Geolocation marketing, also known as location-based marketing, is important for several reasons:

1. Targeted Advertising: Geolocation allows businesses to deliver highly targeted advertisements to consumers based on their physical location. By understanding where their target audience is located, businesses can tailor their marketing messages and promotions to specific regions or localities. This increases the relevance and effectiveness of their advertising efforts, as they can deliver customized content to individuals who are more likely to be interested in their products or services.
   
2. Personalization: Geolocation data enables businesses to personalize their marketing campaigns based on the location of the consumer. They can provide localized offers, recommendations, or relevant information specific to a particular area. This level of personalization enhances the customer experience and increases engagement, as customers feel that the business understands their needs and preferences within their local context.
   
3. Local Business Promotion: Geolocation marketing is particularly beneficial for local businesses. It allows them to target potential customers in their immediate vicinity who are more likely to visit their physical stores. For example, a restaurant can send out promotions or discounts to people in the nearby area during lunchtime to attract customers. This helps drive foot traffic and boost sales for local businesses.
   
4. Enhancing Customer Experience: Geolocation can be used to enhance the overall customer experience. For instance, businesses can use geolocation data to provide location-specific information, such as store hours, nearby attractions, or directions to their nearest branch. It can also be used to deliver real-time notifications, updates, or offers to customers when they are in proximity to a business location, improving convenience and engagement.
   
5. Geofencing and Proximity Marketing: Geolocation enables the use of geofencing, which involves setting up virtual perimeters around specific geographic areas. When customers enter or exit these predefined zones, businesses can trigger targeted marketing messages or notifications to their mobile devices. This allows for highly targeted and timely marketing, as businesses can reach customers at the right place and time to influence their purchasing decisions.
   
6. Data Insights: Geolocation data provides valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and patterns. By analyzing location data, businesses can identify trends, understand customer movements, and make informed decisions regarding their marketing strategies. This data-driven approach helps optimize marketing campaigns, allocate resources more effectively, and identify new opportunities for business growth.
   

Overall, geolocation marketing enables businesses to deliver targeted, personalized, and timely marketing messages to their customers. It enhances customer experience, increases engagement, and helps drive sales, particularly for local businesses. By leveraging geolocation data, businesses can gain a competitive edge in the marketplace and create more meaningful connections with their target audience.

​Backing up your personal data is important for many reasons. Here are our Top 5 :

1. Protection against hardware failures: Hard drives and other storage devices can fail at any time, resulting in data loss. By backing up your personal data, you can ensure that your important files and documents are safe and can be easily restored in the event of a hardware failure.
2. Protection against accidental deletion: It is not uncommon for people to accidentally delete important files, such as family photos, music collections, or important documents. Backing up your personal data can help you recover those files and avoid the stress and frustration that comes with permanent data loss.
3. Protection against malware and viruses: Malware and viruses can corrupt or delete personal data, leaving you without important files and documents. By backing up your data, you can restore your system to a previous state and remove the malware or virus without losing your personal files.
4. Peace of mind: Backing up your personal data can provide peace of mind, knowing that your important files are safe and can be easily restored in the event of a data loss.
5. Convenient data migration: If you need to migrate your personal data to a new device or computer, having a backup can make the process much easier and faster.

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By: Josh Danza

A few years ago, after many years of procrastinating, I cleaned my leftover childhood belongings out of my grandparents' house. Most were stored in blue, plastic storage containers. I threw out almost everything but kept two boxes of items that I felt had sentimental meaning. In separating the "trash" and "keep" piles, I came across a binder full of old Pokémon cards in 3x3 plastic storage sleeves. I remember neatly organizing those cards as a kid, putting the holographic cards (my once "most-valued possessions") in the front few sleeves. I never played the actual Pokémon game with the cards, I was afraid that I would "ruin" the card by accidentally bending it or getting it wet. But they were fun to look at and show off to friends.

My mom also used to buy large cases of newly released baseball cards throughout the 90's in hopes of collecting every case since the year I was born. When I was around 9 years old I remember she presented me all of these unopened packs of cards, and I didn't really know what to do with them besides stack them in the back corner of my closet. I'm actually not entirely sure where they went, but I'm sure my mom has them somewhere. She also used to collect Beanie Babies. I had around 7-8 Beanie Babies that I played with, and the rest of them I tucked away in a plastic bin with a lid, "Ty tags" in-tact and protected with a plastic heart-shaped protector. My mom told me that they were going to be worth a lot of money one day, and it would be best to keep them in a safe spot. My mom's collection easily surpassed over 200 Beanie Babies. She had a book I used to look at that showed how rare each Beanie Baby was and how much they were projected to be worth in the future if kept in perfect condition. 

I originally heard of NFTs a few months ago while listening to a sports podcast. The host of the show and his guests were discussing NBA Top Shot, a new and popular alternative to trading cards using NFTs. At first I couldn't wrap my mind around the concept and had to do my research.

*Opens Google search*

• what is TopShot
• what is an NFT
• what makes NFTs valuable
• what is blockchain

Top Shot allows fans to buy and "own" online short video clips of their favorite NBA players. There are a limited number of each video clip on Top Shot's platform, thus assigning more value to products in high demand. LeBron James' game-winner in the final seconds would surely be worth more than his uncontested layup from the 7th game of the season. On the Top Shot Marketplace, as of today, there are 10 clips valued at over $100,000.

NFTs are growing in popularity and there are many online marketplaces where you can buy and sell them. Here are a few popular options.

• OpenSea - https://opensea.io/
• Rarible - https://rarible.com/
• SuperRare - https://superrare.co/

There are many NFT skeptics, but I believe I see their worth and potential. I think that NFTs could be the trading cards of the future. I could be wrong. It turns out my old cards are pretty valuable and worth more than I would've ever expected. My two young daughters love playing the Pokémon card memory-matching game I made up. It works just like any other memory card game where you flip two cards over, and if they are a match you pick up the cards and go again. At the end (their favorite part) they present their cards out in front of them and trade. Their most coveted cards are Clefairy and Eevee. The other day I traded each of my Clefairy's for 4 cards each! (No mercy). They couldn't care less about Mewtwo and Charizard, my once "most-prized" possessions.

​My favorite rule - after a trade has been completed, each player must say, "good trade, good trade".