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Top Tech Tidbits Publisher Updates
for April 13, 2023

Released: 4/13/2023

Author: Aaron Di Blasi, Publisher, Top Tech Tidbits

Updates below for all members of the Top Tech Tidbits community. These are general updates for the week of April 13, 2023.

1.) Top Tech Tidbits Surpasses 10,000 Weekly Subscribers

I simply cannot express to you in words what it means to me that we have been able to help so many people through this publication, and that we are now successfully doing the very same thing with Access Information News.

As of today, April 13, 2023, the Top Tech Tidbits newsletter now reaches over 10,000 weekly access technology subscribers. This is almost twice the subscriber count at the time we took over the publication and now surpasses even Access Information News, which was only able to achieve this milestone through split and merger.

I am truly in awe of the impact that our outreach efforts have made. What we've learned during this process is that up until we initiated efforts to grow out the audiences for these two publications the access community at large had been largely devoid of any meaningful marketing platform.

And by meaningful we're not judging the quality of any other access marketing platform, we're only judging its quantity. As in, "the number of access-specific persons that one can legally reach through it via advertisement."

Which is perfectly understandable. Speaking for access influencers specifically, not all social channels make offering advertising possible, and building large, legally compliant email lists that can serve both readers and advertisers across the world without breaking any laws is no trivial task.

Here at Mind Vault we're certified in international email distribution and still it challenges us daily. And the reason that it still challenges us is because we have deliberately chosen to take a much more difficult path in building out the audience for each newsletter.

We have chosen to build not just an email list, but a very high quality, extremely low bounce-rate, world-class email list. What's the difference? Let's take a look.

First, and perhaps most importantly, many, many email newsletters are not legally compliant. And even if they are legally compliant in their own country, they very often are not in another. And the vast majority of email publishers don't even know this. Why? Because email compliance costs money to discover, achieve and maintain. And also nets you FAR LESS subscribers overall. Which I suspect is the real culprit.

For example, if Tidbits were not a compliant email list, our current subscriber count, right now, would be 24,363. But international compliance laws only allow us to send to 10,903 of those subscribers.

Secondly, we are unable to use either of the primary methods that non-compliant email list builders use to gain subscribers, such as list purchasing and/or email scraping. We have to actually get our new readers to click subscribe. Or prove via documentation that the list we are integrating provides implied permission to send.

And if we get a certain number of spam reports? Our list can be shut down.

And finally, in order to keep ongoing newsletter metrics as accurate as possible, while keeping our bounce rate as low as possible, we purge newly undeliverable contacts each week.

Each of these chosen behaviors make our email lists very, very different from most other email lists in the world today. And we make these choices because we believe that the access community deserves premium services just like everyone else. Within the access community at large we often need to focus so much on achieving basic access that there are rarely any resources left to focus on premium services. A niche we always hoped that these publications would fill.

I hope this helps to make it a bit more clear why this is such an amazing achievement. And why I am so very proud to be a part of it.

But the kudos? They all go to you. Yes you. The reader. For it is you, and you alone, that have made this level of growth possible. If you're standing right now, I encourage you to take a bow.

It is my sincerest hope that together we can create the kind of world class platform that brings together all of the very best weekly news, events and advertisements that the access community has to offer. Here's to that.

2.) Top Tech Tidbits Podcast Updates

It's been a few weeks since the launch of the Top Tech Tidbits Podcast and there are now a few new updates to be had.

Most notably, we've changed the name. What? I know. Already? Yes.

In order to make the Podcast as accessible as possible to listeners that will speak the name into a voice assistant such as Siri or Alexa, we decided that the overly-descriptive name, "The Top Tech Tidbits Top 5 Most Clicked Tidbits Podcast," was not so great after all. Since the vast majority of listeners will simply say, "Play the Top Tech Tidbits Podcast," that is what we've changed the name to. And that is where it will stay. This I promise.

I am also incredibly excited to report that the Top Tech Tidbits Podcast is now available everywhere that you get your podcasts, including (1-22):

1.) Amazon Music / Audible
2.) Apple Podcasts
3.) Audacy
4.) Boomplay
5.) Deezer
6.) Facebook
7.) Gaana
8.) Google Podcasts
9.) iHeartRadio
10.) JioSaavn
11.) LinkedIn
12.) Player FM
13.) Podcast Page
14.) Podcast Website
15.) Resso
16.) RSS
17.) Samsung
18.) Spotify
19.) Twitter
20.) YouTube (Access Information News)
21.) YouTube (Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.)
22.) YouTube (Top Tech Tidbits)

Please join us on your favorite channel each week for quick coverage of the Top 5 Most Clicked Tidbits of the week.

3.) Sponsor Classified Advertisement Becomes #1 Most Clicked Tidbit For The First Time Ever

I have conversed with many, many advertisers in the past about Sponsor Classified Advertisements. Many advertisers were understandably concerned that screen reader users, despite our custom code giving them the ability to navigate the newsletter even faster than a sighted human could, would never venture far enough down the newsletter to read their Classified Advertisements.

And I always assured them that this would not be the case.

How could I be so sure? They would ask. Because I knew that there was no such thing as a bottom or a top to a screen reader user, per se. Walk with me on this.

As any screen reader user will tell you if you ask them, most, if not all screen reader users, choose to navigate documents, web pages and emails in a manner that is wholly different from how a sighted human might peruse that same content. While sighted humans may or may not be able to see headings based on their assigned visual formatting, screen reader users can instantly pull up a list of all of the headings on a page, by hierarchy, for quick perusal.

This is, of course, assuming that the document is structured properly, which each newsletter is.

And if the newsletter has sections, whose name never changes, then screen reader users can also quickly jump to those sections, and subsequently navigate in between them, either by heading level hierarchy, using bookmarks or just performing a quick real time search for the beginning of the name of that section.

I doubt that many sighted humans navigate in this manner. I know I don't.

But true access lies in serving both of these readers, seamlessly, from within the very same newsletter. Something I always knew that we did, by the very nature of our code base, but that I had no way to prove. Until now.

I am incredibly excited to report that last week, for the first time ever, in the April 6, 2023 issue, a Sponsor Classified Advertisement ended up in the #1 spot, making it the most clicked Tidbit in the ENTIRE newsletter. Wow.

We made this discovery while pulling the Top 5 Most Clicked Tidbits for the week. But strictly speaking, this was not a Tidbit, so we could not include it in the Top 5. I don't want to disclose the name of the Sponsor here in the event they do not wish for us to share this information. If you're interested to know more please reach out to me via email at: publisher@toptechtidbits.com 📧️.

For reference, this particular newsletter contained 529 links. And out of those 529 links, readers chose to click on this one link more than any other. And where was this link located? Positionally? At or near the very bottom of the newsletter.

Proving once and for all that the content provided within your advertisement has far more to do with reader engagement than your physical position within the newsletter. I believe the moral of the story is this. If your content is great and readers want or need it they will find it. No matter where it is placed positionally within the newsletter.

Something we have worked incredibly hard through design and iteration to achieve. A true symbiosis between reader and advertiser.

4.) All Sponsored Tidbits Now Purchased Via A Single Form

There were previously two different forms for purchasing a Sponsored Tidbit. One for Sponsors and one for Non Sponsors. This is no longer the case.

There is now only one form for both sponsors and non sponsors alike. Just select your current Sponsorship Status from the dropdown at the top of the form and everything else remains the same.

Coupon Codes:

Coupon codes will still work without issue, but are still specific to Sponsors and Non Sponsors because the cost for each is different. This just means that a Sponsor cannot use a Non Sponsor Coupon code, and a Non-Sponsor cannot use a Sponsor coupon code.

All coupon codes remain good for one time use.

You Can Now Include Up To 4 Links:

In addition, Sponsored Tidbits can now include up to 4 links each. One visible in text to the reader and three hyperlinked to words or phrases that you select from within your Sponsored Tidbit description. This new submission form makes submitting these three optional links much easier than it used to be.

New Sponsored Tidbit Form Submission Link:

If you have previously bookmarked either of the old forms, please be sure to bookmark this new one, as the old ones will be going away soon and we have no way to redirect them. The new, now permanent link to purchase a Sponsored Tidbit is: https://toptechtidbits.com/submit-sponsored-news.

Sponsored News Items Now Available in Access Information News:

And finally, I am pleased to announce that you can now run a Sponsored News Item within the Access Information News Publication as well.

This will be announced in Access Information News next week.

Sponsored News Items will work just like like Sponsored Tidbits. They will just reach a different access audience. Learn all about them here.

Giveaways:

While the funds generated from Sponsored Tidbits and now Sponsored News Items will continue do their part in keeping both publications running and evolving, especially in the case of Access Information News, which is not fully funded yet, we have given away more than 50% of the Sponsored Tidbits that we have run to date. And that too is on purpose.

In addition to generating some additional funds for improvements to both publications we also wanted to create a way to give our best content contributors a no-cost boost when we felt that readers would really benefit from the information they had to offer.

We plan to use Sponsored News Items in the same way. When we give one of these away the publication itself is basically paying to boost your content. A really great way for us to recognize and reward the efforts of our very best content contributors.

5.) Form Submissions Soon To Become Standard For All Content Contributors

As both the Top Tech Tidbits and Access Information News Publications continue to grow, we will soon be forced to require all content contributors to submit by dedicated online form only, which will include Sponsors as well.

I know there are many that prefer to submit via email, and we have held out on this as long as we could, but as we have already announced we have been busy redesigning all of the forms for both publications and have just completed screen reader testing using JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver.

Once we complete a few final tweaks, we will be making the official announcement.

I know that this change may cause inconvenience for some content contributors, and I sincerely apologize for that in advance, but there is simply no way that we can serve over 20,000 readers and 36 sponsors across two different publications while continuing to allow email as a submission method.

We have to be able to automate the submission process as much as possible, otherwise we face the very real possibility of both publications ultimately requiring more funds to operate than they currently have available. A position that Access Information News already finds itself in due to its infancy, but that I am confident it will grow out of in time. And Mind Vault will be there to hold it up until it does. However long that takes.

There are currently only 8 Sponsorship Packages remaining to fully fund the Access Information News publication. If you know of an access business or organization that would benefit from reaching over 16,000 access subscribers each week, at a nearly negligible price point, please pass along this information.

In the meantime you can prepare for the big announcement by bookmarking two very important pages. One on the Top Tech Tidbits website and one on the Access Information News website:

On each of these pages you find an alphabetical listing of each submission form, by subject. These links are:

Top Tech Tidbits Forms Page:
https://toptechtidbits.com/forms.html

Access Information News Forms Page:
https://accessinformationnews.com/forms.html

Deadlines:

Please note that deadlines are different for each publication and in some cases for each form. Please be sure to note the deadline listed atop your chosen form.

Once the official announcement has been made, we will be following these deadlines programmatically, which means that any contributions submitted after the deadline listed on your form will now be automatically rolled over to the next week, without us even knowing it, so please be sure to submit prior to your form's listed deadline.

Cheers,

Aaron Di Blasi, PMP

Publisher (2020-Present)
Top Tech Tidbits
The Week's News in Access Technology
https://toptechtidbits.com 🌐

Publisher (2022-Present)
Access Information News
The Week's News in Access Information
https://accessinformationnews.com 🌐

Sr. Project Management Professional (2006 - Present)
Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.
Innovative ideas. Solutions that perform.
https://mvsltd.com 🌐

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