many unengaging emails may hasten the dreaded “email fatigue.” Which is when users ignore you or unsubscribe when they think you’re sending them too many emails. The key point is that emails earn their place in a user’s inbox by being engaging. Marketers must re-earn that right with every email they send. Here are five ways to help you do that. 1. Get snappier copyYou’d never send an email without checking the spelling and grammar. But did you know that software can help you check your writing style, too? Making your prose crisp and concise can help make your message more readable and more actionable. To make your copy snappier, try Hemingway, which describes itself as “a spellchecker, but for style.” Copy your text onto the site, and Hemingway will encourage you to keep your sentences simple, your words short and your voice active. It will also give you a readability grade score. If your score is too high, you need to simplify your prose.2. Hear your words from another perspectiveAnother way to improve your copy is to experience it from a different point of view. Taking a break between writing and editing can help. Or, having a coworker look it over can give you a new perspective. There’s also a software solution: Put your text into a service like Text To Speech Reader and choose a distinct voice to read it aloud to you. You’ll get out of your own head, catching typos and stylistic issues you’ve become blind to because you’re so close to the piece.3. Find amazing photographsAn AWeber experiment found that “most subscribers interact only with the HTML versions of emails” rather than plain-text versions. So feel free to include compelling images in your content. But you might want to leave out the cheesy stock photo of a guy in a business suit shouting into a megaphone; you can do better than that in 2017! If your stock photo selections are looking a little tired, check out the royalty-free images at Unsplash. You can browse other free stock photos at The Stocks.4. Sign up to your own email list - and your competitors’Sometimes, being focused on composing an email makes it easy to overlook what it’s like to be on the receiving end. The email you spent four hours perfecting may end up buried among dozens of messages recipients are trying to go through in just a few minutes. Signing up to your own email list and joining the lists of your competitors can give you a better sense of what your message looks like in the context of an inbox. Is your subject line more enticing than your competitors’? How does it compare to the many unrelated messages in your inbox? Would a recipient be excited to get your next email – or will they start ignoring them? Seeing your emails in this broader context is a good reminder that you’re not only competing with marketers like you at companies like yours. In the battle for attention and engagement, you’re up against everything in the inbox.5. Test your assumptionsA/B testing is a great way to tweak your message to be as engaging as possible. Split-testing subject lines can lead to higher open rates. But you can also A/B test the content itself to see what copy and/or images better engage your audience Just make sure to keep some consistency as well. Expert Chris Arrendale says that having the same sender name and from domain in your emails is good for deliverability.6. BONUS: Clean up your listA user can’t engage with your email if you’re sending to an invalid address. BriteVerify’s email verification technology helps you ensure you’re sending emails to addresses that actually exist. Not only will it help you scrub the addresses that would otherwise bounce, it will help you maintain your reputation as a sender. That way, you won’t have trouble reaching the addresses that legitimately want to hear from you.Make the inbox a better placeYears ago, the process of checking email was a novelty. Today, checking email can often feel like a chore. The good news is that, as a marketer, you're empowered to make the experience a little more engaging. And as a result, you’ll get better deliverability – and your readers will get a better inbox experience.The post 5 Ways to Increase Your Deliverability by Boosting Email Engagement appeared first on Email Marketing Tips. Digital Trends via Email Marketing Tips https://blog.aweber.com August 23, 2017 at 04:05PM Calexit Is a Bloody Dystopian Vision of Trump's America and the People Bold Enough To Resist It8/23/2017
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Calexit Is a Bloody, Dystopian Vision of Trump's America and the People Bold Enough To Resist It http://ift.tt/2wyGhjK Less than a year into his presidency, Donald Trump has repeatedly defended white supremacists and self-identified Nazis, toyed with the idea of going to war with North Korea, and stood by cluelessly as the Republican congress fought to rob millions of Americans of their healthcare. Objectively, these are dark times. When we talk about how America under Donald Trump feels dystopian, what we’re talking about is how, if left entirely unchecked and allowed to be codified, many of the Trump administration’s draconian policies and stances would transform our society into a warped, nightmarish version of itself. As a thought exercise, envisioning a world in which Trump and his supporters are able to achieve all of their goals is an important way for his political opponents to keep sight of why the protest and resist. Advertisement In Matteo Pizzolo and Amancay Nahuelpan’s Calexit from Black Mask Studios, the future where Trump’s regime has reshaped the country in its own image isn’t a matter of “what if,” but rather “what now?” In this world, the darkest timeline, everything we’ve feared about Trump has come to pass and in an act of defiance, a number of key cities throughout the state of California have said: “fuck this; I’m out.” The version of America that Calexit presents us is meant to be interpreted as a realistic one quite similar to our own save for a few key differences. In this world, one of the new American president’s first orders of business after coming into office was to deport each and every single immigrant regardless of whether or not they were documented. The then governor of California, seeing the president’s executive order an an abhorrent abuse of power, declares the entire state as a place of sanctuary that will not recognize or abide by the new law. Advertisement In an ideal world, California would metaphorically pull out of the US and become a shining, self-sufficient beacon of acceptance and welcoming, shaming the rest of the US by simply doing the truly American thing. But Pizzolo keenly understands that, realistically, California seceding would be a destabilizing event within the state itself, causing factions to rise up on both sides: those in support of the US government and those opposed. As Calexit opens, the state is in a tense, bloody holding pattern illustrated helpfully by a map. Multiple major coastal cities like San Francisco and Oakland are controlled by the Pacific Coast Sister Cities Alliance, who are aligned with the US. The Sovereign Citizens Coalition, those fighting from complete autonomy, control a larger portion of the state, but given the way that resources like food, water, and power are created in California, they aren’t necessarily in an advantageous position. Skirmishes between the US National Guard and the Bunkerville Militants, Calexit’s freedom fighters, happen throughout the entire state, but as the story picks up, we zoom in on Zora McNulty, a woman on the run from the authorities somewhere in Los Angeles, an occupied city. Advertisement As Zora breathlessly rushes to her parents’ home in the dead of the evening, we see that she isn’t just a regular person, but an important member of the resistance being targeted by a particular government agent. Moments after she and her father are briefly reunited, Zora’s forced to flee into the night because she knows that the man who’s after her will soon be upon her family. Right on cue, the agent and his men make their way into the McNulty family’s home and begin to do what every super villain who’s ever hunted for a hero does: menacingly threaten everyone in sight as a gross showing of power that demonstrates to us just how sinister they are. Though there is much about the bespectacled villain that feels very standard-issue, it’s the parallels between the things he says and the coded, racist language that’s become a hallmark of the Trump administration that makes him uniquely terrifying. Just before fatally stabbing Zora’s adoptive father, the man points out that because her adoption took place in California, a place whose laws are no longer recognized, the adoption is considered invalid, making her an immigrant. Or, rather, a refugee. Elsewhere in the city, Jamil, a well-known (and liked) drug smuggler is making the best of his life by staying neutral in the ongoing conflicts and making illegal deliveries for both sides. When we first meet Jamil, he’s in the process of bringing a National Guardsman anti-depressants that, if he were caught trying to buy legally, would likely have him fired. Advertisement When Jamil rhetorically asks the guard why he posted to protect a statue of an elephant erected in downtown Hollywood, his drone assistant Livermore begins to describe the symbol’s historic relationship to Birth of a Nation creator D.W. Griffith and the Ku Klux Klan. As the two men debate whether something like a statue can simultaneously be a callback to a film anda monument to a man who fought for white supremacy, the guardsman is shot through the head by an unseen sniper who spares Jamil. Outmatched as Calexit’s resistance may be, they’re still very much a threat to those in positions of power. Though there is an overarching plot about the disenfranchised rising up to strike back against their autocratic oppressors, Calexit is not a feel-good story and it doesn’t make any attempts at pretending that it is. It’s bloody and violent in a way that doesn’t glorify combat as so many comics do, but is frank in the reality it’s trying to present. Advertisement Were the US ever to fall into another Civil War, senseless, brutal deaths would fundamentally change the ways that we moved through and conceived of the world. But the thing that makes Calexit such a difficult book to grapple with (in a good way!) isn’t really even the violence, which quickly becomes the everyday backdrop to the characters’ lives. It’s the fact that the authoritarian powers-that-be who gleefully participate in said violence are darker, but not entirely unfamiliar versions of people that we already know. Digital Trends via Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com August 23, 2017 at 03:54PM
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Google and Walmart's Partnership Will Be a Real Test For Amazon http://ift.tt/2g6PoRI It’s hard to overstate Amazon’s online retail dominance. With 76 percent market share of online retail, it’s as if the 95-96 Chicago Bulls entered your local rec league. No one can challenge Amazon today, but a newly announced partnership between Google and Walmart—allowing you to order groceries with from the latter with Google Assistant, or online via Google Express, starting late September—may ultimately present a threat. Still, it's a long-term longshot. In Walmart, Google adds a retail behemoth to its Google Express service, an online shopping bazaar in need of an anchor. In Google, Walmart gains a foothold in the voice-enabled future of commerce. Whether the alliance ultimately pays off is almost beside the point; the alternative was watching Amazon pull further and further ahead. Raise Your VoiceHere’s a vision for the future that Walmart and Google are banking on: You realize it’s time for a grocery run. Rather than hop in the car and head to the store, or tap through items on your smartphone, you simply say “OK Google, order my groceries.” And that’s it. Your preloaded list of frequently ordered items shows up later that day or the next, depending on where you live, or will await you curbside at a nearby Walmart. You can already pull off a version of this, as any Amazon Echo ad will tell you. In reality, though, it remains an untapped avenue for purchases. “Everybody’s trying to get into virtual assistants, what we call conversational commerce. They’re banking on the fact that people are trying to do this even though they really don’t, presently,” says Krista Garcia, retail analyst with eMarketer, which tracks the ecommerce space. Voice-enabled purchases may amount to as little as $250 million per year, says Jason Goldberg, SVP of digital marketing company Razorfish. That's a tiny sliver of the $390 billion ecommerce market last year, according to eMarketer. Walmart’s total revenue in its most recent fiscal year was $485.9 billion. The biggest reason: It's a shoddy experience. “The majority of products people buy are inconvenient to buy via voice,” says Razorfish's Goldberg. “There’s variance in sizes, configurations, payment operations.” Amazon Echo or Google Home can offer up its best guess if you ask for paper towels. But if it guesses wrong, you’re left with a game of 20 questions: How many rolls? Which brand? Single sheet or select-a-size? Repeat that for every item, and you see why most people would rather pull out their phones, or track down their laptop, or bang their head against the nearest countertop. You have to get it right the first time. Otherwise, there’s little point to using voice at all. Amazon has a decent shot at this, given how deeply it understands your purchase history. Google? Not so much, at least not before the Walmart deal. Google Express already partners with some big names—including Costco and Walgreens—but has such a negligible market share that it can’t reliably know what you want, when you want it. Walmart helps on two fronts. First, it offers an “Easy Reorder” feature that lets customers pick up their go-to groceries with one click—or in this case, one breath. The partnership also offers an even more important benefit to Google: data. If a Walmart customer links an account with Google Express, Google will gain access to their purchase history–primarily online orders, but in some cases in-store shopping as well. And that means fewer questions about just what kind of paper towel to order. ’White Space’In their battle with Amazon, Google and Walmart are trying to exploit their toeholds in two unsettled arenas: digital assistants, and groceries. Amazon has a big early lead in digital assistants. EMarketer’s Garcia pegs Alexa's market share at 75 percent, with Google Home taking the bulk of what’s left. But it's still very early days. And remember that Google Assistant lives not just in Google Home, but in millions of Android smartphones as well. Which means that, unlike Alexa, it can pull in information from every part of your day, potentially powering a more attractive shopping experience. “We’d love to find a way for you to build your shopping needs, and we can not only remind of you what you might need, and what you might want to add to that list, but also remind you that it’s Thursday, you’ve got 25 items on your list, that’s more than enough to be over the free pickup threshold. You’re five minutes off of a Walmart on your drive home. How about we have it ready for you by six o’clock,” says a Google spokesperson. And while Amazon may have an indomitable hold over your TV and Crocs purchases, it has few inroads into the perishable goods Walmart built an empire out of. That's why Amazon wants to buy Whole Foods, a deal that moved closer to completion Wednesday when the Federal Trade Commission effectively approved it. “Grocery is a white space digitally for everyone in North America,” says Goldberg. “Nobody has traction yet.” Even with Whole Foods, Goldberg says, Amazon’s share of US grocery sales will still be about 2 percent. When you narrow the aperture, Walmart and Google look less like hopeless underdogs. They’re unlikely to sell as much total stuff online as Amazon, either monetarily or in sheer number of item—Amazon stocks over 400 million unique items on its digital shelves, while Walmart sits at around 57 million. But by teaming up, Walmart can at least work to ensure that it keeps its existing customers as they move their purchases online. And Google can fold up its white flag in online shopping for at least a little longer. Google and Walmart have nothing to lose by throwing in together. The bigger questions are how much they stand to gain. Will smart assistants take over the world? Will shopping with your voice ever feel as natural as calling up a playlist? Will Alexa surrender enough of its lead to give Google Assistant a chance? Taken individually, any of those could be a long shot. Together, they’re a hail mary. But the only other option would have been not to to try, which is no option at all. And hey, even the Bulls lost a few. Digital Trends via Feed: All Latest http://ift.tt/2uc60ci August 23, 2017 at 03:51PM
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Google and Walmart team up to take on Amazon with voice assistant ordering http://ift.tt/2wFKIbz Google does not want Amazon to have all the fun and as such, it is teaming up with one of the largest brick-and-mortar retailers in an attempt to beat the digital retail giant. Pay close attention to your spending habits because as tech giants compete for your business, they are only making it easier for you to pull out that plastic. The latest tactic comes in the form of a partnership between Walmart and Google, which promises to “bring you hundreds of thousands of products at Walmart’s Every Day Low Prices … that you can buy through voice with your Assistant on Google Home or on the Google Express website or app.” Sound familiar? That is because you can already do the same through Amazon with Alexa and the various Echo devices. In addition, Google Express has done away with its membership fees, which means that you no longer have to pay either $10 a month or $95 a year to get free delivery in one to three days. That, if nothing else, puts the service above Amazon, whose famed Prime membership probably will not be free anytime soon. “The membership was getting in the way in terms of the amount of friction in the experience,” Brian Elliott, a general manager at Google Express, told TechCrunch. “If you’re on a mobile device, it’s easy enough to explain you can either pay $4.99 to get this stuff delivered, or you can buy a membership.” But now that Google is ridding itself of these fees, it is hoping that it might see greater adoption of shopping via voice. Taking advantage of the new functionality ought to be simple enough — if you are already a Walmart customer, just link your Walmart account to Google and you will receive personalized shopping results based on your order history. Come late September, you will be able to order many of these items with Google Assistant, which is to say, using your voice. Simply tell your Google Pixel smartphone or your Google Home hub what you need, and you can bid adieu to actual shopping trips. “It’s still really early days [for voice shopping]. However, we have watched the advancements in artificial intelligence over the previous two years and can extrapolate as to where it’s going,” Marc Lore, Walmart’s head of ecommerce in the U.S, said in an interview with TechCrunch. “We do think that, in the future, voice will be orders of magnitude further along than it is today in understanding and responding to consumer needs. It’s going to be a powerful mechanism to enhance the shopping experience.”
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC August 23, 2017 at 03:45PM
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Become a shutdown defender with our ‘Madden NFL 18’ defense tips http://ift.tt/2wFDODv Most players feel that Madden is at its most exciting when they have the ball. Controlling the pace of the game and hurling touchdowns is extremely fun, but playing defense also presents unique and amazing moments. Is there anything quite as satisfying as picking off an opponent’s pass and running it back for a touchdown? We think not. While it may not be as glamorous as offense, they say “defense wins championships.” In Madden NFL 18, thanks to more realistic mechanics, playing defense has become more intuitive. If you’re struggling to pick plays, to defend the pass or the run, or just want to limit the damage on the scoreboard, our Madden NFL 18 defense guide will help you stop your opponent in their tracks. Choosing playsJust like on the offensive side of the ball, Madden’s defensive playbooks are ripped from their NFL counterparts. That means there are 32 different sets of plays for 32 different teams. Defensive playbooks can hold up to 500 plays in Madden, but unlike offense, the typical playbook doesn’t get close to that limit. Each team has between 275 to 300 plays on average. These plays are spread across different formations designed for different kinds of scenarios. Madden NFL 18 has 10 formations, but most teams only use between five and seven in their individual playbooks. You can check out the playbooks for all teams in Madden 18 (or create your own) by heading over to “customize” in the main menu. The question is: How do you decide which defensive plays to pick? In football, it’s the offense’s job to keep the defense guessing, and if you are playing a quality opponent, it can be quite difficult to guess your opponent’s next move. Luckily, there is a basic formula that many Madden players will use on offense, though, which will help you decide which plays to pick on defense. On first down, an offense is free to pass or run the ball. We’ve found success using a zone blitz play on first down protects against the run while putting pressure on the quarterback. If you stop the offense on first down, creating a second and long situation (5+ yards), we like to transition to pure zone coverage. While it’s possible some Madden players will run on second and long, in our experience, people usually can’t resist passing due to the threat of facing a third and long. Even if first down doesn’t go so well, and it’s second and short (less than 3 yards), we employ the same logic, as that’s a situation where the offense often takes a look downfield. On third and long, we like to either continue using pass-focused zone defense plays, or go for an all-out blitz. Putting a lot of defensive backs on the field to protect against the inevitable pass play is the safe play, but putting intense pressure on the QB in a tense situation like third and long is rarely a bad move. Again, on third and short we go for an all-out blitz play, sending five or man defenders towards the line (red arrows on the play indicate how many defenders will rush the line). Some Madden players go for it frequently on fourth down. It can be hard to tell whether or not someone is going to take the risk based on the game alone. If it’s 4th and 2 or less, and your opponent is around the 50 yard line, there’s a chance they may choose to go for it. If you know the person you’re playing likes to take big risks, you can cover against this by picking a defensive package that crowds the line (more on that in the formations section). If your opponent is showing punt at the line, you can either just let the punt land without fielding it, or you can run back with your safety to field the punt before the snap. This will set you up to defend your opponent should they choose to go for it. The same goes for your opponent going for it instead of kicking a field goal, only this time, there’s no reason to run back a defender to field the play. Unlike when calling plays on offense, we think you should avoid changing your play calling up too much on defense. We rely almost solely on zone coverage, blitzing, and plays that combine the two. You will find man coverage plays in your playbook, but we’ve found zone coverage to be the more dominant approach. FormationsDepending on which team you pick, you’ll see a combination of the following formations. Along with quick breakdowns, we’ve included situations when they are most effective. 4-3: One of the most common formations you’ll see, the 4-3 uses four linemen, three linebackers, two safeties, and two cornerbacks. The 4-3 is a great formation early downs because it covers against the run and pass, giving you enough linebackers to drop back into coverage, or converge on the line of scrimmage. 4-4: The 4-4 uses four linemen, four linebackers, two cornerbacks, and a single safety. The 4-4 is great for stopping running plays and blitzing the QB. 3-4: The 3-4 uses three linemen, four linebackers, two safeties, and two cornerbacks. Like the 4-3, it makes the most sense on first and second down plays. While having fewer lineman makes it harder to stop the run at the line of scrimmage, this setup helps ensure that the running back doesn’t break away for a big play. 5-2: The 5-2 uses five linemen, two linebackers, two safeties, and two cornerbacks. With the heavy presence on the line, this formation is useful during third and short when you plan to stop the run. You won’t see this formation in many playbooks, though. 46: A blitzing package, a 46 defense puts four linemen up front, with three linebackers and a safety in the box for blitz purposes. A cornerback lines up on each side of the field, and a free safety hangs back for pass plays. If you have this package in your playbook, and want to put pressure on the QB, this offers some great ways to do it. Dime: The Dime package should be used in clear passing situations such as 3rd and long. Four cornerbacks and two safeties are on the field with either four linemen and a single linebacker or two linebackers and three linemen. You won’t create much pressure with this formation, but it greatly reduces the chance at a significant gain through the air. Dollar: This seldom-used formation features eight defensive backs, typically four corners, two safeties and two linebackers. It’s used to cover large swaths of the field, particularly on plays when you know your opponent needs to take a big shot downfield. Nickel: The Nickel formation uses five defensive backs, and either four linemen and two linebackers or three linemen and three linebackers. This package is versatile, since the additional defensive back can either drop back into coverage or go in towards the line on running plays. The Nickel package, like the Dime, is ideal for third and long situations, but with the added benefit of an extra linebacker who can hedge against the run (or trick your opponent) by rushing instead of dropping back into coverage. Quarter: Often referred to as “Prevent” defense, the Quarter formation uses three linemen, one linebacker, and seven defensive backs. It’s meant to cover surefire passing plays, so it’s a poor choice in short yardage situations where running plays are likely. Goal Line: As suggested by its name, the Goal Line defense is meant for situations when your opponent is a couple of yards from the end zone. Typically four defensive backs stand shortly behind seven defensive linemen. You can also use Goal Line defense on fourth and one situations if your opponent decides to go for it at any mark on the field. Reading the OffenseIt’s much harder to read an offense, than a defense, but it’s pretty apparent when the defense you picked doesn’t match up well against the upcoming play. If your opponent has three or four wide receivers lined up on either side, and you’re in a run protection defense with a lot of defenders in near the line, that’s a problem. Conversely, if the offense only shows one or two receivers, and you’re in preventive formation with more than two cornerbacks, you’re probably overcompensating. When lining up, you can press R3 to pull up the pre-play menu. From here you can modify your setup and direct defensive players to change their roles. In the menu, you have a bevy of options. You can press Square (X) to audible and change the play completely for situations like the two examples above. Usually, though, minor adjustments are sufficient. Pressing Triangle (Y) lets you shift the secondary (your cornerbacks and safeties). Pressing L1 (LB) gives you control of the defensive line, letting you shift them left or right. R1 (RB) lets you do the same for the linebackers. If you press X (A) you can modify single defender’s assignments. And L2 (LT) lets you shift the entire defense with the left analog stick, and if you’re feeling confident, you can even guess the play with the right analog stick. Guessing correctly between the pass and the run will set your defenders up better to handle the situation. The problem with defensive adjustments on the line is that you are at the mercy of the offense. Once the QB is under Center, you have no control over when the play begins. Sometimes you won’t have time to make adjustments, but once you get used to doing it, you’ll likely be able to make at least one adjustment at the line if need be. Also, remember that the offense can also audible after you make your own adjustments, so there’s a chance you’ll have to try and revert your changes before the snap. Blitzing the QBWhen a QB drops back to pass or when he hands the ball off to a running back, your main priority should be to take him down the ball carrier. Remember, even on obvious pass plays, you will have at least a few defensive linemen. We prefer to control a lineman at the start of the play, letting the computer AI stick with the receivers and tight ends at first. You can cycle through your controlled player before the snap with O (B). Whether you want to use a inside or outside lineman is a matter of preference, but we recommend looking at your play and picking a lineman who’s supposed to push downfield. Choosing a defensive end who’s supposed to hang back and cover the flat, for example, may leave one of your opponent’s receivers wide open for a screen pass. As an outside or inside linemen, right when the ball is snapped press R2 (RT) to get a good jump on the play. Even with a good jump, you’ll be met with resistance. To shake off a blocker, press X (A). You can also try to power through the defender by pressing Sqaure (X). We’ve found that it’s easier to shake off a defender when rushing from the outside, and simpler to power through when rushing from the inside. Once inside the pocket, continue to sprint with R2 (RT) en route to tackle your target. You can perform a few different tackles. A conservative tackle, made with X (A), is harder to shake off, but when blitzing you’re better off using the aggressive tackle by pressing the dive button (Square on PS4 and X on Xbox One). Your last form of tackling is the hit stick, which is controlled via the right analog stick. When going in for a sack, we usually stick with the aggressive tackle, but if the QB hands it off, the hit stick is better for taking down the running back. The running back is faster and has more dodges, and we’ve found that the stick makes it easier to react quickly. If you put pressure on the QB, but cannot get there in time before he passes the ball, press Triangle (Y) to put your hands up and potentially bat down the pass. Keep in mind that if the ball carrier gets past the line or if the QB exits the pocket, you can switch over to control a linebacker with better mobility. The computer is, by and large, more consistent in Madden 18 than in previous versions, and will make tackles, but you always want to try and make a play on the ball yourself. Defending the passYou aren’t always going to break through the line on a pass play. Often, a QB will get the ball off. With the ball in the air, press O (B) to automatically switch to a defender in the area of the pass target. There are three viable approaches to playing defense once a pass is in the air. Play the receiver: If it’s a short pass and won’t lead to a first down, your best bet is to play the receiver. Press X (A) to tell your defender to go in for the tackle right when the ball reaches its target. This leads to minimal yards after the catch. Ball Hawk: If the pass has a lot of velocity and you have time to get in front of it, playing for the interception is a good move. Look for where the ball will land, and press Triangle (Y) to go for the pick. Swat: If you don’t think you will be in good position to pick off the pass, you might still be able to get a hand on it. Press Square (X) to swat the ball down. If you try and catch or swat the ball, do press the button until you are in position. If you mess up, it could lead to a big play for the offense. In order to mitigate the risk imposed by going for a pick, get used to strafing. Holding L2 (LT) as a defender lets you strafe as you follow a receiver and the ball through the air. If you find yourself in man-to-man coverage on a deep pass, you can press L1 (LB) to call for assistance. Defenders in the area will flock towards your position, making it easier to make a play on the ball or the receiver after he catches the pass. If a receiver catches a pass in the open field, we recommend using the hit stick to take them down. You can also try and force a fumble by stripping the ball during the tackle. To attempt a strip press R1 (RB). Since stripping the ball in NFL games is rare, don’t expect this to work often, but if you’re chasing down a ball carrier, it doesn’t hurt to try to strip the ball anyways. You’ll often end up tackling the runner just from the attempt. Sometimes a receiver simply runs his route well and will beat you in getting to the ball. When it happens, you want to take him down as soon as possible. Calling assistance is helpful, but don’t expect the AI to take him down as fast as you. If you aren’t already set as the defender closest to the ball carrier, you can automatically cycle to him by pressing O (B). Make sure to use sprint and, ideally, come at the receiver at an angle rather than directly behind him. A player’s Pursuit (PUR) attribute dictates how well he can catch up to a ball carrier. Luckily, most defensive backs are speedy by default. If you notice that your defender has been beat on a route, remember, you can always help out with a different defensive back. By cycling to a different defender, you may not be able to interrupt the pass, but other defenders may have a better angle on the ball carrier once the initial coverage is blown. For all of the tips, remember that each defender has a different skill set, and excels at various aspects on the field. Make sure to check out our offensive guide and blocking guide for more tips to up your game in Madden NFL 18. Do you think Tom Brady will escape the Madden Curse this year? Read our history of the Madden Curse to learn more about the heavy odds he faces.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://ift.tt/2p4eJdC August 23, 2017 at 03:45PM
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It’s Going to Be Hard to Create a New Joker—Even for Martin Scorsese http://ift.tt/2vZhkN0 Few comic book movie villains, if any, are as beloved as the Joker. Or, at least the most well known. He’s had three high-profile portrayals (and a Lego incarnation) in the last three decades—two of them downright iconic—and, unlike many comics-based baddies, he’s a character with character, a knowable personality whose motivations beyond “world domination, or whatever” have been explored onscreen many times. Everyone knows the Joker—more than they know almost any bad guy in recent memory. Warner Bros. hopes you want to know more. According to Deadline, the studio and DC Entertainment are starting to pull together an origin story flick to be directed by The Hangover’s Todd Phillips, written by 8 Mile’s Scott Silver, and produced by Martin Scorsese. Yes, really. The report says that it will be “the first film under a new banner that has yet to be named in which WB can expand the canon of DC properties and create unique storylines with different actors playing the iconic characters.” That means even though Jared Leto just did a turn as the Joker in director David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, he won’t reprise the role for this new incarnation. (He’s still on deck to play the character in the reported Harley Quinn spinoff movie, though.) How you feel about that casting tidbit depends entirely on how you feel about Leto’s performance in Squad. But the key part of the report should inspire stronger feelings: The film will take place in early-‘80s Gotham City and “isn’t meant to feel like a DC movie as much as one of Scorsese’s films of that era.” Taxi Driver and Raging Bull are wonderful toys to play with, for sure. And the idea of a Batman universe shepherded by the guy who gave us Gangs of New York and Wolf of Wall Street is downright thrilling. (Calling it now: Leonardo DiCaprio to play the Clown Prince of Crime. He’s already turning into Jack Nicholson, might as well complete the circle.) There’s just one problem: He’s already been done too well too many times before. A villain has never been so gleefully watchable as Nicholson's take in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, when he went full “Here’s Johnny!” under a pile of facepaint and a green toupee. His performance was so well-received (and well-remembered) that when Heath Ledger was cast in the role 17 years later, folks wondered how he could live up to it. Then Ledger won an Oscar for his work in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, with an unhinged turn as the Joker that eclipsed nearly every other performance in a comic book movie before or since. By the time Leto came around for Squad he barely stood a chance; his was a suicide mission all his own. (Why else would you think sending costar Viola Davis a dead pig was a good idea?) Indeed, the Joker may have the biggest clown shoes (or wingtips or whatever) to fill in all of comic-book-movie fandom. There are, to WB/DC’s credit, a lot of smart and fun ways to tell a Joker origin story. While Gotham has given some screen time to a young Joker on TV, the movies have never envisioned a teenage Clown Prince. It sounds promising. But even if someone can convince Jacob Tremblay to break bad and terrorize Gotham High, he would still have to give a career-defining performance to live up to the precedent that’s already been set. A Joker standalone movie backed by Marty Scorsese looks great on paper, but at this point anything with the Joker feels done to death. Moreover, trying to out-do, or at least live up to, a pair of legendary performances seems ill-advised when there are dozens of other characters—new, exciting characters! characters your mom probably couldn't pick out of a lineup!—that have gotten little to no screen time before. Give Batwoman a movie. No one remembers (or maybe has intentionally forgotten) Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin; let her plant some roots in the new DC cinematic universe. Anarky, anyone? It’s become low-hanging fruit to say that Hollywood needs to explore some new ideas; but also, Hollywood needs to explore some new ideas. Getting together a team that includes Martin Scorsese and then asking them to try to retread a character that’s already been done so well doesn’t seem like the best use of anyone’s time. It’s easy to see why Warner Bros. and DC want to do this. A well-known character and a strong production team gets an automatic green light. Hollywood tends to get stuck on sure-fire hits, pumping out the same thing over and over again. This town, in the words of the Joker himself, needs an enema. Digital Trends via Feed: All Latest http://ift.tt/2uc60ci August 23, 2017 at 03:33PM
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Former CIA agent hopes to buy Twitter to kick Trump off http://ift.tt/2xdoegd Remember Valerie Plame Wilson? The former CIA agent, who got involved in what became known as the “Plame Affair,” has a solution for ridding Twitter of America’s favorite troll. Wilson launched a fundraiser last week to buy the social media service, tweeting: So far, Wilson has raised just $12,000 of the $1 billion she’s seeking. It’s unclear whether Wilson is doing this to pressure Twitter to block Trump or if she actually believes her mission will pan out. Twitter, of course, would cost much more than $1 billion. (Its market cap is about $12 billion right now.) But Wilson says that if she owned a significant stake, that it would put pressure on the company. “If we can’t get a majority interest, we’ll explore options for buying a significant stake in the company and champion this proposal at the annual shareholder meeting,” Plame writes on her GoFundMe page. “If that’s impossible for any reason or if there is a surplus from this campaign, 100% of the balance of proceeds will be donated to Global Zero, a nonprofit organization leading the resistance to nuclear war.” Plame’s complaints about President Trump’s use of Twitter are not uncommon, but CEO Jack Dorsey has said that Trump’s tweets that suggested violence toward journalists didn’t break the rules. Wilson says it’s the threat of nuclear war with North Korea, which “takes it to a dangerous new level.”
White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders disagrees. In an emailed statement sent to news outlets earlier today, Sanders called Plame’s endeavor “ridiculous,” and suggested the shortage of funding for Wilson’s idea underscores that Americans are satisfied with Trump’s Twitter use. Featured Image: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesDigital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com August 23, 2017 at 03:21PM |
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