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As a subject for delightful conversation, personal insurance ranks somewhere between polyp removal and credit default swaps. Which means most of us don’t know what we don’t know. No one likes to dwell on what might go wrong in the future—which is part of the reason why we all tend to regard insurance professionals with a healthy level of skepticism. But protecting yourself and your money from the unexpected has to be part of getting your financial house in order. Otherwise, a single bad event could erase all your hard work. To figure out what kinds of insurance you might need, start with the following basic rules of the insurance industry. Social benefit and private profit The goal of insurance is to share risk among a large pool of people. If everyone pays a small amount—known as the premium—to their insurance company, the insurer assumes the risk of any one individual suffering a large loss. At that point, the insurance company will pay out to make that individual whole after the loss. But insurance companies are not there just as a social benefit. These companies are in business to make a profit. This means insurers make it their business to understand what kinds of losses are most likely to happen. And if something is more likely to occur, the insurance company will charge higher premiums for it. This is why life insurance for a nonsmoking 20-something costs pennies compared to the giant chunk of change the same insurance costs for a pack-a-day 58-year-old with diabetes. It’s possible the young adult might die in a freak stamp-collecting accident and perhaps the smoker might live to 109—but the odds are that the 20-something has decades of life ahead and the 58-year-old does not. Since it is more likely that the insurance company will have to pay out for the smoker’s life insurance policy relatively soon, the premiums for that policy are higher. This is how the insurance company protects its profits while still offering the payout benefits. Mo’ money, mo’ likely The insurance industry’s understanding of probable outcomes can help consumers identify which policies they need. Specifically, if a personal insurance policy is expensive, that usually means the insurer thinks it’s likely it will have to make a payout—and that can indicate that you might need that kind of coverage. This is not a one-to-one correlation, of course. Just because a policy is expensive doesn’t mean you need it. And some types of insurance—identity theft insurance and renters insurance, for example—are extremely helpful to have and generally low-cost. But understanding why insurers charge high premium prices can help consumers figure out which types of policies they might need. The most expensive types of insurance include the following. Disability This kind of personal insurance helps pay a portion of your salary until you’re able to go back to work, which can help keep you financially stable. While you might assume that you’re unlikely to suffer a disability, since the most strenuous thing you do is staple Mr. Lumberg’s TPS reports, remember that about 1 out of every 4 current 20-year-olds will become disabled before reaching retirement age. That’s why it’s expensive to purchase disability insurance—but also why it’s important. Auto insurance Car crashes are the leading cause of death in the United States, with a total about 120 people killed per day in car accidents. Getting behind the wheel is the riskiest activity most Americans engage in on a daily basis, which means the insurance to protect you from that risk is also expensive. (The good news is that you can lower your risk and your auto insurance costs by driving like your dad: hands on 10 and 2, brake gently, check your mirrors, and assume everyone on the road is trying to kill you.) Life insurance Even though you won’t notice if you die without life insurance, any dependents who rely on your income will struggle if you pass away. And that likelihood is 100%, since none of us are getting out of this thing alive. Life insurance is cheapest for young and healthy individuals—who are the least likely to need it or buy it—and the price goes up with age and health problems. Homeowners insurance This kind of insurance not only covers damage to your home and possessions because of a covered disaster, but also liability for injuries or property damage experienced by a visitor to your home. (This is why dog owners, even apart from the growing trend to take out healthcare policies on our furry friends, may pay a higher premium than pet-free homeowners, and certain dog breeds are not covered at all—since they are more likely to bite a stranger.) And even though homeowners insurance covers damage caused by certain disasters, not all types of hazards are covered. In particular, flooding is a common hazard that isn’t covered. Flood insurance Nearly no insurers include flood damage in homeowners or renters insurance policies. Instead, you may have to purchase a policy through the National Flood Insurance Program, which is a partnership between the federal government, insurance companies, and local communities to provide affordable flood protection. This is because floods are so likely to happen in so many areas that the federal government had to help subsidize the cost of flood insurance. While these are not the only hazards you should protect yourself against, these are the ones the insurance industry (and its army of statistics nerds) think are most likely to occur. That means it’s a good idea to start with the types of losses you are most likely to face. Protect your moneymaker In addition to looking at which hazards are most likely, it’s also helpful to think about what valuables you have that would be most difficult to replace. For most people, these valuables fall into the same categories as the most expensive types of insurance: your earning potential, your life, and your home represent your most valuable assets. But it’s important to insure whatever assets you have that would be financially devastating to lose. For example, opera singers have been known to insure their voices, since they can’t earn their living if they can’t sing. More commonly, small business owners and freelancers often purchase professional liability insurance, also known as errors and omissions insurance, to protect themselves from lawsuits. Thinking about insurance as protection against financial loss can help you pinpoint what kinds of personal insurance you need most. Don’t fear the reaper (or the insurance rep) There’s a reason no one invites Ned Ryerson to dinner: talking about the kinds of doom-and-gloom that insurance professionals know intimately is a major bummer. But personal insurance is an important part of a healthy budget. You need insurance to protect you from the risk of a devastating financial loss, which it does by spreading the risk among a pool of individuals and asking the insurance company to assume the financial risk. Understanding how insurers price their policies can help you figure out which types of personal insurance are most important, since the industry charges higher premiums to protect against the most likely losses. That’s why disability insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, home insurance, and flood insurance are among the most expensive types of policies available. Insurers know they are likely to have to make payouts on these policies, so they price the premiums accordingly. Consumers can also figure out the right coverage by thinking about what assets it would be financially devastating to lose. For most people, that includes their income potential, life, and home, but depending on your circumstances, you may also want to protect other important assets that you rely on or would be unable to replace. View the full article

The American economy runs on what are known as heuristics, a diverse array of mental short-cuts that help consumers make a dizzying number of choices to navigate the wild complexity of everyday life. These shortcuts help us select the restaurants we may choose to patronize, the cars we drive, the food we purchase, and the schools we attend and to which we send our children. We rely on scoring systems, certifications, and ranking methodologies to consider what movies to see, what music to listen to, and whether to purchase fair-trade products. These shortcuts come in many forms, from the complex (like the tools used to rate bonds and other financial products) to the straightforward (like the letter grades that many municipalities generate to inform consumers whether a particular restaurant follows safe food-handling practices). Sometimes these systems are managed and operated by the government, like the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s system for grading automobiles and trucks for their performance in crash tests, but often by private entities, like Consumer Reports. Sometimes the ratings are purely peer-to-peer and aggregated, like the ubiquitous “five-star” rating systems for ride-hailing companies or delivery services. In the end, consumers rely on these systems every day to make decisions great and small, to help make sense of a complex world where we are too easily prone to information overload. One area that cries out for a methodology that would provide consumers with critical details about the products and services they are using is one that is largely devoid of these types of shortcuts: our online life. We search, scroll, bank, shop, talk, text, stream, post, like, stan, and even hook up in the digital world. And we enter sites, download apps, communicate over platforms, access our financial information, and provide intimate details about our health and welfare without the slightest clue about what the entities with which we share such information do with it. The truth is, most will use it for their own profit and often sell it to data brokers: the third-party entities that, in turn, pass it along to other companies that might then use and abuse it, selling us products, pushing content to us we may not want, and perhaps even getting us to engage in behavior we might otherwise avoid if we were truly educated consumers about the uses and abuses of our digital data. AI only amplifies that influence. But what if there was a way to use the power of heuristics to protect our digital privacy through simple shortcuts that could give consumers basic information about how different sites, apps, and platforms were exploiting the digital activities they harvest from us? At present, some American states and the European Union have created rules of the road for the sunny information “superhighway,” as it was once called so quaintly in the 1990s. Instead of an information superhighway where consumers can travel at will, free of harm or surveillance, when we enter the digital world today, a better metaphor is the “Upside Down”: the shadowy, parallel world from the hit TV series Stranger Things, where entities with access to our digital lives create replicants of us that follow us around, always just below the surface, waiting to do us harm. We are already living in a world where we get asked to “accept” a particular company’s “cookies” policy or its terms of service. These relatively “light touch” disclosure regimes are the product of laws and regulations passed around the world. The European’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has largely set the global standard because tech companies do not want to have to ascertain when a particular consumer is subject to those regulations or not. And it is the GDPR, and the European Union, that we have to thank for those ubiquitous pop-ups that ask us to accept the company’s cookies policy. But those rules actually mask what is going on under the hood. Companies can comply with the disclosure requirements by giving consumers the option of accepting their practices or not, and burying those disclosures in user agreements that are unintelligible to the average user. As a result, current practices in the digital world require a far more robust regulatory response than that which the relatively weak disclosure regimes that presently exist currently offer. Consumers are also routinely presented with complex terms of service, which few will read to the end, and even a smaller number will completely understand. Indeed, rare is the consumer who ever actually reviews these policies prior to entering a site or download an app. If they did, they would likely find few privacy-protective policies, if any. Instead, more likely than not, a review of those policies would reveal that the company engages in cross-site tracking, sells consumers’ information, and forces such consumers to go to arbitration even for violations of those very terms of service policies, among other things. What legal protections do exist on the internet actually largely protect companies, and not consumers. Laws like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act insulate many companies that engage in activities online from being sued for the content on their sites. Courts, too, following federal law, largely enforce the terms of service that require that disputes about a company’s actions must be resolved, not through the courts, but through arbitration. All of this is a result of a powerful tech lobby that not only fights any meaningful regulation of their activities but also complains that any government intervention will stifle innovation and the economic benefits and convenience these companies generate. Enter the Zone But there is another way, one that does not require the heavy hand of government, that can still foster innovation and put the power in the hands of consumers to drive business behavior and not the other way around. A more robust regulatory regime for the digital world could draw on the power of grading systems to send a clear message to consumers about the risks that particular apps or sites may pose to our digital privacy. It would provide this information to consumers in an easy-to-understand format that does not require a deep dive into the bowels of a company’s end-user agreement, or a certificate in legalese. Instead, whenever a consumer accessed a site, app, or platform, that service would communicate whether it is protective of the consumer’s privacy or not. While there are many ways that a company can protect, or violate, a consumer’s privacy, and engage in activity that makes it unaccountable to that consumer should it breach their privacy, a simple, easy-to-understand system would grade companies on how well they do in terms of protecting their customers’ privacy or routinely violate it. That information would be communicated through one letter, a grade, that the company would have to reveal prominently as any consumer accessed the service. The consumer would then know, immediately, whether this is an entity that looks out for consumer privacy and which tends to exploit it. But where would such grades come from? Some grading systems are opaque, with the ultimate grade issued by a government agency, like the restaurant letter grades in New York City. One can assume that an “A” grade means that the restaurant meets basic quality standards. And it’s hard to find a restaurant worth their salt that does not have that A grade. In fact, anything less is usually enough to ward off many customers. In a regime for the digital world, one could adopt a type of digital “zoning” modelled after land-use restrictions in IRL. In land-use zoning, certain uses are permitted and others are excluded in particular areas or zones. You generally don’t have a power plant or waste treatment facility abutting single-family homes. That’s because of zoning. If an area is “zoned” for particular uses, individuals and businesses that wish to engage in those uses are free to do so within it. Developers, government regulators, commercial establishments and residents can easily find out what is permitted and what is not from a predetermined description of particular zones. Anyone can comply with those restrictions, or find themselves facing litigation, fines, an order to stop what they are doing, and perhaps even dismantle any illegal development that has occurred. Zoning in the digital world could work much the same way. Privacy-protective uses will be clustered in the best zone; let’s call it “Zone A.” In that zone, companies would not track a consumer’s activities on their site, not even keep personally identifying information unless it was necessary for their own purposes, and certainly would not sell such information to third parties. They would agree to stiff punishments for violations of their consumers’ privacy and allow those disputes to be resolved in a court of law, instead of forcing individuals to go through business-friendly arbitration settings of those businesses’ choosing, as many companies choose to do today. Ultimately, a company agreeing to provide this suite of privacy-protective practices by operating within Zone A would be able to market to its customers that they are doing so by displaying an “A” prominently on their home page, their app’s site on an app store, or whenever a consumer starts to enter that site from their smartphone. If a company failed to provide these sorts of privacy protections, it would not receive that grade. Instead, it could choose from a number of different zones that would offer a different suite of protections along a spectrum, from best to worst. When a company provides some privacy protective measures, that would justify it displaying a higher grade, even if not an A. The system would cluster an array of practices—covering search, sale of data, monitoring user behavior, etc.—and grade companies on the extent to which they meet the more privacy-protective practices or are more likely to take advantage of their customers. Those companies that are least protective of their customers’ data would earn an “F.” All companies would have to display their grade prominently whenever a consumer engages with that company’s site, service, app, or platform. Consumers would have an immediate read on whether the company is looking out for the customer or abusing their data for its own benefit. While disclosure-based regimes are sometimes themselves abused, by, for example, companies making it difficult to understand what their policies are, or burying the important disclosure in legalese, a disclosure regime that is clear and easy to understand will put the power back in the hands of the consumer. Such a regime could create a race to the top, with companies vying to be more protective of their consumers’ data because they have to be completely transparent about their data privacy practices. Instead of stifling innovation and competition, digital zoning could actually encourage both, prompting companies to find ways to deliver their products and services in ways that are more protective of their customers’ interests and not less. Moreover, companies have a clear choice within this regime: no particular grade would be mandated. Companies would be free to do as they please with their customers’ data—provided they are open and honest about their practices. What are the exact contours of this system and who would get to begin to cluster the different practices that determine the grade companies would receive? All of us. Legislators, technology companies, online safety and security experts, and consumers could engage in a dialogue around these issues to start to chart a course forward when it comes to our digital life that will encourage innovation that is protective of our privacy and does not simply see privacy as, at best, something to get around, or, worse, something to exploit. This type of robust and meaningful disclosure can occur without heavy-handed government intervention. Government will certainly have a hand in helping to write the rules of the road and setting the contours of the zones, with extensive input from a wide range of stakeholders, but it will not need to engage in extensive regulation of private companies. Of course, there will be a need to police company practices to make sure they are complying with the requirements of the letter grade they say they deserve, but that can be accomplished by stiff penalties, fines, and damages actions when companies misrepresent the types of protections they afford their customers. Such policing can come from state attorneys general and consumers themselves. It will also require strong whistleblower protections so that employees are free to come forward if the companies for which they work are not following the law, as well as stiff penalties for companies that engage in this sort of fraudulent behavior. Digital zoning would establish a clear and easy-to-understand approach to online privacy, empowering consumers while promoting corporate transparency and accountability. It could create a market-driven system that makes clear to consumers which companies protect their privacy and which might violate it. And it can enlist the government to police the boundaries of the zones, and not necessarily impose command-and-control policies from on high. Such a market-driven approach would place the consumers in the driver’s seat and give them a clear sense of the rules of the road—and who is following them around. As technology becomes more and more present in our lives, it’s important we have a clearer way to know if the companies we do business with are harvesting our data or selling it to those who will use it for purposes we don’t know, and would never accept if we knew it was happening. The time is right for us to better understand how technology serves us, rather than having such technology serve us up to anyone eager to exploit our data. Adapted from The Private Is Political: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Ray Brescia. Published by NYU Press. Copyright © 2025 by Ray Brescia. All rights reserved. View the full article

The American economy runs on what are known as heuristics, a diverse array of mental short-cuts that help consumers make a dizzying number of choices to navigate the wild complexity of everyday life. These shortcuts help us select the restaurants we may choose to patronize, the cars we drive, the food we purchase, and the schools we attend and to which we send our children. We rely on scoring systems, certifications, and ranking methodologies to consider what movies to see, what music to listen to, and whether to purchase fair-trade products. These shortcuts come in many forms, from the complex (like the tools used to rate bonds and other financial products) to the straightforward (like the letter grades that many municipalities generate to inform consumers whether a particular restaurant follows safe food-handling practices). Sometimes these systems are managed and operated by the government, like the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s system for grading automobiles and trucks for their performance in crash tests, but often by private entities, like Consumer Reports. Sometimes the ratings are purely peer-to-peer and aggregated, like the ubiquitous “five-star” rating systems for ride-hailing companies or delivery services. In the end, consumers rely on these systems every day to make decisions great and small, to help make sense of a complex world where we are too easily prone to information overload. One area that cries out for a methodology that would provide consumers with critical details about the products and services they are using is one that is largely devoid of these types of shortcuts: our online life. We search, scroll, bank, shop, talk, text, stream, post, like, stan, and even hook up in the digital world. And we enter sites, download apps, communicate over platforms, access our financial information, and provide intimate details about our health and welfare without the slightest clue about what the entities with which we share such information do with it. The truth is, most will use it for their own profit and often sell it to data brokers: the third-party entities that, in turn, pass it along to other companies that might then use and abuse it, selling us products, pushing content to us we may not want, and perhaps even getting us to engage in behavior we might otherwise avoid if we were truly educated consumers about the uses and abuses of our digital data. AI only amplifies that influence. But what if there was a way to use the power of heuristics to protect our digital privacy through simple shortcuts that could give consumers basic information about how different sites, apps, and platforms were exploiting the digital activities they harvest from us? At present, some American states and the European Union have created rules of the road for the sunny information “superhighway,” as it was once called so quaintly in the 1990s. Instead of an information superhighway where consumers can travel at will, free of harm or surveillance, when we enter the digital world today, a better metaphor is the “Upside Down”: the shadowy, parallel world from the hit TV series Stranger Things, where entities with access to our digital lives create replicants of us that follow us around, always just below the surface, waiting to do us harm. We are already living in a world where we get asked to “accept” a particular company’s “cookies” policy or its terms of service. These relatively “light touch” disclosure regimes are the product of laws and regulations passed around the world. The European’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has largely set the global standard because tech companies do not want to have to ascertain when a particular consumer is subject to those regulations or not. And it is the GDPR, and the European Union, that we have to thank for those ubiquitous pop-ups that ask us to accept the company’s cookies policy. But those rules actually mask what is going on under the hood. Companies can comply with the disclosure requirements by giving consumers the option of accepting their practices or not, and burying those disclosures in user agreements that are unintelligible to the average user. As a result, current practices in the digital world require a far more robust regulatory response than that which the relatively weak disclosure regimes that presently exist currently offer. Consumers are also routinely presented with complex terms of service, which few will read to the end, and even a smaller number will completely understand. Indeed, rare is the consumer who ever actually reviews these policies prior to entering a site or download an app. If they did, they would likely find few privacy-protective policies, if any. Instead, more likely than not, a review of those policies would reveal that the company engages in cross-site tracking, sells consumers’ information, and forces such consumers to go to arbitration even for violations of those very terms of service policies, among other things. What legal protections do exist on the internet actually largely protect companies, and not consumers. Laws like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act insulate many companies that engage in activities online from being sued for the content on their sites. Courts, too, following federal law, largely enforce the terms of service that require that disputes about a company’s actions must be resolved, not through the courts, but through arbitration. All of this is a result of a powerful tech lobby that not only fights any meaningful regulation of their activities but also complains that any government intervention will stifle innovation and the economic benefits and convenience these companies generate. Enter the Zone But there is another way, one that does not require the heavy hand of government, that can still foster innovation and put the power in the hands of consumers to drive business behavior and not the other way around. A more robust regulatory regime for the digital world could draw on the power of grading systems to send a clear message to consumers about the risks that particular apps or sites may pose to our digital privacy. It would provide this information to consumers in an easy-to-understand format that does not require a deep dive into the bowels of a company’s end-user agreement, or a certificate in legalese. Instead, whenever a consumer accessed a site, app, or platform, that service would communicate whether it is protective of the consumer’s privacy or not. While there are many ways that a company can protect, or violate, a consumer’s privacy, and engage in activity that makes it unaccountable to that consumer should it breach their privacy, a simple, easy-to-understand system would grade companies on how well they do in terms of protecting their customers’ privacy or routinely violate it. That information would be communicated through one letter, a grade, that the company would have to reveal prominently as any consumer accessed the service. The consumer would then know, immediately, whether this is an entity that looks out for consumer privacy and which tends to exploit it. But where would such grades come from? Some grading systems are opaque, with the ultimate grade issued by a government agency, like the restaurant letter grades in New York City. One can assume that an “A” grade means that the restaurant meets basic quality standards. And it’s hard to find a restaurant worth their salt that does not have that A grade. In fact, anything less is usually enough to ward off many customers. In a regime for the digital world, one could adopt a type of digital “zoning” modelled after land-use restrictions in IRL. In land-use zoning, certain uses are permitted and others are excluded in particular areas or zones. You generally don’t have a power plant or waste treatment facility abutting single-family homes. That’s because of zoning. If an area is “zoned” for particular uses, individuals and businesses that wish to engage in those uses are free to do so within it. Developers, government regulators, commercial establishments and residents can easily find out what is permitted and what is not from a predetermined description of particular zones. Anyone can comply with those restrictions, or find themselves facing litigation, fines, an order to stop what they are doing, and perhaps even dismantle any illegal development that has occurred. Zoning in the digital world could work much the same way. Privacy-protective uses will be clustered in the best zone; let’s call it “Zone A.” In that zone, companies would not track a consumer’s activities on their site, not even keep personally identifying information unless it was necessary for their own purposes, and certainly would not sell such information to third parties. They would agree to stiff punishments for violations of their consumers’ privacy and allow those disputes to be resolved in a court of law, instead of forcing individuals to go through business-friendly arbitration settings of those businesses’ choosing, as many companies choose to do today. Ultimately, a company agreeing to provide this suite of privacy-protective practices by operating within Zone A would be able to market to its customers that they are doing so by displaying an “A” prominently on their home page, their app’s site on an app store, or whenever a consumer starts to enter that site from their smartphone. If a company failed to provide these sorts of privacy protections, it would not receive that grade. Instead, it could choose from a number of different zones that would offer a different suite of protections along a spectrum, from best to worst. When a company provides some privacy protective measures, that would justify it displaying a higher grade, even if not an A. The system would cluster an array of practices—covering search, sale of data, monitoring user behavior, etc.—and grade companies on the extent to which they meet the more privacy-protective practices or are more likely to take advantage of their customers. Those companies that are least protective of their customers’ data would earn an “F.” All companies would have to display their grade prominently whenever a consumer engages with that company’s site, service, app, or platform. Consumers would have an immediate read on whether the company is looking out for the customer or abusing their data for its own benefit. While disclosure-based regimes are sometimes themselves abused, by, for example, companies making it difficult to understand what their policies are, or burying the important disclosure in legalese, a disclosure regime that is clear and easy to understand will put the power back in the hands of the consumer. Such a regime could create a race to the top, with companies vying to be more protective of their consumers’ data because they have to be completely transparent about their data privacy practices. Instead of stifling innovation and competition, digital zoning could actually encourage both, prompting companies to find ways to deliver their products and services in ways that are more protective of their customers’ interests and not less. Moreover, companies have a clear choice within this regime: no particular grade would be mandated. Companies would be free to do as they please with their customers’ data—provided they are open and honest about their practices. What are the exact contours of this system and who would get to begin to cluster the different practices that determine the grade companies would receive? All of us. Legislators, technology companies, online safety and security experts, and consumers could engage in a dialogue around these issues to start to chart a course forward when it comes to our digital life that will encourage innovation that is protective of our privacy and does not simply see privacy as, at best, something to get around, or, worse, something to exploit. This type of robust and meaningful disclosure can occur without heavy-handed government intervention. Government will certainly have a hand in helping to write the rules of the road and setting the contours of the zones, with extensive input from a wide range of stakeholders, but it will not need to engage in extensive regulation of private companies. Of course, there will be a need to police company practices to make sure they are complying with the requirements of the letter grade they say they deserve, but that can be accomplished by stiff penalties, fines, and damages actions when companies misrepresent the types of protections they afford their customers. Such policing can come from state attorneys general and consumers themselves. It will also require strong whistleblower protections so that employees are free to come forward if the companies for which they work are not following the law, as well as stiff penalties for companies that engage in this sort of fraudulent behavior. Digital zoning would establish a clear and easy-to-understand approach to online privacy, empowering consumers while promoting corporate transparency and accountability. It could create a market-driven system that makes clear to consumers which companies protect their privacy and which might violate it. And it can enlist the government to police the boundaries of the zones, and not necessarily impose command-and-control policies from on high. Such a market-driven approach would place the consumers in the driver’s seat and give them a clear sense of the rules of the road—and who is following them around. As technology becomes more and more present in our lives, it’s important we have a clearer way to know if the companies we do business with are harvesting our data or selling it to those who will use it for purposes we don’t know, and would never accept if we knew it was happening. The time is right for us to better understand how technology serves us, rather than having such technology serve us up to anyone eager to exploit our data. Adapted from The Private Is Political: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Ray Brescia. Published by NYU Press. Copyright © 2025 by Ray Brescia. All rights reserved. View the full article

The 50th anniversary celebration of “Saturday Night Live” is so big, it’s not even on Saturday. Airing Sunday and spanning three hours, the, yes, live “SNL 50: The Anniversary Celebration” will assemble a dream team of stars who have helped the show become an enduring pop culture force, including alumni like Tina Fey and Eddie Murphy, notable hosts like Dave Chappelle and Steve Martin and at least four of the surviving original cast members: Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman. The show will also pack in musical guests, with Paul McCartney, Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny and Miley Cyrus among those scheduled to appear, as well. The special is double the usual 90 minutes of each “SNL” episode. With so much television and comedy history to cover, here are some key things to know about the “SNL50” show. When is the ‘SNL’ 50th anniversary tribute show? NBC will air “SNL50: The Anniversary Celebration” on Sunday beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific. The anniversary show will also stream on Peacock. Which ‘SNL’ alums are slated to appear? Oh, so many. NBC says in addition to Murphy, Fey and some of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players, you can expect: Adam Sandler, Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg, Chris Rock, Fred Armisen, Jason Sudeikis, Jimmy Fallon, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Molly Shannon, Pete Davidson, Seth Meyers, Tracy Morgan, Will Ferrell and Will Forte. Current cast member Kenan Thompson’s appearance was also touted. Which notable hosts will appear on ‘SNL50’? Martin, who has left an indelible comedic mark on “SNL” over the years, will be among the many successful hosts returning for the show’s 50th celebration. Other prolific and returning hosts range from actors like Tom Hanks, Martin Short, and Scarlett Johansson (who is married to current “SNL” cast member Colin Jost) to athletes like Peyton Manning. Former “SNL” writer John Mulaney will appear, as will Adam Driver, Ayo Edebiri, Kim Kardashian, Paul Simon, Pedro Pascal, Quinta Brunson, Robert De Niro and Woody Harrelson. Is there a regular edition of ‘Saturday Night Live’ this week? No, the show is on a break this week. Timothée Chalamet hosted the most recent “Saturday Night Live” broadcast, on Jan. 25. He did double duty, performing Bob Dylan songs — Chalamet plays Dylan in the Oscar-nominated film “A Complete Unknown” and spent years preparing for the role. But fans tuning in Saturday night during the regular time slot can see the show’s very first episode, from October 1975 and hosted by George Carlin, beginning at 11:30 p.m. Eastern and 8:30 p.m. Pacific. What musical guests will appear during the ‘SNL’ 50th anniversary tributes? Music is a huge part of “SNL” and a mix of global artists are scheduled to make an appearance on “SNL50: The Anniversary Celebration.” It’s important to note that NBC hasn’t specifically said artists like McCartney, Cyrus, Bad Bunny and others will perform. Lovers of music on “SNL” have other chances to celebrate. NBC has scheduled “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert” for Friday night. It’ll stream live on Peacock, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific. The Backstreet Boys, Lady Gaga, Post Malone, Bad Bunny, Jack White, Cyrus, Robyn, Bonnie Raitt are some of the planned performances. The musical legacy of “SNL” is also explored in the documentary “Ladies and Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music,” from Oscar-winner Questlove. It’s currently streaming on Peacock. “Watching ‘SNL’ those first seasons gave me a musical vocabulary that I don’t think would have happened on its own,” he told The Associated Press last month before the special aired. Who was in the first ‘SNL’ cast and why won’t all of them appear? The first “Saturday Night Live” cast was known as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players and consisted of Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Laraine Newman, Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris and Jane Curtin. Radner and Belushi have since died. Aykroyd’s absence from the list of returning cast members was unclear, though he posted enthusiastically about the 50th anniversary on social media last week. Aykroyd’s publicist did not return the AP’s request for comment. As part of its anniversary celebration, Peacock is streaming a four-part documentary series, “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night,” about the show. Will there be a red carpet? It’s fitting that the anniversary special falls smack in the middle of awards season, because it definitely sounds like an awards show — three hours, on a Sunday … and with a red carpet, to boot. “SNL50: The Red Carpet” will air live on NBC, Peacock and E!, the network announced Thursday. Beginning at 7 p.m Eastern, the carpet show will be hosted by “SNL” alum Leslie Jones and NBC News’ Willie Geist. Matt Rogers, an actor and comedian who co-hosts the podcast “Las Culturistas” with “SNL” cast member Bowen Yang, will serve as a correspondent. Amelia Dimoldenberg of “Chicken Shop Date” fame — no stranger to red-carpet correspondency — will report from the red carpet for the “SNL50: Red Carpet Livestream” on “SNL” social and digital platforms. View the full article

I broke its neck. When making a vase at the potter’s wheel, I torqued its slippery neck clear off the pot as I tried to thin it into a graceful curve. I find vases gratifying to make and their shapes especially pleasing to the eye. But vases also must be handled with particular care because one part of their “body” – the neck – is often so narrow that it can be easily broken. That day at the wheel, I realized that it was not unlike the human neck. Though only a small portion of the human body – about 1% by surface area – our necks have an outsize influence on our psyche and culture. From selfies to formal portraits, the neck positions the head in expressive poses. The neck’s vocal cords vibrate to make meaningful words and moving songs. We passionately kiss it and spritz it with alluring perfume. We use it to nod our head in agreement, tilt our head in confusion and bow our head in prayer. Ornaments such as necklaces can express fashion sense as well as signal wealth and status. Collars can accent the face in portraits as well as denote occupational class, blue collar versus white collar. Yet, for all its aesthetic and expressive potency, the neck is also a site of fear and deep vulnerability. Villains and vampires zero in on the neck. Stressful days at work make us clench our neck muscles until they ache. A pleasant meal can be jolted into terror if a morsel slips into the wrong tube in the neck, sending us into a coughing fit. For millennia, people in power have oppressed their subjects by exploiting the narrowness and fragility of the neck – a dark history of dominating and terrorizing one another using shackles, nooses and guillotines. The widely circulated video of George Floyd’s murder was a brutal reminder that violent asphyxiation is hardly confined to the distant past. Marie Antoinette’s execution by guillotine on 16 October 1793: at left, Sanson, the executioner, showing Marie Antoinette’s head to the people. [Art: Wikipedia] As I became aware of the significance of the neck in culture, I began to explore how these two attributes – its expressive vitality and unnerving vulnerability – could coexist and be concentrated so intensely in one small region of the body. Eventually, it became a book. I am foremost a biologist, and in writing my book, I came to see that the neck’s vitality and vulnerability are rooted in its biology: The neck performs an especially wide variety of crucial functions, and it is the product of a quirky evolutionary history. The neck does so many things, all at the same time. For example, it transports over 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms) of blood, air and food between the head and the torso every single day. It moves the head every six seconds on average to direct our visual attention. Its vocal cords vibrate hundreds of times per second with every spoken word. But this multifunctionality, this vitality, is possible only because of its vulnerability. To be mobile and flexible, the neck must be narrow, and so it is easily strained. Its crucial transport tubes – the windpipe, esophagus and blood vessels – must also be thin and near the surface, making them easily punctured and compressed. From water to land Our vertebrate ancestors “invented” this peculiar contraption as they evolved from water to land. Our fish ancestors had no neck because they needed a single rigid axis to move efficiently through water. Since moving around on land did not require a stiff spinal column, early terrestrial vertebrates evolved flexibility just behind the head, enabling them to widely scan the environment and to direct their mouths toward prey without moving their whole bodies. Picture a zebra swinging its head side to side surveying the savanna for predators, or a lizard tilting its head down and to the side to snap up a crawling bug. Early land vertebrates also evolved lungs, and this transformation freed up the gill structures that fish used for breathing to evolve into various useful – and sometimes problematic – neck structures, such as the voice box, tonsils and the little flap that separates the windpipe and esophagus. ‘American Flamingo’ by Robert Havell and John James Audubon, 1838. [Art: National Gallery of Art] This repurposing of scraps left over from the gills of our distant ancestors contributed to the diverse capacities of our neck. But as products of a quirky evolutionary “renovation,” humans and other land vertebrates live with a jerry-rigged design that fates us to carry many collateral vulnerabilities at the neck. The peculiar human neck While the human neck retains the basic design of our ancestors, it’s nonetheless quite unusual among vertebrates. Most land vertebrates elevate their bodies on four legs, so their necks must be long enough to lower their heads to the ground to feed and strong enough to raise it up high to look around. Again, think of a zebra feeding on the savanna. Because humans walk on two legs, we balance our head atop our spine. Since we use our hands to grab our food, we don’t need strong neck muscles to move the head around. So, compared with most mammals our size, our necks are relatively weak, making them more prone to strain and injury. As another milestone in human evolution, the voice box migrated to a relatively low position in the neck, and this unusual placement contributes to our capacity to make an especially broad range of vocal sounds that we use for speech. However, this descent of the voice box within the throat also makes us more susceptible to choking and sleep apnea. The neck epitomizes the dual nature of the human condition, the ways in which beauty and frailty are often entwined, two sides of the same coin in our biology, in our relationships – and, yes, even in ceramic vases. Kent Dunlap is a professor of biology at Trinity College. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

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The Oscars are less than a month away, but before Hollywood’s biggest night, the folks across the pond have their turn to celebrate. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTAs) will take place on Sunday, February 16, at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Historically viewed as a strong predictor of the Oscars, the BAFTAs just might offer a sneak peak of what’s to come—especially in this unconventional year full of controversies, disasters, and shifting front-runners. Here’s everything you should know and how to tune in. What does Prince William have to do with it? As part of his royal duties, the prince of Wales is the president of BAFTA. He and his wife, Kate Middleton, often attend the big event looking quite stunning. It was announced on Tuesday that neither will attend this year. Instead, William prerecorded a special video message. Last year, he attended solo because of Kate’s cancer treatments. She is back to public-facing royal duties but still has a reduced schedule. Who is hosting the 2025 BAFTA awards? Just because the Windsors will not be present, that doesn’t mean other celebrities won’t abound. David Tennant will host for the second year in a row. The boy band Take That will perform their hit song “Greatest Day,” which was used in the opening scene of best film contender Anora. Jeff Goldblum, who played the Wizard of Oz in Wicked, will tickle the ivories during the always-moving In Memoriam segment. Who are some of the standout nominees? Let’s not forget the nominees, although not all will attend. After offensive tweets were brought to light, Emilia Pérez actress Karla Sofía Gascón is not expected to be present. She is the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for a BAFTA. Last week she issued a statement saying that she hopes her work can speak for itself. “My silence will allow the film to be appreciated for what it is,” concluding: “I sincerely apologize to everyone who has been hurt along the way.” Despite the controversy, the show must go on and there is plenty of spotlight for the year’s biggest contenders. Edward Berger’s Vatican thriller Conclave reigns supreme here with 12 nominations. Jacques Audiard’s musical offering Emilia Pérez is a close second with 11, while Brady Corbet’s immigrant story The Brutalist, with nine nominations, is nothing to scoff at. Timothée Chalamet will be doing double duty, representing both Dune: Part Two and the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. Check out the full list of nominees on the BAFTA website. Beyond the competitive categories, Warwick Davis will be honored with the BAFTA fellowship. This lifetime achievement award celebrates his impressive body of work in films such as Star Wars, Willow, and Harry Potter. How can I watch or stream the 2025 BAFTA awards? If you live in the UK, tune into BBC One or stream it on iPlayer at 7 p.m. local time. For those of us in the United States, BritBox has the exclusive streaming rights and the ceremony begins at 2 p.m. ET. You can sign up directly with the streaming service and even take advantage of a seven-day free trial. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can also catch the action by adding BritBox to your subscription. There’s a free trial option here as well. Whatever way you decide to watch, a pot of tea and some biscuits would be excellent refreshment choices—or a gin and tonic depending on your mood. View the full article

NetSuite has introduced a range of AI-driven innovations, new product offerings, and integrations designed to enhance business efficiency, streamline processes, and support diverse revenue models. These updates, announced at SuiteConnect New York, aim to automate operations, reduce manual workload, and improve financial and procurement functions for organizations of all sizes. AI and Automation Updates NetSuite has expanded its AI capabilities to accelerate data management, optimize product configurations, and improve issue resolution. New features include: NetSuite Text Enhance for automating data entry in custom text fields. Prompt Management API for centralized AI model deployment. NetSuite CPQ AI Assistant to streamline product configurations. NetSuite Expert for SuiteAnswers to assist customers with AI-powered insights. “NetSuite provides an enterprise-grade platform for businesses of all sizes that delivers the scalability, performance, AI innovation, and security that customers need to support any stage of growth,” said Evan Goldberg, founder and executive vice president, Oracle NetSuite. “With new AI-powered advisor and assistant features and a broad range of other updates to help businesses of all sizes, we continue to enable our customers to gain more value from the suite.” New Product and Integration Enhancements Several new solutions have been launched to improve operational flexibility and business model adaptability: NetSuite SuiteSuccess Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) Edition: A pre-configured platform tailored for businesses offering both products and services, streamlining financials, inventory, project management, and revenue recognition. NetSuite Connector for Outlook: Enables seamless data synchronization between Microsoft Outlook and NetSuite, reducing manual data entry and improving sales efficiency. NetSuite Advanced Procurement: Enhances purchasing efficiency with real-time supplier collaboration via Oracle Business Network, automating supplier catalog access and purchase order generation. NetSuite SuiteBilling Enhancements: Introduces prepay functionality and customizable subscription invoicing, allowing businesses to collect payments in advance and manage consumption-based pricing models. Digital Business Network Alliance Integration: Automates electronic invoice exchanges, helping businesses streamline settlement processes and optimize working capital. Migration to Oracle Autonomous Database NetSuite is transitioning to Oracle Autonomous Database within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), enhancing security, reliability, and performance. This migration will provide NetSuite customers with AI-driven automation and database management improvements. Availability These latest updates reinforce NetSuite’s commitment to delivering AI-powered business tools that enhance productivity and efficiency. For more information on these new features, visit NetSuite’s AI Advantage. This article, "NetSuite Expands AI Capabilities and Product Enhancements to Boost Business Efficiency" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

NetSuite has introduced a range of AI-driven innovations, new product offerings, and integrations designed to enhance business efficiency, streamline processes, and support diverse revenue models. These updates, announced at SuiteConnect New York, aim to automate operations, reduce manual workload, and improve financial and procurement functions for organizations of all sizes. AI and Automation Updates NetSuite has expanded its AI capabilities to accelerate data management, optimize product configurations, and improve issue resolution. New features include: NetSuite Text Enhance for automating data entry in custom text fields. Prompt Management API for centralized AI model deployment. NetSuite CPQ AI Assistant to streamline product configurations. NetSuite Expert for SuiteAnswers to assist customers with AI-powered insights. “NetSuite provides an enterprise-grade platform for businesses of all sizes that delivers the scalability, performance, AI innovation, and security that customers need to support any stage of growth,” said Evan Goldberg, founder and executive vice president, Oracle NetSuite. “With new AI-powered advisor and assistant features and a broad range of other updates to help businesses of all sizes, we continue to enable our customers to gain more value from the suite.” New Product and Integration Enhancements Several new solutions have been launched to improve operational flexibility and business model adaptability: NetSuite SuiteSuccess Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) Edition: A pre-configured platform tailored for businesses offering both products and services, streamlining financials, inventory, project management, and revenue recognition. NetSuite Connector for Outlook: Enables seamless data synchronization between Microsoft Outlook and NetSuite, reducing manual data entry and improving sales efficiency. NetSuite Advanced Procurement: Enhances purchasing efficiency with real-time supplier collaboration via Oracle Business Network, automating supplier catalog access and purchase order generation. NetSuite SuiteBilling Enhancements: Introduces prepay functionality and customizable subscription invoicing, allowing businesses to collect payments in advance and manage consumption-based pricing models. Digital Business Network Alliance Integration: Automates electronic invoice exchanges, helping businesses streamline settlement processes and optimize working capital. Migration to Oracle Autonomous Database NetSuite is transitioning to Oracle Autonomous Database within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), enhancing security, reliability, and performance. This migration will provide NetSuite customers with AI-driven automation and database management improvements. Availability These latest updates reinforce NetSuite’s commitment to delivering AI-powered business tools that enhance productivity and efficiency. For more information on these new features, visit NetSuite’s AI Advantage. This article, "NetSuite Expands AI Capabilities and Product Enhancements to Boost Business Efficiency" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

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BigCommerce (Nasdaq: BIGC) has announced updates to Catalyst, its next-generation composable storefront technology, designed to simplify and accelerate ecommerce site deployment. The new feature allows marketers to launch and customize storefronts with a single click from the BigCommerce Control Panel, eliminating the need for extensive development time and resources. Seamless Storefront Deployment and Flexibility Catalyst provides a fully integrated marketing-friendly visual editor, Makeswift, allowing brands to design high-performance storefronts without rigid templates or costly development efforts. Built with Next.js and React, Catalyst is optimized for Core Web Vitals scores of 100 out of the box, ensuring superior site speed and performance. “The adoption of composable commerce has been slow due to the time and resources needed to build a solid, integrated and scalable framework. Historically, this has prevented too many brands and retailers from taking advantage of the flexibility, speed and other benefits that a composable approach provides,” said Al Williams, General Manager of B2C at BigCommerce. “With Catalyst, BigCommerce has flipped the script on composable and opened the market, making it easy and fast to launch a storefront that delivers incredible customer experiences and can scale with the business.” Integrated with Core BigCommerce Capabilities Catalyst is fully integrated with BigCommerce’s core functionality, offering: Customizable checkouts and robust APIs Multi-storefront support for scaling businesses B2B ecommerce tools for complex transactions Seamless integrations with third-party hosting, search, and content management systems Availability Catalyst is now available for BigCommerce merchants, offering a streamlined approach to launching and managing high-performance ecommerce storefronts. The platform’s modular architecture ensures businesses can scale efficiently while maintaining full creative control over their digital experiences. Image: BigCommerce This article, "BigCommerce Introduces Catalyst for Faster, More Flexible Ecommerce Storefronts" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

BigCommerce (Nasdaq: BIGC) has announced updates to Catalyst, its next-generation composable storefront technology, designed to simplify and accelerate ecommerce site deployment. The new feature allows marketers to launch and customize storefronts with a single click from the BigCommerce Control Panel, eliminating the need for extensive development time and resources. Seamless Storefront Deployment and Flexibility Catalyst provides a fully integrated marketing-friendly visual editor, Makeswift, allowing brands to design high-performance storefronts without rigid templates or costly development efforts. Built with Next.js and React, Catalyst is optimized for Core Web Vitals scores of 100 out of the box, ensuring superior site speed and performance. “The adoption of composable commerce has been slow due to the time and resources needed to build a solid, integrated and scalable framework. Historically, this has prevented too many brands and retailers from taking advantage of the flexibility, speed and other benefits that a composable approach provides,” said Al Williams, General Manager of B2C at BigCommerce. “With Catalyst, BigCommerce has flipped the script on composable and opened the market, making it easy and fast to launch a storefront that delivers incredible customer experiences and can scale with the business.” Integrated with Core BigCommerce Capabilities Catalyst is fully integrated with BigCommerce’s core functionality, offering: Customizable checkouts and robust APIs Multi-storefront support for scaling businesses B2B ecommerce tools for complex transactions Seamless integrations with third-party hosting, search, and content management systems Availability Catalyst is now available for BigCommerce merchants, offering a streamlined approach to launching and managing high-performance ecommerce storefronts. The platform’s modular architecture ensures businesses can scale efficiently while maintaining full creative control over their digital experiences. Image: BigCommerce This article, "BigCommerce Introduces Catalyst for Faster, More Flexible Ecommerce Storefronts" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

HubSpot is one of the leading CRM tools on the market, but it’s also a powerful hub for marketing initiatives, sales, and customer support. That means many customer-facing teams can spend their entire day working exclusively in HubSpot, which can silo them away from the rest of the organization. When other teams use a dedicated project management solution — like Smartsheet — everyone loses out on crucial context and opportunities for collaboration. That’s why many organizations look for ways to integrate HubSpot with Smartsheet in a way that scales with them as their operations grow. Here are three popular options for doing this, along with why they may — or may not — be the best solution for you. Using HubSpot’s Data Sync HubSpot’s Data Sync is a built-in two-way sync that supports 90 tools, including Google Contacts, Pipedrive, Mailchimp, and Smartsheet. It’s part of HubSpot’s broader operations hub, which includes other integrations and automations. This option’s main advantage is that it’s available with all HubSpot plans — though the free version is more limited — and doesn’t require any serious technical skills to set up. Here’s how you can set up HubSpot Data Sync to sync data over to Smartsheet: Make sure you have the right permissions. You need to either be a super admin or have App marketplace permissions. Click the Marketplace icon at the top of the navigation bar in HubSpot. Click on App Marketplace. Write “Smartsheet” in the search bar, then open the first result in your search. You’ll see a list of permissions HubSpot needs to sync your data. Click Allow and you’ll be taken back to the app page Now, you can turn on your HubSpot-Smartsheet integration by going to Data Management and clicking on Integrations. Click on the app you’ve just added to HubSpot and click Set up your sync. From there, you can choose what HubSpot objects you want to sync to Smartsheet, as well as whether you want to make this a bidirectional sync or not. And that’s it! With that, you’ve just set up HubSpot’s Data Sync to move data back and forth between HubSpot and Smartsheet. But is it the best solution for your workflows? Limitations of this method Here are some reasons why you might want to consider another option: Pricing limitations: While Data Sync is available with free HubSpot plans, features like custom field mappings and duplicate management are only available with paid HubSpot plans. Only available with HubSpot: If you only need to pair Smartsheet with HubSpot, then HubSpot’s Data Sync is a solid option. But if you want a solution that can integrate Smartsheet with other tools, this won’t work for you. So what about other methods? Using automation tools (like Zapier) Zapier is an automation platform that allows users to set up simple one-way automations between tools like HubSpot, Smartsheet, and thousands of other tools. Its simple, no-code, drag-and-drop interface means you don’t need any technical skills to set this up. You can set up a Zap (Zapier’s word for its automations) by following these steps: Choose your trigger app and connect your app account to Zapier. The “trigger app” is the source of your automation. If you want to push data from HubSpot to Smartsheet, for example, HubSpot would be your trigger app. Customize your trigger event by choosing what kickstarts your automation (e.g. creating a new HubSpot ticket). Choose your action app and connect your app account to Zapier. The “action app” is where the automation actually happens. If you’re pushing data from HubSpot to Smartsheet, Smartsheet would be your action app. Map your fields. Test your Zap. That’s how easy it is to set up your first Zap. Once you do, data will start flowing between HubSpot and Smartsheet. So is this the right option for you? Let’s find out. Limitations of this method Before you start setting up your first Zap, consider these limitations: Works best for new data: Zapier can automatically push new data between tools without much trouble, but moving historical data is a bit more complicated. You have to manually set up triggers (e.g. when a certain field is changed) that flag historical items you want to sync. It’s a workaround that makes things unnecessarily complicated. One-way automation: Zapier is an automation platform, meaning it moves data from one tool to another. It doesn’t send any data back unless you set up a complex chain of automations to replicate a two-way integration. No real-time sync: Even if you can set up that complex automation chain, Zapier can’t achieve the same functionality as a real-time two-way sync solution like the other options on this list. So what if you really need a live two-way sync? Integrating HubSpot and Smartsheet with Unito Unito is a no-code, two-way sync solution with some of the deepest integrations on the market for tools like HubSpot, Smartsheet, Jira, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and more. With a true, real-time two-way sync, Unito is often the best method for connecting tools, and you don’t need significant technical skills to set it up Here’s what makes Unito your best choice for integrating HubSpot and Smartsheet. Why Unito is the best solution It supports 50+ tools: Whether you want to connect HubSpot with Smartsheet, Smartsheet with Salesforce, or HubSpot with Google Contacts, Unito has an integration for you. That makes it more flexible than HubSpot’s Data Sync. It’s a true two-way sync: Unlike automation platforms like Zapier, Unito is two-way by default, meaning you can sync work items from HubSpot to Smartsheet and back with a single flow. It has deep integrations: Not all integrations have the depth that Unito’s do. Nearly every field in HubSpot and Smartsheet can be mapped, and many can be used to filter data you don’t want to sync. Setting up your flow Here’s a step-by-step guide showing how easy it is to integrate HubSpot and Smartsheet with Unito. Step 1: Connect HubSpot and Smartsheet to Unito First, connect your tools. In this case, connect a HubSpot workspace with a Smartsheet sheet. Step 2: Pick flow direction This will determine if new HubSpot or Smartsheet work items are automatically created in just one tool or both. It’s where Unito stands out, since you can easily sync in one direction or both. Step 3: Build rules You don’t always want to sync absolutely every item in HubSpot to Smartsheet, and vice-versa. That’s where Unito rules come in. You can choose fields in either tool to filter out work items (e.g. assignees and labels) and sync the rest. Step 4: Map your fields Unito supports most fields in Smartsheet and HubSpot, meaning no details get missed. In most cases, Unito can map fields in HubSpot and Smartsheet automatically, but you can fine-tune them yourself if you’d like. And that’s it! Now your flow is ready to launch. Looking for other ways to integrate Salesforce and HubSpot? Here are in-depth guides to syncing HubSpot and Smartsheet to the rest of your tool stack: Connect HubSpot with Google Sheets Sync HubSpot deals with Asana tasks Integrate Smartsheet with Azure DevOps Connect Salesforce and Smartsheet Ready to start? Meet with our product experts to see what Unito can do for your team. Book a demo View the full article

The right image can transform your marketing. Photos grab customers’ attention and tell stories. Photos support your brand image on websites and social media. However, not all small businesses have the time or resources to constantly take professional-grade photos of their own. That’s where stock image websites come in. What is a stock photo website? These stock photo websites provide high-resolution images that businesses can purchase or download for free to use in websites, social media posts, or even for commercial purposes. There’s a huge variety of these stock image websites, all with different options and niches. Some focus on high-quality images and videos that businesses can purchase the rights to. Others offer a collection of free public domain or royalty-free images. If you’re wondering “what royalty-free means” or want to learn more about the best places to find photos online, read on for a guide. Free Stock Image Sites For businesses that don’t have the budget to pay for images, there are plenty of stock image websites that make a collection of free stock imagery available — even for commercial purposes. Some of these sites make their images available for download with no strings attached. Others may require attribution or allow users to make voluntary donations to photographers. These generally provide non-exclusive rights to photos. So you can use them for free — but so can others. Here are some of the best free stock image websites for small businesses to source images from. Unsplash Unsplash is one of the best stock image websites and it offers modern and artsy images. Most are photos of people and real-world settings, available in high-resolution versions and smaller sizes if needed. All photos are free to use for both personal and commercial purposes and come with Creative Commons Zero (CC) licensing. And no permission is required, though attribution is always appreciated for the free stock photos. The only limit is that you cannot sell these free stock photos unless they’ve been significantly modified. And you cannot download images to start a competing service. Pexels Pexels is a stock photo site that supports photographers and offers free stock images, including some covered by a Creative Commons (cc) license. There are nature scenes and cityscapes, plus photos of families at home. Small, medium, large, and high-resolution versions are available for most photos. There are also some videos available for download from Pexels. All content on Pexels is completely free and legal to use. You can even modify images, and no credit is required. You just can’t resell Pexels images, alter them in a way that may be offensive to those pictured, or imply endorsement by those pictured. Kaboompics Kaboompics offers a site for royalty-free stock photos. Most of the images are colorful and candid. In addition to searching for specific images, you can view photoshoots to see images of the same model or props. Photos are available in custom sizes. You can even search by color or orientation to find the options that fit best with your brand or aesthetics. All images are free for both commercial and noncommercial use. No attribution is required, and modifications are allowed. You just cannot resell the images. Gratisography Gratisography offers free, high-resolution images for download without copyright restrictions. Created and Founded by Ryan McGuire, this offers lots of free stock images that are whimsical and quirky, so it’s perfect for those who want something that can’t be found on other stock image websites. Photos are free for personal and commercial use. Users are free to add logos or other elements to them through Creative Commons licensing. However, you can’t redistribute them. Gratisography does not guarantee or license rights to things like trademarks, publicity, or privacy. Pixabay Pixabay offers free stock photos, illustrations, vectors, videos, and even music. There are currently more than 1.8 million images on the site. All content is free for both individual and personal use. You can even modify, copy, or distribute images without permission or credit under Creative Commons licensing. However, Pixabay content may be protected by trademark privacy or publicity rights. The page for each image includes more specific information about licensing. Library of Congress The Library of Congress offers a digital collection of images that are free to use and reuse. This stock site provides free photos that fall under the public domain, have no known copyright, or are available with the owner’s permission. In addition to free stock photos, the collection includes video clips, documents, sound recordings, maps, and more. Many of these items are vintage or historical and come with attribution similar to Getty images, complete with full captions and explanations. Its search feature allows you to query lists of authors/creators, subjects, names/titles, and other categories. Wikipedia Wikipedia pages often include images to complement the content. Its collection of stock photos is uploaded by users but must be licensed under a free license like Creative Commons or Public Domain. Users can also upload images they created or own, and uploading them to Wiki Commons makes them free and available to all under its Creative Commons Zero (cc0) license. The license and applicable information are available on each photo page. Pikwizard Pikwizard has a library of more than a million free stock photos and videos. Popular categories include stock image collections of nature, buildings, fashion, and even abstract images. Content is free for both commercial and non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license. There are also a few premium images mixed into browse and search results, which are ads from Adobe Stock. You cannot use the content as part of a trademark or logo or resell it. Flickr Flickr is a site full of user generated content and is one of the best free stock photo sites. Some of it is protected by copyright, but others are available under Creative Commons, Creative Commons Zero, or Public Domain. You can search for free stock photos specifically under each license within the community. And each photo page includes specific rights. You may need to provide attribution for some. Others are simply not available for redistribution or public display. If you need a stunning stock photo to source from, Flickr is a great place to look. Negative Space Negative Space is full of beautiful, high-resolution free stock photos. There are tons of nature scenes, buildings, animals, objects, and virtual backgrounds. You can browse by category, search for specific terms, or even find photos by color. Photos are available in high-resolution or even raw versions under a Creative Commons license. You can use, copy, and share the free stock photos for personal and commercial purposes. The site encourages giving credit to the photographer, but it is not required. Negative Space has a newsletter that updates its community when new images are added and also offers support for fellow creatives. Premium Stock Image Sites There are also plenty of stock photo sites that provide high-quality images for purchase. On these sites, you either pay a membership fee or pay to purchase and download these images. The licenses and terms vary by site. So be sure to check the policies for the specific services you choose. Some of these stock sites may offer exclusive rights to photos, while others offer high-quality royalty-free stock photos. Here are some of the most popular premium stock image sites to consider. DepositPhotos DepositPhotos offers an array of premium plans and photo download options. You can pay a monthly fee and then download as many stock images as your plan allows during the month to source from. There are also discounts for those who sign up for annual plans. Then, there’s the on-demand option that allows users to simply pay to download individual photos. Images are generally available in multiple sizes, including large, high-resolution versions. But each one may differ. The site also offers videos and vectors. Vectors can be scaled to any size. Most images are available under a standard license, which means they’re available for personal and commercial use up to 500,000 copies. If you plan on reselling or distributing stock photos that exceed that amount, they also have extended licenses available. Shutterstock Shutterstock is one of the best stock sites having one of the largest collections of stock photos available, with more than 1.7 million new pieces of content uploaded each week. In addition to stock images, the site also offers videos and audio files. You can sign up for a monthly subscription based on the number of photos you regularly need to download. Prices range from $4.90 to $0.33 per image under these plans. The site also offers on-demand packs, where you can pay between $14.50 and $9.60 per image. These can be used within one year and are best for those who need high-quality stock images but don’t download a ton of them. There are also enterprise and multi-user plans available. Photos come with a standard license, which makes them available for business use. But enhanced licenses that provide the opportunity to use images in products or templates. It is important to note that Shutterstock also provides thousands of free stock photos. iStock iStock is a stock image website owned by Getty Images. It provides royalty-free photos, vectors, illustrations, HD videos, and more. Photos are separated into two collections: basic and signature. The basics are timeless images available at low prices. The signature collection is full of on-trend photos that are exclusive to the site. Plans start at $29 per month for 10 photos from the basic collection. There are also premium plans available that provide access to up to 750 images per month. Standard licenses cover business and personal use for up to 500,000 copies of each photo. Extended licenses are available for those who intend to exceed that limit. Free stock photos are also on offer each week from the exclusive signature collection. Adobe Stock Adobe Stock is a stock image website that offers not only images but also illustrations, vectors, videos, templates, 3D graphics, and audio files. Most of the content available is categorized as creative, ranging from abstract designs to photographs with artistic perspectives. A standout feature of this stock image website is the ability to access stock images directly from Adobe Creative Cloud apps and the community, allowing you to incorporate royalty-free, high-quality images into your graphic or design projects without needing to open a separate window. The site offers both annual and monthly subscription options, with plans starting at $29.99 per month. Additionally, there are team and enterprise plans available. Standard licenses permit users to include photos in web content or up to 500,000 printed copies, but stock photos cannot be used in products intended for resale. As a member, you also gain access to thousands of free stock photos, illustrations, vectors, and other image types. Offset Offset is a stock photography site that focuses on authentic, artistic imagery from award-winning photographers. Owned by Shutterstock, this stock site is full of royalty free images and illustrations in various lifestyle categories, from food to family. Photos come with global usage rights that apply to both personal and commercial purposes. And you can use each stock photo unlimited times. There are two sizes available: small at 72dpi and large at 300dpi. Users purchase packs of images in the sizes they need. Prices start at $211.90 per image for small and $299.90 for large. This is more expensive than the content on many other stock photography websites. But Offset does offer exclusive rights to the photos you download for one year. So you won’t see these photos on tons of competitors’ sites around the internet. If you want the image on your article or other content to stand out, Offset provides an option. Scopio Scopio is a royalty-free stock photo site that focuses on diverse lifestyle images. They offer one plan for $29 per month. But with that, you can download up to 50 photos per day. And more content is being added every day. The site even has a board feature that allows you to save and organize the stock image into categories. This is perfect for teams using stock photos for different purposes. All stock images are approved for business use. Credit is not required but appreciated. The site offers standard, extended, and editorial licenses. Commercial standard licenses generally cover images used in online content and up to 100,000 printed copies. Editorial licenses are generally for those using stock images to accompany online content. Stocksy Stocksy describes its stock photo and video content as “art forward.” This stock photo site is an artist-owned cooperative, meaning it’s owned by its creators. Users simply pay to download each stock image. Small images start at $15. And the highest-resolution images run for $300. Video content ranges from $75 to $400. Stock images are available under royalty-free licenses that have no expiration dates. However, you can also pay more for extended licenses or exclusive rights if necessary. Getty Images Getty Images is a stock photo agency that offers high-quality, royalty-free stock images, videos, music, and more. It is touted to be the first place people turn to discover and use stock visual content from photographers and videographers. There are artsy images, backgrounds, and even photos of celebrities. Users can pay for each stock image or video individually or buy packs of up to ten. Prices range from $150 to $499 per download and vary based on size and resolution. Content is available as royalty-free downloads. But they also have a rights and clearances team that can help businesses and other users connect with intellectual property owners or subjects. For example, if you want to use a photo of a celebrity in an ad campaign, you can work with them directly to request permission. The photos on Getty Images are recognized globally for their quality and attributes. Photocase Photocase offers royalty-free photos that feature real people and real emotions. Once you purchase photos, you can use them on social media, include them alongside content, and even transfer ownership to customers or team members. You can also pay extra for an image with high print runs and use it on templates or merchandise. Users can purchase photos directly or buy credits at a lower rate if they plan on downloading multiple photos. Prices range from $14 for small, web-sized photos to $42 for large, print-sized photos. Credits come at a discount of between 20 and 45 percent, which is applied to the purchase of 25 image credits all the way up to 1,000 image credits. Megapixl Megapixl offers high-quality stock photos, vectors, videos, and more. Categories include abstract, animals, people, business, travel, and technology. The site offers various licenses. The royalty-free license comes standard. This covers use on things like websites, ad posters, booklets, articles, and presentations. However, the stock photography site also offers extended licenses for those who want to include stock photos in more types of content. The site offers monthly plans based on how many photos you want to download. Prices range from $25 to $219 per month for between 20 and 750 images. All plans also come with a one-week free trial. What is a stock image? A stock image is a photo that can be licensed for use by others. Some are available for free, while others can be purchased from stock image websites. Additionally, some stock photos are only available in specific instances, like on websites where credit is provided. On the other hand, you can get a free stock photo and use it for nearly any purpose or even alter it. What types of stock images are available? Stock photography can include nearly any type of visual. However, most are either standard photographs, illustrations, or vectors. There are images that depict people, things, places, events, and more. Additionally, some are available for exclusive use. But many are available for anyone to purchase or download from stock image websites. What is the difference between royalty-free images and free images? The distinction between royalty-free and free images lies in their usage rights. Free images can be used without any fees, whereas royalty-free images allow individuals to use an image without incurring ongoing royalty payments. This is a common licensing arrangement within the stock photography industry. Certain stock image sites provide royalty-free images, while others may charge a one-time fee. Free images may necessitate crediting the owner or fulfilling other usage requirements. Additionally, some sites offer images created under a CC0 license, which are available for anyone to use in any manner they choose. Can you use Creative Commons photos for free? Photos or images with the CC0 1.0 Universal (Creative Commons Zero, CC0 1.0) public domain dedication are available to use free of charge. According to Creative Commons, images under the CC0 1.0 license are dedicated to the public domain and do not have any copyright protection. “You can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work worldwide under copyright law,” reads the Creative Commons Zero(CC0 license) page. How do you choose good stock images and avoid cheesy ones? Some stock photography is overused and considered “cheesy.” These don’t usually add any value to your content. And they may even reflect negatively on your brand. Avoid these elements when choosing royalty-free stock images: Fake smiles: We’ve all encountered images of a woman smiling while eating salad by herself or a businessman giving a thumbs-up directly at the camera. These scenarios are not something you would typically see in real life, which makes the viewer keenly aware that they are looking at a stock image. Unrealistic props: How often do you come across large puzzle pieces in your conference room? Stock photo sites often use props like this to convey abstract ideas. But they don’t advance the story in any way. Bad photo editing: If you can look at a stock image and clearly tell that it uses a green screen for the background, so can your customers. Instead, authentic and high-quality visuals can help your stock photos actually serve your marketing materials or online content. Look for these qualities when browsing stock photo websites to make sure the visuals actually serve your brand: Candid shots: In stock images that include people, they should generally be doing some activity rather than looking right at the camera. This puts the viewer into the situation rather than focusing on the photographer. Full backgrounds: Clean white or blue backgrounds are a staple in many stock images. A background that shows a home, office, or outdoor scene is more realistic as long as it’s not clearly photoshopped. Images that evoke emotion: Stock photos should help to advance a story. People should be able to tell what the person in the photo is thinking, feeling, or experiencing in the moment to have maximum impact. Overall, use your judgment. If the content you’ve downloaded from stock photography sites looks like something you might come across in the real world, it’s probably a good stock photo. However, if it looks staged or unrealistic, your customers may run screaming from your cheesy visual content. Can I use images from Google without violating copyright? No, you cannot simply take images from Google, as they may be protected by copyright. The presence of a collection of images on a website does not necessarily imply that those images are stock photos or free for public use. Typically, the photographer, illustrator, or owner of an image holds a legal copyright to that content, which means they have the authority to decide if and when others can use or share their work. To legally use images found online, you must either purchase the rights to them or ensure they are in the public domain or covered by a Creative Commons license. Additionally, you can use images if you obtain written permission from the owner, as some websites provide this authorization. So be sure to check the terms of service on each website carefully before downloading or using their photos. Using an image without permission or rights may result in lawsuits or fines later on. If you’re not sure, stick to stock photo websites that specialize in this area. Image: Depositphotos This article, "Stock Image Sites to Find Photos" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

The right image can transform your marketing. Photos grab customers’ attention and tell stories. Photos support your brand image on websites and social media. However, not all small businesses have the time or resources to constantly take professional-grade photos of their own. That’s where stock image websites come in. What is a stock photo website? These stock photo websites provide high-resolution images that businesses can purchase or download for free to use in websites, social media posts, or even for commercial purposes. There’s a huge variety of these stock image websites, all with different options and niches. Some focus on high-quality images and videos that businesses can purchase the rights to. Others offer a collection of free public domain or royalty-free images. If you’re wondering “what royalty-free means” or want to learn more about the best places to find photos online, read on for a guide. Free Stock Image Sites For businesses that don’t have the budget to pay for images, there are plenty of stock image websites that make a collection of free stock imagery available — even for commercial purposes. Some of these sites make their images available for download with no strings attached. Others may require attribution or allow users to make voluntary donations to photographers. These generally provide non-exclusive rights to photos. So you can use them for free — but so can others. Here are some of the best free stock image websites for small businesses to source images from. Unsplash Unsplash is one of the best stock image websites and it offers modern and artsy images. Most are photos of people and real-world settings, available in high-resolution versions and smaller sizes if needed. All photos are free to use for both personal and commercial purposes and come with Creative Commons Zero (CC) licensing. And no permission is required, though attribution is always appreciated for the free stock photos. The only limit is that you cannot sell these free stock photos unless they’ve been significantly modified. And you cannot download images to start a competing service. Pexels Pexels is a stock photo site that supports photographers and offers free stock images, including some covered by a Creative Commons (cc) license. There are nature scenes and cityscapes, plus photos of families at home. Small, medium, large, and high-resolution versions are available for most photos. There are also some videos available for download from Pexels. All content on Pexels is completely free and legal to use. You can even modify images, and no credit is required. You just can’t resell Pexels images, alter them in a way that may be offensive to those pictured, or imply endorsement by those pictured. Kaboompics Kaboompics offers a site for royalty-free stock photos. Most of the images are colorful and candid. In addition to searching for specific images, you can view photoshoots to see images of the same model or props. Photos are available in custom sizes. You can even search by color or orientation to find the options that fit best with your brand or aesthetics. All images are free for both commercial and noncommercial use. No attribution is required, and modifications are allowed. You just cannot resell the images. Gratisography Gratisography offers free, high-resolution images for download without copyright restrictions. Created and Founded by Ryan McGuire, this offers lots of free stock images that are whimsical and quirky, so it’s perfect for those who want something that can’t be found on other stock image websites. Photos are free for personal and commercial use. Users are free to add logos or other elements to them through Creative Commons licensing. However, you can’t redistribute them. Gratisography does not guarantee or license rights to things like trademarks, publicity, or privacy. Pixabay Pixabay offers free stock photos, illustrations, vectors, videos, and even music. There are currently more than 1.8 million images on the site. All content is free for both individual and personal use. You can even modify, copy, or distribute images without permission or credit under Creative Commons licensing. However, Pixabay content may be protected by trademark privacy or publicity rights. The page for each image includes more specific information about licensing. Library of Congress The Library of Congress offers a digital collection of images that are free to use and reuse. This stock site provides free photos that fall under the public domain, have no known copyright, or are available with the owner’s permission. In addition to free stock photos, the collection includes video clips, documents, sound recordings, maps, and more. Many of these items are vintage or historical and come with attribution similar to Getty images, complete with full captions and explanations. Its search feature allows you to query lists of authors/creators, subjects, names/titles, and other categories. Wikipedia Wikipedia pages often include images to complement the content. Its collection of stock photos is uploaded by users but must be licensed under a free license like Creative Commons or Public Domain. Users can also upload images they created or own, and uploading them to Wiki Commons makes them free and available to all under its Creative Commons Zero (cc0) license. The license and applicable information are available on each photo page. Pikwizard Pikwizard has a library of more than a million free stock photos and videos. Popular categories include stock image collections of nature, buildings, fashion, and even abstract images. Content is free for both commercial and non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license. There are also a few premium images mixed into browse and search results, which are ads from Adobe Stock. You cannot use the content as part of a trademark or logo or resell it. Flickr Flickr is a site full of user generated content and is one of the best free stock photo sites. Some of it is protected by copyright, but others are available under Creative Commons, Creative Commons Zero, or Public Domain. You can search for free stock photos specifically under each license within the community. And each photo page includes specific rights. You may need to provide attribution for some. Others are simply not available for redistribution or public display. If you need a stunning stock photo to source from, Flickr is a great place to look. Negative Space Negative Space is full of beautiful, high-resolution free stock photos. There are tons of nature scenes, buildings, animals, objects, and virtual backgrounds. You can browse by category, search for specific terms, or even find photos by color. Photos are available in high-resolution or even raw versions under a Creative Commons license. You can use, copy, and share the free stock photos for personal and commercial purposes. The site encourages giving credit to the photographer, but it is not required. Negative Space has a newsletter that updates its community when new images are added and also offers support for fellow creatives. Premium Stock Image Sites There are also plenty of stock photo sites that provide high-quality images for purchase. On these sites, you either pay a membership fee or pay to purchase and download these images. The licenses and terms vary by site. So be sure to check the policies for the specific services you choose. Some of these stock sites may offer exclusive rights to photos, while others offer high-quality royalty-free stock photos. Here are some of the most popular premium stock image sites to consider. DepositPhotos DepositPhotos offers an array of premium plans and photo download options. You can pay a monthly fee and then download as many stock images as your plan allows during the month to source from. There are also discounts for those who sign up for annual plans. Then, there’s the on-demand option that allows users to simply pay to download individual photos. Images are generally available in multiple sizes, including large, high-resolution versions. But each one may differ. The site also offers videos and vectors. Vectors can be scaled to any size. Most images are available under a standard license, which means they’re available for personal and commercial use up to 500,000 copies. If you plan on reselling or distributing stock photos that exceed that amount, they also have extended licenses available. Shutterstock Shutterstock is one of the best stock sites having one of the largest collections of stock photos available, with more than 1.7 million new pieces of content uploaded each week. In addition to stock images, the site also offers videos and audio files. You can sign up for a monthly subscription based on the number of photos you regularly need to download. Prices range from $4.90 to $0.33 per image under these plans. The site also offers on-demand packs, where you can pay between $14.50 and $9.60 per image. These can be used within one year and are best for those who need high-quality stock images but don’t download a ton of them. There are also enterprise and multi-user plans available. Photos come with a standard license, which makes them available for business use. But enhanced licenses that provide the opportunity to use images in products or templates. It is important to note that Shutterstock also provides thousands of free stock photos. iStock iStock is a stock image website owned by Getty Images. It provides royalty-free photos, vectors, illustrations, HD videos, and more. Photos are separated into two collections: basic and signature. The basics are timeless images available at low prices. The signature collection is full of on-trend photos that are exclusive to the site. Plans start at $29 per month for 10 photos from the basic collection. There are also premium plans available that provide access to up to 750 images per month. Standard licenses cover business and personal use for up to 500,000 copies of each photo. Extended licenses are available for those who intend to exceed that limit. Free stock photos are also on offer each week from the exclusive signature collection. Adobe Stock Adobe Stock is a stock image website that offers not only images but also illustrations, vectors, videos, templates, 3D graphics, and audio files. Most of the content available is categorized as creative, ranging from abstract designs to photographs with artistic perspectives. A standout feature of this stock image website is the ability to access stock images directly from Adobe Creative Cloud apps and the community, allowing you to incorporate royalty-free, high-quality images into your graphic or design projects without needing to open a separate window. The site offers both annual and monthly subscription options, with plans starting at $29.99 per month. Additionally, there are team and enterprise plans available. Standard licenses permit users to include photos in web content or up to 500,000 printed copies, but stock photos cannot be used in products intended for resale. As a member, you also gain access to thousands of free stock photos, illustrations, vectors, and other image types. Offset Offset is a stock photography site that focuses on authentic, artistic imagery from award-winning photographers. Owned by Shutterstock, this stock site is full of royalty free images and illustrations in various lifestyle categories, from food to family. Photos come with global usage rights that apply to both personal and commercial purposes. And you can use each stock photo unlimited times. There are two sizes available: small at 72dpi and large at 300dpi. Users purchase packs of images in the sizes they need. Prices start at $211.90 per image for small and $299.90 for large. This is more expensive than the content on many other stock photography websites. But Offset does offer exclusive rights to the photos you download for one year. So you won’t see these photos on tons of competitors’ sites around the internet. If you want the image on your article or other content to stand out, Offset provides an option. Scopio Scopio is a royalty-free stock photo site that focuses on diverse lifestyle images. They offer one plan for $29 per month. But with that, you can download up to 50 photos per day. And more content is being added every day. The site even has a board feature that allows you to save and organize the stock image into categories. This is perfect for teams using stock photos for different purposes. All stock images are approved for business use. Credit is not required but appreciated. The site offers standard, extended, and editorial licenses. Commercial standard licenses generally cover images used in online content and up to 100,000 printed copies. Editorial licenses are generally for those using stock images to accompany online content. Stocksy Stocksy describes its stock photo and video content as “art forward.” This stock photo site is an artist-owned cooperative, meaning it’s owned by its creators. Users simply pay to download each stock image. Small images start at $15. And the highest-resolution images run for $300. Video content ranges from $75 to $400. Stock images are available under royalty-free licenses that have no expiration dates. However, you can also pay more for extended licenses or exclusive rights if necessary. Getty Images Getty Images is a stock photo agency that offers high-quality, royalty-free stock images, videos, music, and more. It is touted to be the first place people turn to discover and use stock visual content from photographers and videographers. There are artsy images, backgrounds, and even photos of celebrities. Users can pay for each stock image or video individually or buy packs of up to ten. Prices range from $150 to $499 per download and vary based on size and resolution. Content is available as royalty-free downloads. But they also have a rights and clearances team that can help businesses and other users connect with intellectual property owners or subjects. For example, if you want to use a photo of a celebrity in an ad campaign, you can work with them directly to request permission. The photos on Getty Images are recognized globally for their quality and attributes. Photocase Photocase offers royalty-free photos that feature real people and real emotions. Once you purchase photos, you can use them on social media, include them alongside content, and even transfer ownership to customers or team members. You can also pay extra for an image with high print runs and use it on templates or merchandise. Users can purchase photos directly or buy credits at a lower rate if they plan on downloading multiple photos. Prices range from $14 for small, web-sized photos to $42 for large, print-sized photos. Credits come at a discount of between 20 and 45 percent, which is applied to the purchase of 25 image credits all the way up to 1,000 image credits. Megapixl Megapixl offers high-quality stock photos, vectors, videos, and more. Categories include abstract, animals, people, business, travel, and technology. The site offers various licenses. The royalty-free license comes standard. This covers use on things like websites, ad posters, booklets, articles, and presentations. However, the stock photography site also offers extended licenses for those who want to include stock photos in more types of content. The site offers monthly plans based on how many photos you want to download. Prices range from $25 to $219 per month for between 20 and 750 images. All plans also come with a one-week free trial. What is a stock image? A stock image is a photo that can be licensed for use by others. Some are available for free, while others can be purchased from stock image websites. Additionally, some stock photos are only available in specific instances, like on websites where credit is provided. On the other hand, you can get a free stock photo and use it for nearly any purpose or even alter it. What types of stock images are available? Stock photography can include nearly any type of visual. However, most are either standard photographs, illustrations, or vectors. There are images that depict people, things, places, events, and more. Additionally, some are available for exclusive use. But many are available for anyone to purchase or download from stock image websites. What is the difference between royalty-free images and free images? The distinction between royalty-free and free images lies in their usage rights. Free images can be used without any fees, whereas royalty-free images allow individuals to use an image without incurring ongoing royalty payments. This is a common licensing arrangement within the stock photography industry. Certain stock image sites provide royalty-free images, while others may charge a one-time fee. Free images may necessitate crediting the owner or fulfilling other usage requirements. Additionally, some sites offer images created under a CC0 license, which are available for anyone to use in any manner they choose. Can you use Creative Commons photos for free? Photos or images with the CC0 1.0 Universal (Creative Commons Zero, CC0 1.0) public domain dedication are available to use free of charge. According to Creative Commons, images under the CC0 1.0 license are dedicated to the public domain and do not have any copyright protection. “You can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work worldwide under copyright law,” reads the Creative Commons Zero(CC0 license) page. How do you choose good stock images and avoid cheesy ones? Some stock photography is overused and considered “cheesy.” These don’t usually add any value to your content. And they may even reflect negatively on your brand. Avoid these elements when choosing royalty-free stock images: Fake smiles: We’ve all encountered images of a woman smiling while eating salad by herself or a businessman giving a thumbs-up directly at the camera. These scenarios are not something you would typically see in real life, which makes the viewer keenly aware that they are looking at a stock image. Unrealistic props: How often do you come across large puzzle pieces in your conference room? Stock photo sites often use props like this to convey abstract ideas. But they don’t advance the story in any way. Bad photo editing: If you can look at a stock image and clearly tell that it uses a green screen for the background, so can your customers. Instead, authentic and high-quality visuals can help your stock photos actually serve your marketing materials or online content. Look for these qualities when browsing stock photo websites to make sure the visuals actually serve your brand: Candid shots: In stock images that include people, they should generally be doing some activity rather than looking right at the camera. This puts the viewer into the situation rather than focusing on the photographer. Full backgrounds: Clean white or blue backgrounds are a staple in many stock images. A background that shows a home, office, or outdoor scene is more realistic as long as it’s not clearly photoshopped. Images that evoke emotion: Stock photos should help to advance a story. People should be able to tell what the person in the photo is thinking, feeling, or experiencing in the moment to have maximum impact. Overall, use your judgment. If the content you’ve downloaded from stock photography sites looks like something you might come across in the real world, it’s probably a good stock photo. However, if it looks staged or unrealistic, your customers may run screaming from your cheesy visual content. Can I use images from Google without violating copyright? No, you cannot simply take images from Google, as they may be protected by copyright. The presence of a collection of images on a website does not necessarily imply that those images are stock photos or free for public use. Typically, the photographer, illustrator, or owner of an image holds a legal copyright to that content, which means they have the authority to decide if and when others can use or share their work. To legally use images found online, you must either purchase the rights to them or ensure they are in the public domain or covered by a Creative Commons license. Additionally, you can use images if you obtain written permission from the owner, as some websites provide this authorization. So be sure to check the terms of service on each website carefully before downloading or using their photos. Using an image without permission or rights may result in lawsuits or fines later on. If you’re not sure, stick to stock photo websites that specialize in this area. Image: Depositphotos This article, "Stock Image Sites to Find Photos" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

"You don’t get to choose the leader you need to be. Your people tell you who you need to be to get the best out of them." Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown Go PRO for members-only access to more Rob Brown. View the full article

"You don’t get to choose the leader you need to be. Your people tell you who you need to be to get the best out of them." Accounting Influencers with Rob Brown Go PRO for members-only access to more Rob Brown. View the full article

US bank was alone among its peers in declining to break down lending by borrower typeView the full article