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What is TiVo? How This Revolutionary Product Failed

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Does anyone remember TiVo? I sure do. TiVo was pretty much the coolest thing ever back in the day. As a kid, I didn’t know anyone who didn’t have it set up in their homes. 

It is hard to believe, but one of the most revolutionary products to ever hit the market was also one of the biggest flops. Today, TiVo (which stands for “Tv in Video out”) is no longer a viable product, having gone through a few rounds of price drops and given way to competing products. However, at one time, it was the gold standard for content recording. This product revolutionized the way we enjoy television programs in our homes—no one had ever seen anything like it!

So, what is TiVO? And what the hell happened to it?

What Caused Everyone to Tune In?

From CNET

Released in 1999, TiVo was a DVR (Digital Video Recording) service seemingly ahead of its time. Their product was one of the first notable DVRs in existence. It gained immediate traction through its ability to let users watch any show or movie at any time. You see, before the days of TiVo, people had to make room in their schedules for their favorite TV series. And if you missed it, well, you had to rely on the network to wait for a rerun (or record on one of them old-timey VHS tapes…)

While there were a few competitors, TiVo stood out with its quirky and fun marketing strategy. 

They had an adorable and colorful mascot, with an equally iconic remote design. The box itself came with so many useful features. The things we take for granted today, such as live TV rewind and show recommendations, came with the release of TiVo. They even went the extra mile by including the “season pass.” This allowed users to select their favorite show, and command the device to automatically record each new episode.

The Impact of TiVo

From bloomberg.com

It’s not hard to see why the service blew up so quickly. In fact, TiVo became so popular throughout the years that its company name became a verb. Gone were the days of worrying about missing a new episode due to work, emergencies, or picking your child up from daycare. You didn’t need to schedule appointments or events around a huge finale. Now you could simply “TiVo it,” and watch things at your convenience. 

As the company came out with more innovations, such as an HD feature, and a TiVo mini which allowed households to use the service on multiple TVs, the company made its way into pop culture. Multiple shows, movies, and news channels made references to TiVo in passing.

Though as TiVo relished in its major success, many other companies began to catch up. Unfortunately, not everything last forever. 

Tuning Out

From BDEX

TiVo’s ultimate downfall began with the natural shifts in technology. It all started with Netflix, the company that took down Blockbuster, and many other movie-selling companies. 

Both TiVo and Netflix were founded in 1997. At the end of 2004, Netflix had 2.6 million subscribers, roughly the same number as TiVo. At the end of 2007, when TiVo hit its peak of 4.4 million, Netflix had approximately 7.5 million subscribers. As of mid 2011, Netflix has around 25 million paid subscribers while TiVo has dropped to 2 million.” –ZDNet

Streaming services quickly became the new norm. Platforms such as Hulu and HBO Max offered our favorite movies and TV shows with many of TiVo’s features. Most streaming services came with no ad breaks, the ability to fast forward, and the convenience of watching each selection at your own pace. Many Netflix shows released entire seasons at once, which skyrocketed the trend of binge-watching. 

As the years go on, regular television is becoming more obsolete. It’s why you see so many houses nowadays with no cable, and why you see so many networks launching their own streaming services. And with the decline of capable television, comes the predictable decline of TiVo.

It’s not really anything the company did wrong, per se. It’s just the way technology has evolved. While the service isn’t used nearly as much in 2022, it’s still known as an impactful relic of its time. without the innovation of TiVO, there’s no telling what at-home streaming would look like today. 

Featured image courtesy of TiVo

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Best Workflow Mapping Tools for Smarter Business Processes

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people in a meeting

Workflow or process mapping remains a vital strategy for managing and optimizing daily operations in any organization. By using symbols and shapes to illustrate tasks, decisions, and processes, workflow maps help teams visualize their work and identify areas for improvement.

Today, a wide range of workflow mapping tools are available, many of them free or affordable, offering smart, fast, and collaborative ways to streamline your business. Below are the top nine workflow mapping tools to help you stay organized, efficient, and ahead of the curve.

1. MindMeister 

midmeister

MindMeister is a collaborative workflow mapping tool ideal for brainstorming and process planning. It allows real-time collaboration with customizable diagrams. However, the free version limits you to three mind maps. Upgrading unlocks unlimited maps, export options, and team features.

Key Features

  • Real-time collaboration
  • Auto-generated mind map layouts
  • Customizable themes and structure

Pricing

  • Basic – Free
  • Personal – $3.50/month
  • Pro – $5.50/month
  • Business – $8.50/month

2. GitMind

gitmind

Here’s another workflow mapping software that you can use for free. GitMind is a powerful workflow mapping tool for teams and individuals. It comes with dozens of templates and customization options for creating mind maps, flowcharts, and more. It’s compatible with browsers, Windows, and Mac, and now includes improved team collaboration options.

Features

  • Flexible shape, font, and color customization
  • Template library for quick design
  • Project sharing via link
  • Exports to multiple formats

Pricing

  • Basic – $4.08/month billed annually
  • Pro – $5.75/month billed annually
  • Ultra – $11.58/month, billed annually
  • Business – $170.00/month, billed annually (10 seats)

3. Creately

Workflow Mapping Tool creately

Creately remains a favorite workflow mapping tool for remote teams. It supports business process modeling with real-time collaboration and dozens of industry-specific templates. It works across desktop, web, and mobile platforms.

Features

  • Remote collaboration and commenting
  • Industry-specific templates (marketing, engineering, etc.)
  • Works online and offline
  • Real-time syncing

Pricing

  • Personal – $5/month
  • Team – $5/month
  • Business – $89 /month
  • Enterprise – custom pricing

4. Gliffy

gliffy

Gliffy is a beginner-friendly workflow mapping tool known for its intuitive interface. It’s ideal for users who want to quickly design flowcharts and diagrams with minimal learning curve.

Features

  • Drag-and-drop design with themes
  • Version control and undo history
  • Easy sharing for social media or team collaboration

Pricing

Gliffy Diagrams for Confluence

  • Up to 10 Users – Free
  • 11-100 Users – $3.80/month per user, billed annually

Gliffy Diagrams for Jira

  • Up to 10 Users – Free
  • 11-100 Users – 3.80/month per user, billed annually

5. Visual Paradigm

Workflow Mapping Tool visual paradigm

Unlike other workflow mapping tools in our list, Visual Paradigm helps users to visualize organizational processes while enjoying IT development features. It’s a robust workflow mapping tool for IT and software development teams. It supports UML, BPMN, and SysML diagrams and includes animation features for dynamic presentations.

Features

  • Tools for Agile and enterprise modeling
  • Supports UML, BPMN, SysML
  • Diagram animations for presentations

Pricing

Subscription:

  • Modeler – $6/month
  • Standard – $19/month
  • Professional – $35/month
  • Enterprise – $89/month

Perpetual:

  • Modeler – $99/month
  • Standard – $349/month
  • Professional – $799/month
  • Enterprise – $1999/month

6. Google Drawings 

Workflow Mapping Tool google drawings

Google Drawings is a free and easy-to-use workflow mapping tool that integrates seamlessly with Google Drive. It’s ideal for basic flowcharts and diagrams without advanced features.

Features

  • Cloud-based with autosave
  • Basic shapes and connectors
  • Unlimited storage via Google Drive

Pricing

Free

7. Canva

Workflow Mapping Tool canva

Canva has evolved into a comprehensive workflow mapping tool with stunning visuals and drag-and-drop simplicity. It includes a growing collection of flowchart templates and AI design tools. Though there are a number of Canva alternatives out there, it continues to be one of the top graphic design platforms online.

Features

  • Beautiful templates for process maps
  • Upload and embed attachments
  • Team collaboration and brand kits

Pricing

  • Canva Free – $0
  • Canva Pro – $120 per year 
  • Canva for Teams –$300 per year for 3 persons

8. Cacoo

Workflow Mapping Tool cacoo

Cacoo is a real-time collaborative workflow mapping tool designed for teams. It includes multi-user editing, cloud storage, and integration with popular project management platforms.

Features

  • Simultaneous editing
  • Activity tracking
  • Exports to PNG, PDF, etc.

Pricing

  • Free 
  • Pro  – $6.00 per month 
  • Team – $6.00 per user per month, up to 1,000 users

9. Visme 

visme

Visme is a versatile workflow mapping tool that blends design and data. It allows users to build animated diagrams, infographics, and presentations with interactivity and branded design.

Features

  • Create animated and interactive process maps
  • Public, private, or password-protected content
  • Online and offline support

Pricing

  • Basic – Free 
  • Starter -$12.25/month, billed yearly
  • Pro – $24.75/month, billed yearly
  • Visme for Teams – contact sales

Final Thoughts 

Workflow mapping tools are your key to successful work management. It enables you to spot flaws quickly and, as a result, enhance your workflow processes. Also, they let you avoid mistakes, design workflows or procedures faster, and provide quality products and services. The majority of these tools can be used for free.

However, you’ll need to purchase premium subscriptions to gain full access to some of these tools. It might be best to test them out first and see if it works for your needs (check if they offer free trials) before committing to a subscrption.

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Top White Label Marketing Tools for Agencies: Our 10 Best Picks

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person typing on a laptop

White labeling can be an invaluable asset to any modern business. It allows companies to save time and money while building their brand and increasing their reach. Finding the right tools to help manage your white-label marketing tasks is essential. 

Whether you’re a growing startup or a large-scale agency, these tools can help you elevate your marketing game. From building custom landing pages and automating email campaigns to tracking performance metrics in real time, the right platforms will help you streamline workflows and boost ROI with ease.

What is White Label Marketing?

White labeling is a marketing strategy that allows companies to rebrand and resell products created by other companies. These products could be software, SaaS solutions, or other digital products. White labeling is a great way to create additional revenue streams, but it can also be used to help build your brand. 

Within the context of white labeling, a “white label” product or service has been created and branded by one company but then resold (usually in a slightly modified form) by another company to look as if it had created the product itself.

Now that we’re all on the same page, here are ten white-label marketing tools you may want to explore as you build your brand.

1. OptinMonster

If you’re looking for a platform that will allow you to convert and monetize website traffic, try OptinMonster. This powerful popup tool offers websites to display pops triggered by factors such as time spent on a page, inactivity, and even how far the visitor has scrolled through. They also offer visually stunning offers that allow for customization.

Pricing: Plans range from $7 to $49 per month, billed annually.

2. ActiveCampaign 

Next on our list is ActiveCampaign – a platform that offers customer experience automation. Active Campaign provides CRM and marketing tools that allow ventures to reach prospects, nurture audiences, convert leads, and grow their market. That said, their tools make it easier to run marketing campaigns, and the automation part allows clients to save money. 

Pricing: ActiveCampaign plans range from $15 to $145 per month. 

3. DashThis

DashThis is one of the white-label marketing tools that offer automated marketing in the blink of an eye. This tool allows entrepreneurs, ventures, agencies, and freelancers to bring all the data they need into one dashboard. That said, you can connect the platform to over 34 integrations and have a custom data manager.

Pricing: The platform’s plans range from $42 to $409 per month.

4. SEMrush

SEMrush is one of the white-label marketing tools that provide marketers with capabilities to improve off-site and on-site web optimization. In addition to that, they also help clients with competitor analysis and perform keyword research, which is crucial in SEO. Though learning how to navigate the platform can take some time, it provides detailed website audits and platform requires clients.

Pricing: A pro account costs $117.33 per month, billed annually, which includes up to five projects and 500 keywords to track.

5. Whatagraph

If you’re looking for a tool to allow your marketing agency to create and send superb marketing reports in minutes, check out Whatagraph. This app builds reports from various platforms (such as Hubspot and Semrush), social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), as well as Google services (Ads, Analytics, and Sheets. In addition, it allows users to plug in marketing data with over 40 native integrations.

Pricing: Their rates are not published on their website, but you can request a quote tailored to fit your needs.

6. Page One Power 

Page One Power is an awesome tool for firms looking for link-building and content services. They take pride in building links that drive search engine rankings and creating search-focused and strategic content to earn keyword rankings. In addition, clients get a project manager with whom they can consult.

Pricing: Rates for high-quality links can vary depending on the client’s niche, needs, and time period. You can access up-to-date pricing from their website. 

7. Awario

Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a fly on the wall every time people talk about your business? Awario is a white-label marketing software and platform that allows clients to track the conversations about your venture. These convos include those from reviews, forums, blogs, news, videos, and of course – social media. This platform crawls more than 13 billion web pages every day, allowing you to keep track of what people are saying about your business.

Pricing: Awario’s plans range from $29 to $249 per month, billed annually. 

8. Mention

Mention allows clients to listen to their audience, monitor the web, and manage social media. With this platform, you can pinpoint important convos about your brand, including press articles, forums, review sites, and more. It also allows you to easily create, schedule, and publish social media posts in various channels.

Pricing: Plans range from $41 to $149 per month.

9. SEO PowerSuite

Last but not least on our list of white-label marketing tools is SEO PowerSuite. This is one of those tools for entrepreneurs that offers an all-in-one easy SEO toolkit that integrates backlinks, rankings, on-page SEO, and more. It also features tools for keyword research, content editing, PPC ads optimization, and backlink checkers. As a bonus, it also features an intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate, even for newbies.

Pricing: You can download the app for free, but you’ll need a subscription to access premium features, starting at $29.10 per month.

10. Metrics Watch

First on our list of tools is Metrics Watch. This tool allows you to create awesome marketing reports quickly without requiring your clients to download PDF files or log into a third-party dashboard to access data. So, how do they get their reports? Simple – they receive them by email, allowing them to view the info they need straight from the email body.

This tool can integrate data from Adwords, Google Analytics, Instagram, Facebook, and more, making it an efficient way to check comprehensive data.

Pricing: Their packages range from $29 to $300 per month, with a free trial included. 

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Virtual Reality Exhibit Carne Y Arena: The Refugees’ Plight

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carne y arena

In some ways, we are all familiar with the human plight of refugees and immigrants. Still, sometimes, it’s easy to turn a blind eye when we’re all preoccupied with our daily lives.

Carne y Arena, an immersive virtual reality experience about the human condition of immigrants and refugees, was available at KANEKO on Sept. 10, 2022. Kaneko collaborated with Emerson Collective, PHI Studio, and Legendary Entertainment to bring CARNE y ARENA to Nebraska after several sold-out runs in the United States and abroad. The exhibit pays tribute to the migrant’s border crossing in a way that emphasizes the value of being mindful of your surroundings and paying attention to what is happening around you.

It is the brainchild of Academy Award-winning author and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Carne y Arena was the first VR experience chosen as part of the festival’s Official Selection when it debuted at the 70th Festival de Cannes in 2017. 

Iárritu said that his conversations with numerous immigrants from Latin America who managed to cross the border served as the foundation for Carne y Arena. 

“During the making of this project, I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing many Mexican and Central American refugees,” Iñárritu said in an interview shared by the Nasher Sculpture Center

The director said the refugees’ life stories “haunted” him, and so he invited some of them to collaborate with him on the project. Iñárritu says he intended to experiment with VR technology to explore the human condition and, in doing so, break the dictatorship of the frame—or the perspective within which things are observed. He wanted to claim the space to allow the observer to go through a “direct experience walking in the immigrants’ feet, under their skin, and into their hearts.”

The Interactive Experience at Carne Y Arena

carne y arena virtual reality
Image Credit: Bradley Hook on Pexels

Carne y Arena is an interactive experience so that visitors can use their hands to feel the migration process and learn about critical moments that led up to that point in a migrant’s journey.

According to the Nasher Sculpture Center, the immersive experience was a 20-minute solo journey that focuses on a multi-narrative virtual reality sequence. In fact, it’s based on true accounts as reenacted by Central American and Mexican refugees. That said, the lines between subject and bystander are blurred and are bound together through the state-of-the-art immersive tech. Just as visitors walk through a vast, sand-filled space, they witness a fragment of a refugee’s personal journey.

Docubase also described the virtual experience in detail. According to their account, there were three sections available during the experience. Participants left their shoes and other things in a locker in the “detention room”. After donning a headset, headphones, and a backpack device, participants entered a sand-filled, dark, and spacious area where they experienced a 6.5-minute virtual reality scenario that took them to the Chihuahuan Desert. Participants in the VR experience joined a group of migrants escorted by a coyote across the border into the US. In a different chamber, a video art installation reflected the experiences of migrants and refugees who fled El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, making up the third part of the experience.

Throughout the run of Carne y Arena, virtual and live programming took place, with additional community partners presenting content and events related to their exhibitions and programs. The exhibit areas were designed to allow only one person at a time to move through them, limiting encounters and respecting distances safely and comfortably.

Kaneko also mentioned that the exhibit was unsuitable for minors under 13.

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