Social Media Marketing and Online Shopping: 2018

Monday, 31 December 2018

Shop these online courses on sale and learn something new in 2019

New year, new me — or so you say every year.

But is it really a "new you" if you're stuck in your old ways? Would you consider yourself evolved if you're not learning something different? Eh, we don't think so.

Take this fresh chapter as an excuse to pick up a new skill (or two). The Mashable Shop is currently offering deals on online courses that will help you level up. We're even throwing an additional discount to get you more motivated. Make sure to use the code NEWYEAR2019 at checkout to enjoy an additional 19% off.

eLearnExcel Microsoft Excel Mastery School — $31.59 ($999 value)

It's high time that you actually learn what to do with spreadsheets instead of just staring at those little rectangles until your eyes turn white. This course will make an Excel master out of you by training you to data crunch, create reports, analyze data values, and more. Read more...

More about Online Learning, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Stackcommerce, Shopping Onlinelearning, and Tech

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2EVTmXS

No, Netflix isn't making fake teen accounts to spread 'Bird Box' memes

Even in a year that gave us peak Q Anon, this may be the most 2018 conspiracy theory ever. There are people online who believe Netflix used bot accounts to spread viral memes about its record hit movie Bird Box.

The over-the-top apocalyptic thriller, which features a family making the perilous journey down a river in hopes of finding a community safe from invisible monsters that have taken over the world, is ripe with meme potential. The monsters inexplicably make victims commit suicide, which plays perfectly into the younger generation's grimdark sense of humor.

More about Memes, Netflix, Bird Box, Culture, and Web Culture

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2QVyZAZ

They're not all good dogs: TSA prefers to use floppy-eared bomb hounds

Expect to see more floppy-eared good boys at your local airport in 2019.

In an effort to put passengers at ease, the Transportation Security Administration says it is deploying more floppy-eared dogs to detect explosives in airports. Their pointy-eared brethren, apparently, tend to make us more nervous.

“We find the passenger acceptance of floppy-ear dogs is just better,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske told the Washington Examiner. He added that a pup with downward-facing dog ears is "just a little bit less of a concern. Doesn’t scare children." Read more...

More about Travel, Dogs, Tsa, Culture, and Web Culture

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2EXGccV

Absolutely no one knows the meaning of 'Bird Box' so just stop asking

Warning: Light spoilers for Bird Box lie ahead.

Welcome to Bird Box analysis, where the metaphors are made up and the points don't matter!

Look. I like a return-to-English-class breakdown of a horror movie as much as the next gal—but this is getting ridiculous. Since Sandra Bullock's Netflix debut, Bird Box, started streaming last Friday, folks have gone absolutely batshit trying to explain whatever happens to her and her kids in this post-apocalyptic nightmare.

What do the monsters represent? What do the blindfolds mean? How many grocery store parrots does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Etc., etc. Read more...

More about Entertainment, Netflix, Fan Theories, Sandra Bullock, and Trevante Rhodes

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2GYfnIf

The only good part about winter are these capybaras in a yuzu bath

This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.

Baths are an extremely overrated form of self-care: they're often too warm, incredibly filthy, and loaded with foul bacteria.

Meanwhile, baths for nature's most underrated animal, the capybara, provide plenty of soothing both for the animal and for the sad human voyeur.

I'm a particular fan of this video of capybaras soaking in a yuzu bath which went viral this week, and for which we should all be grateful.

Every year for the winter solstice, zookeepers at multiple zoos across Japan soak capybaras in yuzu baths. The tradition started at Izu Shaboten Zoo in 1996 and has since taken off, though the practice has been used as a way to ward off illness for centuries. Read more...

More about Watercooler, Bath, Capybaras, One Good Thing, and Culture

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2GNafq0

10 movies we can't wait for in 2019

2018 was a whirlwind, but we still got some epic movies out of the madness.

2019 promises the same, with pivotal sequels, live-action reboots, books adapted for the screen – and new, original movies that might just blow us away.

Here are the top 10 movies we're looking forward to in 2019.

1Us - March 15

Watch yourselfpic.twitter.com/6Wg859TK0r

— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) December 13, 2018

Starring Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, Us is the story of a couple visiting a childhood home – but in true Peele fashion, it's also a psychological thriller, a monster movie, and probably a welcome subversion of the horror genre. Read more...

More about Entertainment, Us, Movies, Jordan Peele, and The Lion King

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2RfCVfB

These wireless earbuds obliterated their Indiegogo goal, and now they're on sale

Hear that? That's the sound of 2018 drawing its last breaths — a noise that would be more than welcome if it wasn't messing with the sound quality of the bop to which you're currently listening.

Enter: AXUM Gear True Wireless Earbuds, on sale now in the Mashable Shop.

As a pair of headphones that can please both gym rats and audiophiles, these cordless earbuds are both durable — clinging to you with an adjustable hook that won't falter during movement — and euphonious. Each pair includes an omnidirectional microphone that eliminates distracting background noises, as well as a portable charging case with enough juice to energize the buds six times. Read more...

More about Earbuds, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Stackcommerce, Tech, and Consumer Tech

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2GL3Uvt

'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' doesn't work on Apple TV and users are furious

It may be a groundbreaking high-tech piece of TV entertainment, but the interactive Black Mirror movie Bandersnatch is off limits if you happen to be using the highest-rated high-tech TV setup.

That would be the Apple TV, the 4K model of which we recently rated not only the most essential set-top box but also the most ahead-of-the-pack product Apple currently makes. (Many users agreed.)

Bandersnatch is also unavailable on Google's Chromecast and Amazon's Fire Stick. Try to watch it on these platforms and what you'll get instead of the two-plus hour storyline is a 2-minute supercut of Black Mirror characters from other episodes saying "sorry." And if you thought you could stream it from other devices to these set-top boxes: Sorry, that won't work either. Read more...

More about Netflix, Apple Tv, Google Chromecast, Apple Tv 4k, and Tech

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2SqSI8y

Elon Musk's Twitter in 2018: Lawsuits, dank memes, and 'funding secured'

What better way to really understand Elon Musk's year as Tesla CEO than to look back at his Twitter. It's been a bumpy and very busy year for the electric car executive. He went from the depths of despair to turning a profit for Tesla for the first time — with a few lawsuits and scathing news reports thrown in for good measure. He even took a few puffs of marijuana on a podcast.

His most famous tweet of 2018?

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018

That led to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit and possible criminal investigation. In his settlement (which cost him $20 million and Tesla another $20 million), he was removed as chairman of the board and his tweeting is now under close watch. That didn't stop him from taunting the SEC. He remains CEO of Tesla. Read more...

More about Twitter, Tesla, Elon Musk, Tesla Model 3, and Secretary

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2ETn53G

A game from 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' is playable now

If Black Mirror: Bandersnatch wasn't unsettling or meta enough for you, the show's team snuck in another layer of gameplay: an actual Tuckersoft Games website. You can peruse the company's history (which you'll be familiar with if you watched Bandersnatch) and explore its game titles – all of which reference other Black Mirror episodes.

Perhaps the sneakiest goody on the site is that you can actually play Nohzdyve, the game Colin (Will Poulter) is working on. But there's a significant catch.

The .tap file containing the game can only be played by downloading a ZS Spectrum Emulator – a program that mimics the OS of a personal computer from the 1980s' Bandersnatch eraFuse, Qaop, or Speccy are some potential emulators, but they only work on certain computers or operating systems (one of the only Mac-compatible downloads I found wouldn't open because it was from an unidentified developer). Read more...

More about Entertainment, Television, Movies, Black Mirror, and Bandersnatch

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2An1NZ1

Kid takes a bite out of a hot pickle and self-destructs

Hot pickles should be eaten cautiously, with plenty of preparation in the event of extreme sourness and heat.

Not every little kid knows that. Twitter user @iamlaurans recently fed a hot pickle to her nephew who was begging to have a taste, only to have him collapse in agony.

Be careful what kind of pickle you wish for, folks.

@IamLaurans believes that her nephew's reaction wasn't all that exaggerated:

"He’s very dramatic, but the pickle was definitely hot!! Lol," she told Mashable.

Remember, kids: pickles are just fancy cucumbers. Nibble cautiously. Read more...

More about Watercooler, Viral Videos, Cute Kids, Culture, and Web Culture

from Mashable http://bit.ly/2Q9QNmX

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