[GONE WRONG] 13 SECRET HEADLINES FACEBOOK WANTS TO STOP. NUMBER 5 WILL BLOW YOUR MIND! 5/5 (1)

1

October

2016

The art of clickbait.

You clicked on the link, didn’t you? How do you attract clicks on your post in a world that is moving so fast that you don’t have time to read everything? Create a title for you article that is too good not to click. Enter clickbait, fishing for your clicks by creating purposely false titles. Clickbait can be described as “web content that is aimed at generating online advertising revenue, […] relying on sensationalist headlines or eye-catching thumbnail pictures to attract click-throughs and to encourage forwarding of the material over online social networks.”¹ Clickbait is probably one of the most hated categories of posts on social media.

Screen Shot 2016-10-01 at 13.41.22BuzzFeed and Upworthy are known to use clickbait titles to drive in views and ad revenue. (Screenshot of BuzzFeed taken on October 1st, 2016)

Facebook recently introduced a new algorithm that aims to stop these kind of ‘headlines’ to appear in your newsfeed. They already tried to limit the amount of clickbait appearing in your newsfeed in 2014², but apparently those clickbait sites still found a way around it. In 2014 Facebook announced that they would start looking at the amount of time spend reading the article, and the amount of likes given, to determine whether the article is clickbait or not. The new algorithm will will weed out misleading and exaggerated headlines the same way that email spam filters weed out fantastic offers to help Nigerian princes recover their lost fortunes. The new algorithm will de-prioritize posts with headlines that “(1) withholds information required to understand what the content of the article is; and (2) exaggerates the article to create misleading expectations for the reader.”³. Facebook employees analysed tens of thousands of headlines, and flagged those that intentionally withhold important information and those that use exaggeration to mislead the reader as “clickbait”. From there, they built a system that looks at the set of clickbait headlines to determine what phrases are commonly used in clickbait headlines that are not used in other headlines. This is how many self learning systems work. You show them a set off correct items and a set of incorrect items and the software itself can figure out if a new item is correct (no clickbait) or incorrect (clickbait).

Facebook wants to get rid of the clickbait articles in order to show people the stories most relevant to them. When your whole timeline is full of clickbait this ruins your user experience and you will probably not return to Facebook very often anymore which is bad for Facebook.

So hopefully no more:

in the future.

 

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait

²https://www.cnet.com/au/news/facebook-nixes-click-bait-headlines-in-users-news-feeds/

³http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/08/news-feed-fyi-further-reducing-clickbait-in-feed/

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FinTech: How to get the best exchange rate when traveling abroad. 5/5 (1)

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FinTech: How to get the best exchange rate when traveling abroad. 4/5 (4)

24

September

2016

FinTech, short for Financial Technology, is slowly revolutionising the banking and insurance business. The earliest and best known FinTech companies evolve around payments. One of these companies is TransferWise. TransferWise is an easy way to transfer money abroad at the mid-market rate and only pay 0.5% or 1€ (whichever is highest) fee for their service.

Say you have a friend in the UK and want to wire some money to him. The traditional way would be you sending money directly from your bankaccount denominated in euros to his bankaccount. Because his bankaccount is in GBP, his bank will then convert the euros into pounds at a hefty fee (sometimes up to 6%)¹.

hidden-fees

But their are of course also people who want to transfer money from the UK into accounts that are in euros. This is where TransferWise (and similar companies such as WorldRemit) step in. They help you to swap your euros into a different currency without incurring those fees. You wire your euros to TransferWise’s euro account and they will pay your friend from their GBP account. Because there are at the same time also people who do it the other way around, TransferWise has no trouble finding enough pounds or euros.

‘I would turn down £1bn for my company’

– Taavet Hinrikus, the co-founder and CEO of TransferWise²

Personally I used their service a lot when I was on exchange in Singapore back in 2014. Back then TransferWise was only a small startup, but in the past 2 years it turned into a £1bn company. I opened up a free bankaccount over there and wired my euros through TransferWise into my SGD account. At only 0.5% I would certainly recommend them!

Click here to get your first transfer (up to £500 or equivalent) for free.

revolut

 

But what if you’re on holiday’s abroad and want to avoid foreign exchange fees? There’s an app for that. Enter prepaid travel MasterCards. The most popular one (and cheapest one, because free) is Revolut.

With this free app and card you can pay in 90 currencies at the lowest rate they’re able to find. Most of the times this is the interbank rate, but for some illiquid currencies (such as Thai Baht) this is not possible and therefore slightly more expensive. The card automatically converts into the local currency at the time of purchase. This means that even if you hold euros but spend in Indian Rupee the card will convert from EUR to INR at the time of the transaction. The card will act like a local card everywhere and allows you to spend without fees and withdraw up to £500 (or equivalent) for free each month from ATMs all over the world (after the initial £500 they charge you at a 2% rate to prevent abuse, as ATM withdrawals are expensive for them).

 

You can download the app and use it immediately as it generates a card number for you to use directly online. If you also want a physical card you can order one for free from the app. Click here to download the app.

¹http://stophiddenfees.co.uk
²http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p048c93g

TransferWise is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011, Firm Reference 900507, for the issuing of electronic money.

Revolut works with UK regulated entities to provide their platform such as Paysafe Financial Services Limited who are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (FRN: 900015) for the issuing of electronic money and payment instruments, pursuant to a licence from MasterCard International. MasterCard is a registered trademark of MasterCard International.

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