The Chicago Journal

Empty Calories by Kyle Washington will Force You to Evaluate Your Most Cherished Social Relationships

danielruiz danielruiz on February 6, 2023

At first thought, the term ‘empty calories’ would cast your mind back to old nutrition ads you might’ve seen in the grocery store, or on TV where a bunch of food menu options is considered ‘empty.’ Empty because while they seem sweet and give you some form of energy boost, they are devoid of essential nutrients you need for life. Have you ever felt the same way about your relationships? Romantic or otherwise? If you have not, you need to order a copy of Kyle Washignton’s Empty Calories. You might have some empty calories relationships you need to eliminate from your life. 

We all have had those people in our lives that make us feel good and excited at the moment, but in reality, they do not bring us real value, empower us, or help us be our best selves. “I call those relationships, Empty Calories!” says Kyle Washington.

So what would you do when the glue that holds your life and family together wears off and the center cannot save you? This situation was the story Kyle captured in his novel ‘Empty Calories’ of a family whose wife, mother and enormously influential person pass on suddenly, leaving them scrambling for equilibrium.
Kyle Washington

Washington shows how a selfish and domineering woman controls and influences family members despite appearing to be a perfect wife and mother. The mother and wife, Ellie, is a prosperous and career-driven woman who tightly supervises her family. Although the family appeared to be a solid unit to outsiders, it broke down following Ellie’s passing because of the mother’s rigid control. The father and his five children encounter difficulties and problems after she passes away, which marks the beginning of the family’s decline.

According to the book, relationships don’t matter if they are meaningless or hollow and rule people’s lives. The novel “Empty Calories” shows how someone can abuse and manipulate family members to the point where they cannot work or live independently. As soon as the mother passes away, the family breaks down under strain. They encounter significant hardship because they rely on instructions and cannot comprehend the difficulties of living independently without other people’s decisions. Washington implies that excitement is enjoyable or satisfying relationships that serve no useful purpose. Because the interactions are similar to food without any nutritional value for a person, he refers to them as “empty calories.”

About the Author

Kyle Washington is the youngest of his family’s five siblings and a native of Houston, Texas. He raised his daughters alone while working as an executive for a Fortune 500 company. To better understand people’s perspectives, behaviors, values, and beliefs, he enjoys traveling and interacting with new people. People have a variety of stories to tell because of their varied upbringings, way of life, and experiences. His travels and interactions with unique individuals improved Washington’s writing skills for new books and novels. Washington’s interactions inspired the novel Empty Calories with various people and their lives.

He encourages people to start sharing their empty calories relationships on social media using #emptycaloriesnovel

Empty Calories by Kyle Washington is a must-read novel! 

Lions Not Sheep Moves Its Existing Avatars to Web3 to Sync Globally

danielruiz danielruiz on June 24, 2022

Lions Not Sheep non-fungible token (NFT) co-founders Sean Whalen and Greg W Anderson recently revealed they are introducing a super rare collection featuring FJB attributes within their existing collection in the metaverse. Being the first token community to introduce an FJB collection, the business partners are making a lasting mark within the blockchain, which they believe is necessary to secure future generations. 

In a recent interview, Greg revealed that the token community is making a bold move by migrating to Web3. “What we’ve been doing is taking our existing, like avatar existing tribe, our people that already connect with us and move it to Web3 so that we can sync globally with people that think and feel like us,” he explained. 

Due to its controversial nature, the FJB attributes may strike many digital art collectors, crypto enthusiasts, and investors as too bold for their taste. But Sean and Greg believe there is no better time than today to make a firm stand on preserving what the conservatives intend to protect – a genuine free community of Americans. Having successfully grown its following since 2014, Sean’s Lions Not Sheep apparel business has always drawn a lot of attention for its powerful statement shirts. Sean and Greg believe the time has come to make a bold stand.

“Those that lead the NFT space today will help craft what our children and grandchildren are exposed to over the next 20-plus years. We refuse to leave our future up to chance, or even worse, allow big techs to have the only voice,” the business partners pointed out. “Right now, it’s urgent, and we need to band together more than ever,” Sean cleared. 

The soon-to-be-available FJB attributes will feature avatars wearing shirts with FJB print. Some characters will also be seen either holding the American flag, the Declaration of Independence, or a gun. The likelihood that many people within the metaverse will take offense over the FJB traits does not bother Sean and Greg at all. After all, freedom of speech and expression is strongly supported within their community. 

As part of their commitment to upholding freedom in its truest form, Lions Not Sheep will be hosting the Freeman World’s Fair, an in-person grand event that will also be streamed live within the metaverse. The event will highlight freedom-based activities, including a music festival, gun show, boat show, car show, and motorcycle show, among others. In addition, the token community will be featuring collaborations with big brand names and will invite phenomenal speakers expected to inspire attendees. 

The two-day event is expected to attract the right kind of people, the number of which is anything the metaverse has ever seen before. Sean and Greg look forward to gathering all of their supporters. Lions Not Sheep token owners will also get to enjoy exclusive perks during the event, allowing them to use their NFT as an entrance ticket for the next three years. 

Poised to revolutionize the metaverse through its extraordinary events and powerful advocacies, Sean and Greg are sure to shake things up in the coming weeks. Those who see the potential of what this power duo is doing ought to secure their tokens as early as now. 

Meta Labs Agency Acquires Logan Paul’s “404 Error,” Paving the Way for Aspirants Across the Globe

danielruiz danielruiz on June 8, 2022

The dawn of non-fungible tokens has transformed the crypto and blockchain space into one of the world’s most progressive industries today. As a matter of fact, NFTs have completely changed how individuals and entities intend to reach success. Moreover, these digital assets have prompted creatives and visionaries worldwide to be more innovative, paving the way for multiple groundbreaking discoveries. One of those gaining traction in the financial landscape is Meta Labs Agency. Behind this emerging powerhouse is the ever-brilliant Travis Bott. 

When YouTuber and NFT enthusiast Logan Paul announced that he would be auctioning “404 Error,” which is one of the items in his esteemed original collection, collectors and enthusiasts made sure to never miss out on the opportunity of owning such a valuable piece. The bid registered over 25 ETH or USD 44,000 and was eventually awarded to Travis Bott and his company MetaLab Agency, selling for 165 ETH or $300,000. 

The NFT “404 Error” shows one of Logan Paul’s polaroid images that was said to be taken during one of his trips to Puerto Rico. The piece comes from the 99 Originals collection, which consists of 99 polaroid images personally taken by the YouTuber himself. On top of that, it is also one of an exclusive collection of mints that aims to create a group of DAO members who will be supporting art ventures and web 3.0 projects. 

“We want Meta Labs to be a hub for NFT lovers that seek support as we traverse new grounds together,” Travis Bott shared. “We believe in supporting each other and the importance of high utility and high-value propositions for the community in all of the NFT projects are associated with.”

Since its inception, Meta Labs Agency has established itself as a reputable NFT development firm known for making world-class blockchain solutions, dApps, and NFT collectibles. The company’s highly-acclaimed collection, Meta Bounty Hunters, features 8,888 two-dimensional digital art pieces that took inspiration from the Star Wars franchise. These digital tokens are designed to look like “strong and fearless” galactic bounty hunters that are ready to protect civilizations, form alliances, and conquer the galaxy. 

“My ultimate goal is to do mastermind retreats with members, fund independent movies and upcoming artists, strategically invest in special projects, donate to various philanthropic organizations, throw insane events, and honestly anything else our members want to do,” Logan Paul revealed on the Originals’ official website. “I think this is the perfect intersection of tech, art, culture, and community. This project will be my biggest endeavor to date, and I can’t wait to foster a group of people who will make an everlasting impact in a revolutionary space,” he further explained.

Acquiring Logan Paul’s “404 Error” may have allowed Meta Labs Agency to gain traction, but Travis Bott believes this milestone is just the beginning. With over 150 projects under its current slate, the firm hopes to take on many more in the future. At the heart of its innovative efforts lies an incredible sense of community and growth. 

Hungry Hippos Bridges NFTs, Community, Philanthropy with Stellar Collection Drop

danielruiz danielruiz on May 27, 2022

The world of NFTs continues to expand despite troubles with cryptocurrency valuation, signaling people’s trust still in the technology. Accordingly, collectors still remain on the lookout for promising projects that appear on Opensea and other NFT marketplaces. One project that people in the NFT world should definitely check out is Hungry Hippos.

Hungry Hippos is an NFT project mostly fueled by a community effort. The collection seeks to do more than coming up with another collection of NFTs to fill up the blockchain. Rather, the NFT collection and its creators hope to bring together a group of hungry and motivated professionals to help each other grow their net worth, businesses, and way of life as a whole. 

Hungry Hippos is more than just a collection of NFTs. It’s an avenue for networking. “Joining the herd gives you access to a rewarding networking system designed to educate, teach and help elevate the holders in some high-value sectors and create financial freedom through Real Estate, Investing, Networking, and various opportunities,” shares one project coordinator within the founding group.

One of the strong differentiating points of the project known as the Hungry Hippos is its focus on philanthropic efforts. While blockchain and crypto projects with a heart are nothing new, projects like Hungry Hippo stand out because it has all the makings of a mint that’s most likely to deliver on all their promises. 

As part of the company’s efforts to drive socially responsible efforts, part of the revenue from NFT sales will help create an academy for young athletes in Entebbe, Uganda. The program will focus on soccer clinics as a way to provide students with the potential to bring their talent to bigger stages and a chance to level up in life. Many students with promising skills lack the resources to get ahead. That’s why the Hungry Hippo NFT team thought about dedicating their project to these students. 

As a way of solidifying a follow-through on the pledge, the team has already scheduled a trip to Uganda in the first week of June 2022 to personally implement plans for creating this soccer academy. The team will bring an initial supply of jerseys to be handed to strategic partners in Uganda. The project is already being called the MUNGU movement. Soccer clinics are only the first step as the founding team hopes to do more good that will help “spread God’s love around the world.”

On top of that, the project also looks to start the HIPPOOL to help save Hippos around the world, events, partnerships and much more. The NFT project also has other plans that will benefit its investors as utilities have now been set in motion for mint owners. Some of the perks that NFT holders will enjoy include various networking opportunities such as a San Diego retreat, multiple mini meetups, private chat channels, and virtual masterminds. The company behind the Hungry Hippo collection also plans to set aside funds for lavish giveaways to its community that include a line of luxury items. 

The long-term goal of the Hungry Hippo NFT is to build a DAO that will help govern the community and ensure that everyone in the community will gain value from being an NFT owner. By doing so, it hopes to also help more people level up in life by learning about opportunities in real estate, web 3.0, cryptocurrency, entrepreneurship, and so much more.

Mint dates have been declared with presale on June 23rd and public sale to follow on June 26th. Whitelisting for presale is now opened. See their Discord more information.

Business Expert Henry Ma Helps Over 3,000 Startups

danielruiz danielruiz on May 20, 2022

The Great Resignation has given rise to a record number of start-up businesses. As more and more employees choose to pursue dreams of business ownership and becoming their own boss, many are turning to life long leaders for trusted business advice — leaders like Ricoma International CEO Henry Ma.

As a leader in the custom apparel industry, Ricoma offers expert training and support in everything from proper usage of their top-of-the-line embroidery machines and custom apparel equipment, as well as how to effectively start and grow a custom apparel business. As a result, Ma has positioned himself as a de facto success coach, teaching entrepreneurs the skills necessary to get their businesses up and running – all for free. 

Ma’s boundless enthusiasm and expert insight has turned him into a beloved personality on YouTube: dispensing advice, answering questions, and racking up millions views. 

“The first step to becoming an embroidery expert is to master your craft,” Ma says. “Whether you’re a beginner who has never touched a machine before, or you’re looking to enhance your embroidery skills, we’ve got you covered.” 

Ricoma offers nine unique educational resources to help custom apparel business owners master their craft and navigate the industry. 

One resource, “Embroidery Hub”, features over 160 YouTube videos detailing practical tips and tricks for embroiderers. Each video explains a different aspect of the embroidering process — from needles and stabilizers, to how to embroider specialty garments like sun hats and Converse shoes. 

Another resource, “Apparel Academy,” offers business owners expert business advice from Henry Ma himself. In each video, Ma addresses a wide range of topics, including how to price garments, expand your custom apparel business, get the most out of a razor thin budget. Ma says that it is essential to have a business plan before jumping into the intensely-competitive world of custom apparel. Academy students learn various tips and tricks to avoid pitfalls when starting their entrepreneurial journey. 

Other resources include hour-long webinars, cheat sheets, troubleshooting guides, and live Facebook Q&A sessions where Ma answers various questions about the custom apparel industry, and gives out prizes to lucky social media followers. Afterwards, viewers can gather in Ricoma’s Embroidery & Custom Apparel Mastery Facebook group which has grown to more than 30,000 crafters and business owners. 

“It’s important to network because I can’t get to every question, and many of the people in the groups have already experienced the same issues that people want to talk about,” Ma says. “What everyone has in common is that they are investing in their education, so there is more support than competition. We all want to win.”

Ma has also posted a repository of written articles and listicles on a variety of topics of interest to apparel entrepreneurs. Recent issues include “5 best machine embroidery accessories of all time” and “10 profitable niches in the embroidery business.”

Ricoma has grown into an industry leader with a global footprint, serving thousands of small business owners worldwide. “Our success is a direct result of all of our thousands of entrepreneurs,” he says. “They give me my energy; the blogs and videos are my way of giving back.”

Success from the COVID Remote Model: A Great Resignation Crypto Success

danielruiz danielruiz on May 10, 2022

What did you do during lockdown? It’s a question you are bound to be asked at some point. If you say you spent the long, lonely days refining your gaming skills, then you are in the majority; but there are some people who got a little more creative.

In late March 2020, Adam Carlton had just started a new position with national digital services firm West Monroe. As a senior manager focused on assisting clients with their data engineering and analytics, he anticipated a busy travel schedule. Before he got through his first week on the job, however, his hometown of Chicago went on lockdown.

“I fully expected when I joined West Monroe that I would be traveling every week to clients,” Adam remembers, “but suddenly, there I was in my apartment with a whole lot of time on my hands in the evening.”

Adam used some of that time to get reacquainted with the world of cryptocurrency, which was a topic that he had explored in its early days and kept tabs on throughout the years. What he found inspired him to dive back in.

“It was really kind of a hobby at the time,” he explains. “I was doing a little day trading, looking at all of the new tokens, and educating myself on what was new in the crypto space. It seemed clear to me that crypto was maturing. Institutions were starting to buy in. When JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have a crypto trading desk, you know it’s not going anywhere.”

As Adam began connecting with other crypto enthusiasts to talk about assets and trading strategies, he made some connections that led him in a different direction. Rather than just continuing to trade crypto, they decided to launch their own token. Thus, the plan for Pink Panda was born.

Adam says he spent about six weeks conceptualizing what the coin could be before launching in May 2021.

“The digital assets space moves very quickly,” Adam says. “Our approach was to dig into what we know, what we are good at, what we think will do well, and shape it from there. To me, the key is  to identify a niche and delight the customers.”

When asked what factors came together to help Pink Panda to truly take off, Adam points to successfully recruiting some key players to the team.

“We had some incredibly strong people come aboard,” he says. “Our senior advisor on the compliance side is the former CCO at PayPal. We also brought on a world-class mobile app developer, and we just added an amazing CMO. The combination of business thinking, compliance expertise, and outstanding tech empowered us to bring a really successful product to market.”

Because Pink Panda was born in lockdown, connecting remotely initially was the only option for Adam and his team. As operations have grown, Adam reports that the remote model has continued to be surprisingly successful.

“I meet early in the morning with my exchange architect who is in Hong Kong, late morning in the UK, and then in the evening I meet with my West Coast collaborators,” Adam explains. “You need to be flexible to handle the remote setup, but honestly, it actually has worked out really well.”

When 2022 rolled around, it became clear to Adam that Pink Panda had evolved beyond a hobby.

“It was tons of nights and weekend work developing the platform and adding to the team,” Adam explains. “Then, at the beginning of 2022, it all started to come together in a very elegant way. I could see that we had something real and I realized I could not keep doing both. So, I decided to exclusively devote my time to Pink Panda and left my position at West Monroe in March.”

Now, Adam serves as the CEO of Pink Panda. His days are spent building the relationships, technology, and reputation that will allow the Pink Panda platform to continue to grow. Often, that means engaging with the community that is growing around the Pink Panda movement.

“Building trust with your community means communicating with them,” Adam says. “I basically have an open inbox. If anyone messages me, I’m going to reply to them. I want to be very engaged with our community, because I’m also a member of that community.”

The Pink Panda application will be coming to the App Store in a few weeks as a fully functioning public beta. Pink Panda also just kicked off a round of pre-seed funding, which Adam believes will contribute to growing the token’s user-base.

Another project underway has Pink Panda working with Lootverse, a decentralized fantasy parallel world built from NFTs. Pink Panda will be leveraging its expertise with crypto to develop a user-friendly payment integration platform to allow users to get crypto — both within and outside of the metaverse.

Visit the Pink Panda website, and the unique aspects of the token are quickly evident — it provides utility, its onramp is easy, and its interface is beautiful. Overall, Pink Panda is committed to helping anyone to access digital assets with ease.

Another thing you will notice on the Pink Panda website is its commitment to give back, with the color pink providing a clue as to one of the key causes it supports.

“I lost my best friend to cancer when he was 30, and I lost my mother to cancer a few years ago,” Adam shares. “Seeing Pink Panda support cancer charities was a driving factor for me, so we have secured a portion of the token’s treasury to donate to charities.”

Adam also believes that the Pink Panda project and other decentralized assets have the potential to be life-changing for unbanked — and underbanked — people in underserved communities.

“Getting access to the DeFi and NFT ecosystem is incredibly difficult for your average person,” Adam says. “But if I can get access to it, and we can automate it and create a mobile  interface for it that is very user-friendly and very educational, then anyone can get at it. To me, that’s the biggest game changer and something that we want to see go global. We want to think big on this.”

GAMERS Launches 20,000 Digitally Generated NFTS with Real-Life Benefits and Utilities

danielruiz danielruiz on May 7, 2022

A new NFTS collection called GAMERS is taking the world of decentralized art with 20,000 digitally generated NFTS existing in the blockchain but providing real-life benefits and utilities. With the looks, feels, attention to detail and real-world utilities, the founders believe that no matter what type of gamer people may be, they are very confident that they will be able to identify their collection. 

GAMERS have over 100 references to various gaming trends, gaming terms, gaming and web3 pop culture, and much more. The founders of this NFTS project have ensured something for gamers of all types. Gaming is endlessly abundant, and they wanted to impress and capture the entire space with this collection. 

“Our team has spent the last four months detailing and analyzing each trait to assure that all of our community members love their GAMERS on mint day! While we are of course biased, we believe the Takeover Headset, Diamond Bullet-Proof Vest, Rainbow Unicorn Dreads and AFK Skin will be extremely sought after,” says one of the core founders. 

With over two hundred plus traits, there will be so many rare combinations that the community will decide what they believe to be the best ones. This direction is the future of collaboration and online societies geared towards community values. 

As the community of GAMERS NFTS keeps on growing and growing, they are looking at attracting and including people between 15 to 60 years of age, which includes all types of gamers like Console, Mobile, PC, VR, Nintendo, and so on. “Our collection has something that gamers can relate to over multiple generations of gaming,” says one of the core members. The founders of this exciting NFTS project believe that as their community grows, they also grow individually. And the more they grow, the more the rewards would become unbelievably grand.

Owners of GAMERS NFTS will become certified beta testers of their gamer-centric, Web3 platform set to launch in the year 2022. Their NFTS community will play an extremely important role by providing feedback from their experiences on the platform. Considering their collection size, they are expected to have over 5,000 gamers from all over the world, providing true value to the platform. 

The 100 references that GAMERS NFTS have to various gaming trends, gaming terms, Web3, pop culture, and much more are brought to life by their impressive artists. While some of these references will be obvious when the art is revealed, there are plenty that will take the community a second look to make the connection. 

We also made sure to include references from all types of gaming such as console, PC, mobile, VR, etc. Our art was also designed to be the perfect gamer pics for whichever platform you choose! We plan to be the first verified NFTS collection on Xbox and Playstation! We look forward to hearing back from the community on what their personal favorites are and what we could’ve added!” says one of the founders of GAMERS NFTS. 

Filip Boksa, Local Chicago Entrepreneur Shares What It Takes To Grow A Successful Business

danielruiz danielruiz on May 5, 2022

The secret behind a successful venture lies in the efficiency of team members and the entrepreneur itself. There are many examples of people who wish to establish a business with a strong foundation, but they fail to consider all loopholes that need to be filled in the planning stage. This story will walk you through the idea behind becoming an accomplished entrepreneur and what goes into running a business after successfully establishing it. We all know that the main challenge in the business arena is to run it profitably and reach the break-even point after considering all the investments made.

One such example is Filip Boksa, co-founder of BookingKoala, a cloud-based booking solution that allows users to manage appointments, marketing channels and track sales growth. Boksa’s primary focus here is to turn the SaaS into a unicorn without taking outside capital setting an example of a self-funded initiative. Going back in time, Boksa commenced his entrepreneurial journey back at the age of 19 with King of Maids, a home cleaning service in Chicago that he started with his best friend. With a combined investment of $6,000, they could generate $5,000,000 as revenue by the time Boksa reached 23 years of age. This instance in itself is a testimony of Boksa’s entrepreneurial and calculative mindset which can serve as an asset for aspiring entrepreneurs. 

The success of Boksa’s service business is his team’s ability to recognize what matters and what doesn’t. The foundation of BookingKoala lies in its client satisfaction and offering new features with coming days and advancements in technology. He adds that making it attractive to your customers with an easy to use interface is equally important. 

“I still remember back to the first morning when I woke up to clients booking our services overnight. It was something special, and we figured out how to make money while we were asleep”, says Boksa. 

“At the end of the first year after we implemented the full software we looked back on the numbers and saw that we had saved over $100,000 by getting rid of three staff members simply because we didn’t need them anymore. This was huge because we used that money for marketing, which made us grow even faster”, he adds. 

Boksa advises budding entrepreneurs to start right away and not be afraid of making mistakes. “You will never be ready until you go through the process”, believes Boksa. He adds that as an entrepreneur one ought to trust their team members to get the work done while you figure out how to grow your company. “You need to let go of the old ways that are no longer needed or necessary and get with the new trends”, asserts Boksa. 

Understanding the Benefits of Web Scraping

danielruiz danielruiz on May 2, 2022

The modern internet is built on a fast exchange of information. A person that has access to the web and its most powerful search engines can go through centuries worth of applicable knowledge. The endless storage of information keeps getting refilled with valuable data so we, the users, can indulge in accessible sources of educational material, entertainment and e-commerce.

Quick transmission of information makes the ever-improving information technologies a great foundation for modern systems that make our lifestyle fast and efficient. Anyone can find and access movies, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment through streaming platforms and social media networks. Companies conduct business tasks, build online shops, and communicate with their client base on internet websites. In the abstract, the web is a colossal structure of data, ones, and zeros that are structured in a way that brings us many pleasures and conveniences of modern life.

It is hard to manage, find appropriate information and reap the benefits from an unimaginable amount of data. To scout and find valuable information, we use web scraping – an automated method of information extraction from chosen websites. Web scrapers extract an HTML code of a page which gets organized into an understandable format with web parsers.

In this article, we talk about automated ways to extract and manage valuable data. Web scraping has many applications, and anyone with little programming knowledge can learn to build a scraper to automate data aggregation. We will discuss web scraping Python frameworks, the extent of their applicability, and how working with them can assist you in your business tasks. Web scraping Python frameworks are very powerful and easily accessible tools that can do wonders in the hands of an experienced data scientist. If you want to learn more about the technical side of data aggregation and the best tools for the job, click here. For now, let’s take a look at the basics of web scraping and its benefits.

Basics of web scraping with Python

Right now, Python is the most popular programming language and the best tool to learn the basics of web scraping. Easily understandable syntax and fast applicability make it a great tool for beginner coders without programming experience.

You can target your first websites with tools in a standard Python library “urllib”, which offers tools to open and read targeted websites. However, with this tool, we only extract the HTML code from a page, which needs to be parsed to make it readable. We can install open-source external frameworks like BeautifulSoup to organize the desired information into an understandable format.

The web is full of collaborative projects that simplify and amplify the process of data extraction. With open-source frameworks like Scrapy, you can build your first web scrapers in a faster, more efficient way. Websites like Wikipedia are a great target to test its extensive features and polish your data extraction skillset.

Benefits of scraping

Once you build enough web scraping experience, you can take up freelancing and assist businesses in data aggregation tasks in lead generation and building dynamic data sets that assist company activity. Upwork is a great example of a website that offers freelance jobs for web scraping enthusiasts. Find a task that suits your skillset and start your freelancing career!

Bigger companies that need a constant stream of information for digital marketing, price intelligence, and other business-related tasks can choose to employ data scientists instead of outsourcing these assignments. Big retailers that run online shops are the main benefactors of data aggregation because they need to keep a watchful eye over their competitors to outfox them and offer the best deals for customers on the market.

The web is a great tool for consumers seeking travel tickets, bookings, and even real estate deals, but the amount of presented information can be overwhelming. To make our lives easier, the modern business environment offers services of aggregator businesses that partner with companies of a particular market and use web scraping to collect all the available deals. With a great team of data scientists behind them, aggregator websites scrape the web and present their visitors with an organized list of the best deals so the consumer does not have to stress and scan the web to find them and avoid unfavorable offers.

Web scraping challenges

Businesses that engage in web scraping face challenges that interrupt data extraction tasks. Aggregator bots are easily identified because they send more data requests than an average user. Target websites use this information to profile their IP address and ban the offender. Although collecting public data is not illegal, businesses employ these protections to protect the functionality of their web page and defend against competitors.

To counteract these limitations and protect their network identity, companies employ residential proxies to keep changing their IP with different addresses during data extraction tasks. With the help of legitimate proxy providers, businesses and private individuals can find the best intermediary servers to protect their web scrapers and continue extracting public data.

Today, web scraping is an immensely valuable skill. Tech-savvy individuals and computer science students should learn about web scraping and the benefits of data aggregation. You can use it for personal gain, benefit from data extraction for your business, work in or even start your own aggregator company. Make sure to learn web scraping and use proxy servers to get the full benefits of available information on the internet.

The Authority Playbook: Dillon Kivo’s Guide to Becoming Leaders in One’s Industry

danielruiz danielruiz on April 18, 2022

Businesses haven’t been the same since the world was ushered into a new era wherein operations have become more reliant on the digital world. In the PR industry, media has been instrumental in helping companies and individuals thrive. Nobody knows this better than Dillon Kivo, an accomplished expert renowned for helping Fortune 500 companies and some of the biggest names in several industries become leaders. 

Dillon Kivo is the founder of leading PR agency Authority Titans and Kivo Daily Magazine. Millions have recognized his works for his influence in raising sales. He would later receive awards and accolades. While most people waited until their education was over to pursue a professional career, Dillon’s ambitions drove him to start early, resulting in his first PR and marketing agency, the Kivo Media Group. The agency quickly grew and became the fastest-growing digital publication in North America. From there, his career would only get better.

An accomplished individual, Dillon is also renowned as an entrepreneur, speaker, social media influencer, and PR expert. He has also co-authored the award-winning and bestselling marketing guide book The Growth Hacking Book. Recently, he picked up the pen to share more advice with his book, The Authority Playbook: How to Become The #1 Authority in Your Niche.

Published on March 4, 2022, The Authority Playbook lays the foundation for future entrepreneurs and individuals seeking a professional career in the PR industry. In the book, Dillon describes how he dedicated himself to understanding how the digital world works, sharing how leveraging media can play an instrumental role in helping people become authorities in their niche.

The book earned rave reviews from readers, with many sharing how insightful the book can be with such simplicity, making it easier for anyone to digest Dillon’s tips and strategies. In addition, the author received many compliments, with one reader calling him a pioneer and trailblazer in the industry.

“Dillon gets right to the point and doesn’t mess around when it comes to giving value in the book,” wrote one Andrew Weiss.

“Dillon delivers once again with cutting-edge industry insights, strategic branding tips, and actionable strategies on becoming the #1 authority in your niche,” praised reader Austin Zelan.

“If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting a business, you have to get your hands on this book,” urged Juliette L. Moody. “Definitely a page-turner, and I left with so much insight into areas of business I didn’t know anything about. This book is worth its weight in gold, and it’s only 99 cents (the Kindle version).”

The Authority Playbook is Dillon Kivo’s guide for people eager to break away from their nine-to-five jobs and pursue a career that can cement their legacy in their professional endeavors. The book reveals how one can utilize the power of media to transform their businesses and obtain wealth, influence, and freedom. Dillon Kivo shares personal experiences and professional concepts, breaking them down into elements for his readers to digest and quickly apply to their endeavors.

Although the book was only released one month ago, The Authority Playbook quickly gained recognition and became the number 1 best seller in the Media and Communications Industry category on Amazon. While the book has already significantly impacted readers, Dillon’s youth means that there is more to come.