I think I am a bit odd, but whenever I donate, I opt-out of gift aid, so that I don't have to remember the values for the tax return (hate filling in forms). It's often difficult to opt-out of it too. Sometimes you have to select that the donation is from someone else, or you have to select that you aren't from the UK. It's rarely a yes/no question. Like I say, I'm odd. :)
By the way, good luck. I think KS would have given the project more momentum, but JustGiving is fine too.
You only need to remember the values for the tax return if you're claiming the charitable donations against your taxable income. Feel free to opt-in to gift aid and leave the charity section blank.
I am not an accountant so this could all be bollocks, however!
If you're a "normal" UK taxpayer, you shouldn't have to remember anything for any tax return - just tick the box and give them your name and address (so that they can verify you are in fact a UK taxpayer).
If you're not paying UK income tax, you're not supposed to be able to gift aid it, that's kind of the point.
I can imagine it might be awkward if you're self-employed in the UK or something like that; they don't bother streamlining that case.
We think Kickstarter will be great when we get to the 'build the machine' phase because we'll be able to offer all sorts of incentives related to the physical machine.
That was an attraction for me as well. I used to read the NYT each day, but it was easier (and less paper) when I switched to the Economist. Now after reading it, I'm just an Economist fanboy because of the content.
I've used quite a few over the years, Lloyds TSB was probably the best in terms of usability (but others will likely disagree). If I were choosing a bank though, I would be more interested in their ethics, hidden charges - which usually means avoiding PLCs.
Simple answer: don't rely on "cloud" services. There's often a good reason for these restrictions, such as copyright and IP limitations. If you want to own something, then actually own it.
The comment higher up says A/B testing is used, that may be true for publishers that make use of performance ads. If you're a well known entity then you try to only accept brand ads (CPM - pay per impression/view), and those brand ads come with lots of conditions.
Advertisers want to appear near the top of the page or near the top of the content - that's why ad networks have rules about the placement of ads. Even Google (which is more performance than brand) limits the number of units that are displayed on a single page.
If your ads are at the top then there's a good chance that they will appear on the user's screen. If your ads are at the bottom and the user found the article boring then the browser was closed before seeing the ad, yet the impression was still paid for (hence, much lower rates).
This is the same with paged content, the user is equally less likely to see the adverts because maybe they don't view that page/scroll down that far.
I'm guessing the issue is that if you use paged content you know that the user has looked at that part of the article. If the adverts are all on the same page then an impression is not proof that a user has had that advert appear on the screen. Having said that if bootstrap's scrollspy can detect when you've scrolled content into view then I don't see why you shouldn't be able to track advert views in the same way.
Paged content gives site owners (most often, content farms) the ability to divide what would be a 10-second read into a 2-minute read by way of forcing users to keep clicking through. This can artificially juke pageview metrics, "engagement" metrics, bounce rates, etc., which means the site can a) sell more ads, b) command a higher premium on ads, or c) both.
Typically, it makes for a horrific reading experience. And I believe it will become bad for business, too, if enough high-quality content sites emerge and offer a far more compelling experience to draw readers away.
There's a hurdle preventing that from happening, however, and the hurdle is that users seem fairly site-agnostic in their content preferences. They consume information without a great deal of thought as to where it came from. And it's easier than ever to receive content now, through social channels, and never even have an inkling as to its original source or site. This liquidity and disposability of content means that content farms still have a big advantage over sites that attempt to make themselves into interesting, repeat-visit destinations.
Now, savvier and more intelligent readers -- the kind who probably frequent this community -- tend to avoid content farms, and probably don't click on articles entitled "10 Totally Weird Diet Tricks That Will Burn Away 10 Lbs in One Day!!!," requiring a 10-page click through to read. But sadly, a lot of people do click those things. A lot.
To give some context for an otherwise abstract label? Like .ac.uk is likely to be a school or university, .gov.uk is something government related. To me, .co.uk is the wild west of the UK domains, so be a bit more guarded.
I think something like YouView has the most potential. It needs a few more years of development, but it could be bundled into TVs and resold to broadcasters in other countries as a state broadcasting standard.
Not going to happen (bundling into TVs and being resold to other countries).
Firstly it is not a standard in any meaningful sense but a platform that happens to be owned by the main free channels and the telcos. It's actually a bit like Android except Youview can push updates without even the manufacturers approval!
The rest of Europe has adopted HBBTV as a standard already and much of the world is adopting similar HTML based solutions if not HBBTV itself.
As it currently stands a hard disk is required and that is unlikely to be bundled into many TVs in the near future. Spinning rust is too bulky, it adds cost. Flash is too expensive still for the Youview minimum of 250MB (or is it even more than that).
For the major TV manufacturers the loss of control of the TV UI is a major issue and they are unlikely to do that unless they really have to. For the UK alone it is very unlikely. I'm surprised that some have gone the GoogleTV route to be honest but I think they were imagining it would take off like Android has. Also going the Youview route removes their potential revenues from operating their on online platforms.
So for the above reasons Youview as it currently stands will not make any impact outside the UK (and it won't actually make much inside either) and won't make a major part of any TV manufacturers line up.
Not quite right. For the UK, £300 million of the licence fee budget (over the next couple of years) will pay for the roll out of high speed internet to rural communities. I doubt the BBC wanted to do it, but it looks like they'll be subsidising ISPs.
In addition to this, it's worth noting that not all calories are created equally. If you process your food to make juices, smoothies etc (or buy it already processed), then you'll get a greater, more immediate hit of energy than if your body broke it down itself.
But you also end up getting all of the fructose and none of the fiber, which your body needs for processing the fruit without the sugar hit. Lustig: "When god made the poison, he packaged it with the antidote."
I see Kickstarter as more of a service to get well established businesses to focus on difficult, specialist, low margin projects, particularly computer games. Most of these design-focused hardware projects ring alarm bells in my head.
By the way, good luck. I think KS would have given the project more momentum, but JustGiving is fine too.