We had a historic newsletter when we founded TechAcute in 2014 but to be honest, it wasn’t strategic at that time, but since we are heavily interested in communicating with our community on Twitter, it was a given to give the Revue platform a try, since they got acquired by Twitter and allowed for smart integration. We would be delighted if you subscribed to our newsletter as well and joined our adventure with the medium now being email.
The big re-branding project
At the start of the year 2021, we decided that after many years, it would be the right time to design a new logo and brand that would better suit the current sense of style and match how we and how our readers have developed. New readers might not recall how we used to look, but we have attached the link below to read our article on this project from March for all who would like to revisit the whole story.
Google makes changes to their search mechanic
Google is not the only search engine around the globe, but it’s one of the most popular ones for sure. Throughout the last year, Google has implemented changes to how its search engine reads and ranks websites. For this update, they focused on web vitals and user experience primarily. While we did not worry too much about content quality at that time, it still required us to make a move as far as infrastructure and technical factors go. We had to work very hard to improve the user experience for all visitors even more, and the most challenging part here was to find a good balance between what you can offer to readers and how long it would take them to load sites.
How did that all work out in the end? We are still not perfect as far as technical metrics go, but we managed to maintain and even improve how Google ranks our articles in their search. Why is that even important? Since we don’t use a paywall or similar means to monetize our work, ad revenue is a factor that helps us to keep everything running. Since most users are using ad-blocking software, having a good position on the results page of a search engine is making a difference. You can also consider adding TechAcute to your ad blocker’s whitelist if you want to support our work. Find more info on web vitals below.
We AI-translated TechAcute into (most) other languages
While being based in Germany, it was never an option to publish content in the German language. We felt like it would be much more inclusive to write in English since it somehow became the Internet’s lingua franca. This also helped to gather a great team of writers from all around the world to make the publication and articles as diverse as possible. Yet, to improve inclusion, as far as the audience goes, we are now offering machine-translated versions of our articles.
The translation might not be perfect, but they are pretty fine, and if you’d pin me down on making a guess, I’d say 90% of all translated text is written on a human-like level. The translation quality is better than a free Google translation in general, but that might vary if you compare various languages. All of these translated articles can be found on search engines as well for all people around the world who are not good at English or simply have no interest in consuming their news in a language other than their mother tongue. At the end of the day, this is a big step for inclusion and empowerment as now even people who don’t speak English can inform themselves on TechAcute.
Anything else?
Of course, we were just as busy as everybody else in 2021, but these are some of the highlights. We have already planned some exciting things for 2022, so if you found this interesting, make sure to keep checking in on our newsletters. If you are missing anything in the newsletter or want to share your feedback, please feel invited to reach out any time. We’d be happy to hear your thoughts. Thanks for being a reader, and I wish you all the best for this new year!
With my best wishes,
Christopher Isak
Founder and Managing Editor, TechAcute
Editorial notice: This text was originally published through the newsletter service Revue, which was suspended by Twitter. This post is meant to be an archive of what was said.
